The Power to See Good (Bereishit 5787)

This piece by Rabbi Kenigsberg was first published in Hanassi Highlights on 8 October 2026. Thanks to ChatGPT you can also read it in Hebrew here.

Can we create something simply by looking at it? At first glance, the question seems absurd. Creation requires imagination, effort and action. Surely merely observing something cannot be considered an act of creation?

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks suggests that this may be one of the profound lessons contained in the opening chapter of the Torah. Every year, as we begin reading Bereishit anew, we encounter the majestic account of the Creation of the world. But the Torah is not a textbook of cosmology. Its purpose is not simply to explain how the universe came into existence, but to teach us how we are supposed to live within it. The account of creation, therefore, is not just a description of what happened, but a moral guide as to how we are to become creators.

Repeatedly, in the opening verses of the Torah, we encounter three distinct stages:

·         Vayomer Elokim - “And God said…”

·         Vayehi - “And it was…”

·         Vayar Elokim ki tov - “And God saw that it was good.”

Each stage, suggests Rabbi Sacks, contains a lesson about our own capacity to create.

The first is the power of imagination. Before anything can change, we must be able to envision something different. Every meaningful achievement begins with an idea, with the recognition that the world as it is need not be the world as it could be. The second is the power of action. Ideas alone accomplish very little. It takes determination, commitment and hard work to translate our aspirations into reality. We must move from “let there be” to “and there was.”

But what about the third stage? Why does the Torah repeatedly emphasize that God saw that His creation was good? What does seeing add to the creative process? Perhaps this is the most important lesson of all. Rabbi Sacks described how, in his visits to prisons and institutions for young offenders, he encountered people with enormous unrealized potential. Often, what they lacked was not ability or ambition, but a basic sense of their own worth. Nobody had ever helped them recognise the goodness within themselves. And this is where seeing becomes an act of creation.

When we recognise the good in another person, when we acknowledge their strengths, encourage their efforts and help them appreciate their own potential, we can bring something new into existence. Sometimes, a kind word or a sincere expression of appreciation can change the course of someone’s life. The Torah teaches that we are created b’tzelem Elokim, in the image of God. We too are called upon to be creators – not only through our ideas and actions, but through the way we see the people around us. Sometimes, the greatest thing we can create is the confidence in another person to discover what they are capable of becoming.

Shabbat Shalom!