Dust of the Ground

In the story of Creation, which we read this week as we turn back to the beginning of Genesis, the Torah tells us that Adam was formed "from the dust of the ground." The Rabbis suggest that some of this dust came from all the corners of the earth, and that some of it was even from the future site of the Temple in Jerusalem. The lesson of the dust is clear. Each of us is in part, according to this lesson, partially the House of the Lord (as the Temple was). Each of us should also be intimately connected to the world around us. Our religious lives have at their very core a link to the physical world. Work to make yourself an embodiment of God's will in the world just as you are, through His will, an embodiment of God's world. Rabbi Benson