Who set [the world's] cornerstone When the morning stars sang together, And all the divine beings shouted for joy? Who closed the sea behind doors When it gushed forth out of the womb?. -JOB 38:6-8

When the Holy One began to create the world, the Holy One made it as a child grows within its mother. Just as the fetus in its mother's womb starts at the navel and spreads out this way and that way to the four sides, so too the Holy One made the world, making the foundation stone first and from it spreading out the world. It is called the foundation stone for from it the Holy One began to create the world. -MIDRASH TANHUMA, PEKUDEI 3

Midrash Tanhuma tells that the Holy One creates the world just as a fetus grows in the womb-starting with a small point that will grow outward into a vast, complex entity. The world is not fixed in place like the beams of a house but continues to grow, like a living creature. The tale invites us to imagine that in Elul, the Shekhinah is pregnant with the world. From a single dot, the universe begins to spread out like a growing embryo. What was once divine matter becomes fish and stars and human beings. We, the creatures of the world, are the fruit of the first Creation. Creation is still unfolding, outside us and inside us. In this season we re-enter the womb of Elul to be remade. We remember we are part of Creation, and it is in our nature to grow.