ABSTRACT
In practice, for correct descriptions and understandings of formative events, of foundational people, of God, of themselves, Jews have traditionally relied on the texts of Torah, and by way of these descriptions and these understandings they have traditionally initiated the young, in the home and within the community’s institutions of education. Abraham Joshua Heschel, the renowned twentieth-century philosopher of Judaism, once attributed Rashi’s remark to what he called the pan-halakhic attitude of some Jewish sages, scholars, and thinkers, those who posit the essence of Torah and Judaism as legal commandment. In thinking of a paradigmatic expression of the teaching of beginnings, ways and ends within Judaism, what may plausibly come to mind are the month of Tishre and its festivals: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot. The month of Tishre, like Creation and the Garden of Eden, is about existential categories of existence.
