As we begin the Torah once more, at a time that feels so pivotal for the Jewish world and the world writ large, I want to return us to a foundational question. Why did Hashem make us?
Yesterday was October 7, a day of mourning that has me reflecting on all the lives lost in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank over the last three years. Particularly close to my heart are the more than 21,000 children who have been killed so far. To look at such horrors, it can feel so hard to imagine a future of teshuvah and justice. While it may feel like realism, a kind of knowing cynicism that excuses all evil has become pervasive in our culture. How many times over the last three years have we heard, “That’s just how war is, it’s terrible,” or “Of course this conflict will never end.” While it may dull the pain of hearts too often broken by the dreams of other futures and presents, this attitude reflects both an abdication of ethics and a profound divergence from Hashem’s hopes for us.
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The Hasidic master Reb Simcha Bunem of Przysucha (d.1827) comments on Genesis 1:26 (Hashem’s declaration that He will make humankind in His image),
Adam (human) is derived from the word adammeh (I will imagine). After Hashem made everything beautiful and glorious, He wanted to display his actions so that one would see everything. But those who exist, apart from human beings, cannot comprehend anything but themselves. Hashem created humanity and his strength comprised of the upper and lower worlds, which can all be imagined in the soul of a person. This is the essence of humanity, that they see, comprehend, and imagine, like no one else. This is the importance of ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness (ki-demuntenu)’ by the power of imagination (kaf ha-dimyon). (Kol Simcha on Bereshit 1:26)
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The Rebbe plays on the very word for “human” to draw out the idea that our very reason for being is our imaginative capacity. In his reading, what Hashem is looking for from us is an other who can see the beauty of the world Hashem made, whose capacity to see goes beyond comprehending the self. For me, the depth of this teaching is in the way Reb Simcha Bunem is able to marry empathy and possibility. His vision of this divine capacity for imagination is that it allows us to see beyond ourselves, both through connection to other beings as themselves, and by understanding the grandeur of Hashem’s world. To focus only on our own pain and suffering or to refuse to imagine the other worlds that are possible is not only a failure of faith, but also misses the basic nature that Hashem made us to possess.
I want to offer everyone reading this a bracha (and hopefully myself too!): May we all tap into the capacity at the very root of our being to widen our circle of love and empathy, to imagine the life and being of every other person and being in this world, and to imagine what our lives could and should be. This year, may we all dream a new future and a new present into being. We owe it to ourselves, Hashem, and all the children whose lives have been cut short in the last three years.
Rabbi Jonah Winer (he/him) is T’ruah’s director of learning. He was born and raised in Toronto and, after earning a BA in Religious Studies at McGill University, was ordained by Yeshivat Chovevei Torah in New York. While there, he worked as a Rabbinic Intern at NYU’s Bronfman Center and the Kehillah of Riverdale. After ordination, he spent three years working at Hillels, most recently as Senior Jewish Educator and Orthodox Rabbi at Brown RISD Hillel.