A letter to my children,
Midrash teaches that God created the world on Rosh Hashanah. In this particular story, God has a thought, consults with the angels and then begins, forming human beings from the dust. This story depicts a seemingly direct path from the idea to the reality. The Hebrew word used in the midrash is “bara” meaning that God created the world on Rosh Hashanah. Yet, Rosh Hashanah is known by another name – Hayom Harat Olam – the Day the World was conceived.
Where the word bara implies a sense of creation in a moment, harat, conception, means something different. To conceive entails a need to wait, to nurture over time, to become attached, to have sleepless nights, perhaps, of fear and anxiety about what may be, to have moments of joy and yearning, to remain present to all the possibilities, to acknowledge the chance of loss or complications, to wonder and to yearn.
You, my children, are my greatest teachers in learning how to dwell in this realm. You have taught me that there is no rushing. Be it a new life, a new stage of growth, or a new skill – that which we seek to bring into being requires its own natural time to develop. And you have taught me the tender beauty that exists in that place of gentle unfurling.
You came into the world through determination and planning mixed with an utter lack of control and abundant mystery. Thank you for the ways in which you remind me every day that this mix of embrace and surrender, power and vulnerability is the true nature to which we must return.
Rabbi Adina Allen is the Co-Founder and Creative Director of Jewish Studio Project.
www.jewishstudioproject.org
