by Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback
We put a lot of energy into welcoming and celebrating the New Year. We gather in synagogues around the world to hear the call of the shofar. We dip apples in honey in hopes for a sweet year of goodness, health, and peace. Our cantors prepare beautiful music. Our rabbis work hard to inspire us with their sermons.
In this New Year—and always—let’s remember to focus as well on welcoming one another. In how we gather, in the ways we are sweet to each other, in the music we make, in the messages we share, let’s celebrate the community and the friends we make. Let’s celebrate how we include each other. Let’s celebrate how we make room in our lives for those around us.
This Shabbat we read from the beginning of our Torah, Parashat B’reisheet. Our portion includes two versions of the story of our creation. The first tells of six days of creation with God resting on the seventh. The second version tells of God creating humanity through Adam and Eve, that mythic, primordial couple. The rabbis of the Mishnah, writing hundreds of years later, ask an interesting question: given God’s omnipotence, why didn’t God create all of humanity at once? Merely by thinking it, God could have brought cities, peoples, and nations into existence in an instant.
The reason? So that no person could ever say, “My ancestors are greater than yours!” We are all part of the same human family. Indeed, scientists tell us that 99.9% of our genes are identical to every other human being who has ever lived. We are all connected. We are all—ultimately—family.
So in this New Year—and always—let’s work harder to include one another more, to give each other the benefit of the doubt more often, to make room at our tables and our celebrations, and in our hearts, for one another.
As I shared in my Yom Kippur sermon: “Let’s remember that we are family and let’s aspire to be the menschiest, most high-functioning family we can imagine.”
If you’d like to get more involved in the work of the Wise value of inclusivity, contact Rabbi Sari Laufer at [email protected].
