All Beginnings Are Difficult

Rabbi Melanie Aron

Friday, October 24, 2008

In honor of our new members this evening, and in keeping with our weekly Torah portion, Parashat Bereisheet, the first Torah portion in the first book of the five books of Moses, I thought I would say a few words about beginnings.

Thinking about beginnings I remembered a rabbinic saying- kol hatchalot kashot, all beginnings are difficult, but I didn’t remember where it came from- so I Googled it.

What I learned immediately is that many cultures have similar sayings. With very little effort at all, I found parallel expressions in Russian, Greek, French, German, Latin and Spanish. In addition I found that, “All Beginnings are Difficult”, was the title of an article about the University of Mohammed, in Rabat Morrocco and also of a treatise about Jewish Arab entrepreneurship. In business, in education, in agriculture, in life, it seems a universal that it’s hard to get started.

I did also find the source of the Hebrew phrase I was looking for. It’s from Midrash Mechilta, a commentary on the Book of Exodus. Its context is not the creation of the world, as that was God’s work, and presumably nothing is difficult for God, but the formation of the Jewish people as a nation, a beginning that was fraught with danger and challenge.

The American Jewish author, Chaim Potok uses this rabbinic teaching as the opening sentence of his book, In the Beginning. The hero, David Lurie, remembers bursting into tears as a nine year old, frustrated with his studies, confronting Rashi’s commentaries for the first time. He is chastened by his father, “You want to understand everything immediately? You only began to study this commentary last week. All beginnings are hard.” Later as a graduate student, his gentle teacher chides him, “be patient,” and later, he reminds his students, “you cannot swallow all the world at one time.”

There is uncertainly in beginnings; will the vines we plant take root, and there is the challenge of waiting for results. Think how long those who planted trees waited to enjoy the fruits of their efforts. Sometimes the first outcome of our efforts is disappointing. The response to Moses’s first appeal to the Pharoah to let the people go was for Pharoah to make the situation of the Israelite slaves even more difficult by imposing new harsher rules. Similarly when Eliezer ben Yehudah first began his efforts to revive the Hebrew language, he was very literally treated like a madman. Even God faced challenges- the first chapters of Genesis are full of stories of sin and betrayal, jealousy and murder, hardly success stories.

At the beginning of any effort, we lack the momentum that sees us through difficulties we experience in ongoing projects. Sometimes its that momentum that keeps us going when things get rocky at home or at work.

Because beginnings are difficult, we applaud our new members willing to take the plunge into something new- a new congregation for some, and for others, an entirely new experience of being part of a religious community. We hope we have made it at least a little bit easier. You need not swallow up the whole world at once, but we hope you are glad that you took the plunge.