Bereshit 5771

Parshah Bereshit
Genesis 1:1-6:8 Isaiah 42:5-43:11 (Isaiah 42:5-42:21)
I have read Genesis more than ten times in English. That includes almost every time I started and failed to read the 'Bible' cover to cover since I was 10 years old.


Like so many others the mysteries of the text of Genesis will captivate me until the day I die. The idea of creation itself is beyond reckoning. It is one of the prime attributes of G*d and I believe only approachable (if at all) through mysticism. When I read it this time, the methods of study I used the last several months yielded more questions than I could count.

The abundance and richness of the apparently simple narrative at hand is truly staggering. I have heard it said you could study the first word or the first sentence your entire life. So first let me recognize that in regard to my own intellectual capacity the intensity of my recent study is nothing compared to your average retired Jewish layperson. I am constantly aware of the limitations of my experience and that I am unlearning as well as learning. Yet having started at Nasso to come now to Bereshit is both exhilarating and humbling.

Therefore, this little essay must be merely a sketch of some thoughts and nowhere near an attempt to digest it all.

Note: The chapter names were not in the original text but I am using them like pot holders.

My first take-away is the following main narrative ideas: Chapter 1. The first six days of creation. Chapter 2. G*d creates the universe and makes the holy Shabbat. Man
names the animals. G*d creates woman. Man is in paradise. Chapter 3. The nachash (serpent) with eve. Eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil.
Hiding from G*d. The reasons they give for doing so to G*d. G*d curses Adam to labor, eve to painful childbirth, and the serpent to crawl on his belly. Chapter 4. G*d "had respect unto Abel and to his offering". Cain kills Abel. Cain is given a mark so he will not be killed. The generations of his decedents are listed. It is stated
Adam and Eve had a third son Seth. Chapter 5. Recounts the generations from starting from Adam to Seth eventually to Noah. Chapter 6. G*d 'decides' to establish a covenant with Noah. Noah is instructed to build and fill the ark.

I can't deal with a fraction of all 6 chapters in one essay. Unfortunately I must skip many, many of the most important lines and phrases. I praise G*d that it is so because I long for study. I pray G*d grants me many years in the future and lots of time to reflect on and write about them.

My current focus is not mysticism. So I must lightly touch on chapter 1. I sense a musical structure. I believe there are many kabalistic and esoteric levels to the entire Torah but Chapter one dealing as it does with G*d bring creation into being cannot really be grasped. What does it mean in 1:6 for example to: "divide the waters from the waters?" Moreover, the text requies significant keys. The most important being the Hebrew itself. There is a reason it is so expressive, because it was created before creation and is the 'medium' and also the 'meaning from beyond" G*d defined creation through. (Quote story of letters arguing if possible.)

Reluctantly, I am also not going to write much about the importance of Chapter 2. In Chapter 2 G*d sets Shabbat apart and makes it holy. (For which we must always be eternally grateful.) In the same way, by letting Adam name the animals, he sets man apart from them. The setting apart allows holiness to be understood and experienced.
Naming an animal is setting it apart from the idea of all animals. This ability is the unique nature of man and just as a fish is meant to be a fish, our faith must be the water around us.

RE: chapter 2. "And the LORD God said: 'It is not good that the man should be alone' (B2:18) How can we not feel like Adam? Who that suffers alone, (G*d help them) wouldn't agree?


Genesis is not a linear story. I believe it is constant. I am fond of the idea the universe is created every' moment'. That it is perfect and unchanging; the manifestation of the will. That is metaphysics but it is also psychological. In experience we are constantly moving from identity to identity. Each being 'created'.

I can only leave that stub there for later writing and contemplation as I move on to a quick comment on chapter 3. One thing to note is that there is no 'Apple'. (Although I just looked it up and apparently the Mideast is where apples come from!) I actually once owned a url called "applesnake.com". This story has a centrality in the western mind. The levels of meaning and the question it raises are at the heart of human existence. The levels of meaning range beyond moral and metaphor. They have 360 degrees of interpretation and a plurality of perspective.

This is not something I read but I think it is important that there are four characters in the story. (Obviously G*d is more than a character) G*d is all "NO", The Serpent is all "YES", Adam is more "NO" than "YES", Eve is more "YES" than "NO." this to me always signifies the elements. The interaction yields the drama of life between paradise and damnation.

Significantly, the 'Fall' to me has always been something I relate to 'distance from G*d', to our individual 'self' preventing oneness with G*d. Our identity being the "knowledge of good and evil". For me, Parsha Bereshit is not so much about that problem of evil or explaining its origin. Instead I see an extraordinary symmetry between the creation of the world and the microcosm of our own maturity from childhood and the differentiation from the parent.

Contrasted with setting aside the Shabbat (which is perfect except that it is limited in duration), the imperfection of our consciousness is to me literally "Unholy."
However, turning our consciousness to G*d elevates life to its highest and noblest expression. Struggle, however, is never transcended totally if we exist as individuals.


Reluctantly, I must leave that topic to say something about Chapter 4. It is a second "Fall". Therefore of the many ways to explore it I ask myself how does it compare to the Fall of Adam and Eve? In both cases G*d asks questions. To Adam and Eve he asks "Where are you" and to Cain he asks "Where is Abel?". G*d curses Adam to labor "in toil shalt thou eat of it [the land] all the days of thy life" and Cain to labor in vain "When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength." The difference however is that because of Seth all humanity doesn't inherit the curse of Cain though it must the curse of Adam. (This just occurred to me by using a common method of comparison; I didn't read it anywhere although I am sure it has been commented on somewhere.)

This curse of Cain is further 'rarified' by the irony of the mark. Which spares him the fate of being murdered as he murdered Abel. Who that would murder Abel when he is cursed to roam the earth is uncertain. The line I find most interesting is 4:8 "sin coucheth at the door; and unto thee is its desire, but thou mayest rule over it." G*d is telling Cain and therefore teaching mankind that we may rule over our passions and desires.

Chapter 5 is a genealogy to Noah.

Chapter 6 ends with Noah being commanded to gather the animals and build the ark but not the destruction of the world. It is however utterly terrifying if you allow yourself to contemplate it. After mankind is cursed to toil, to know pain, to die, G*d judges that "every imagination of their thoughts and hearts is only evil continually" (6:5). A couple elements that jump out at me on this reading. As when Adam named the animals so the animals perish for mans 'wickedness' and man again has to preserve them himself.

The most famous quote on that subject is of course.
"When a man mints a number of coins from a single die, they are all identical; but the King of the kings of kings, the Holy One blessed be He, minted every human being from the die of the primal Adam, and not one of them is like any other. -Rishonim"

G*d please give me patience and energy to study the Torah. Help me be close to it and let it fill my soul. Never let me be arrogant always let it bring me closer to you may my study serve your ends. Amen.