And You Shall Create - Book Review
- Dr. Moria Levy
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 19 hours ago
Introduction
The book "And You Shall Create" ("Vyatzarta" in Hebrew) was published in 2025 by a pair of authors - Rabbi Yuval Ohali, an educator and content creator, and Ms. Shira Elitzur, a creator and creativity expert. An advertisement for the book caught my eye and interested me. On the poster was an image of the book being used as a doorstop, with a teaser asking users how else they think the book could be used. The ability of the authors, or more accurately, the creators, to laugh at themselves and to allow thinking about the book not just as a textbook made me realize that this was an interesting book written differently and perhaps containing new messages.
The book uses the metaphor of growing a tree and discusses the roots, fertilizer (manure), light, and other growth components used to nurture an idea. The diverse examples and sources refer to classical literature and Jewish texts.
Main topics covered:
Basic assumptions
Lack: a foundation
Idea development
Incubation
Sharing
Stabilization
Moving forward
Did I learn new things? Yes, despite this not being the first book I've read on the subject.
The book is only available in Hebrew, but I hope this is temporary. In the meantime, I recommend that even those who don't speak Hebrew at least read the summary. It's worth it.
Basic Assumptions
Creativity is a "muscle." Implications:
We all can do it
We must strengthen it, or it will weaken.
Creativity requires courage: courage to dream, think differently, and tell others.
There are limits to creativity; you can't go anywhere with it.
The process is essential, not just the result; it improves our ability to reach a good result and has value.
Lack: a Foundation
The lack teaches us about a need that can be improved.
Identifying and distilling the lack is critical to initiating a process that will end with us smiling and people using what we've created.
Deepening our understanding of the lack is necessary to perform the distillation. Think of a dentist who widens and deepens the hole before filling it or a gardener who deepens the hole before planting.
Deepening the lack, understanding it, and strengthening it as lacking are the first infrastructures that will allow us to discover more layers and better understand the potential user's actual needs.
How do we do this? Take the subject perceived as lacking and ask endless questions about its essence and implications.
Disclaimer: Deepening the lack requires much work; this is not an excuse to give up or cut corners.
Idea Development
Finding and developing a creative idea requires thinking without fixation and boundaries. This is why children are good at creativity.
Tools:
Eliminating boundaries
Asking questions
Finding additional uses for components and materials before our eyes
Changing our perspective on reality
Directing our attention inward to ourselves instead of outward to the world
Questioning and listening to children and young people
Association games
Understanding the box and templates in which we find ourselves, including their advantages; understanding the benefits and circumstances in which it is worthwhile and possible to think outside the box
Building on others' solutions while offering added value that takes them to a new, more distant place and direction
Keep a journal of ideas, memories, and images; mark interesting words.
Reverse thinking - understanding the guiding concepts and trying to reverse them as a tool for reaching innovative ideas.
Lay out components and try to create new connections, even without adding other elements.
Supportive environment:
Supportive people
Enabling place
Time
Absorption of movies, creations, exhibitions, and other works
Connecting with "self."
Incubation
Incubating ideas, or half-ideas, is a stage that may not seem straightforward, but it is essential for success.
Its role is to allow the right brain hemisphere to work subconsciously.
For it to succeed:
Don't lock yourself into one closed solution
Allow yourself to "let go."
Encourage branching thinking
Don't be afraid: don't freeze, don't run away, and don't fight
Recognize that failure is part of meaningful success. It's not so negative, but instead another step on the way
Foster flexible thinking that allows you to move aside and think outside the box
And- sometimes, you are ahead of your time, and the incubation is more prolonged than you thought. Still, when the time comes, the idea will surprise you in a different environment, in a different context, and with other resources.
Sharing
Sharing with other ideas:
Sometimes, the idea will not develop on its own, and it is precisely its connection to dreams, ideas, existing ventures, and activities, with an emphasis on unconventional connections, that can grow it into a unique idea and solution.
Sharing with people:
An idea cannot succeed if it stays in your drawer.
First, the world must recognize it and use it.
Second, others can significantly assist in all stages of finding the idea, suggesting additional directions, criticism, refining, and more.
Third, when people use your idea, they will take it to a new, distant, and interesting place you did not imagine. It's essential to know how to let go and not insist on keeping the idea as you created it. Everyone will lose.
Stabilization
For an idea to mature into a solution, stability is required in several dimensions:
Stability of a structured and orderly process (as described above) that advances the seed to a blooming tree.
Stability of data and information on which decisions are based.
Stability of the idea owner in leading and advancing the idea.
Emphases:
Stability, as described above, provides the possibility for flexibility, like a spine, which, in its stability, allows a person to bend and move in different directions. As such, it allows dealing with changes, and there will be changes, whether we want them or not.
The values, principles, and fundamental beliefs that underlie an idea are the stabilizing backbone of the idea and its owner.
Self-confidence is required for the idea owner to be stable. However, this is a recurring cycle; stability builds the leader's self-confidence to implement the new idea.
Moving Forward
Creation is a journey. It requires inspiration, but no less. It requires process, routine, perseverance, commitment, and patience.
The creative process is cyclical, in which we always create; each peak teaches about another peak—higher and further away—and a new goal that can be defined.
Summary
The world is good, but there is still much room for improvement. Creativity as a basis for improving the world is not just a right; it is everyone's duty.
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