This past weekend I was asked to give a Dvar Torah at a leadership retreat organized by the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington and I thought I would share some parts of it with all of you:
This week, Jews around the world began a new cycle of reading the Torah. The parsha name Bereishit translates to “in the beginning” and it is quite fitting. The portion begins with the story of creation.
We learn that G-d built the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th. For G-d which we sometimes will reference as all powerful it is interesting that it took 6 days. Why not complete it all in 1? Well I think it is important that we look into all the days as stages in a process. No one can start an organization or company in 1 day. It takes time to build the systems and processes and so too did G-d take time in designing the world. At each stage, we learn that G-d says for something to create and “and God saw that it was good.” Throughout the process, God evaluated the work to be sure that it was good before moving on to the next stage.
At this retreat we are over 100 communal leaders, professional and lay, together to learn from each other and share ideas. We all have many beginnings in life. From the most powerful beginning, birth, many of us share other beginnings. Leaving home to go to summer camp; moving to go to college; moving to Washington, DC; traveling to Israel for the first time; attending your first Federation event; joining your first federation committee. All these beginnings build on many other experiences which make each of our paths unique. Monday night we celebrated a new beginning, Simchat Torah the completion and restart of the Torah and last night yet another beginning, the start of this retreat. While this retreat will only last the weekend, like God’s creation, let this be the beginning of something even bigger. As you eat meals, talk about your story and your ideas because together we can all make a difference. And Sunday, as we leave this amazing camp setting and go under the welcome sign let us continue to build the friendships fostered and ideas generated to make our community even better than it is now.
Shabbat Shalom