Taste of Torah | Chabad of Rural Georgia
TASTE OF TORAH
Why the Jewish New Year Begins Before There Were Jews
Every nation tells its own story.
Americans celebrate Independence Day. The French commemorate Bastille Day. Families treasure birthdays and anniversaries that mark the moments which shaped who they are.
The Jewish calendar is no different. Passover celebrates the Exodus from Egypt. Shavuot commemorates the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. Chanukah remembers the victory of the Maccabees. Nearly every Jewish holiday recalls an event in the history of the Jewish people.
Which makes one holiday remarkably surprising.
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, does not commemorate the birth of the Jewish nation.
It celebrates the creation of the first human beings—Adam and Eve.
If this is the beginning of the Jewish year, why doesn't it begin with Abraham, the first Jew? Why not with Moses, the Exodus, or the giving of the Torah?
Why begin before there were any Jews at all?
Because before G-d reminds the Jewish people who they are, He reminds the world what every human being is.
The Hebrew Bible itself begins this way. Before it introduces Abraham, before it tells the story of Israel, before there is a covenant with one nation, it tells the story of one man and one woman. The Torah begins not with a people, but with humanity. It reminds us that every person is created in the image of G-d and possesses a dignity that no nation, race, or culture can bestow—or take away.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe often emphasized that this is no accident. Rosh Hashanah marks not the birthday of the Jewish people but the birthday of the world. Before Jews gather to pray for themselves, they pray that every human being will come to recognize the One who created us all and that the entire world will reflect His goodness and justice.
That may surprise many people.
Judaism has never believed that everyone should become Jewish.
From the days of Abraham onward, Israel was given a unique covenant and a unique calling. But that calling was never meant to replace humanity—it was meant to serve it. The Creator who entered into a covenant with Abraham is the same Creator who first fashioned Adam and Eve. Before there was a chosen people, there was a human family.
That simple truth changes the way we see one another.
Before we ask what religion someone belongs to, we remember that every person belongs to G-d.
Before we belong to a nation, we belong to humanity.
Before we carry a flag, we bear the image of G-d.
That is why the Jewish year begins with Adam rather than Abraham.
Every year, before Judaism tells its own story again, it begins by reminding the world that the story started with all of us.
I wish you a good week, happy New Year and Shabbat Shalom,
A troubled teenager once asked the Lubavitcher Rebbe a heartfelt question.
"If G-d knew we would struggle and make mistakes," he asked, "why didn't He simply create us like angels?"
The Rebbe answered with a question of his own.
"What is worth more—a photograph or a portrait?"
A photograph captures every detail with perfect accuracy. It is an exact copy of what stands before the camera. A portrait is different. The artist interprets, emphasizes, and reveals something deeper than the eye alone can see. It is precisely that uniqueness which gives a portrait its value.
"The angels," the Rebbe explained, "are G-d's photographs. Human beings are His portraits."
That insight helps explain one of the Torah's most surprising passages.
Each year, just before Rosh Hashanah—the day when every person stands before G-d in judgment—the Torah assigns the opening of the Torah portion known as Netzavim.
Moses begins with these stirring words:
"You are standing today, all of you, before the L-rd your G-d..." (Deuteronomy 29:9).
If his purpose is to unite the people before they stand before their Creator, we might expect him to stop there.
Instead, he immediately begins listing everything that makes them different:
"Your leaders, your tribes, your elders, your officers, every man of Israel, your children, your wives, and the stranger in your camp—from your woodchopper to your water carrier" (Deuteronomy 29:9–10).
Why proclaim that everyone stands together, only to remind them how different they are?
Because the Torah's idea of unity is unlike our own.
We often imagine unity means becoming more alike—thinking alike, acting alike, agreeing about everything. The Torah teaches something richer. Real unity does not erase our differences. It gives them a shared purpose.
An early Kabbalistic teaching observes that the Hebrew word tzibbur—community—can be read as an acronym for three kinds of people: tzaddik, the righteous; beinoni, the one still struggling and growing; and rasha, the one who has lost his way. A true community contains them all.
Chassidic thought carries the idea even further. These are not merely three different kinds of people. They are three dimensions found within every one of us.
Each of us has moments when we rise above ourselves, moments when we struggle, and moments when we fall short. None of us is a flawless photograph. Every one of us is a portrait still being painted.
That changes the way we see other people.
Instead of asking, "Why can't everyone be more like me?" we begin asking, "What is it that G-d wishes me to learn from this person?"
The people who challenge us may possess strengths we lack. The people we admire carry burdens we cannot see. The people who seem weakest today may become tomorrow's greatest teachers. Community is not built by gathering perfect people. It is built by recognizing that each of us has something to receive from the other.
Before we stand before our Creator, the Torah reminds us that He is not looking for identical photographs.
He is looking at a room full of unfinished portraits.
And every one of them is priceless.
I wish you a good week and Shabbat Shalom,
Imagine a Jewish farmer climbing the hills toward Jerusalem with a basket of the first ripe fruit from his fields. The harvest has been plentiful. His family is secure. After months of labor, this is a day of unqualified joy. He has every reason simply to give thanks and celebrate.
Instead, the Torah tells him to stop.
Before presenting a single fig or pomegranate, he must declare:
"The Egyptians treated us cruelly, afflicted us, and imposed hard labor upon us. So we cried out to the L-rd, the G-d of our fathers, and the L-rd heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression" (Deuteronomy 26:6–7).
It is a startling interruption.
What do slavery, suffering, and desperate prayer have to do with a basket of beautiful fruit?
The Torah knows something about human nature.
The greatest danger to blessing is not hardship.
It is success without memory.
By the time this farmer brings his offering, generations have passed since the Exodus. He has never known slavery. Yet he does not say, "The Egyptians treated them cruelly."
The Torah refuses to let prosperity become disconnected from the story that made it possible. Before the farmer may rejoice in what he possesses, he must remember where those blessings began—not with fertile fields, but with a people who cried out in pain and a G-d who heard their cry.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe taught that genuine gratitude is far more than saying "thank You." It begins by recognizing the Divine Source from which every blessing flows. That is why the farmer tells a story before he presents his fruit. He is not thanking G-d only for this year's harvest. He is acknowledging that today's blessing is another chapter in a relationship G-d has sustained for generations.
That is why the Torah insists on the word "us."
Faith is more than remembering history. It is recognizing that we are living inside it. The Exodus is not merely something that happened to our ancestors; it is the story that continues to shape our lives today. The farmer's basket contains this year's fruit, but his declaration reaches back to the redemption that made this moment possible.
Success quietly edits our memory until we imagine we arrived here by ourselves. We forget the parents who sacrificed for us, the teachers who encouraged us, the friends who stood beside us, and the countless acts of Divine providence that opened doors we never could have opened on our own.
The Torah interrupts our celebration before that illusion takes root. It teaches that joy becomes deeper—not smaller—when it remembers. Every blessing becomes richer when we can trace it back through the people, the sacrifices, and ultimately the G-d who made it possible.
The farmer's basket was filled with fruit.
His heart was filled with history.
That is what transformed a harvest into an act of worship.
I wish you a good week and Shabbat Shalom,
When Life Doesn't Follow the Instructions
Every life eventually contains a chapter that wasn't part of the plan.
A relationship breaks. A dream collapses. A promise isn't kept. A decision made in haste creates consequences that linger for years. We all know what it feels like when life stops following the instructions.
Most instruction manuals assume everything will go according to plan. They tell you what to do when things are working properly. They rarely tell you what to do after something has gone wrong.
One of the remarkable things about the Torah is that it does.
In Parshat Ki Teitzei, the Torah addresses one of the most painful realities a person can face: the end of a marriage. "When a man takes a wife and marries her..." (Deuteronomy 24:1). The Torah then provides detailed instructions governing divorce.
That may seem surprising.
If marriage is sacred, why spend time explaining how to end one?
Why not simply teach people how to build successful marriages and leave it at that?
The answer reveals something important about the Torah itself.
The Torah is not written only for life's ideal moments.
It is also written for the moments when life falls short of the ideal.
The Torah certainly wants marriages to succeed. It wants relationships to flourish and commitments to endure. Yet it also recognizes the reality of human struggle. People make mistakes. Relationships become strained. Circumstances arise that nobody expected.
And when that happens, the Torah does not turn away.
Instead, it provides guidance for what comes next.
What is especially striking is that the Torah's divorce procedure is not casual. It requires a carefully prepared written document, witnesses, and a formal process. Even at the painful moment when a marriage is ending, the Torah insists on dignity, clarity, and protection for the people involved.
In other words, the Torah's response to failure is not abandonment.
This pattern appears throughout Jewish life. The Torah teaches us how to seek forgiveness after wrongdoing, how to make restitution after causing harm, how to rebuild trust after it has been broken, and how to begin again after we have fallen short.
A good teacher does not stop teaching when a student struggles. A loving parent does not stop caring when a child makes a mistake. The Torah presents G-d in much the same way.
He knows that growth rarely follows a straight line.
The most meaningful achievements in life often involve setbacks, detours, disappointments, and second chances. A strong marriage may require forgiveness. A lasting friendship may survive hurt feelings. A life of faith may include moments of doubt and failure.
The measure of a person is not whether they never stumble.
It is whether they are willing to keep learning after they do.
That is one of the deepest messages hidden within the laws of Parshat Ki Teitzei.
The Torah does not stop speaking to us when we fail.
In many ways, that is when it begins speaking most gently.
Because G-d's instructions were never meant only for the moments when everything goes right.
They were also written for the moments when we need help finding our way back.
I wish you a good week and Shabbat Shalom,
The conversation ended hours ago, but it keeps replaying in your mind.
You know the feeling. The meeting is over. The argument has ended. Life has moved on.
And yet something lingers.
Perhaps it was not what you said, but how you said it. Perhaps you were technically right, but not particularly kind. Or perhaps you missed an opportunity to be more patient, more generous, or more courageous than you were.
The discomfort is difficult to explain because nobody else may even know about it.
You caught a glimpse of the gap between the person you are and the person you mean to be.
In Parshat Shoftim, the Torah commands: “Justice, justice shall you pursue” (Deuteronomy 16:20).
Why does the Torah repeat the word “justice”?
One possibility is that there are two pursuits taking place at the same time.
The first is the pursuit of justice in society. We need honest courts, ethical leaders, and laws that protect the vulnerable. A healthy society depends on them.
But there is another pursuit that takes place much closer to home.
It is the pursuit of becoming the person we were meant to be.
Jewish tradition teaches that when G-d calls out, “Abraham, Abraham,” or “Moses, Moses,” He is addressing both the earthly person and the heavenly one. One represents who we are today. The other represents who we are capable of becoming.
One is hanging on heaven’s wall.
The other is walking around on earth.
For Abraham and Moses, those portraits were nearly identical. Their actions reflected their deepest values. The people they were in practice matched the people they were in potential.
Most of us are still working on that.
We know the moments when the two portraits drift apart. The promise we intended to keep. The kindness we meant to show. The courage we hoped we would find when the moment arrived. Few disappointments sting more sharply than realizing we have fallen short of our own standards.
Yet that recognition is not meant to discourage us. It is meant to guide us.
That is why the Torah repeats the command to pursue justice.
Before we can build a just society, we must become more just people. Before we can bring integrity to the world around us, we must bring integrity to the world within us. The pursuit of justice is not only about changing institutions; it is also about closing the gap between our ideals and our actions.
The prophet Jeremiah teaches that G-d delights in “kindness, justice, and righteousness on earth.” Those qualities are not merely legal ideals. They are personal ones. They describe the kind of people we are meant to become.
