Shabbat Bereishit 5772 Rabbi Dr Andrew Goldstein 22 October 2011

How many starts to a new year can you have.  Rosh Hashanah is the obvious first attempt, but then according to another view the new Jewish year does not start until the shofar is blown at the end of Yom Kippur.  And then we started again  22 days after we first started as we ended the Torah reading and started again on Simchat Torah....and indeed the Orthodox started a day after we Liberals.  And here we are again on the first Shabbat of the new Torah year as we begin again from Chapter One of Genesis.  And, boy, this first sedra of the Torah contains so much action and so many complex human situations, situations that are portrayed as affecting not just one human family, but the whole destiny of the world.

And meanwhile, as we weave our way through all of these endings and new starts, the current world, even in this week, has seen events to match the Biblical story in terms of drama and ongoing consequence.  The release of Gilad Shalit, the death of Gaddafi, and the ongoing financial crisis with many a page two story of equal importance.

As the new Torah year starts we seem to be holding our breath:  where will it all lead, where will it all end.  Just as the opening sedra of Bereishit starts so full of promise and continues with several scenes of high drama and ends with the disturbing thought: "And God saw how great was man's wickedness on earth, and how every plan devised by his mind was nothing but evil all the time...and God's heart was saddened." (Gen 6:5-6).

There is joy at the release of Shalit, please God he is not too damaged by his years of captivity.  Please God amongst the released Palestinians there are none who will go on to new acts of terrorism.  That the death of Gaddafi can mark a real new start for the country he ravaged and terrorised.  Will the days ahead see peace break out or renewed fighting across the region?   Will the days and weeks ahead see new hope for our financial world or further collapse?  The New Year 5772 has certainly started with many dramatic openings.  Can the Torah teach us anything?  Lets just take the part I read...the saga of Cain & Abel.

"Abel became a keeper of sheep and Cain became a tiller of soil." (Gen 4:2).  I wouldn't be the first to point to the fact that this is the biblical paradigm for the clash of civilizations that is periodically repeated through history.  The clash between the nomadic shepherd and the settled farmer.  We saw it this week in microcosm with the eviction of the so called travellers from Dale Farm in Essex.  And in the Torah, of course, it is the new world that triumphs, Cain the settled farmer kills the nomadic Abel.  But must the new world always win so easily?  It does for a while, but then seems to need periodic corrections.  Next week's sedra is No-ach... a global correction...followed by the Tower of Babel, a more localised re-arrangement of an increasing technological society.  Maybe this is a message of the Bible...a reminder of how timeless and how vital is our Book of Books that would surely win any Booker prize.  That from time to time excesses do need correcting; the sadness is that the correction so often brings hurt, so sadly to the innocent as well as the guilty.  The same applies also to human systems that do not last for ever.  Middle Eastern dictatorships come to an end.  Communism collapsed 2 decades ago.  American and the West's domination in question. Capitalism is curently severely tested.  We live in a period of transition and have no prophets who can, with certainty, tell us what the new world and order will look like.  Just as Adam and Eve faced uncertainty as they were evicted from Eden.  Just as Cain knew not where his wanderings would take him.

But I believe our Bible gives us hope, just as it portrays the real situations of despair.
Firstly that Cain's punishment is that he must adopt the way of life of the brother he murdered:  he becomes a nomad.  Perhaps this teaches us that the way forward involves us in coming to really empathise with the other.  The dominant with the dominated, the ruler with the ruled, the government with those they govern, the super rich with all the rest, the First World with the second and third.

And then Cain admits his guilt and the one who showed no compassion to his brother seeks compassion from God, and God accedes and Cain more than survives in his new world.  And then two more messages of hope.  Cain gets married and amongst his named descendants was "Jubal the ancestor of all who play the lyre and the pipe"...and so music was brought into the world.....and "Tubal Cain, who forged all implements of copper and iron"....and so technology...and thus the new world flourished and continues with all of its human ingenuity and beauty, alongside the destruction and suffering that makes the headlines.

Meanwhile at the end of chapter four of the Book of Genesis Eve bears Adam another son to comfort them at the loss of Abel.  And it is through Seth that, in chapter 5, the story of humankind continues.  A long list of names about whom we know nothing except how long they lived (& they sure did live...Seth pegging out at 912).....about whom we know nothing except a throw away phrase..."It was then that they began to invoke Adonai by name". 

For me this is the reality of history and a message of hope.  At the same time as earth-shattering events are grabbing the headlines: wars,  revolutions, murders, financial collapses, technological inventions  - the vast majority of people are leading quiet unrecorded lives, having children, surviving one way or another, experiencing sadness but also much joy.  And for many of them, and I hope for many of you, as it was for Seth and Enosh and all of those unremarkable people way back at the beginning of time, it was finding God, having a religion that makes it all have purpose and hope.

As we get to the end of Tishri, with all of its festivals, all of its new beginnings: as well as religious exhaustion, I pray that, looking back you do so with satisfaction and the feeling its good to be a Jew and that life really is worth living.