Readings for Saturday, October 26, 2024
Bereshit (In
the beginning)
1:1 - 6:8 Bereshit (Genesis)
The first book of the Torah and the first sedrah take their name from the first Hebrew word in the first sentence of the book. “In the beginning (Bereshit) God created the heaven and the earth.” Most of us are familiar with the tales told in Bereshit but a close reading of the text might surprise some of us as to what is really in the Torah as opposed to what Sunday School teachers have told us. Often the tales told to us as youngsters include Midrash, which are of Rabbinic origin.
The Book of Bereshit is divided into twelve sidrot (plural of sedrah) or fifty chapters. The first two sidrot and the first eleven chapters “deal with the early history of mankind in general.” The last ten sidrot or the readings from chapters twelve through fifty deal with the early history of the Israelites from Abraham through the death of Jacob.
The Sedrah of Bereshit includes the Story of
Creation, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and a series of genealogies. The reading may be broken down into the
following units:
Creation - the
first seven days: 1:1-2:2;
The Garden of
Eden - Adam and Eve: 2:3-3:23;
Cain and Abel -
Cain through Seth: 4:1-4:26; and
From Adam to Noah - Prelude to the Flood: 5:1-6:8.
Themes
Commandments
1.
The
obligation for humans to procreate (
Biblical Literacy by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin
The first sedrah brings us the first commandment. This should give us some idea as to the importance of the mitzvoth.
Creation Story
Bereshit does not tell us why God created the universe nor does it tell us why God created man. Silence on these two major topics is deafening. But the text does provide some indicators. God is a given, so there is no need to try and prove His existence. According to the Stone Chumash, “…Adam and Eve had the mission of bringing about the fulfillment of Creation by carrying out God’s commandment. They failed, and were driven into exile.” To paraphrase the commentary, humankind’s mission did not change; only the environment in which it was to be carried out changed. Instead of obeying the commandments in the ease of the Garden, mankind would have to do it in the real world of strife and contention. God punishes mankind, He does not discard us. From the start, we see the cycle of sin, punishment and repentance.
According to
Rabbi Hertz the Creation Story offers several basic tenets of Judaism:
1.
God
is the creator of the universe. While
the fact of creation is the first article of Jewish belief, there is no uniform
belief as to the manner of creation.
2.
Man
is the goal and crown of creation. Man
is created at the end of the sixth day just before God rests.
3.
Judaism
takes an optimistic view of creation and life in general. “And God saw that was good” is repeated at
least five times in the Creation narrative.
4.
The
Creation Story may be read as a parable.
5. Its purpose is to explain man’s spiritual kinship with God and not to provide a biologic blueprint.
Rabbi Telushkin
summarizes the creation list as follows:
Day 1: light;
Day 2: the sky;
Day 3: the earth, oceans and vegetation;
Day 4: the sun, moon, and stars;
Day 5: fish, insects and birds;
Day 6: the animal kingdom and human beings;
Day 7: The Sabbath, 2:2 (this is my addendum).
All people come from a common ancestor. That way no one can claim greatness based on parentage and we are all brothers and sisters with a common parent.
Creation Question: Is 2:4 through 2:7 a second creation story or is it a refinement of what happened on Day 6?
Garden of Eden
Judaism rejects the notion of Original Sin and the need for a crucified savior. As we have already noted, the Torah provides the blueprint for righteous behavior and the antidote for sin. The story does demonstrate the seriousness of sin, the existence of free will and the concept that while God may punish us, He does not give up on us. How appropriate that we should be reminded of this so soon after Yom Kippur.
Cain and Abel
This is the first example of an often-repeated tale of sibling rivalries. “Am I my brother’s keeper” is a question for which much of the Torah provides an answer. “But if you do not right, sin couches at the door. Its urge is towards you, yet you can be its master.” The tendency to do evil is in us all, but each of us can overcome it. This is another example of Judaism’s realistic, yet optimistic, assessment of the human condition. He who saves one life, it as if he saves the entire world; he who takes one life, it is as if he has killed the entire world (excuse the paraphrase, but the concept is part of the message of the story.) We know about God’s reaction to the death of Abel. We know about Cain’s reaction. But what about Adam and Eve; how did they react to the news that one of their sons had killed the other? The author(s) found room for mind numbing lists of genealogies but left out what, for modern readers, should be a matter of major concern. The death of Abel also raises questions about the fate of the righteous. Adam and Eve are punished for their sins. Great care is given to protect the life of Cain, the killer. But Abel, who is the only righteous one of the four not only is the first person to die, he meets death as the victim of a violent crime. It would seem that almost from the moment of creation that there is a lack of connection between virtue and reward and/or divine protection. Long before Job or the Shoah, the Torah presents us with this apparent contradiction. I have not been able (no pun intended) to find a commentary that addresses this aspect of the Cain and Abel story. If somebody else finds one, I hope they will share it with me.
Equality
The commentators agree that men and women are equal before God. Does the version of creating women described in chapter 2 demean women? No; quite the contrary since each level of creation is higher than the one that preceded it. Therefore, since woman was created after man, she would be the superior being.
Eve
The common
conception is that Eve was created from Adam’s rib. Actually, the Hebrew word is “tsela”, which
may be translated, as side, as well as rib.
In other words, the first human was just that, all humanity, male and
female. In creating woman, God took one
side or aspect of humanity and separated it thus creating Eve who is the
progenitor of all females. This leads,
among other things, to a concept of relationships between men and women as a
search for their other half. This view
is expressed in the concept of somebody being the “intended” of another. Divorce or unhappy unions are the product of
two people who were not “intended” for each other being joined together. As Steinsaltz points out, the male female
relationship as exemplified by Adam and Eve did not originate with the idea of
procreation. Child bearing, that unique
female gift that makes her part of the divine creative act is only mentioned
after the episode of eating the forbidden fruit. Why is Eve cast in the role of the temptress
who leads Adam astray? One explanation
is that Eve took her instruction from Adam while Adam was the one with whom God
actually spoke. This error was corrected
at
Customs and Ceremonies
Shabbat: The origins or our first and most prevalent holiday are found in this Sedrah (2:2-2:3). Compare these verses to the opening of the Shabbat Kiddush.
The Calendar: “And there was evening and there was morning, one day” (1:5). The Jewish day begins at sunset and ends at sunset. This has had a profound influence on our observance. For example, we kindle Shabbat candles on Friday night and recite Havdalah on Saturday night.
Table Talk Questions
“God
said, ‘It is not good that man should remain alone. I will make a helper against him.’” (
What kind of tree was the Tree of Knowledge? According to Rashi, the Tree of Knowledge was a fig tree. After Adam and Eve had eaten “their eyes were open and they saw their nakedness.” They then took a fig leaf (the first object they saw) to cover their nakedness.
Why didn’t God punish Cain with death? Two factors, which are consistent with later Jewish law, saved him from death. No warning was given to him that what he was about to do was wrong and the punishment would be his own death. Also, the two requisite witnesses to the crime were not to be found.
What is the significance of the statement, “God blew into man the soul of life?” (2:7). God created the perfect combination, forming man’s body from dust and energizing his soul with the breath of life. Through this act of blowing, God created the combination of soul and body. A main source of conflict exists between our soul, which is pure and spiritual, and our body, which is geared to the physical world. Through free will, God has given man the ability to strike the balance between these two competing forces. Through Torah, God has given the Jew a guide for dealing with them.
Why are Adam and Eve punished twice for eating of the Tree of Knowledge? They are banished from the Garden for eating the fruit. They are each punished separately because they did not confess their misdeed and accept their punishment.
What is the
connection between Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel regarding punishment and
responsibility? When God asked Cain
where his brother was, Cain tried to hide his guilt with that “am I my
brother’s keeper” line. Just as his
parents sought to hide their guilt, so did the son follow in their footsteps.
From the writings of Moshe Pinchas Weisblum
Three Portents - Bereshit
and Later Biblical Episodes
- The Garden of Eden and the
Generation of the Spies - In each instance, people forfeited their right
to perform mitzvoth in comfort and ended up having to perform them in the hurly-burly
of the real world.
- Silence at Death - Adam and Eve are
silent at the death of their son.
Aaron is silent at the death of his sons.
- Seduction - The involvement of the “sons of the rulers with the daughters of man” sounds an awful lot like the “matter of Peor” described in Pinchas.
The Alter Rebbe and the
Czar’s Interrogator
In 1789, Reb
Shneur Zalman of Liadai, known as the Alter Rebbe, was falsely charged with the
capital crime of treason and thrown in the Russian prison at
Cain, Abel and the Ten
Commandments
In this week’s portion God asks Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” And Cain responds, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” The Hebrew for the term “Am I” is Anochi. The Ten Commandments begin, “I am the Lord thy God….” The Hebrew for the term “I am” is also Anochi. The Sixth Commandment, the commandment opposite the First Commandment on the Stone Tablets, reads “Thou Shalt not murder.” From this pairing of the commandments, the sages tell us that “a person who commits murder diminishes the influence of the statement that opens the whole moral code, “I am” or Anochi. When Cain says, “I do not know. Am I (Anochi) my brother’s keeper, is he really saying, I did not know that my brother was the keeper of Anochi (I am)? I did not know that by murdering my brother I was diminishing the force of Anochi (i.e., God) in the world. This is another of those reminders about the value of human life. How do we show we love God? We show our love of God by loving those whom He has created.
A
Plan for Life by
Irving Greenberg
Genesis is not so much an account of creation as a statement of God's plan. It answers the question: What kind of world did God intend to create? Bereshit describes the world as it will be when God and humanity finish their work. Subsequently in the Bible, we learn that in the process of perfecting the world, Jews will lead the way, teaching, setting an example, working alongside others, serving as witness to God's purpose and as "a light unto the nations." What then is the true-Divine-pattern of the world? The Torah's threefold answer cuts through a welter of conflicting evidence and surface contradictions:
1. This world is moving from chaos to order. In the beginning there was chaos and void (the Big Bang?); now there is natural law and order.
2. Contrary to the commonsense perception that death ultimately wins out - for all living things die - the Torah teaches that the world is moving from non-life to life. The universe is created by an infinite source of life, and by Divine will, life emerges, reproduces, proliferates, and expands. God intends the world to be filled with life - especially in its highest form, humanity. Therefore, God blesses living creatures and calls upon them to "be fruitful and multiply." To emphasize this, God repeats this commandment/blessing to humanity. According to the Talmud, that means parents are obligated to have two children. But it then cites Isaiah's view of the creation story: "The world was created not to be empty but to be settled." So the rabbis add an obligation to go further: Only if two parents have three or more children will the surplus of life over death grow.
3. Life is moving in a direction: becoming more like God. In Genesis, God displays infinite capacities for life, freedom, power, consciousness, and relationship. These are the qualities that life, created by God, possesses. In human beings, these qualities reach their highest development. The human being - man and woman - is created "in the image of God."
This is the source of humanity's mission. Because human beings are Godlike, God calls them into partnership - to rule this world and shape it. To this end, humans are given control over the earth and over other forms of life as well. But as the Torah makes clear, the human is "to work and guard it." The human must not abuse the world or kill. Since God wants life to win out, ideally all living creatures - including human beings - should be vegetarians. "And to all the animals on land, to all the birds of the sky, and to everything that creeps on earth, in which there is the breath of life, (I give) all the green plants for food" (Genesis 1:30). No life should exist by killing other life. In sum, Genesis begins by teaching that God's vision and purpose is a world in which we shall see the triumph of life. Quantitatively, the world must be filled with life. Qualitatively, life must be sustained properly. Humans, in particular, must be treated reverently, for they are in the image of God. So in God's plan, there is ultimately no room for poverty or hunger, for war or oppression, for sickness or death. In Isaiah's words: "They shall beat their swords into plowshares ... They shall not learn war anymore"; "They shall neither do evil nor destroy ... for the earth is full of knowledge of the Lord"; "Death will be swallowed up in eternity." Eons have passed since creation began and humanity made its appearance. Yet, the vision of “tikkun olam” retains its force. Almost four thousand years have passed since the first Jew lived on earth, but the vision of Genesis remains central to the Jewish mission. As Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik wrote in Halachahic Man: "The dream of creation is the central idea in the Halachahic consciousness - the idea of the importance of man as a partner of the Almighty in the act of creation.... Man's task is to ... transform the emptiness in being into a perfect and holy existence...."
The
Power of Language
“According to the TaNaCh, God made the world with words; God just spoke and the world came into being. Words therefore are not merely sounds signifying something else; they are instruments of creation, primary reality itself. They need only to be read, spoken and interpreted. And to know them is to know reality itself.” This concept has given rise to a vast fund of literature including The Book of Words by Lawrence Kushner and The Alphabet of Creation by Ben Shahn. If words are strong enough to create the world we should learn to choose our words carefully for they can harm as well as heal.
A Little Bit of Humor
Humor, even if it is of the dark variety, has helped the Jew through many difficult times. Jews can find humor in the most serious of events, including a cataclysm like being thrown out of the Garden of Eden. When God is passing out punishments, he tells Adam, “By the sweat of your fact shall you eat bread.” A poor Jew had had enough. He complained to his Rabbi that he was barely getting by even though he worked all the time except when the divine command told him to cease from toil. The Rabbi cited Bereshit, saying that by the sweat of your brow (doing hard work) shall you eat bread. The poor Jew responded that he wouldn’t mind working if at the end he had plenty of bread to show for his work. Reminding him of the part of the line about sweating, the Rabbi chimed in, “But they say it is not healthy to eat a lot when you are perspiring.”
It Is Easier To Be the Evil Inclination
- A Child’s View (4: 7 Sin crouches at the door)
A young boy engaged in a mischievous prank for which his father scolded him. “It’s not my fault,” the boy argued, “because I have an Evil Inclination that seeks to tempt me, and I was enticed.” “All the more so,” answered he father. “When it comes to diligently doing what you should, you could learn from the Evil Inclination. Look how faithfully he carries out this duty of seducing people exactly as he was commanded to do.” “True,” countered the boy, ‘but the Evil Inclination hasn’t got an evil inclination to tempt him not to do his duty, while with a person, ‘sin crouches at the door’ - that’s the Evil Inclination - ready to mislead him.” From the teachings of Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin, of blessed memory.
Sin - What is in a name?
As Meir Shavlev points out, the first time the word “sin” is used is in this week’s reading when God tells Cain, “Sin crouches at the door.” But He does not specify what “sin” is. Sinful behavior has already taken place. Adam and Eve disobeyed God at the forbidden fruit. They lied to God. And then they each tried to blame another being for their behavior. So why didn’t God tell them they were guilty of sin? As with the story of Creation, God seems to be in the naming business i.e., providing nomenclature for that which already exists. I am not sure what this means, but if you think you have answered all of the questions, this will give you something to play with.
Tree Confusion
“And the Lord God commanded the man saying, “Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it; for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die.” (2:17 & 17). “”And the Lord God said, ‘Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and bad, what if he should stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever!’ So the Lord banished him from the Garden of Eden…He drove the man out…” (2:22-24). Contrary to the popular conception, Adam is not driven out of the Garden for eating from the tree of knowledge. He is driven out because God is afraid that he will eat from the Tree of Life, a tree from which he had previously been allowed to eat. According to the Psalmist, the Torah is a tree of life and everyone who upholds it is happy. That would not seem to be Adam’s experience with the Tree of Life. And in case you have not noticed, it is “the man” who is seen as the threat for reaching out and it is “the man” who is banished. Why does the text not say “the man and the woman” were banished or “they were banished?”
Great Expectations -
Dashed Hopes
Bereshit begins on such a high note. God, merely by speaking, brings into existence this wonderful world, plants a marvelous garden and creates two beings whose only job is to look after His handiwork. Yet, just a few pages later we read that God is so repelled by human wickedness that He is sorry He created the world and decides that He “will blot it out.” But before He can act we read “But Noah found Grace in the eyes of the Lord.” Most journeys and relationships begin with high expectations. Why the one created by God went sour is something to be left to the Theologians and Commentators. But for the rest of us, this story serves as a reminder that things do not always turn out as we would have wished. But before shattering things, before throwing the baby out with the bathwater, it behooves us to look around and see what can be done to salvage the situation; to see if we can find “a Noah” on which we can rebuild our shattered hopes or dreams. Any fool can shatter the universe; it takes the voice of the divine to help us see past the black and find a new dawn. To paraphrase Victor Frankl, when a dream dies, wise people do not die with it. They find a new dream which is the secret to the Tree of Life.
Perfect Time
The White coverings for the High Holidays have been removed. The Sukkah has been taken down. The Lulav and the Etrog consigned to their appropriate permanent place of rest. The last Simchat Torah L’chaim has been drunk. Our three weeks of celebration are over. A time for sadness. No. According to some, this is the best time of the year. All the distractions have been removed. There is nothing standing in our way to get down to the real business of being Jewish - the study of Torah. This is the perfect time for us to be able to begin again at the beginning; to begin with Bereshit. The challenge is to approach the text with the same enthusiasm that we had when we first met these texts. Each year it is as if we begin in a place of nothingness and void. As we descend into the darkness, the study of Torah, which we begin as the days grow shorter, give us a chance to fill our world with the light of learning as the light of the sun grows dim.
Haftarah
42:5-43:10 Isaiah
The Man/The Book: This portion of the Book of Isaiah is attributed to the Second Isaiah or the Isaiah of the Exile. This unknown author whose writings compose almost a third of the Book of Isaiah probably lived in Babylonia at the time when Cyrus the Great of Persia was on building his empire. This so-called Second Isaiah offered comfort to the Jews in exile and predicted their imminent return to the Promised Land.
The Message: The prophet begins by referencing the story of creation. Only Isaiah sees creation not as a completed task, but as an on-going activity. Just as God punishes and forgives the sin of men in Bereshit, so he will punish and ultimately forgive the children of Israel.
Theme-Link: The connection between the sedrah and the prophetic reading are the themes of creation, sin and redemption.
Copyright;
October 2024; Mitchell A. Levin
10/24/24
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