Parashat Bereshit

We just finished a cycle of reading the Torah and are starting a new one. May it be as King David sang in Ps 23:3 ”ינחני במעגלי-צדק למען סמו“ּ(yancheni b’maglei-tzedek l’maan shmo) I am grateful that we have another year to continue discovering the treasures hidden in Torah. And it starts, of course, with “B’reshit” – “In the beginning” Obviously we all need to know our beginning! In this drash, I would like to explore one aspect of this beginning which is repeated throughout the story of creation and therefore must be very important:

1. The phrase “And God saw that it was good”  “וירא אלהים כי-טוב”

A careful reader of this parasha cannot help but notice that every day, as HaShem creates something, He looks and sees it and declares it to be good. But yet, after He creates mankind in His own image, He refrains from saying it, instead, He blesses them saying: “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish, the birds and every living thing” Gen1:28 And it is only after instructing what their and the rest of the living creatures’ food would be that He says:

“וירא אלהים את כל-אשר עסה והנה-טוב מאד” (v’yare Elohim et kol asher asa v’hine tov meod) “And G-d saw all that He had made and behold it was very good.”

Not just “tov”, but “tov meod” and not speaking of humanity only, but of a blessed humanity within all of His creation! So the question begs to be asked: What does HaShem mean when He declares all His creation to be “tov meod”? Simply reading the text for what it says: He looks back at what He made and it is exactly what He designed it to be. Obviously, only the creator who conceived its design can decide if His creation is good, or not. And it is clear from this first story of creation that we were designed to be good and we were good. That would mean that we were exactly the creation we were designed to be, in the image of the creator, blessed to be fruitful, multiply and rule over, relating to the rest of creation according to its design. Then all of creation would be “tov meod”! So what went wrong?

• We get our first clue in Gen2:17 “And Hashem commanded the man saying: ‘of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of tov and ra, you must not eat there of; for on the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.” We all know the rest of the story, they ate and we have all been dying ever since!

But why is it called the tree of knowledge of good and evil? Why not just call it the tree of good and evil? What is so deadly about the “knowledge” of tov and ra as opposed to tov and ra in themselves?  The answer lies on the fact that we are not designed to handle such knowledge, because choosing what is ra means choosing another design from the one HaShem chose, changing identity and purpose!  But changing this will not change the design He already chose! It will only cause great suffering as we violate our own essence and that of others. Not to speak of what it does to our relationship with Hashem as we now stand in disagreement and rebellion with our creator, who will be known to be “the great I AM” and will declare “Shma Israel, Adonai Eloheynu, adonai ECHAD” !.. So the creation would declare its own design apart from G-d and even redefine Him!!! How absurd is this and can only lead to an escalation in suffering and death as we negate our very fiber and that of the rest of the universe. As Isaiah 45:9 says: “Woe to him who strives with his maker! Shall the clay say to Him that forms it, ‘what are you making’.. or shall Your handiwork say ‘He has no hands’.” An example of this today can be seen in the heated debate over whether or not you can be a male if you are born a female, and vice-versa. But even if you get multiple surgeries to create your own gender, science tells you that every cell in your body will still be screaming your true gender! Laws are being rewritten, new pronouns invented to accommodate this delusion! This can only plunge the future generations into massive confusion and cause them to short circuit. Really, can man in his arrogance dictate to G-d the design of His own creation, and even worse can he redefine G-d to suit his fancy? Of course not! As King David wrote in Psalm 131:

“Adonai, my heart is not haughty, nor my eyes lofty, neither do I concern myself with great matters, nor with things too profound for me.

 Surely I have calmed  and quieted my nephesh, like a weaned  child with his mother; like a  weaned child with his mother is my nephesh

 within me. O Israel hope in Adonai from this time forth and forever more.”

• Nevertheless we should take heart that the story of our beginning is that we were created to be TOV by the G-d of whom it is written “Mi kamocha b’elim Adonai”. And yes we were plunged into a progressive distortion of our very beings as we see it escalate from Adam and Eve, to Cain and Abel to the days of Noah, “when every intent of the thoughts of Man’s heart was only evil continually.” That means we had strayed so far from the truth and design of who we are and who G-d is that HaShem had to intervene. But the last verse of our Parasha ends with a note of great hope: “But Noah found grace in the eyes of HaShem.” Gen6:8 …. G-d who Himself is good, therefore always true to His own character, is not left baffled and defeated by His own creation, but has a plan to restore the universes He created to goodness, to His original design, this is really great news for us! And probably the reason the words of King David’s Ps23:3 echo throughout eternity:

“He returns my nephesh to me. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.” ״נפשי ישובב ינחני במעגלי-צדק למען סמו״         

May this year’s cycle be a journey for all of us to return us to our true selves and to our true G-d!

Shabbat shalom!