Ohio Jewish Chronicle, 1991-09-05

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Ohio'Hist.Society Libr
1982 Velma Ave.
Columbus, Ohio .%
q 3 211
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APPY NEW YEAR ■
Moy the sound of
fhe Shofar herald
^a healthy and
prosperous
New Year for
you We wish
__ you a year
rjf of peace &
'l^understanding
575S
September 9 & 10
HOLIDAY FEATURE
Man as Creator — A partner with God
By Rabbi Allan Nadler  •
MONTREAL (JTA) - The
Jewish commemoration of
historic events center around
the rituals of the biblical festivals. In the customs and observances of these holidays,
we are expected not merely to
remember past events, but,
insofar as possible, to re-live
and re-create them, making
them a permanent part of our
• consciousness.
On Passover, we consume
the matzah — the bread of af-
iliction — and actually taste
the suffering of the Israelite
slaves in the bitterness of the
maror. On Sukkot, we physically dwell in booths intended
to resemble the frail huts that
sheltered our ancestors in the
Sinai wilderness. And on the
eve of Shavuot, we study
Torah all night in an attempt
to re-live the revelation at
Mount Sinai, Jewish law, then,
requires that the commemoration of sacred days
constitute, to the degree possible, a concrete, physical re-experiencing' and emulation of
the historical event being
commemorated.
But what of Rosh Hashanah? The Jewish new year,
after all, marks the creation of
an entire universe out of nothingness. How can we mortals,
passive creatures of God's design, hope to even approximate the divine, miraculous
event of creation through
mere symbolic acts and rituals? Unlike the other biblical
festivals commemorating specific historical events, the
cosmic significance of Rosh
Hashanah seems to defy emulation.
Nonetheless, our tradition
does in fact mandate that on
Rosh Hashanah we engage in
an exacting act of creation.
For the Jewish New Year
marks the beginning of an intensive period of Vshuvah —
repentance — which requires
that each of us engage in the
very arduous task of moral
correction, ethical improvement and spiritual renewal. In
other words, t'shuvah requires of us an act of personal
re-creation.
T'shuvah is, in that sense, a
human microcosm for the divine creation of the universe.
On^the eve of these Days of
Awe, we are told that mankind is provided with the opportunity for a clean slate, a
fresh start.
The doctrine of repentance
is rooted in the very optimistic
Jewish belief in human resilience, in the ability and opportunity available to man always to correct and renew his
existence — i.e., the chance to
become re-created.   .
According to the Lurianic
school of Jewish mysticism,
the sudden creative feat described in the first verse of
Genesis was preceded by a difficult, unreported dramatic act
of divine contraction. For in
examining the biblical account
of Creation, the kabalists were
confronted with a dilemma:
how could a God who is at once
omnipresent and incorporeal,
the substratum of all existence,
conceive and give birth to a
limited, material and corruptible universe?
In response to this dilemma,
there arose an elaborate cos-
mogonic mythology which begins with a process of divine
contraction. In order td
"make room" for a physical
universe, we are told in the
metaphorical language of the
kabalists, the omnipresent
spirit of God had to withdraw
into itself so that a separate,
corporeal ajid imperfect
world could come into existence apart from Him.
Similarly, as we approach
Rosh Hashanah, we are called
upon to place controls and
limits upon our egos and our
sins, and then to turn inward
and engage in an arduous
heshbon ha-nefesh, or soul-
searching.
One of the most important
theological doctrines of Rabbinic Judaism is the concept
of Imitatio Dei, pr the emulation of God. In' the Talmud;
this notion is limited to the
realm of ethics — the rabbis
instruct us, "Be similar to
God: just as God is kind and
merciful, so you too be kind
and merciful" (Shabbat 133b).
The rabbinic understanding
even of the Biblical imperative "Be thou holy, for I the
Lord atti holy," is limited to
areas of personal ethics and
sexual morality. But in contemporary rabbinic thought,
particularly in the writings of
Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik,
the imperative to imitate God
is extended to God's first and
greatest act — Creation.
In part n of his great work
of. religious anthropology,
"Halachic Man," Rabbi Soloveitchik suggests that acts
of human creativity — in
Torah study and halachic observance — are sacred acts in
which man emulates the
greatest attribute of the Creator of heaven and earth. It is
through being a bold and creative spirit himself that man
truly becomes what our Sages
termed "a partner with God in
the drama of Creation."
Whereas many religions de-
see MAN pg. 2