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"Conclusion and Creation" Erev Rosh Hashanah 5770 Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon, Temple Emanu-El of Tucson, AZ
L’shanah Tovah. I don’t know how many of you saw the magnificent photos that appeared on the web this month from the Hubble telescope, which is back in action again after being refurbished and re-commissioned by astronauts in space. The pictures released this month were magnificent: a gorgeous butterfly nebulae, colorful and elegant and fabulously beautiful, and a huge column of creation, a gigantic cluster of space dust and clouds of stars, a pillar of stars forming new galaxies. If you haven’t seen them yet, you should Google the photos and the video and watch the stunning images. They are a wonderful peek into the origins of the universe, and suitable reminder of the grandeur of all creation. And a reminder of the end of things, too. For the glorious butterfly planetary nebulae—it’s the most spectacular and most delicate image of all—is actually a view of the death of a star very much like our own sun. It is a vision like the fate of our own sun someday. Each nebulae is unique, just as each snowflake is unique, and nebulae also produce most of the carbon in the universe, and carbon is what we are all made out of. So when we look at this fabulous image, green and gold and blue wings extended like a huge, gossamer butterfly, ethereally beautiful, we are seeing an image of an ending and also a view of the creation of the stuff that we are all made of. That ending will eventually lead to a new beginning. For new stars are formed out of the residue of old stars that have exploded or died and turned into stardust. The dust of the dead star is reborn, over time, into a new beginning. Another of these phenomenal photos shows a huge expanding column, a pillar of brilliant stars and star material exploding outward. That is a grand image of beginning, called by the astrophysicists a column of creation. It shows the tremendous expansion, the nearly infinite possibility of the new. Every beginning, of course, starts with an ending. Just as a nebulae ends the life of a star, so tonight we put to rest the year 5769, may it rest in peace. It was a challenging year for many of us. But in its ending we can see the new beginning of a year, of life and hope. Tonight, Rosh HaShanah eve, we experience both an ending and a beginning. We end 5769 remembering both the good and the bad, the ways in which we struggled and triumphed; and mostly, in the last year, survived. But we end it with the knowledge that a new year is being born, a new world being created. Which should remind us of the initial creation, the singularity that formed our own universe, Hayom Harat Olam, for by our tradition it was on this very day that God began to create. When we started to write our congregation’s Linda Nadell Centennial Torah last Sunday morning, our Sofer Rabbi Shmuel Miller began with the words Breisheet barah Elohim—when God began to create. It was an astonishing moment of beauty and holiness. I hope you will all be able to participate in that great work. Like that moment of the beginning of Torah, tonight we experience a taste of that creation, a chance to capture some of the magic of those stellar images, an opportunity to start fresh, building a new universe out of the shards of the year that has just died. Rabbi Chayim Vital, the 16th century Italian Kabbalist in his mystical book Etz Chayim wrote of this great beginning, “When it arose in the Mind of the Infinite to create, the Infinite manifested as Endless Light and encompassed All. In the time beyond time, before there was time, in a moment between moments before there was moment, Infinite Being constricted Its own Essence to allow for the emergence of space. Then, within that clearing, void of Itself, Infinite Being manifested a single ray of Its Endless Light, Its Infinite Presence. And from this single ray the universe came into being.” Tonight a universe has begun, a new world, a new chance to create. Tonight we enter into the beauty of God’s initial moment of genesis. Tonight we start. May we, imitating God, create a year of holiness and blessing and great light. The Zohar, our greatest mystical text teaches us, “With the New Year, we blow our breath through the shofar to unify the elements of Fire, Wind, and Water, to bring them into a single voice that is the song of Earth. Through this sound we awaken the Voice of the Above so that the song of Heaven joins in unison with the Song of Earth until they become one unified resonance that shatters and confuses all the forces of divisiveness. So may it be. Sefer
Zohar, IV:99b So may it be in this beautiful, holy new beginning. L’Shanah Tovah. |
