In this final week of the Omer, as we prepare to celebrate Shavuot together beginning on Sunday, May 16, we are honored to offer voices from the Wise community to reflect on Torah, prayer, and their relationship with the Divine.
Today is the 46th day of the Omer.
Bereishit bara Elohim et ha’shamayiim v’et ha’aretz. In the beginning (or a beginning) of God’s creating the heavens and earth. So begins the Torah, given to us by God, to all of us by God. I study Torah virtually every day. Some days for quite some time. Others for almost none at all. Every moment I study Torah I enter blissfully into the knowledge that we are all created in the image of the Divine, of God, of the ultimate creative force. I enter into a realm where this creative spark that formed our entire world from the formless, that resides, still burning, in every particle of our being, creates a field of energy that can open our eyes, minds, and hearts to the extraordinary unrealized potential of life, of our world, of our fellow men and women. Torah study gives us the moments of time to wrestle with its hard texts, to dig deep within them to harvest this energy, fill ourselves up with it, find the most glorious multivalence in it, and then joyfully work to re-create a better, diverse world with it. Torah study is where man and woman’s creativity strives to re-become one with God’s, so that we may re-create our world afresh, accepting and anew. It is the beginning (or a beginning) of the realization that every moment of life can be a creative act, through which each of us re-creates the heavens and earth for the benefit of all.
— Andrew Sipes