Bereishis - The Ordinary After the Fire

The sukkah’s down.

The Lulav,

brittle,

in the basement,

waiting for biur chametz.

The last song of Simchas Torah still hums somewhere in my bones.

Si’u Shearim Rasheichem…

“Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up.”

And yet, here I am again.

Emails. Bills. My coffee gone cold.

Back to the hum of a world that doesn’t dance.

Every year I tell myself it will be different.

That the fire of Tishrei will finally stick.

That I’ll hold onto the awe of Rosh Hashanah,

the tears of Yom Kippur,

the joy of Sukkos.

But it always fades, like smoke after the match is blown out.

This little piece is for me.

For me to remember that,

Bereishis is more than a beginning.

It’s the beginning, again and again.

Every second a new act of creation.

Hashem remakes the world, and us with it.

Moment by moment.

Heartbeat by heartbeat.

The yearly cycle isn’t a circle; it’s a spiral.

It pulls us upward even when we feel like we’re just going in loops.

The daily grind is the soil where inspiration takes root.

Routine is the vessel that catches the rain.

Maybe that’s why the Torah begins again now.

Because creation was never finished,

only handed to us as partners with Hashem

to continue His plan for us.

I must return to the ordinary.

Where the light is hidden in the work.

And maybe that’s what it means to begin again.

With faith.

With trust.

With the quiet courage to believe that this moment too was just created anew.

And so was I.