Now, we in the developed world don’t have to really notice what season it is and worry about the harvest. We can always just go to the store and keep things in our refrigerators. Our real reminders are mostly commercial ones: back-to-school sales, Columbus Day sales, Halloween candy, Thanksgiving sales, Christmas catalogues. We have mostly lost a sense of seasons, except perhaps for a change of clothes or moving air conditioning to heating. We are surrounded by the technology of our own power and forget the ultimate Source of that wealth.
So we need be reminded of Creation; the story of Genesis 1 does not have to be read in a literal way to keep its power and impact. It is a story of the emergence of order from chaos and a process of the expression of meaning in the universe.
Rabbi Troster also suggests humor by including this poem by the late Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai:
The Jewish people read Torah aloud to God
all year long, a portion a week,
like Scheherazade who told stories to save her life.
By the time Simchat Torah rolls around,
God forgets and they can begin again.