October 7, 2026|כ"ו תשרי ה' אלפים תשפ"ז When a World Is Destroyed, Begin Again
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Describing the painstaking trial and error process that eventually led to the creation of the incandescent light bulb, prolific inventor Thomas Edison famously said, “I have not failed. I have merely found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” British entrepreneur James Dyson reports that he built 5,127 prototypes of his cyclonic vacuum before reaching the one that was commercially successful.
John Maxwell, author of numerous books on maximizing personal and leadership potential, writes in Failing Forward that “the difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure.” There is no shortage of stories about highly accomplished people who overcame early setbacks. Abraham Lincoln lost multiple elections, failed in business, and suffered a nervous breakdown. The Beatles were turned down for a record deal because they were told their sound wasn’t appealing. Michael Jordan famously recalled the pain of not making his high school varsity basketball team. These individuals didn’t allow disappointment to define them. They regrouped, recalibrated, and pressed forward.
But is that capacity reserved for exceptional people? Is it only great entrepreneurs, leaders, athletes, and innovators who possess the tenacity to begin again? Can every one of us learn not only how to survive disappointment, but how to rebuild after a world we knew has been shattered?
The Midrash notes something fascinating about the Torah’s description of the first day of creation: Rav Yehuda b. R. Simon said: “‘Let there be evening’ is not written here, but ‘And there was evening’; hence we know that a time-order existed before this.” Rabbi Abahu said: “This proves that the Holy One, blessed be He, went on creating worlds and destroying them until He created this one, and declared, ‘This one pleases Me. Those did not please Me.’”
What does this mean? Is Rabbi Abahu asserting as a historical fact the existence of previous worlds that were created and destroyed? And if the Midrash is speaking metaphorically, what is it trying to teach us? Hashem is infinite, omnipotent, and perfect. What could it possibly mean for Him to create and destroy until He got it “right”? Could He not envision and create the correct world from the start?
Rav Soloveitchik explains that of course Hashem is perfect and could have created the world as He wished from the outset. But the Torah describes creation this way to establish a model and precedent for us. The first lesson of creation is that a destroyed world does not mean creation is over. When one world comes crashing down, another can be built. If the Torah describes Hashem, as it were, creating again after destruction, then we are being taught that we can do the same.
Indeed, the Talmud (Pesachim 54b) tells us that seven things were created before the world, and one of them is teshuva. Before human beings existed with the capacity to make mistakes, before we could fail, fall, become broken or lose our way, the possibility of repair, return, and renewal was already woven into existence. Teshuva isn't an afterthought or an emergency exit. It precedes the world because beginning again is part of the very architecture of creation.
If we anticipate complete perfection in our lives, our expectations will inevitably be shattered. Perfectionism is not only unrealistic, but also counterproductive and ultimately damaging. We don't strive for failure, but when it comes, we refuse to be defined by it. We learn from it, grow through it, and build from it. Winston Churchill captured the idea when he described success as going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.
Bereishis bara Elokim can therefore be heard not only as “In the beginning God created.” Perhaps one of the greatest gifts God created is Bereishis itself, the capacity for a beginning. And not only one beginning. Another beginning and another. Fresh opportunities, new chapters, the ability to say that what happened yesterday may shape me, but it will not imprison me.
Carol Dweck, in her book Mindset, contrasts a fixed mindset with a growth mindset. In a fixed mindset, everything depends on the outcome. Failure means the effort was wasted. A growth mindset recognizes that what we become through struggle can matter as much as the result we originally sought. As she memorably writes, “Becoming is better than being.”
Rabbi Soloveitchik developed this insight in 1957 while reflecting on the Jewish world following the Holocaust. Entire worlds had been destroyed. Families, communities, yeshivos, towns, centuries of Jewish life had gone up in smoke. And yet the Jewish people did what we have somehow done throughout our history. We mourned, we remembered, and then, without ever forgetting what was lost, we built again. New families were formed. New yeshivos were established. Communities flourished. The State of Israel arose. Torah life was rebuilt in places where people had wondered whether it could ever recover.
And then came October 7. Once again, in a way our generation could scarcely have imagined, Jewish worlds were destroyed. Families were shattered, homes were burned, and communities along the Gaza border were devastated. Precious lives were brutally taken and hostages were dragged into captivity. Soldiers went off to defend our people and some never returned, while others returned carrying wounds visible and invisible. The sense of security Israelis had built over decades was shattered in a matter of hours. Jews around the world discovered that assumptions we had made about our safety, our neighbors, our universities, our workplaces, and even some of our friends were not as secure as we thought.
October 7 destroyed worlds. But it did not destroy our capacity to create them again. In the three years since that horrific Simchas Torah, we have watched Bereishis unfold before our eyes. We have seen wounded soldiers fight through agonizing rehabilitation to stand again, some even to stand beneath a chuppah. We have watched displaced families return and communities rebuild. We have seen reservists leave careers, businesses, spouses, and children because Am Yisrael needed them. We have watched weddings celebrated in the shadow of war, babies named for fallen heroes, Torah learned in their memory, and extraordinary acts of chesed performed on a scale that defies description. We have watched Jews who had felt distant rediscover their people, their faith, their tefillin, their Shabbos candles, their Torah, and their connection to Eretz Yisrael.
Our enemies believed that by destroying Jewish homes they could destroy the Jewish future, but they have never understood us. When a world is destroyed, our response is Bereishis. Begin again.
That lesson isn't only national or historical. All of us experience moments when a world we had constructed no longer exists. Sometimes circumstances beyond our control shatter the world we thought we knew. Other times, we make choices we deeply regret and wonder whether we have permanently forfeited the person we hoped to become. A dream can collapse, a relationship can unravel, a plan we were counting on can disappear, or life can simply turn out very differently from what we had imagined.
At those moments, the yetzer hara whispers that this is the end of the story. The world you built is gone. You failed. You lost too much. Too much time has passed. You cannot go back. And perhaps you can't go back. But Bereishis teaches that you don't have to.
Hashem doesn't ask us to recreate yesterday. He gives us the capacity to create tomorrow. The world that was destroyed may never return exactly as it was, but another world can still be built.
The Torah could have begun with almost anything. Instead, its first word is Bereishis. Perhaps because before we can learn any other lesson, we need to know this one: there is always the possibility of another beginning. Whatever world has fallen apart, whatever mistake we have made, whatever disappointment we carry, whatever chapter didn't turn out as we hoped, it doesn't have to be the last chapter.