Thinking Torah Blog

I count my blessings that I am a rabbi. Of course, there are moments when I must do things I would rather not, or parts of my work that don’t feel as compelling. But for the most part, I am deeply grateful to have the opportunity to live out my calling at Temple Beth Emeth.

Just today, I had a few remarkable conversations with members of TBE. In one, we spoke about justice and compassion, wrestling with how these values live in us and in God. At the end of our exchange, I suggested that when we speak of justice and compassion, we’re really describing the world as we hope it is. The balance between them is not fixed; there isn’t some perfect measure that would make the world whole. Rather, our work is to keep seeking that balance, again and again.

Later, in another conversation, this member spoke of their love for rhetoric, particularly social justice rhetoric. Hearing that passion, I said, “There is so much in Jewish life waiting for you to discover. Our tradition, too, is in love with words, so much so that the rabbis remind us that the world itself was created through words.” God didn’t shape creation with hands or tools, but with speech.

And that, too, is what it means to be created b’tzelem Elohim, in God’s image. We, too, create our worlds with words. We shape the reality we inhabit through the stories we tell, through the ways we describe our lives to ourselves and to each other. More than guns or bombs or missiles, it is words that most powerfully shape the world we live in.

On this Shabbat Bereshit, as we begin the Torah anew and encounter God speaking creation into being, may we remember that we share that same sacred power with God, to speak a better world into existence, a world we desire, with the words we choose.