Motzaei Shabbat.
What a glorious end to the High Holy Day season, with its pomp and music and
introspection and soul-affliction and reconciliation and celebration, and what
a wonderful beginning to a new cycle of Torah
reading! We had a lovely and interesting Torah discussion at services this
morning. This afternoon, I took a long nap and had a nice light dinner. After havdalah, I decided to indulge, and
reflect, so to the back patio I went, with a really good cigar, some decent
port and Dvorak on the radio. Early on, some bats fluttered above me. The
Verdugo Hills to the north were black against the deep navy blue of night. Two
planets low in the west shone bright, along with more stars in a clearer sky than
I have seen in a very long time here on the edge of the city. A meteor flashed
by – an interesting contrast to the airplanes out of Burbank and LAX and elsewhere,
going who knows where. The low roar of the freeway didn’t annoy, but actually
made sense to me in the context of the holidays just past and the Torah reading
(Genesis 1-6) this morning. The natural world around us is awesome! But we have
the power to create awesome things from nature as well. Wine, cigars,
automobiles, airplanes, computers – and music - just as there is Creation, we too
are Creators. But, contrary to what we read in the Torah this morning, we are
NOT the true masters. Our limits are found in the commandment b’al tashchit (do not destroy needlessly
– Deuteronomy 20:19-20), and in the haftarah
for the eighth day of Passover – Isaiah 11:9 – “They shall do nothing evil or
vile, throughout my holy mountain.”
A colleague posted an interesting little drash this evening. The Torah begins with the letter beit – the second letter of the
alphabet. Traditionally, just as the Written Law begins with beit, so does every tractate of the Talmud, the Oral Law, also begin with
page 2 (beit). But, my colleague
says, the Sanzer Rav has a different explanation. Lest scholars, let alone the
rest of us, think we know everything, this puts us in our place and comes to
teach us that we haven’t even mastered page 1! Indeed, we are not the masters. The
looking back of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and the creation
that is found in Bereishit – these remind
us that we are only the stewards, working in the vineyards of the master.
Shavua tov. Have a
good week.
