When it comes to creativity, some of us are of two minds. Important Jewish thinkers, including my mentor Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, suggest a positive view. They hold that when Genesis 1 describes the human being as the image of God, it means that God endows us with creative ability. When we create, in our limited way we are imitating him. Yet creating and creativity are not the same thing. Most useful work is not creative, in our common sense of the word. It is routine. For the most part, we do not contribute to human welfare by creating something new but rather by doing more of what has already been done, and at times refining and improving things in the process.
Creativity is therefore often treated with suspicion. Being creative entails going where nobody has gone before, which means one runs the risk of failing or being rejected. Being creative often involves a solitary activity, or one appreciated by a small in-group. The creative person is regularly judged as deviating from the common path. And even (especially) the most idealistic of us are anxious about devoting our lives to activities that may not yield benefit to others when there is so much constructive work that surely needs to be done: healing the sick, helping the destitute, teaching the ignorant, or just showing up for an “uncreative” everyday job.
