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BEGINNINGSBy Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon "The beginning of wisdom is the awareness of God" Proverbs 1:7 There is great joy in new beginnings. The future spreads out before us, filled with infinite possibility, a potential Promised Land of richness and diversity. There's every reason for optimism, every cause for excitement. The very breeze - if there is one in Tucson in June! - whispers with opportunity. Rhody, Boaz, and I have experienced that anticipatory exhilaration for a couple of months now, as we prepare to enter into the Temple Emanu-El congregational family. And we have felt that excitement in other important ways, too, in our own nuclear family, with the birth of Gabriel and our upcoming move to a new community, a new home, a new state - a new life. We are eager to get to town, to get started on the good work of building and creating in Arizona, to participate in shaping the great ongoing Jewish story of Temple Emanu-El. We can't wait to meet each of you in person, to begin to make our own Arizonan Jewish lives within the larger family of our synagogue. There is also a certain anxiety, even fear in new beginnings. What sort of an impression will we make? Will this be the start of a wonderful new relationship? How will it all develop? Won't this be different, with lots of changes from what has gone before? There is so much work to be done! How long will it be before we really get to know one another? The truth is that excitement and anxiety are twins, mirror images of the anticipation of the unknown. The delight of a new beginning, that indescribable sense that what is just around the corner is absolutely new and fabulous, is married to a sense of insecurity about whether this corner is one we really want to turn at all. What is new can be special and sacred - but it is different. Can it be trusted? Will this change be for the better? Of course, we all believe, in our hearts, that it will. But our minds are often less eager to leap into the unknown. There is a wonderful phrase in the quote from Proverbs up above - yirat Adonai. It can be translated a variety of ways: as "the fear of God", or "the awe of God". I prefer a combination of those ideas - simply "the awareness of God". The beginning of wisdom - perhaps the beginning of any good thing - is the awareness of God's presence in our world and in our lives. That knowledge makes it so much easier to contemplate the unknown path, to be open and excited and eager, to work toward a goal and to believe that the road ahead leads toward goodness and success. That simple confidence allows us to embrace the potential inherent in this time of change and opportunity. As we enter this new time of meeting, may we each discover that awareness of God's presence in our world and in our lives. For then this beginning will be a time of blessing and goodness. And then we will celebrate together in the words of the Shehecheyanu prayer, "Blessed are You, Lord our God, Ruler of the universe, who gives us life, sustains us, and brings us to this moment." From the June 1999 Temple Times |
