In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth… and God said “Let there be light,” and there was light.
It’s the story of a world that was filled with a great light – the pure light of God’s presence. And it’s the story of a world that was shattered. God created a man and a woman and placed them in a garden. But God’s first commandment – God’s first, small request of them – was too hard for them. And the world became shattered.
What could you do when your world is shattered? And what could God do when His world shattered? God could have punished them. Or He could have destroyed the world. But instead, God comforted them.
At the very moment when the man and the woman left Eden – at the moment when they woke up to the bittersweetness of life, God made garments for them. It was the world’s first act of kindness – a way to comfort them and protect them from shame. God’s world had been shattered, but instead of punishing them, he comforted them.
For the Sloneme rebbe, the Garden of Eden was part of a much greater story – a story about forgiveness, about kindness, a story about God’s gentle grace:
When God created the heavens and the earth, he gave humanity free will. God gave us the power to re-create the Garden of Eden, right here on earth by living lives of justice and kindness. But God knew that life would be challenging, and that at times, we would lose our way. So God taught us to study Torah.
Whenever we gather to study Torah, the Holy One sits opposite us. We quote a verse from the Torah, and we do our best to explain what it means to us. And then God quotes another verse and says, “This is what I think.”
For the Sloneme, the eviction from Eden was not an end. It was a beginning – a chance to grow, a chance to learn, and a chance to be God’s partners in completing the act of creation.
As I write this, Simchat Torah is about to begin. The High Holidays have ended, and God has forgiven us once again. God has given us another beginning – a chance to begin again with the first word of the Torah. And once again, the Holy One will sit among us, listening, learning, taking joy in our discoveries, and quietly saying “This is what I think.”
The light of the first day – the light of God’s presence – is not totally gone. God hid it away, the midrash tells us, for the righteous of the future generations. God’s light is hidden between the letters of the Torah, the rabbis said. And He hid a bit of it inside each of us.
May we sit at our study tables this year, and may we see God’s presence in each other’s faces. May we live lives of justice and kindness, and may we rebuild the Garden of Eden.