The Endless Blessing of Light
D’var Torah for Parshat Bereisheet
October 25, 2019
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
A couple of days ago I went to the Monet exhibit at the Denver Museum of Art. To say that it was beautiful, of course, is an understatement. The famous Water Lilies, the Japanese Bridge and many other famous paintings were there, as well as a series of snowscapes painted in Norway, and shimmering scenes from Venice. What a treat to enjoy and see up-close the intricate brush strokes, the dabs of still-glistening paint—as well as to view these masterpieces from the farther-away perspective that Monet had intended his works to be seen!
When I go to art museum, I get inspired—art teaches us to see the world in a different light.
But it isn’t only the works on exhibit that inspire me. It’s also the other visitors.
I am not sure if it was due to the excellent lighting that focused on the paintings, or because of the light that seems to emanate from Monet’s paintings, but as I looked at people’s faces, they seemed to glow too. Light draws light.
Maybe that’s why light was God’s first act of Creation. Light enables us to see, to appreciate, to understand. Light gives us comfort and solace, as well as hope and joy. Light is God’s first gift to us.
On Simchat Torah—the holiday on which we rejoice with the Torah—it is customary to read the last few verses of the last book (Deuteronomy) and immediately proceed to the story of Creation, the first few verses of chapter one in Genesis. This almost-seamless reading reminds us of the continuity of life and of the eternal nature of Time itself.
Time is a construct. It cannot be measured as can, say, space, depth, or weight. We calculate time according to parameters we imagine, based on cosmic events: the position of the Earth relative to the sun, moon and stars. Day follows night and, as we read in Ecclesiastes, “The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it arose” (Eccl. 1:5, NKJV). Time can only be presumed. Intangible, it takes no space. In an ever-expanding universe, time is all relative.
And yet, Time is God’s gift to us. We get a portion—days, weeks, months or years—of this eternal cycle, and we get to fill it with our thoughts and deeds. Our time on this earth is enriched by the other gifts that surround us, and we leave our own contributions after us, as though in an exhibit, to be viewed and re-viewed.
We can make life a blessing for us as well as for everyone else, or not. That is our choice.
The Torah readings on Simchat Torah emphasize this truth. The last portion of the Torah is called V’zot Ha-bracha, “This is the blessing.” An exalted poem of praise and hope, its verses comprise Moses’s last message to the People of Israel. Tribe by tribe, Moses recalls to the People our past heritage and reminds us of our future duties and responsibilities. As we review our history, however, it isn’t only about our successes; there are failures as well. However, Moses reminds us that past mistakes don’t necessarily doom us. Our redemption emanates from our ability to learn from our mistakes, to overcome challenges and failings, to rise up and move forward again. Moses’s final teaching to his People is that we must appreciate and be grateful for the many gifts we have within us and around us, and to activate our potential with each and every living breath we take. At the end of his journey that is Moses’s blessing, his final bequest to us.
No matter how difficult life is—and oh, it can be so hard for so many!—it is a blessing in itself. Not only for the potential for beauty and goodness embedded within each moment, within each of us, but also for what we can do, for what we can leave behind for future generations.
And then, following the moving scene of Moses’s death, with hardly a moment’s pause, we roll the Torah right back to its beginning and start again: In the beginning, God brought Light into existence.
We end with a blessing, and we start anew with a blessing.
At the museum, watching people’s faces as they moved from one painting to another, I was struck by the light that seemed to emanate from within them (a reflection? Or perhaps something was kindled within them that made them glow from inside?). But more than that: On many faces there was a smile, an ambiguous beam that could bespeak joy, or surprise, or the light of discovery and understanding. Monet’s gift to humanity can be summarized as much more than his radiant paintings. Monet teaches us to see the world around us in a different way. Through his eyes, we see the intensity of colors, the swirling motion all around us, the flow of a breeze and the ever-changing nature of light itself.
Similarly, the Torah teaches us to see Life and Time as a blessing. Not only as the gifts that our physical being embodies and contains, but also as a painting: a framed moment that contains within it the ongoing flow of God’s eternity, God’s energy, God’s own existence within us.
In God’s eternal time, there is no beginning, there is no end. Like light, it is a blessing that changes, evolves and flows. It courses endlessly through our veins.
© 2019 by Boaz Heilman
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