Rabbi Howard Morrison

This Shabbat is called Shabbat Bereishit, as we begin to read the Torah anew from the beginning. It is with this Shabbat that the Holy Day season has concluded, and the Torah reading cycle starts again.

Whatever pledges we might have made to ourselves during the High Holy Days should now begin as our own personal "new beginnings." If not now, when?

Many years ago, a teacher explained that the years of our lives are not cyclical but are spiral. Cyclical would mean that we go through the very same experiences year in and year out. Spiral means that every year we are raised to a new level of consciousness and appreciation. 

While the Hebrew words of the Torah reading cycle are the same from year to year, we are not. Let us integrate the values of Torah with the values of our own lives and feel personally enriched this coming year.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Howard Morrison