50 Years ago, PSC started a journey. 47 years ago, The Memorial Scrolls Trust in London, England gave PSC, on permanent loan, 2 Torah scrolls rescued from the Nazis. 4 months ago, in October, 2017, I just privileged to be part of a delegation from our synagogue to return a 200-year-old Torah Scoll to its ancestral home in the town of Olomouc in the Czech Republic. Yesterday, our synagogue began the process of replacing that scroll and writing a brand new Torah scroll to commemorate the 50 year history.
It was a truly fun day with about 60 families participating in theMitzvah of helping to write a letter in that scroll. A real Breisheet moment!
Over the course of the next 9 months, we will write a new scrol, raise some significant funds for the synagogue, and build community by filling in letters from beguning to end with the able assistance of our Sofer Rabbi Moshe Druin.
It got me thinking about other B’reisheet moments I’ve had in my life.
One was sitting on the beache on the Big Island of Hawaii with my aunt Fritzi and Bubbie Ruth Z’L about 28 years ago, watching lava flow into the Pacific Ocean from the Kilauea Volcano. I remember sitting mesmerized on the shore watching the hissing lava flow into the Pacific and throwing up a huge plume of steam. It was almost as if the world was being created right in front of my eyes. Truly, “in the begining.”
Another was standing on an eerily silent highway outside of Jackson, WY on a late summer morning, gazing at the Grand Tetons in all their majesty. When I had arrived in Jackson, WY a few days earlier, it had been pouring rain and so the view had been obscured.
I remember standing awestruck on that road looking at the beautiful majestic panorama in front of me.
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Earlier that week I recall having a similar moment standing at the foot of Old Faithful.
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and the other nearby Geysers.
Then, there was staring at the majesty of Niagara Falls.
or the magnificent beauty of the City I am privileged to call home.
One Breisheet memory I don’t think I’ll ever forget was this past August in Columbia, Missouri staring up in “Radical Amazement” (as A.J. Herschel put it) at an incredibly rare totally eclipse of the Sun.
The Tao of Steve 
Steve, Thank you for sharing these special moments and pictures of magnificent natural phenomena that lead us to recite the Berachah “Oseh Maaseh Bereishit”. I remember being at sea level of the Kilauea volcano sixteen years ago. The molting lava was flowing slowly and we were allowed incredibly close to it, seeing it turn to lava rock right in front of us. Our fourteen year old kept on remarking how awesome it was and I too remember thinking that I was witnessing the creation of life before our very eyes. May you experience many more Bereisheet and Radical Amazement moments! Shabbat shalom! Solange
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