The creation of the world is about to be celebrated in our annual readings from the first book of the Torah, beginning with “In the beginning, God created…” It is a time to reflect, to consider the awesome beauty of the world as well as our own efforts to live up to a divine image. It is also a time that reminds us of oneness, as we recite yet again the Shema, “Hear Oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” The oneness of God was considered to be a revolutionary step in the spiritual development of mankind. Oneness has been imagined and reimagined over the generations, and I leave it to theologians to define it in more profound ways than I possibly can. For me, oneness has taken on very local meaning, thanks to a recent interest I have developed in the Great Lakes and the water of our region.

Dan Egan, a prize-winning journalist, has written The Death and Life of The Great Lakes. My book group has selected it for next month’s discussion. Egan’s book is a dramatic study of the history of the lakes, human interventions, and the disastrous results that those have brought.

The Great Lakes provide 20% of available surface fresh water for us. We, in Rochester, New York, are fortunate to live in the Great Lakes watershed, which entitles our towns and villages to take our drinking water from Lake Ontario. (We take water from Hemlock and Canadice Lakes as well, but obviously Lake Ontario is a much bigger supply.) In the event that other communities beyond the Great Lakes watershed run low, they may turn to our water supply and there will be challenges posed to existing legislation that protects the water for us.

At the same time that we live within biking distance of this life-sustaining treasure, most of us are unaware of where our water comes from – Egan says that as many as 75% of Americans have no idea about the source of their drinking water. Yet many would profess to know that the bible says that on the second day of Creation, the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. In Biblical terms, water was one of the first elements of the Creation, as we know that without water, life is unsupportable. How is it that water occupied such a primary spot in the Creation story, and yet, we pay so little attention to it?

Our attention is brought back to water with the practice of Tashlikh (‘cast off’), which takes its origin from the book of Micah, 7:18-20, “You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.” Jews gather during the High Holidays (usually on Rosh Hashanah) on the banks of a body of water, usually running water, into which penitents throw bread crumbs (traditional), bird seed (for the ecologically aware), or pebbles (in those waters in which it is forbidden to throw organic matter). The crumbs, seeds, or pebbles are stand- ins for sins, which are carried away and, like the purpose of much of the High Holiday liturgy, this discarding helps us begin the New Year with pure hearts and souls.

I have participated in Tashlikh on the banks of the Saint Joseph River in South Bend, Indiana, where we threw pebbles. I have led a group of elders to the banks of the retention pond next to a senior living facility in Brighton, New York. But members of my own synagogue, Temple B’rith Kodesh, cross the parking lot behind the building to stand by a creek. Most are unaware that this water is the Buckland Creek and is at the heart of a sub watershed that lies within the Lake Ontario watershed, or basin, which covers nearly 25,000 square miles. On this occasion, we appreciate its picturesque qualities, but rarely consider that the creek is part of a much larger story that resonates with our own spiritual journey during the Days of Awe.

Buckland Creek originates underground about a mile west of Temple B’rith Kodesh, most likely fed by springs and snowmelt on the grounds of the old Rochester Psychiatric Center. From this underground source it emerges and carries with it random bits of matter, much as the sources of our own thoughts and behaviors are often hidden from our understanding but emerge in words and actions. By the time it reaches us on the bridge near the TBK parking lot, with our hands full of birdseed to cast away, it is quiet and can hardly seem to be flowing at all. If we followed it east, we would cross the Brickyard Trail, traverse the grounds of the schools at Twelve Corners, and ultimately Buckland Creek would join Allen’s Creek, and from there join Irondequoit Creek, Irondequoit Bay, and empty into Lake Ontario. Lake Ontario flows into the Saint Lawrence River, and the ultimate destination for those waters is the Atlantic Ocean. So, in actuality, when we stand at the bridge over Buckland Creek and cast in our choice of sin proxy, we are fulfilling the words of Micah to cast sins into the sea.

Rabbi Moses Isserles (d. 1592) reminds us that “the depths of the sea allude to the existence of a single Creator that created the world and that controls the world by, for example, not letting the seas flood the earth. Thus, we go to the sea and select upon that on New-Year’s Day, the anniversary of Creation. We reflect upon proof of the Creator’s creation and of His control, so as to repent of our sins to the Creator, and so he will figuratively ‘cast our sins into the depths of the sea.’” While we may not at that moment be casting our sins into the sea, the “oneness” of creation, exemplified by the flow of our Buckland Creek into the Atlantic Ocean, means that the bearers of our sins find their way to the seas and merge with the waters that were among the earliest elements of the Creation of the one God.

As we meditate during the Ten Days on the purity of our spirit, we should also be meditating on the purity of the waters, which bear the holy imprint of the Divine. The scraps of paper, the pieces of plastic, the random bits of garbage also enter the creek along with our crumbs, seeds, and stones. In addition to cleansing ourselves, let us make a commitment to cleansing our water. We can begin as congregations by understanding where our properties are situated in the overall water supply, and casting not only sins but good intentions into these interconnecting sources of life. Our tiny bit of the watery Creation lives at our back door; let us be good stewards of its journey to the sea.

Marjorie Barkin Searl
Chief Curator, Retired
Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester