Fresh off this year’s High Holy Day observance, and hopefully just a bit lighter after the net effect of the fast and its break, on comes Simchat Torah and the re-rolling of the scroll back to the beginning, the book of Genesis. We approach the text as an old friend, but a year older and hopefully a bit wiser. And with a new set of concerns and questions from our daily lives. 

This year I’m thinking a lot about two issues very much in the news - AI and climate change. What bearing do the opening chapters of Genesis have on these fraught subjects? Please read chapters 1-3 and the first two sentences of Chapter 5. If you don’t have the text at home, here is a link to these sections, in Hebrew and with the JPS English translation:

https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/513383?editor=1

For those considering a visit to our Torah study group, please drop in for a session. New voices in the discussion are welcome! We have participants at all levels of learning. We treat the Torah as spiritual literature, as a text relevant to here and now, though written there and then; a tree of life, as the prayer goes. Our focus is the English text. No knowledge of Hebrew is needed to follow the discussion or to participate (though occasionally we will unpack a Hebrew phrase when it enhances the meaning, highlights an ambiguity that translators have wrestled with, or is a bit of wordplay that adds depth to the text). All translations are welcome; sometimes different translations become part of the discussion.

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89352244948?pwd=omS0bsiaNdr4aTDdLC5XYA69Ev4ZoF.1

Meeting ID: 893 5224 4948

Passcode: 188627