Bereshit: Upon Waking By Yael Shy
I. In the beginning 1. In the beginning God created heaven and earth.
ּׁש ַמי ִם ְואֵת ָ ּב ְֵראׁשִית ּב ָָרא אֱֹלהִים אֵת ַה.א :ָָארץ ֶ ה
2. Now the earth was astonishingly empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the water.
ָָארץ ָהי ְתָ ה ת ֹהּו וָב ֹהּו וְחׁשְֶך עַל ְּפנֵי ֶ ְוה.ב :תְ הֹום וְרּו ַח אֱֹלהִים מ ְַר ֶחפֶת עַל ְּפנֵי ַה ָּמי ִם
3. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
: וַּי ֹאמֶר אֱֹלהִים יְהִי אֹור ַויְהִי אֹור.ג
- Bereshit 2:1-3 I woke up the morning after Yom Kippur into the darkness of the pre-dawn. Before I could understand why – before I could articulate any thought at all, I felt open and raw, empty and vulnerable. Yom Kippur is a rehearsal for death as we abstain from eating, drinking, and life-affirming activity. In the stillness of its aftermath, on the morning after, I felt the “astonishing emptiness” ( )ת ֹהּו וָב ֹהּוof a new start – a rebirth into life. For a brief few minutes, in that darkness, I felt the limitless realm of possibility, empty of ideas of how things should be and filled with only the beauty and preciousness of how things are. The beginning was not really the beginning (because there was no future or past) – it was the infinite, the always, the “spirit of God” ( ruach elohim, )רּו ַח אֱֹלהִים. And then, of course, my eyes adjusted to the light. I realized I was thirsty and probably still dehydrated. The details of my life – my biography, my history, my desires and aversions – all came flooding back to me. The idea of myself as a separate entity, contained within a separate body, assumed its normal hold of my mind. David Whyte has a beautiful poem called What to Remember When Waking where he describes this process:
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