In The Beginning

By: Larry Gordon

It all started in Israel 5786 years ago. The Divine idea was to set aside one of about a billion planets in the universe and designate it as planet Earth where it would take six days to create all the various elements so that the world we live in has all we need.

Two challenging aspects of Creation was the creation of man on the sixth day and the need to understand why Hashem rested on the seventh day.

The Shabbos of Parashat Bereishis in Eretz Yisrael is something special. There is a celebratory mood in the air, with tens of thousands of young men and women preparing to study Torah for the year. The State of Israel is the greatest supporter of Torah study anywhere in the world. Yet the leaders of Torah institutions in Israel are in a constant battle with the government over monetary compensation for the families who have dedicated their lives to Torah study. Except for that bone of contention, it really is a beautiful thing to be able to see up close.

On the other hand, there is a tremendous dichotomy when you go out on chol ha’moed and see young yeshiva families going to the parks to play with their kids while you know that families in other parts of the country live in a precarious situation, with the reality of husbands, sons, and fathers on call to be dispatched to the battleground to fight Hamas in Gaza with just a few hours’ notice.

The focus of the debate is the belief that just like the military protects the people inside the borders of Israel, so it is that limud haTorah in the hundreds of yeshivas do the same. Just about anyone you discuss this matter with has a different and contrasting opinion that represents both sides of the equation on how best to defend and safeguard the land of Israel, a land which we believe Hashem has His eyes on, so to speak, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.

In fact, the prophet Isaiah prophesied that Israel would be “a light to the world—so that all the world may be saved” (Isaiah 49:6). But then the sages of the Talmud ask: “If that is the case, who is it that provides the light to Israel?” And they respond by saying that “Jerusalem is the light of the world.” It does not stop there. They inquire as to who provides the special holy light to Jerusalem? To this the sages reply that the light originates from HaKadosh Baruch Hu Himself.

As a people so attached to the laws of life as directed to us via Moshe Rabbeinu, who learned it all from Hashem Himself, it’s a little unusual that there are very few of those life dictates found in the book of Bereishis, but instead a great deal of space is assigned to teaching us many of life’s important lessons.

Bereishis, first and foremost, aside from the scientific mechanism of creation, addresses life’s fundamental dilemmas. Almost every important aspect of life can be found in this volume and indeed there is much to study and analyze.

The story of creation culminates on the sixth day with the creation of man, and shortly after that, his destined life mate Chava. It’s interesting to note that almost immediately afterward, we learn about how Hashem forbids the two humans from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but then they go ahead and do just that, causing many of the same issues we are dealing with today.

It’s here before the end of the first week since the world was created that we learn all about the blame game, so to speak. After the snake (who our sages describe as a ten-foot-high creature that apparently talks) persuades Chava to eat from the forbidden tree, she does so, and then tells her husband Adam to eat from the tree as well. Like a good man, he goes ahead and does what his wife persuades him to do.

Then the Torah tells us how Hashem confronts Adam, and when Adam says that Chava told him to eat from the tree, Hashem tells us in great detail how Adam and all mankind going forward will be punished for this act, a fact that reverberates to this very day.

So, one of the questions is: What is really going on here? Why did the snake have to go behind Adam’s back to convince Chava to eat from the tree, who in turn persuades Adam to eat the forbidden fruit? I mean, what if Hashem, or in this case the snake, spoke directly to Adam and then he did what he did without involving Chava? It seems that because Chava and the snake were involved and because Adam listened to them, the punishment meted out was more serious than if Adam had sinned by himself.

To me, it means that once Hashem told Adam not to eat from the forbidden tree, and then having a version of the “telephone game” played out with the snake telling Chava and then Chava telling Adam to eat it, it seems that as the information went down the line, Adam (being the first and wisest man) should have put the brakes on the whole process and told everyone to just drop it.

As long as we’re on the subject of apples (if that’s what the fruit was), I’m sure that if you own an Apple phone or computer, you may have noticed that the logo seems to have been inspired by this Biblical story. That is, the logo of an apple with a good-sized bite taken out of it. But that is a digression.

There’s so much more going on in Bereishis that we read last Shabbos. The parashah deals with the human challenges of life, relationships, especially the relationship between man and wife and father and son, sibling rivalries, even murder.

At the end of the parashah, it seems to indicate that Hashem had some reservations about the entire human project. But our commenters tell us that Hashem never actually verbalized these ideas, so there was never any serious consideration about expunging this human experiment.

In the meantime, we have the continuous challenge of rising up to fulfill Hashem’s will, which is to create an environment that is holy and worthy of the presence of Hashem in this otherwise mundane, physical world.

It’s a great challenge, but if we can get it done on any level, it starts right here in Eretz Israel. The idea of conducting ourselves in a physical world on a level that communicates the idea that we can overcome these obstacles, then the focus is on this week’s Torah personality, Noah, who followed Hashem’s directions against all odds.

I don’t know if it was easier or more difficult back then, but Noah is an inspiration about sticking to his purpose in a disbelieving world, and the message might be that if he was able to do it then we can too. n

Read more of Larry Gordon’s articles at 5TJT.com. Follow 5 Towns Jewish Times on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for updates and live videos. Comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome at 5TJT.com and on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.