Bereshit: The Joy We Are Feeling is Peoplehood

Our Brothers are Finally Home

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Dear Friends,

Across the Jewish world—and among our friends everywhere—this past week has been filled with a joy we could hardly have imagined.

There were so many moments I couldn’t hold back tears—watching families reunite with their loved ones, singing Hallel and thanking God for “pitachta lemoserai” — for setting our brothers free, putting away the prayer cards for living hostages we no longer need to plead for, singing Am Yisrael Chai with everything we had during Simchat Torah’s Hakafot.

One small moment stayed with me: At the end of Simchat Torah, during Havdalah—the ceremony that marks the transition from sacred time back to the week—we have a Sephardic custom of adding personalized prayers for blessing and success.

I automatically reminded my husband to include a prayer for the return of the hostages, like we have been doing for two years, then burst into tears realizing we don’t need that prayer anymore.

Of course, we still ache for the nineteen hostages whose bodies are still being held — for their families who deserve to bring them home and to grieve in peace. We will keep praying and doing all we can for them.

And of course, our joy doesn’t mean the wounds have healed. It doesn’t mean we don’t also carry grief for so many broken families. It doesn’t mean there isn’t still so much work to do.

But the joy of knowing our brothers are no longer being tortured underground, that they’re finally home—we must hold onto this feeling.

I want to share something I wrote this week for the Simchat Torah Challenge about what this moment means in light of where we are in our Torah cycle—returning once again to Bereshit.

May this year bring us more moments of blessing—moments in which we feel the deep joy of Jewish peoplehood.

Shabbat Shalom,

Mijal

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We Begin Again

That’s what Bereshit means—not just “in the beginning,” but as the Hasidic masters taught, be’reshit—“with beginnings.” The world was created pregnant with possibility, capable of renewal again and again. Creation isn’t a one-time act but an ongoing invitation: to begin once more.

Two years ago, many of us felt that beginning in its most painful form. On Simchat Torah 2023, our world shattered.

As our brothers and sisters in Israel faced unspeakable tragedy, we discovered that we were part of something larger than ourselves—a people.

The pain we felt was the pain of Jewish peoplehood: our souls remembered that we belong to one another.

That pain awakened us. Now, as we turn the scroll back to Bereshit, as our brothers finally return home, we’re called to let Torah sustain us.

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The Unraveling and the Answer

The first two portions of Genesis trace the unraveling of creation—the collapse of human responsibility.

My teacher, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l, identified four failures that define this early history:

• Adam and Eve: the failure of personal responsibility. Confronted with their sin, Adam blames Eve; Eve blames the serpent.

• Cain: the failure of moral responsibility. After Cain murders his brother, God asks, “Where is your brother Abel?” Cain replies, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

• Noah: the failure of collective responsibility. Though righteous, he saved only his family. He never prayed for his generation, which drowned in the flood.

• The Tower of Babel: the failure of spiritual responsibility. The builders tried to replace God with humanity itself.By the end of Parashat Noach, humanity has proven that, left to itself, it cannot sustain moral order.

But the story doesn’t end there.

Out of the wreckage, a new idea is born: a family destined to become a people bound by covenant. The Torah’s answer to Cain’s question is the eternal yes of Abraham’s children.

The Torah teaches that human beings don’t learn morality in isolation. We need the classroom of family—of peoplehood—to become who we’re meant to be.

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I Am My Brother’s Keeper

That question—Am I my brother’s keeper?—still defines our moral landscape. We see its inversion everywhere: cruelty without consequence, dehumanization without shame. Too many walk around with Cain’s mark on their foreheads, unashamed.

But Jewish peoplehood is our collective answer. Across generations, we’ve tried, imperfectly but persistently, to say yes.

Two years ago, that instinct came alive in real time. When Jews worldwide cried out for those murdered, those taken, those grieving—that cry was the sound of peoplehood. The pain was unbearable, but it revealed a truth many had nearly forgotten: we are one body, one people.

That pain moved mountains. It gave birth to movements of solidarity, activism, care.

A Facebook post quoting Laly Deri, who lost her son Saadya Yaakov Deri z”l in Gaza. When the hostages came home, she said that our generation had the merit to make a tikkun—a repair—for Cain’s heinous murder of Abel. The IDF’s fighting, she said, was our collective answer to Cain’s question: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” with the declaration: “I am my brother’s keeper!”

But pain cannot be our only teacher. Torah study is what cultivates and nourishes our instinct to be our brother’s keeper—and reminds us of the joy of peoplehood.

When we learn together, we’re not just acquiring knowledge—we’re strengthening the bonds that make responsibility possible and renewing the sense of connection that makes joy possible. Every question we ask, every insight we share, every moment we choose Torah over despair is an act of collective faith.

We study not in isolation, but as a people. We inherit the same sacred texts, wrestle with the same questions, carry forward the same covenant, read the same parasha each week.

This is why Torah study—like the one we do here—has always been our response to crisis. It’s not an escape from pain; it’s how we metabolize it, how we turn ache into purpose—and pain into joy.

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Let There Be Light

Bereshit reminds us that creation is not a one-time act but a choice renewed—the courage to begin again.

Each time we learn, each time we give, each time we take responsibility for one another, we echo God’s first words: Yehi or—let there be light.

This year, as we open the Torah once more, our eyes wet with gratitude for the homecoming of our captives, may our learning be that light.

May it help us rebuild what was broken—

And may we remember that we are not only readers of this story, but its authors.

Bereshit bara Elokim et hashamayim ve’et ha’aretz.

In the beginning, God created heaven and earth.

And with every beginning, we continue the work of creation.

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More to Explore

• ✡️ Jewish Pride Is Not Enough: my post from last year on Genesis and Jewish difference.

• 🌍 The Two Creations of Humanity: a piece for The Forward on why we have two creation stories—and what Eve’s “curse” really means.

• 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 The Sacks Legacy and Tikvah Fund are launching a new program for parents and children (grades 6-8) to learn Torah together—check it out here

  

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