What We Know from Bereshit

Breishit 

by Rabbi Avi Billet

Rabbi Yehuda Amital, the founding Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion, was known to say at the beginning of the new cycle of the Torah. “I don’t understand anything in Parshat Bereshit. I don’t know what ‘tohu’ means; I don’t know what ‘vohu’ means; I don’t know what ‘the spirit of God hovering over water’ means; from Parshat Bereshit I learn only one thing: That God created the world.”

Were we to simply inch through the parsha, we could ask many questions.

• Why did God need six days? What are the six days? How long were they? Are we meant to take these depictions literally? 
• If humanity is created on the 6th day – whatever that means – then why is there a second account of creation in chapter 2? 
• Why are humans depicted as being created – male and female at the same time – in Chapter 1, while in Chapter 2, Adam is created first, and only later Woman is formed? And why is man placed in the garden, seemingly having been formed and given the spirit of life elsewhere? 
• If God knows and sees all, why even put man in the garden in the first place, knowing man is imperfect, and knowing the snake is there, and that one thing will lead to another and their time there is limited? 
• Why is God referred to as Elokim in Chapter 1, and as Hashem Elokim in Chapter 2 and 3? 
• To get very specific in words and language: 
• Why is the same word “arom” used to describe slyness one verse after the word “arom” is used to describe actual nakedness? 
• When the snake says "even though God said not to…" there is no context and no statement to follow. Usually, someone says "even though X, you should do Y.” Why didn't he complete the statement? 
• How did the snake know about the commandment to Adam and Chava? 
•  Why did the snake equate being “knowers of good and evil” with being “like God”? Is the ability to distinguish between good and evil a God-like feature? 
• After Adam and Chava eat from the tree - Why does it say "And they knew they were naked"? They knew all along that they had no clothing, but before they ate, the point was that they were not embarrassed of their nakedness. Why doesn’t the verse say, after they’d eaten from the tree, “they were embarrassed?” 
• When they hid they were already wearing their belts, covering their nakedness. Why then does Adam say that he hid because he was naked? 
• What kind of excuse is it to blame “the woman that You gave me gave me [the fruit] and I ate it?” Shouldn't Adam have listened to God?  
• Why does Adam call her Chava at the end of the tale – (until that time she was referred to as “Ishah” (woman) or “HaIshah” (the woman)? 
• If she was the “Em kol chai” (mother of all living beings), why didn't her call her Chaya? 

I could go on and on. The point is that this narrative is open to so so so many questions and not a whole lot of clarity.

 Which is why Rav Amital’s line is so important. If there were space here (and lots of time) these questions could get adequate attention.

 But really, we need to remember that the ultimate take home message is that God created the world.

 People were created. They demonstrated their humanity in making mistakes. They suffered consequences. Not all of which were bad, by the way. And that is the human condition.

What do you mean the consequences weren’t bad? Isn’t working hard? Isn’t difficult childbirth, well, difficult? Of course they’re not easy ventures. But what about the alternative?

I can’t personally speak for childbirth. But the Malbim suggests that conception and childbirth were supposed to take place over the course of a day. If children could be – forgive the expression – popped out in the same way fish are, would parents love and cherish the children in the way they do now? I’d put money down that the answer would be No Way. You want something to be meaningful, long lasting? You have to work for it.

Never having given birth, this is easy for me to say. But I know many women who have given birth, and they cherish their children in the way that they do because they had a full pregnancy during which time they loved, cherished, nourished their baby with their entire bodies, and that connection is one we can never take away from them. Simply because it wasn’t easy or simple.

If people did not have to work to earn their daily bread, would they enjoy life? Work gives a person purpose. It gives life meaning.

A little over a year ago there was a meeting in Brussels, in which a man who is Palestinian praised the European Parliament for looking out for him and his family. “They care about how we are oppressed by the evil Zionist Israelis, when in fact those evil Zionist Israelis are the ones giving us jobs. When Lebanon bans us from having jobs. Jordan, which occupies 78% of our native land, and it prevents us from all kinds of jobs.” He went on to say that you are seeking to destroy “the only source of income and stability we have, which is the Israeli Jewish State. That state has offered us every hope there is for us in the last 70 years.

“We disagree with Israel on many issues. Israel is not an angel. Neither was Belgium an angel in Africa, nor was the United States an angel in Vietnam, nor was Jordan today…

“You can’t grant us justice by denying justice to our Jewish neighbors. They are our neighbors. Half a million Palestinians cross the border every single day to work in Israeli homes, hospitals, and get European-standard payments, vs the no payments of the Palestinian Authority.”

Here’s a man who is certainly talking about the need to have an honest day’s work and an honest day’s pay. Well aware of who is kind in the region – albeit imperfect – as opposed to those who are oppressive and exceedingly unkind.

Compare this to his many co-nationalists who are idle, do not work, and are given everything they need. Cell phones, cars, food. All at the cost of oppression which they are fed to believe is humanitarian assistance but really wants bodies to be used to kill Jews.

Who has a more meaningful life? The working man, or the one who sees no alternative but to become a tool for terror?

Bereshit opens the door to many questions. Our challenge, in this new cycle of Torah reading, is to be open to have deep conversations, and to mull over the difficulties life presents us, while remembering our human collective shares in the responsibility of not sweeping difficult conversations under the rug.

 We need to find answers and solutions, even if sometimes the circumstances are not easily confronted.

 Rav Amital’s message was that Bereishit teaches us that God created the world. Despite all the questions we may have, one of the more profound teachings is that even what God decided is a punishment to humanity is best seen as a blessing for Mankind. When we look at life through an optimistic lens, we see that God's original plan, and His seeming backup plan are all looking out for our interests, and our most important human needs.