Blessing for a New Year

It’s been quite a year, 2020. I for one am ready to turn the page, to start a new year with fresh ideas and a fresh trajectory for my country and my life.

This week we’re also ending a chapter in our ancestral story—our final forefather Jacob is dying, and the book of Genesis is ending. Since we began this book anew we’ve waded through exile from the garden, a flood which destroyed all of creation, fratricide and sibling rivalries, and many other difficult and troubling moments. As a people, we seem to cycle through the same mistakes, the same challenges again and again, always trying to learn and grow from our mistakes but always leaving some piece unchanged. In an attempt to challenge the injustice of the birthright, that one child should be born superior to another from the start, the forefathers again and again choose the younger. And yet, how much pain would have been avoided if Jacob had not been lifted above Esau, Joseph above his brothers, Ephraim above Menashe.

We know that all souls are born equal, b’tzelem Elohim, no matter their birth order, their race, their sex, their sexuality. The first earthling was created both male and female, with all these qualities within them. It is the journey of our lives as parts of creation to reach back towards the garden, when we lived in harmony with all things, knowing that we were equally filled with the Ruach Elohim, the breath of God.

May this near year bring each us closer to this wholeness, to a sense of purpose, connection, and equality.