Always Be Creating

My cactuses have bumps.  

Surrounding the oval shaped leaves that make up the prickly plants, several bulbs have appeared.  

“Our cacti are pregnant.” My wife quipped.  

“Those bulbs will grow a little bit more and eventually fall off the cactus. Once it does, it will grow into a cactus of its own.” 

We only had these plants a couple of months and they are already growing into more plants? Based on the number of emerging babies, from one plant will emerge many.  

This teaches us the purpose of life.  

Creation isn’t an act. We don’t have a baby, celebrate a brit milah, and move on to other mitzvot. Creation is an ongoing process that drives our entire existence, outlives us, and guides the existence of those we leave behind.  

Celebrating the ABCs of Life 

ABC – Always Be Creating.  

We celebrate the birthday of man once a year on Rosh HaShanah. We celebrate the birthday of our Exodus from Egypt once a year on Pesach. We celebrate the creation of the world every week on Shabbat.  

Every seven days Hashem commands us to recall the act of Creation itself by stopping all work and reflecting on everything that is going on around us.  

The act of creation, like every Shabbat, like every episode in the Torah, happens again and again, relevant to every generation, right to this very day.  

Creation happened last week. It happened today. It will happen next week.  

Look around you.  

At every moment there are thousands of seeds on the ground. They come from fruit trees, from flowers, embedded in the dirt waiting to become tomorrow’s grass.  

At every turn there are billions of flies, birds, and other animals all producing children. In our lifetime, we do it a handful of times (or two handfuls, Bezrat Hashem). Flies will do it multiple times in a 9–month lifespan. Born of a single seed, a single olive tree can give birth to 1,000 olives. Less than 12 months later, it gives birth to another 1,000.  

All around us are creatures growing, reproducing, and raising their progeny. The constant process of growth happening trillions upon trillions of times just on this tiny planet alone.  

The Most Important Lesson 

We call G-d: He was, He is, He will be. That is the name we recite in every blessing Baruch Ata …... 

He is the G-d of time. Time is always moving forward. He is the G-d of creation and growth. The Torah starts with “In the beginning, when G-d created . . . “The first action word in the Torah is Creation.  

That is our job. To always be creating.  

Creation is a mitzvah – a commandment. It is building a character trait. It is teaching our children Torah and Hashem’s Commandments. It is marrying a member of the opposite sex and having children.  

That is why adultery, homosexuality, and pre-marital or non-marital relations are an abomination. They destroy the world. Nothing comes out of it. No children are born. If, G-d forbid, children do come from such a forbidden relationship, they are unholy.  

Those who engage in one gender relationships take themselves out of creation. They live and they die without creating anything beyond their existence. They don’t even do anything to try and create.  

An act that creates something, like creating an angel from every mitzvah, a child from every holy marriage, an insight from the Torah, is what sustains our existence and fulfills our purpose.  

It is what we were put on His earth for. It is why we are always growing forward, getting bigger, getting older, getting wiser, and making sure we leave His world having created blessings that outlive our stay in this temporary hotel as we grow beyond even this existence.  

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David Ben Horin lives in Israel with his wife and children.