This column is not usually parsha-based. But the opportunity to begin a new series of Torah columns requires starting fresh. And that can only be done with the power of Bereishis.

Rav Menachem Kasher once published an entire volume of his Torah Sheleimah on the one word Bereishis. One of the lessons we can derive from this achievement is that there are many beginnings. The point is to get started.

Rav Meilech Biderman tells the story of a man who rented an apartment in Eretz Yisroel to a gentile. Each month, the man neglected to pay the rent, despite repeated reminders and pleadings. Not wanting to make a chillul Hashem, the Yid tried many approaches, using gentle persuasion, begging and appeals to his decency. Nothing worked, so he finally took him took court. It was not a din Torah, so the judge used his own sources and intuition. The defendant claimed that the Yid had not provided heat or water, the walls were constantly broken, etc.

The judge asked one question: “Did you ever pay any rent at all, even the first month?”

The man responded impudently, “No, I did not. It wasn’t worth it.”

The secular judge ruled with a bang of the gavel, “If you had paid at least once, that would have been a sign that you intended to do so but things changed. But since you didn’t even begin, that is an indication that you never had any intention of paying. You will therefore go to prison unless you pay for the entire year.”

Rav Elchonon Halpern, the rov of London, applied this to our time of year. We have made many commitments and kabbalos. If we haven’t kept any of them, we are in trouble. But if we tried hard and kept at least one, Hashem will see that we are doing our best and will give us the siyata diShmaya to succeed.

The Gemara (Brachos 6a) teaches that we should be extremely careful about davening Mincha. Many reasons have been given for this warning. One is that this is our daily difficult test. It is easy to daven Shacharis because we have not yet started our busy day. At the end of the day, too, we can always daven Maariv before we go to sleep. But when we take time off from our work and busy schedule, we are showing Hashem that we truly care.

The Arizal, however, taught a profound lesson about Mincha. The Gemara (Sanhedrin 38b) reveals that Adam was created, sinned and was evicted from Gan Aden on the same day. After he sinned, he davened Mincha and begged forgiveness from Hashem. In other words, the very first tefillah anyone ever davened was Mincha. The Maharal always tells us that the matrix of every event and action is the first time it was done. Hence the importance of Mincha.

Rav Goel Elkarif adds a beautiful thought. The Medrash (Bereishis Rabbah 22:13) tells us that Adam Harishon met his son, Kayin, and asked about his situation after murdering Hevel. He answered, “I did teshuvah and made up with my Creator.” Adam began striking himself on his face. “Look at the power of teshuvah, which I didn’t know.” Immediately, he composed the beautiful prayer we say every Shabbos, Mizmor shir l’yom haShabbos.

It turns out that all the zemiros we sing on Shabbos evoke that very first act of repentance. That is what the Arizal means when he says that singing zemiros has the power to inspire true teshuvah. Let us therefore take the initiative to sing zemiros on Shabbos, to make new beginnings and to seize these moments when we have been uplifted with teshuvah, mitzvos and simcha.

Rav Elkarif proceeds to relate a story with two gedolim of the last generation, Rav Boruch Toledano and Rav Yaakov Galinsky. They heard that there was a moshav near Be’er Sheva that had no mikvah. The town was half Sefardi and half Ashkenazi. They decided to travel there and raise funds to build a mikvah. Rav Toledano would speak to the Sefardim and Rav Galinsky to the Ashkenazim. The two rabbonim, who were elderly at the time, made the difficult journey, but were greatly disappointed to find only one person in the audience. Rav Toledano suggested to Rav Galinsky that since the man was Ashkenazi, he should give the drosha.

The diminutive but powerful speaker, Rav Yankele thundered from the bimah as if there were thousands there, explaining the importance of having a mikvah on the moshav. All of a sudden, a woman descended from the ezras noshim, the wife of the lone man present. She spoke directly to her husband, who appeared somewhat overwhelmed. “Did you hear the rabbi?” she demanded. “We are Holocaust survivors. The rabbi is right. We must build the mikvah. Let’s give half the sum needed.”

The man agreed and the rabbonim went to the mayor of the moshav to ask for help with the funding, but he claimed they had no money. This time, it was Rav Toledano who convinced his fellow Sefardi. “You have the money for gardens and roads, dance centers and entertainment. You must help build the mikvah.” The mayor relented and the rest is in the history books of the moshav, which today boasts yeshivos, shuls…and a mikvah.

Sometimes, you just have to get started.

I must share a story that I love to tell, but this is the right time, so I, too, will start. When I was a rov in Cleveland, there was a senior citizens home named Menorah Park. I was visiting a congregant who had retired there and was leaving when I heard my name called.

“Rabbi Feitman, I want you to see something.”

It was the chaplain of the home, but I was in a rush to leave.

“You won’t regret this. Just give me a minute,” he whispered.

He took me to the door of the shul and invited me to look through the window. Sitting there, bent over, was an elderly Yid learning Gemara with a beautiful niggun. “Okay, Reb Dovid,” I said, “I’m not that impressed. I used to visit the Home for the Sages of Israel on the Lower East Side and I saw this all the time.”

“Reb Yaakov, you don’t understand,” he responded. “Listen to his story. Ten years ago, this man entered the home but didn’t leave his room. We tried to have a daily minyan, but most of the residents were incapable of davening an entire tefillah and were wheelchair-bound or bedridden. This man was in better shape than most, but never came down to daven. I visited him in his room, inquiring why. ‘Rabbi, you don’t want me to attend your services.’ ‘Why wouldn’t I?’ I inquired. He answered that he was a Reform Jew, but his children had become religious and wanted him in a kosher facility. ‘I don’t know how to pray in Hebrew and I don’t even have any interest. I’m too old to learn new things.’”

The chaplain picked up the narrative. “I convinced him to just come once for Mincha and try it. It can’t hurt. We davened and the man held the siddur upside down. Between Mincha and Maariv, I shared a simple, short devar Torah and then we davened Maariv. After both tefillos, I was afraid I had lost the man’s interest totally. He seemed lost in thought. I was afraid he was going to ask for a transfer out of this prison. He emerged from his reverie and asked, ‘What was that thing you did between the prayers?’ ‘What thing? Oh, that was a devar Torah.’ He asked, ‘A what?’ I explained that the Bible says many things and I derived one of the many lessons from this week’s portion.

“‘That was great,’ he responded. ‘I’m in.’

“Well, Reb Yaakov, that was ten years ago. Since then, I’ve had a team of bochurim and yungeleit learning with him day and night. He came in at 80 and just turned 90. He will be making a Siyum Hashas on Sunday and you are invited.”

It is not only never too late to start. Actually, all you have to do is start.

That is the magic of Bereishis and the power of the first week of the first sedra of the year.

We bring with us the awe of the Yomim Noraim, the joy of Sukkos and the glory of Bereishis, the beginning of all beginnings. It is not just for an eighty-year-old baal teshuvah. It is not only for a child starting school. It is for all of us who need to recharge our spiritual batteries and fire up our hearts and brains.

We Daf Yomi-nicks had the pleasure of starting Bechoros just before Yom Kippur. That and bikkurim remind us that all beginnings have kedusha. All are precious and every day can be that new beginning with the Modeh Ani that reminds us of our newly purified soul. The summer may have ended and we are entering autumn, with winter ahead, but for us, it is the spring of our year. It is our youth beckoning us to learn with a new bren, with the fire ignited from Elul to Ne’ilah. It is the joy of Simchas Bais Hashoeivah and taking the kedusha of the Ushpizin into our lives. Let’s start now and, be’ezras Hashem, He will say about us all, “And Hashem saw all that He had made and behold it was all very good” (Bereishis 1: 31).

Hashem made us a beautiful world. All we have to do is to begin doing our part and all will indeed be “very good.”