Genesis 2:1-3

To be completed is far from being finished. This completion, in particular, is only a rounding off in anticipation of being rolled ahead. Initially, we read, “It was evening and it was morning, Day Six,” as though Day Six, with its two-fold story of beasts and a grammatically patriarchial masculine image both female and male, has ended a cycle.

However, we are now met with a “Then” and an “and” that is both future (next in a sequence) and present (still connected). The noting of this Day moves from a stamp of approval (evening and morning as a way for good to be fruitful and multiply) to a Day Seven raising expectation of what could surpass the “very good” us of Day Six?

We lose the refrains—”saw that it was good” and “evening and morning.” We are, instead, introduced to “blessed” and “hallowed.” An active calling forth becomes an active cessation. The blessing is that we have what we have to live with (six Days of context setting). This is hallowed by partnering with it—engaging it and one another as our “image.” The creative G*D has become a ceased g()d—ceased from “all His task that He had created to do” (Genesis 2:3b, Alter)

This ceasing may be the most difficult of the Days. Before Day One and after Day Six is a great blessing not contingent upon being recognizably present. It is a blessing of all the chaos that has gone before and the potential or indeterminacy of a chaos of futures to come. In both instances, it takes an active choice to call forth and subsequently let loose to be as fruitful and multiplicative as a context with its choices will affirm. The abundance of creation occurs within an abundance of desert before and wilderness after. In a moment of “Light,” we sing our Dayenu that it is enough to have come this far.

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