I suspect that many of you expected to hear me speak about the state of the world on this Rosh Hashana. You will, although maybe not in the way that you expected.

Today, on this day of new beginnings, I want to go back before 2001, before 1967, before 1948, before the time of Maimonides or the Talmud, before the time of Moses or Abraham. I want today to go back to the very beginning, certainly as Rogers and Hammerstein said: "a very good place to start." When you read in Hebrew, you begin with Alef Bet. But, when you read Torah, you begin with Bet.

The Torah begins with the letter Bet. The letter bet is closed on three sides: behind, above and below, pointing forward only. A Midrash teaches that the shape of the letter carries a lesson for us: "don't ask what is above, don't ask what is below, don't ask what happened before, just start from the point of creation, stand firmly on the earth and look ahead".

We usually translate the "bet" in be-raysheet as "in" that is "in the beginning". But that really doesn't work because the rest of the word: "raysheet" is in the form known as the semichut, meaning: the beginning of something and that something is not mentioned.

We can presume we know what that something is: ?in the beginning of the world", or "in the beginning of time" but those are only presumptions. The grammatical irregularity still stands and that led some Rabbis to search for another meaning of the word beraysheet. One way that they did this was to use the raysheet as a word that stood for something else. The bet instead of meaning "in" meant "with" as it sometimes does and the verse became: "with the thing called raysheet, God created the heaven and the earth."

By means of the thing called the beginning, God created the heaven and earth!

Now, it makes no sense whatsoever.

Unless, that is, you know what the thing called "the beginning" was. The Rabbis noted that in the book of Proverbs, we read: Adonai Kanani Raysheet Darko. God created me as raysheet, the beginning of God's ways.

And who is speaking? Wisdom. Wisdom says: "God created me as raysheet, as the beginning. I, says wisdom preceded the rest of creation. I am the light with which God created the world" and the Rabbinic interpretive reading of the verse of the Torah is: "Using wisdom God created the heaven and the earth".

What was this "wisdom"? Could it have been the Torah itself? Yes, say some Rabbis, the Torah predated the creation of the world and in fact provided God the blueprints and documents that any architect needs to know how to construct the different elements of the world.

Others say that the wisdom described is not the Torah itself but the logic, internal sense and good planning involved in Creation as described in Genesis.

The Midrash in Bereshit Rabbah pointed this out graphically: the water was created before the fish which swim in it, the land created before the animals who roam it, food for both created before their appearance on the earth and, much like an honored guest would not be welcomed into a home until the home was ready, the human being appears in this creation story not as the beginning but as the end, as the piece around which the world was created, as the final piece of the puzzle needed to finish the world and bring it to perfection, just as we believe we will one day, through our actions and God's help, return the world to perfection.

Hayom Harat Olam. Today the world was conceived. Rosh Hashana is the anniversary of creation and even though the traditional Torah reading is about Abraham and Sarah, the more appropriate Torah reading for today would no doubt be the story of creation.

And so, today I want to speak about creation.

I want to share with you a simple statement. Not a confession, not one said out of embarrassment, not a denial of logic or rationality, and not something overstated for dramatic effect. And to those who say that I or Conservative Rabbis don't offer enough definitive statements, here is one. I believe without question in the Divine creation of the world.

I might have some issues at times with the faith I embrace and represent. I might wonder whether anything really happened at Sinai. I might have to seek ways to interpret the idea of physical reward and punishment and end up rejecting it in its literal meaning. I might catch myself questioning my belief in the soul's survival of death. But, there is one thing that I have never questioned. And, I firmly believe that this one thing I will never question.

I believe in God's creation of the world. While I shake my head quite often at the realities of life I just don't understand, I can not escape the conviction that this world is constructed with a wisdom and a balance and a meaning all of its own that attests to an external creator with wisdom beyond our own. And, while I think one can certainly call oneself a Jew if one doesn't share this belief, I honestly can not figure out why anything we do in this place or out in the world really matters if we reject this statement of ultimate faith.

Bottom line, if you strip away all of the layers upon layers of dangerous and misleading ideas, corollaries, elaborations and political posturing that have been added to these two simple words, there is no question that Judaism believes in Intelligent Design. And I embrace that belief with sincerity, with passion and with joy.

I believe in a world created with wisdom and with intention and the evidence is in the beauty and the wisdom all around us. I believe in a world created with a purpose, for it is that purpose that drives us forward. I believe in a world which will return to paradise one day through our good works when we finally get it right, the blueprint existing for us in our hearts and in our minds and in the shared wisdom of the entire world.

So there be no mistake, whatever is the current theory of scientists as to Creation, whether the Big Bang or anything else, I'll buy it. I have done some reading recently on the scientific theories of the creation of the universe and while I don't have the expertise to choose one over any other, I'll accept the one you tell me is correct.

So there be no mistake, I believe in evolution. I see no conflict between Darwin and the Torah, not because as some say "we don't know how long a day in the Torah was" but because the record of creation in the Torah, which I believe to have been written by human beings inspired by divine truth talks in terms we can understand about the creation of a world which survives by changing, growing, evolving. So there be no mistake, I do not believe Genesis replaces Science. They must exist alongside. Science tells us: "how". Genesis tells us "who" and more importantly "why".

As the Rabbis understood from their reading of Genesis 1:1, I believe that God's hand of purpose and intention and wisdom is the spark which began this world and I believe it without question, without doubt and with emunah shlaymah, complete faith.

And I beg you to think about this more seriously and contemplate its implications for they are critical for our lives.

There are so many such implications but let me limit myself this morning to three of them. Three reasons why this subject is of such critical importance. The first is by far the least important.

It is important for me to declare a belief in divine creation because I believe we too often allow the baggage that accompanies the movement which advocates intelligent design fool us into thinking it could not possibly be a Jewish idea at heart or one which we can embrace in an era of rationality. Often, we are far too willing to dismiss serious theological or spiritual ideas fearing the company that they keep.

There are plenty of folks who take the idea of divine creation in a direction that I, and I assume most of us, would find outrageous. I would fight tooth and nail against including theological models into public school curricula. I am not suggesting that so called creationism is a legitimate science. I am not asking you to extrapolate from my belief that the Torah ought to be our literal guide for scientific and other worldly matters. I am not suggesting that I believe this because the Torah tells me so but because what I see around me argues for the type of world which the writers of Genesis also saw: one which has been created with intricacy and beauty that science alone can't sufficiently explain and with the human being operating in a precarious yet honored position within the general scheme: In the words of the Psalms: when I behold the heavens, the work of your fingers, I see evidence of a creative intelligence which I can not ascribe to mere chemical reactions.

To cite one example of this idea, listen to the words of my teacher, Rabbi Elliot Dorff, speaking about the human genome project: "The publication of the human genome puts in front of us in graphic detail just how complex -- and yet how elegant -- is the structure of our very being. Surely we have a sense of pride in what human minds have come to know. At the same time, though, we cannot help but feel both wonder and awe when we view the intricate biochemical matrix that makes human life possible. This is clearly an event in which science and religion should be at one in rejoicing, for now we know just how much wisdom God demonstrated in making us as we are."

Elliot Dorff is a Rabbi. He is a worldly, sophisticated, scientifically educated observant, believing Jew. And he speaks for many of us modern Jews. Too often, we are too quick to leave certain religious and spiritual principles in the hands of others rather than hold onto them while still pursuing science and philosophy and other intellectual pursuits. We can believe in the 10 commandments without looking for places to hang the tablets. We can still believe in the power of prayer while leaving prayer in the public schools to personal spontaneous prayers prior to Math tests. And, we can believe in Divine creation of the world without mortgaging our academic and intellectual foundation or feeling like we have been a traitor to liberal causes or individual freedom.

Thus, the first reason it is important to address this issue on Rosh Hashana is because so many of the philosophical concepts which we now associate with a great threat to our intellectual freedom, actually are ours and are at the foundation of our faith. We need to remember that and we need to re-claim them.

But, there are two other reasons why this topic is worthy of discussing this morning. And, they, in the end, are more important.

The first has to do with the world itself.

The intelligence of the original designer means absolutely nothing if, in our selfishness, greed, shortsightedness and arrogance, we destroy that which has been given to us. It is time for all of us to face up to the inescapable fact that, even if the design was intelligent in the first place, the actions of human beings are what seal the fate of the world and all of its species.

How could it be that year after year on the anniversary of creation, I have not spoken about the threats that our current life style and life choices present to the very future of our planet? The time has long since come.

I'm not talking politics here or what should or shouldn't be our government policy although I find it shameful that we have not joined with other nations in fighting the problems of our environment as we should. I'm talking about the very basic point that as we do teshuva, as we repent for that which we have done to each other, we ought to repent as well for what we have done to this earth: for waste, for pollution, for indifference, for greed.

We must address the issue of global warming and other threats to our planet in a serious way, reflected both in wise governmental policy and in unselfish individual decisions. While the Torah says that God promises in the story of Noah that the fundamental wisdom with which the world was created: that of changing seasons and, specifically, cold and hot, will never end, it is clear that this statement is written from God's perspective. Never again, says God, will I, God, destroy the world. But, there is no promise made that the world will never be destroyed and the ball is now in the court of the creation which ate from the tree of knowledge of good and bad. We are now the ones who hold the fate of the physical world in our hands. And, if we destroy it, if we fail to use our wisdom to sustain the world, the world's birthdays are numbered and our own naturally along with it.

This is not an issue any more for passionate environmentalists or back to nature types who ride bicycles instead of driving cars. By the way, don't misunderstand that. I envy you. As one who has never been able to learn to ride a bike, it's just sour grapes. This is for all of us, for everywhere, for everyone and, each in our own way, no matter how we do it and the world's governments, including our own, in the most effective way. We must take action or this world created for us with wisdom will in fact disappear.

And, if that is an "inconvenient truth", let me share another truth which is liberating, exciting, challenging and is the third and most important reason for my sharing my belief in divine creation this morning.

It has to do with each of us as individuals.

God's creation of the world with wisdom means that there is a purpose for our lives on earth.

As ever before, and now even more seriously, our children and our adolescents search for meaning to their lives. Why am I here? Who cares about my existence?

Here is my answer:

I do not believe that God programmed the world at creation to include me or you. I do not believe that fertilization of one particular egg by one particular sperm was part of God's plan at the outset.

But, I do believe that God created the world with the specific and purposeful intent that some human sperm would fertilize some human eggs and result in conception and the creation of a human being.

So, to our children to our adolescents and to all of us who wonder why they are here, here is what Judaism would say: Mazal Tov. You won the sweepstakes. You didn't even have to buy a ticket, you are the recipient of the greatest prize in the world: life.

Now, do something about it.

According to the Mishna, God created one human being at first in order to teach us many things: that the one who saves a single life is as though he saved the entire world, that all of us are, in the end, equal to each other, that God can create many human beings each with the stamp of the divine yet each different one from the other and finally, that each person will be able to look at him or herself and say: "The world was created for my sake."

This sounds so terribly arrogant unless you allow the person next to you to say the same thing and you figure out a way that you and she and the person down the street and the person halfway around the world, will all be able to say it.

When our children look at us and say: "Why?", we need to have an effective answer and it is this answer, which served our ancestors for countless generations until we started thinking it was hokey, which is the best: This whole world was created with purpose and you are part of it. Act like it. Take responsibility for your small part of this great universe and do the best you can with the gift you have been given because if you waste it, it will go to no one else, and your piece in this enormous puzzle can not be filled by anyone but you.

That truth too might be inconvenient for those wanting less out of the world than to fulfill God's expectations of them. But, for those who seek meaning in their lives: it is a sanctifying elevating truth.

So, I believe in a world created with intelligence and a purpose so that its most sanctified creatures can conduct themselves with intelligence and purpose.

Don't be afraid of it. If you can't believe it in literally, act like you can.

Realize that the future of our world depends upon us acting intelligently and creatively to continue, as God intended for us to do, the creation of the world.

And, finally, realize that if this world was created with a purpose, so were you. Find out what it is and live it.

There was a time in our tradition when the phrase: "Let Din v'let dayan". "There is no judgment and there is no judge", was considered the ultimate theological challenge to Judaism and the one who said it was considered a heretic.

Sometimes, I wonder about Divine judgment myself and sometimes throw up my hands trying to figure out why we don't see the evidence of such a judgment and I don't believe it is heretical to wonder where the true judge really is.

I would prefer to change this ancient quotation.

I think the ultimate challenge to Jewish faith are the words: "Let Briyah v'let boray". "There is no creation and no creator".

We all need to be heretics on occasion but on this one point, heresy will doom us to a life devoid of meaning, purpose and hope.

Let us recapture that which is ours. Let us go back to the beginning of our faith and learn from the ultimate and most important truth our people have ever stood for, embracing the distant past so that it can inform the present and preserve the future for all human beings.

Let us repeat that truth every day: Beraysheet Barah Eloheem et Hasmayim v'et ha'aretz. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth with wisdom and with purpose. Let us live our lives in this new beginning in the same way.

Robert Dobrusin, Rabbi
Copyright © 2006, Robert Dobrusin.
Permission is granted for distribution of this message providing that it is distributed in its entirety and with full attribution, including this copyright statement.

This message was originally posted on October 11, 2006.

Please send comments or suggestions to Rabbi Robert Dobrusin.