At four times the world is judged:
On Pesach, for the crops.
On Shavuot, for the fruits of the tree.
On Rosh Hashanah, all the world passes before Him like sheep, as it says,
“He that forms the hearts of them all, that considers all their doings.” (Psalms 33:15)
And on Sukkot, they are judged for the water.
Mishna Rosh Hashanah 1:2

This year the calendar gives us (at least those of us outside of Israel) the end of the festival of Sukkot and the first Shabbat  Torah reading of our annual cycle as one long three day yom tov, where we can transition uninterrupted from concluding the Torah on the second day of Shemini Atzeret, Simchat Torah.

Shemini Atzeret is marked by a communal prayer for Geshem, for rain. The congregation prays for rain after attesting the the belief in the power and effacy of prayer during the Hoshana Rabba ceremonies, prior to the start of Shemini Atzeret. The beating of the aravot, the willows (one of the most unique and mysterious of all Jewish customs.), perhaps symbolizes the connection between the prayer of our lips and the response of our creator. We acknowledge our utter dependence on the love of  G-d to sustain us.

In Parashat Breishit we are given two versions of the creation story. As Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik describes in his classic work, ” The Lonely Man of Faith”, there are two versions of the story to underscore the duality of human existence.

And G-d said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and they shall rule over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the heaven and over the animals and over all the earth and over all the creeping things that creep upon the earth. And G-d created man in His image; in the image of G-d He created him; male and female He created them. And G-d blessed them, and G-d said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the sky and over all the beasts that tread upon the earth. (Gen. 1:26-28)

In the first version, in chapter 1, G-d, called  Elo-him, the name recalling the divine nature of judgement and justice, creates man and woman at the same time (or as a hermaphrodite, as suggested in the Talmud Eruvin 18), in the image of G-d. R’ Soloveitchik explains this is the imago Dei, creative inclination of humanity, the potential for using (and misusing!) technology to dominate the earth.

In the  second version, in chapter 2, the Torah (this time using the tetragrammaton as well, the 4 letter name of G-d, pronounced Ado-nai,  recalling G-d’s loving and merciful attributes ) describes the process of human creation as a combination of earth and divine breath, a spiritual being but grounded in earthly matter.

“These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, on the day that the Lord G-d made earth and heaven. Now no tree of the field was yet on the earth, neither did any herb of the field yet grow, because the Lord G-d had not brought rain upon the earth, and there was no man to work the soil.”

Note that the Torah explains that no plant life could grow without the creation of Man to “work the soil”. Rashi explains that rain would be a partnership, with the prayers of man a crucial component.

“And a mist ascended from the earth and watered the entire surface of the ground. And the Lord G-d formed man of dust from the ground, and He breathed into his nostrils the soul of life, and man became a living soul.” (Gen. 2:4-7)

A living soul, a spiritual being, with the power to partner with G-d by engaging in prayer.
R’ Soloveitchik writes, “The biblical metaphor referring to G-d breathing life into Adam alludes to the actual preoccupation of the latter with G-d, to his genuine living experience of G-d, rather than to some divine potential or endowment in Adam symbolized by imago Dei.

As we complete last year, and start living this year, may we harness the power, majesty and humanity afforded to us by our dual nature, confident in our strengths and humbled by our weaknesses, and as we struggle to come to grips with our relationship with the divine, come even closer with our relationship with ourselves, and our unique ability to leave the world a better place than that  into which we were born.

Shabbat Shalom, Chag Sameach.
Rabbi Greg