We come to Bereshit each year with the same Torah text before us and, if we are doing our work, not the same person within us. After the Days of Awe and the cleansing of Yom Kippur, we emerge from the Succah, dance with the Torah, and then begin again. This yearly cycle insists that renewal is not a slogan; it is a Divine plan.
The Mishna of Yoma ends with Rabbi Akiva’s great consolation: “Happy are you, Israel! Before Whom are you purified, and Who purifies you? Your Father in Heaven… The mikveh of Israel is Hashem. Just as a mikveh purifies the impure, so does the Holy One, Blessed Be He, purify Israel” (Yoma 8:9).
Maimonides then reminds us that absolution is not so easily obtained: Yom Kippur atones for sins between a person and God, but for offenses between people, reconciliation and repair are required (Laws of T’shuva 2:9). No holy day can do that in our place.
The “restart” is real, but it is earned. And right then, while the children munch on candy, the community of worshippers open the Torah scroll and begin anew with Bereishit. The Shulchan Aruch records our custom to complete the Torah and immediately start again (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 669). The message is simple: renewal is continuous.
Rashi, commenting on “hayom hazeh - this day” (Deut. 26:16), tells us that the Torah’s commands should be “as new in your eyes every day” (Rashi to Deut. 26:16). While the text is the same; our vision must be new.
The Midrash present Creation as a lesson in re-creation. “When the Holy One created Adam the first man, He created him two-faced,” and only afterward separated into man and woman (Bereishit Rabbah 8:1) A world is made, assessed, and then refined. We are a people who learn from the first chapters that God Himself “resets” creation toward its proper form.
This is similar to the teaching that Teshuva preceded the world. If during the course of the year our lives veered away from the proper course, Teshuva is our reset button to setting things back in place. HaRav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook places Teshuvah at the center of world health, as the Gemara teaches: “Great is repentance, for it brings healing to the world” (Yoma 86a). Rabbi Kook argues that T’shuvah is not escape from life but a return to life, to one’s deepest self and purpose.
Crucially for our generation, Rabbi Kook distinguishes between destructive guilt and clarifying remorse. When guilt festers, it darkens the soul; when it is faced, ordered, and channeled into responsibility, it becomes light and energy. In his language (see Orot HaT’shuvah, Ch. 14), “Teshuvah illuminates the soul and transforms sadness into joy.” The point is not to wallow in feelings of guilt but to convert inner accusation into constructive return and renewal.
A National Moment
This year’s return of the hostages stirred the nation (may they all be returned). We felt relief, gratitude, and also the echo of months of helplessness. Our sages long ago gave expression to the interwoven responsibility of our People: “Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh” - “all Israel are guarantors for one another.” That truth magnifies both our pain and our duty (See Yoma 86 on the ripple effect of a single person’s moral repentance).
During the past two years, many Israelis turned their anger on the Prime Minister with unusual intensity. One can argue, psychologically, that some of this was projection: the nation’s unresolved guilt for not being able to help the captives, for not being “there” enough, and perhaps for not living their family lives in the best possible manner, was transferred onto a single figure who could be blamed in our stead.
Now, with family reunions unfolding and stories told, we have the spiritual room to process guilt properly, through accountability, introspection (cheshbon hanefesh), and attempts to create unity as opposed to division and the outpouring of rage. That is Rabbi’ Kook’s enlighten path - to manage guilt so it does not manage you; to turn feelings of destruction into Teshuvah that repairs.
What the Restart Requires
The Jewish reset is not amnesia - to forget what was. It is an assignment. Yom Kippur teaches that the “mikveh” of God’s closeness cleanses but human wrongs need human repair.
The joining of Simchat Torah to Bereshit teaches that renewal is constant work. We finish and begin, with the call to keep the words “as new.”
If we take these lessons seriously, then this season’s restart can be more than rhetoric. It can be a cure. Let the families who suffered be the center of our attention; let our debates be strong but our peoplehood stronger; let our guilt do its brief, clarifying work, and then let our focus turn to hope and creation.
We have begun the Torah again. The question is whether we will let it begin within us again - together.