Is our fresh start ever really fresh?

 In this piece, written to mark our return to the beginning of the Torah for our weekly readings, Jeremy Phillips takes a look at the concept of the fresh start within the context of life at Beit Knesset Hanassi. This piece also appears on the front page of this week's Hanassi Highlights.

This Shabbat, Parashat Bereishit, we open our Sifrei Torah at the very beginning. We read again of the creation of the world and of the place of humans within it. This gives us a good feeling. We have just marked the New Year with the festival of Rosh Hashanah, wiped away our past mistakes on Yom Kippur, and completed a full year’s reading of the Torah. Now we are mentally attuned to starting afresh, drawing a line under the past and facing our pristine, untainted future.

But how we feel and what is real can be two different things. Our fresh start this year is built on the firm foundations of the past, of respect for the Torah, its laws and those traditions that, passed down to us, we in turn seek to pass down to future generations. For traditions, love within families and loyalties within communities there is no fresh start each year: instead, there is a precious continuity of shared values that transcend the mindset of “stop-start”.

A year ago, when we celebrated Parashat Bereishit, we had among us two remarkable individuals who were both deeply committed to continuity. One, Rabbi Berel Wein zt’l, emphasized the importance of connecting the past, present and future; in doing so he elevated it from a neat idea for a sermon to a fundamental philosophy and the key to Jewish survival. The other, Moshe Loshinsky zt’l, was the repository of the customs and traditions of Beit Knesset Hanassi as well as the enforcer—zealous to ensure that a generation of olim adjusted themselves to Jewish life and practice in Israel, a melting-pot for Jewish culture but a refining vessel for life as a Jew in the land God gave us. These two men are no longer with us but their message endures.

In one sense, then, we have our fresh start—but it is also a further step on the long journey that has taken us through the lands of exile and through the millennia. Our task, as members of Am Yisrael and, in local terms, as members of Beit Knesset Hanassi, is to continue this ancient journey but to imbue it with a fresh enthusiasm and optimism that we will be the ones privileged to see it through. In this task we are privileged to be led by Rabbi Joel Kenigsberg, whose vision and energy are an inspiration to us all. May this year, 5786, be the year our journey reaches its destination.