First or Last?

by Rabbi Shais Taub

Contrary to popular misconception, the Jewish New Year of Rosh
Hashanah does not celebrate the creation of the world. It celebrates
the beginning of G-d's relationship with human beings.

You see, this Wednesday night, September 8, 2010 at sundown, will be
the precise anniversary of the day that G-d created Adam and Eve.

The Torah says: "For six days G-d made the heavens and the earth and
all that is in them, and on the seventh day He rested." But of all
those six days, the one that G-d singled out to be His anniversary as
Creator is not the actual first day that the acts of creation were
begun but the day on which He made the human being.

Now, the first human being was called Adam. The Hebrew word for earth
is "adamah" and Adam means literally "from the earth." As the Torah
tells us, Adam was actually made from the dirt.

On the other hand, the name Adam is also related to the word "edameh"
-- "I will be G-d-like."

So which is it? Are we dirt or are we Divine?

Is there such a thing as Divine dirt?

It seems that the secret of being human is that we are the highest of
the high only when we embrace being the lowest of the low. Just like
we were created last of all the creations, and yet, it is only on the
anniversary of the day that we came into existence that G-d celebrates
creation.

It's sort of like the cycle of the year. You've got to get all the
way down to the very end in order to have a new beginning.

Rabbi Shais Taub
http://www.chasidicthought.com