Imagine you have a friend who cannot stop raving about a book. "I love this book. You have to read this book.” One day an Amazon package sits at your front door. Inside is the book, along with a note from your friend: "I hope you find this book as life-changing as I do." You cannot wait to begin. But the moment you open the book, you notice something strange.

There is no beginning. No page 1. The book begins on page 2. There is only an ongoing story.

That is true of Judaism's most foundational text. Open any one of the sixty-six tractates of the Talmud and you will notice that there is no page 1. The first page is always page 2. There is only an ongoing story.

And it’s not just true of the 66 tractates of the Talmud. The same thing happens a 67th time in our Torah this morning. As generations of commentators have observed, when the Torah tells the creation story, it does not begin with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, alef. It begins with the second letter, beit. There is no page 1. There is only an ongoing story.

What is true of our sacred texts is true of our lives. None of us is born on page 1. All of us are born on page 2. Each of us enters a story already in progress.

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