The Idea of Creation in Genesis 
Two biblical Hebrew words translate as emptiness. One, pronounced “rake,” most often means physically empty, as in “Don’t appear before me empty-handed” (Ex. 23:15), but may also describe “wicked people,” as in Judges 11:3. 
The other word, “Tohu,” describes the emptiness of the world before God’s creation. It is chaos, the opposite of Creation’s orderliness. But this primordial physical disorder becomes symbolic of moral disharmony. Biblical order is both physical and moral. “It is a fundamental biblical teaching that original, divinely ordained order in the physical world has its counterpart in the divinely ordained universal moral order to which the human race is subject.” (JPS Torah Commentary, Genesis, p. 6) When the prophet Jeremiah describes the coming destruction of Israel, he teaches, “…Watchers are coming from distant land, they raise their voices against the towns of Judah. Like guards of fields, they surround her on every side for she has rebelled against me.” (Jer. 4:16-17) The prophecy concludes, “I look to the earth, it is unformed and void (tohu); at the skies, and their light is gone.” (vs. 23) All of this occurs because the people refuse God’s commandments and worship idols. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel writes, “Civilization may come to an end and the human species disappear… the world’s reality is contingent on compatibility with God.” (The Prophets p. 10)
As we approach the High Holy Days, we take upon ourselves restoring God's creation and thereby restoring the moral order of the universe. That process of restoration, "teshuvah," begins internally with each of us, and proceeds out to the world.