As a rabbi, I am asked many interesting questions each and every day. And often, the best questions, the ones that make me think most intensely about my beliefs, are the questions I am asked by young children. Anyone who has heard a small child ask the question, “Why?” knows that children think deeply about the source of most everything they encounter. In fact, the question I hear most often from children is – “If God created the world, where did God come from?”

Now this is a great question, especially on a day like today, on Rosh Hashanah. As we will read in our shofar liturgy tomorrow, Hayom harat olam – today the world was created; today is the birthday of the world. But what does that mean? As we are well aware, there are many different ideas about how the world began. I am often asked by those concerned about contemporary debates on evolution and creation, “How do we teach about the creation of the world in Jewish tradition?” Many are surprised to learn that it is no problem for a religious Jew of any denominational stripe to see beyond a simple reading of creation occurring in six days. After all, within the Torah there are two stories of creation, and beyond the Torah, there are countless sophisticated Rabbinic opinions and commentaries about the creation of the world.

In fact, the notion of a “big bang” is not without merit within Jewish tradition. What is our “big bang” theory? It revolves around a mystical, a kabbalistic tradition, about a cosmic explosion. This mystical idea was brought forth by the 16th century rabbi, Isaac Luria, the preeminent rabbi of the mystical town of Sfat in northern Israel. Luria envisioned a three-pronged approach to the creation of the world.

In the first stage, God contracted into God’s self – in a phase known as tzimzum, literally contraction.
Try to imagine:
God once filled the entire presence of the universe,
every iota of imaginable space,
leaving no room for anything else
And then, to make some room for the things that God was about to create, God contracted into God’s self,
making space for everything else in creation.
Isn’t it remarkable that the first action of divinity was an inward one?

Out of this space grew a light. That light was contained in vessels emanating from the ultimate source – God – and the light was so strong that the vessels shattered. This shattering is known in Hebrew as shevirat ha-keilim – our “big bang.” Some of that light was returned to God – its source – and some of it filtered down, and became the source of all life. The broken shards of the vessels became the basis of the material world.
Finally, Rabbi Luria teaches, there was, or I should say, there will be, tikkun, a mending of those broken vessels and a gathering of those sparks of life. Tikkun is a word that is familiar to us. We hear it often in the context of social action, in our pursuit of tikkun olam – mending the world. Since the mid-twentieth century, tikkun olam has become a prominent phrase in our liberal Jewish lexicon. But did you know that its original meaning had much more to do with the mystical notion of the creation of the world than with social justice? This creative stage is one that takes place not at God’s insistence, but with a human partnership and cooperation. Each individual has a task in taking part in that tikkun, and thus, each of us is directly involved in the ongoing creation of the world. We are the ones to raise up those “sparks of light,” to bring about healing in the world.
Of course, this mystical understanding of our place in the world, how we got here, is exceedingly complex and esoteric. But derived from the most simplified notion of this creation narrative, is a message that comes to teach us about our place in the world, this birthday of the world, this Rosh Hashanah.

For if we understand that our essential responsibility in being created in this world is to “raise up the fallen shards,” to participate in tikkun, to partner with God in transforming the world as we know it to the world as we know it ought to be, well then, that is an awesome responsibility.

How often, though, are we truly aware of that responsibility? It seems that more and more we find ourselves stymied by a sense of powerlessness when faced with the pieces in our world that need fixing.

Who hasn’t felt powerless opening the morning newspaper? I usually love reading the morning paper. There is something about the traces of ink smudged on my fingers that brings an unexplainable feeling of regularity to the beginning of my day. But I have to admit it; lately I have been feeling less energetic when I unfold that newspaper in the morning. I am nervous about what I might find when I peer into the headlines:
Hurricanes and Tsunamis destroy cities and lives;
Global AIDS extends its reach;
Israel at War;
An ongoing genocide continues unabated in Darfur, a western region of Sudan;
I could go on and on.

It is especially on the grand scale of genocide that we feel this tension most keenly. On the one hand, as Jews in particular, we live with the mantra “Never Again” carved in our collective memories and know how vital it is to move heaven and earth to stop it. But on the other hand, the scope of the problem is so large and so distant that it is easy to turn the page of the newspaper, to skip to the next blog entry, to succumb to our assumed powerlessness.

But we are not powerless! When we understand our role in the world as one of partnership, as one that requires our action in that sense of tikkun, it is much more difficult for us to look away. And in fact, it makes it much more plausible that we actually can make a difference. If we truly believe that our mission in the world is to fix and repair, to mend those shards and raise those sparks scattered throughout our world, then it is not only possible, it is expected that each of us will play a role in making that happen. We are not powerless – no – we are imbued by the virtue of our creation with a great power!

As individuals, each and everyone of us can bring forth a critical action, even if in the moment it does not feel as if it will bring about change. For we know that Mitzvah Gorrerret Mitzvah – one mitzvah leads to another. My colleague, Rabbi Matt Gewirtz, calls this “Jewish Arithmetic.” According to Jewish teaching, we have only to take a small action, in order to make a big difference

Those sparks are contagious. Responding to the situation in Darfur is an excellent example of how the actions of individuals, individuals here in Lexington and surrounding areas, have made a difference and inspired others to get involved.

An active group made up of many Temple Isaiah members has stepped up to lead Massachusetts efforts to save Darfur. These are members of our congregation who have heard that call to stand up and take an active role in bringing tikkun to the world. I would like to share a few examples, by no means an exhaustive list, but rather an illustrative showing of what a difference an individual can make.

Bill Rosenfeld was active, along with others, in bringing Ruth Messinger, the director of the American Jewish World Service – the Jewish community’s loudest voice on Darfur – to speak at Temple Isaiah last spring, and coordinated the Temple’s contingent at the rally in Washington DC in April. After the rally, Bill, a passionate writer, realized that he could use his own skills as a writer to create press releases and letters to political leaders. His words have been delivered to leaders of NATO and African Union Nations and seen on the pages of local and regional press – including a published letter to the editor in this week’s Boston Globe.

Danielle Dahan is a 12th grade student, active on our LEFTY Assembly as the VP of Social Action. When the Save Darfur coalition held a rally in Washington DC last spring, Danielle realized that although she herself could not attend, there were ways for her to contribute right here from Lexington. She created a “Dining for Darfur” campaign and enlisted local restaurants to donate a portion of their proceeds on the same day as the rally to Darfur humanitarian relief. Realizing how relatively simple such a day is to plan, Danielle and her friends planned a similar fundraiser to coincide with the rally that took place in New York City’s Central Park just this past Sunday. Danielle has done an incredible service to keep Darfur on the consciousness of this community.

Nikki Cohen, an 8th grader here at Temple Isaiah, learned about Darfur when she was preparing for her Bat Mitzvah. She decided that she wanted to take the opportunity when giving a D’var Torah from this Bima to educate her friends and family about the situation in Darfur and purchased green bracelets for everyone in attendance at the service to wear in order to raise awareness about Darfur. Nikki told me that there were many people at the service, both students and adults, who had never heard of Darfur before her speech. Nikki’s simple, but powerful act of speaking up against injustice carried a long way.

Eric Cohen – no relation to Nikki – has organized a tremendous coalition of local citizens, Temple Isaiah members and others, who want take action for the people of Darfur. After spending time lobbying consulates of African Union and NATO nations, Eric found an opportunity to create relationships with those who are active on the Darfur front. Eric now serves as an active member of the MA Coalition to Save Darfur, redesigned their webpage, and was a key leader in organizing a Boston area delegation of 11 busloads of people to Central Park where more than 20,000 people rallied this past Sunday.

These individuals, along with others, found a way in – a way to, piece by piece, make a difference in a situation taking place a half a world away. All of these inspiring individuals, acting in the spirit of tikkun, did not feel held back by the grand scale of the problem, but rather, empowered by the possibility that they could make a difference.

There are so many others… others working on Darfur, others working on health care, economic pressures, and interfaith concerns for our Temple Isaiah Organizing Project, and through many social action projects throughout the greater Boston area. So many are working to make a difference and bring some of those shattered shards back together. You are sitting here in this sanctuary right now. The action of one can inspire another. I know that they inspire me.

While the imagery of tikkun hails from a Jewish mystical perspective on creation, the Biblical account of creation has a lot to teach us at this season as well. The first question that God asks in the Torah is to Adam, God’s partner in creation. When Adam and Eve hid from God’s presence in the Garden of Eden, God cried out, “Ayecha - Where are you?” [PAUSE] What a simple, yet profound question for God to be asking us – each of us – at all times: Where are you?!?! Not in a geographical sense, of course, but in relation to our action… Where are you? What are you doing?

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of the greatest Jewish thinkers of the 20th century, addresses this question, “Where are you?”
“…[It] is a call that goes out again and again. It is a still small echo of a still small voice, not uttered in words, not conveyed in categories of the mind, but ineffable and mysterious, as ineffable and mysterious as the glory that fills the whole world. It is wrapped in silence; concealed and subdued, yet it is as if all things were the frozen echo of the question: ‘Where are you?’... Religion consists of God’s question and man’s answer.” [1]

We are all Adam, all living through a renewed creation each and every day. As partners with God in creation through the process of tikkun, we should always be allowing that voice to entire our conscience. Each year on Rosh Hashanah, we hear that voice calling out to us more loudly. When we remember the birthday of the world, we are remembering that shevirat ha-keilim – the shattering of the vessels – that allowed for life in the world, but also demanded a responsibility from that life.

The voice is calling out, “ayecha – where are you?” Do you hear it? Just as the blast of the shofar calls us to awaken each year, that still, small voice calls out to us as well. It recalls the creation of the world and the creation of humanity’s partnership with God.

What does it mean to be a partner in creation, in tikkun? That we celebrate the birthday of the world each and every year on Rosh Hashanah and rededicate ourselves to the notion that we have a responsibility to search out those sparks of light. They are all around us and each of us, as individuals, can take part in gathering those sparks, in bringing them together, and forging a healing to this world, created 5767 years ago, with our participation in mind. L’Shanah Tovah

[1] Heschel, Abraham Joshua. God in Search of Man, p. 137.