Rosh Hashanah Message: Rabbi Michael Bernstein

When Avraham looks to G-d for assurance that his descendants will be numerous as well as great, G*d shows him the night time sky and challenges him: “Count the stars, if you can and know that your descendants will be as numerous.” Why does G-d instruct Abraham to try to do the impossible task of counting the stars rather than simply refer to their infinite multitude? Avraham is to learn the lesson that our inability to grasp the stars is not a temporary condition but the very nature of their greatness and, by extension, ours.

We too look to the stars, knowing that whatever scientific understanding we have about their origin and make up, we will always give way to the awe with which we wonder at their immeasurable vastness and beauty. It is fitting that Rosh Hashana, despite being called the birthday of the world, is not the day that the stars were made or any other of the luminaries and appointments of the heavens, but, it was the day when the stars first were given their meaning – the day that human beings were created and the stars and all of the heavens and earth could be seen. In our tradition we know that we are created to be in the image of G-d which dwarfs even the nature of the stars themselves

Rabbi Michael Bernstein is the spiritual leader of Congregation Gesher L’ Torah in Alpharetta.