At a certain point on the hike we took at Robert H. Treman State Park this week, my family and I had a decision to make – do we turn back or do we forge on? Looking at the crude map, high up above the gorge, it appeared the way back was still shorter than the way ahead. Already tired, I voted with our seven-year-old to cut our losses and return to the car. But, the other members of my party looked at the same set of information and chose differently. And, so we continued on. Luckily, their assessment was correct and we completed the loop with relatively little struggle, and with the satisfaction of having done what we had come to do.
So much of life is making decisions with incomplete sets of facts. The Book of Genesis, that we begin this week, is filled with many such starts and stops. In this week’s portion, Berieshit, creation itself hangs in the balance. When Adam and Eve eat from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, when Cain slays Abel, when humankind becomes corrupt, God is faced with a choice – forge on with the world as it is, or destroy the world and start over. Luckily for us, each time God decides on the former.
As good as God says the world is in Genesis chapter one, it always has room for improvement. Every generation feels from time to time that things cannot possibly get worse, and that we are headed toward certain destruction. And, yet, the opposite fate is also possible. We forge ahead, hoping that after all of the trials and travails, that we, like my family on our hike in Ithaca, will find our way successfully to our final destination. It takes real Chutzpah to attempt something beyond what you think you are capable of, but, still we do so anyway, knowing there is nothing better than defying expectations to achieve what we did not think possible in the first place.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Alex