Accepting Creation

The Raven and the First Men by Bill Reid

Dear friends,

“In the beginning was the gift.  
 And the gift was with God and the gift was God.” 

So began radical theologian, Matthew Fox his new creation story for a human species at war with itself and its surroundings. This Shabbat, on which we restart the Torah, we go back to creation, searching for the sense of goodness that God saw at the close of each day, when וירא אלוהים כי טוב״ “God saw that it was good.” 

With the war seemingly behind us, the hostages and prisoners (many of whom were innocent) home, thank God, perhaps we will have an easier time sensing the new horizon. Maybe now we can know “the certainty of the reality of the possibility,” as Erich Fromm put it. What appears to be dark may be an unexpected path toward light. What looks like chaos may turn out to be contractions before labor. We really don’t know what’s going on. 

Heschel laid out three options for people to respond to creation: “We may exploit it, we may enjoy it, we may accept it with awe.” A few years after he was expelled from the Dominican Order of the Catholic Church for his so-called radical theology, Fox wrote: “to accept (creation) with awe would mean a complete conversion for Western Civilization.” From a patriarchal, dualistic civilization of you versus me, to a Buberian one in which the only truth exists in the space between us, what Fox calls “relations.” 

Neither Heschel nor Fox understood “accepting creation with awe” as a passive endeavor. Accepting with awe means hearing and heeding the call to participate in creation. Creation, Fox insisted, is in our hands. We are partners with God on making this world. I hope you’ll join our New Shul group at the No Kings rally tomorrow (meet at the George M. Cohen statue at the corner of 46th St. and Seventh Avenue.  This is the south end of the Tkts plaza.  We will be there with our 12-foot banner at 10:30am) to practice creation.  

Or if you can’t make it, I hope you at least enjoy the creation gift that happens upon you this Shabbat. 

shabbat shalom, 
Rabbi Misha