Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, had an interesting take on this week’s Torah portion, Beresheit.
In Kaplan’s interpretation, God in the first of the two stories of creation in Genesis is actually “the reification of the idea of the Creative Laws that make the universe a cosmos, rather than a chaos.” The opening chapter of the Torah, he states, “conveys the idea that Nature’s God, the personification of the process of Creative Law, produced a creature which would, in turn, function like the Creator . . . creatively transforming the chaos of violence into order.”
Kaplan believed that “The moral implication, of the traditional teaching that God created the world is that creativity, or the continuous emergence of aspects of life not prepared for or determined by the past, constitutes the most divine phase of reality.”
"The main purpose of the opening chapter of the Torah is not to give an account of creation but to teach that the world, as God created it, is a fit place for man to achieve his godlikeness, or salvation."
In other words, the world as we know it, is a place for us, as individuals, to express our creativity. When we are being our most creative, we are actualizing our neshemah, our soul, that unique part of us that was “breathed into us” at birth. And, through that breath we access our creativity, revealing the divine nature that is within us. And that very creativity can act as a catalyst for tikkun olam, repair of the world
What is interesting to note is that Kaplan saw Creativity as the most divine phase – not charity or compassion, not religious devotion, or adherence to ritual. And, each of us is blessed with this ability to form something new. And he also said that it wasn’t something we planned or something that required us to focus on the past. In essence, he was saying that to be creative one has to have kavannah, or the ability to pay attention in the present moment.
As a writer, I string words together to form sentences which ultimately become paragraphs, essays, a novel. As a knitter, I take yarn and form stitches which ultimately become a scarf, a sweater, an afghan. And, you too, can make manifest God’s gifts as you go through your daily lift. As it says in the Talmud “Every blade of grass has its Angel that bends over it and whispers, “Grow, grow.”
In Kaplan’s interpretation, God in the first of the two stories of creation in Genesis is actually “the reification of the idea of the Creative Laws that make the universe a cosmos, rather than a chaos.” The opening chapter of the Torah, he states, “conveys the idea that Nature’s God, the personification of the process of Creative Law, produced a creature which would, in turn, function like the Creator . . . creatively transforming the chaos of violence into order.”
Kaplan believed that “The moral implication, of the traditional teaching that God created the world is that creativity, or the continuous emergence of aspects of life not prepared for or determined by the past, constitutes the most divine phase of reality.”
"The main purpose of the opening chapter of the Torah is not to give an account of creation but to teach that the world, as God created it, is a fit place for man to achieve his godlikeness, or salvation."
In other words, the world as we know it, is a place for us, as individuals, to express our creativity. When we are being our most creative, we are actualizing our neshemah, our soul, that unique part of us that was “breathed into us” at birth. And, through that breath we access our creativity, revealing the divine nature that is within us. And that very creativity can act as a catalyst for tikkun olam, repair of the world
What is interesting to note is that Kaplan saw Creativity as the most divine phase – not charity or compassion, not religious devotion, or adherence to ritual. And, each of us is blessed with this ability to form something new. And he also said that it wasn’t something we planned or something that required us to focus on the past. In essence, he was saying that to be creative one has to have kavannah, or the ability to pay attention in the present moment.
As a writer, I string words together to form sentences which ultimately become paragraphs, essays, a novel. As a knitter, I take yarn and form stitches which ultimately become a scarf, a sweater, an afghan. And, you too, can make manifest God’s gifts as you go through your daily lift. As it says in the Talmud “Every blade of grass has its Angel that bends over it and whispers, “Grow, grow.”
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