Torah Insights: Parasha Bereishit Part 2
Torah Insights: Parasha Bereishit Part 2
by Jerry Waxman
“Parasha Bereishit: Life Through a Zoom Lens”
If the Torah was a movie, Bereishit would be shot through a zoom lens. Starting with an infinitely wide angle, first the heavens and the earth come into view.
Zoom in closer and earth is where the action is going to take place. As the seas recede from land, we see the advent of Life. Plants not only fill the oceans, they begin to spread across the lands. That is the nature of life, reproducing and growing and spreading.
Zoom in just a little closer to see a higher form of life, autonomous creatures roam the waters and the land and air. God blesses all the animals that they will “be fruitful and multiply.” And they sure do.
Zoom in closer on the land animals. Closer still, and we come to the mammals. Closer still, and amongst the mammals are human beings.
The humans are different from all other animals. While all other animals rely on their senses and instincts to inform their behaviors, humans must rely more on a different part of their brain. That part which combines memory with creative impulses.
Humans resemble the creator because they are creative. They use symbols for communicating. They form societies and build their own shelters. And there are many more differences.
Zoom in closer and closer until we come to one man and one woman: Adam and Eve were stood out from amongst other humans. They formed a relationship with God. They formed a family – a family of their own – and they understood that there was a purpose to their lives and the lives of those who would come after them.
[Were Adam and Eve the first human beings? This is how we are taught. By tradition we call Adam the first man. The problem with this is that by the time Adam's third son is born, there are already communities and towns scattered around the area.
It is conceivable that Adam and Eve had many other children that aren't mentioned by name in The Book. But it is equally conceivable that other human beings were contemporaries of Adam, and Adam's history was selected because he was the first "tzaddik" (one who does as God wants him to do) Whichever way we look at it, what we can say is that the entire family of mankind that we know today originated with Adam and Eve ]
The “Five Books of Moses” is about the descendants of Adam and Eve. In Bereishit the Torah even tells us, “This is the Book of the generations of Adam,” as if to say, “This Book is about where we all come from..”
What happened in the garden? The Garden of Eden was a fantastic paradise, where every kind of tree and plant a person could hope for grew. God told Adam specifically to tend the garden and enjoy it. But one tree was off limits.
(Reality check. If someone put you in a garden with all kinds of trees and said, “Stay away from that one,” which tree would you be most drawn to?)
As the story goes, both Eve and Adam ate the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge. And then they “saw that they were naked.”
From that moment, the separation of mankind from other animals was decisive. Animals’ behavior is informed by instinct, by laws of nature. People are guided by a different set of laws. Some of them make no sense at all in the animal kingdom. They may not even make much sense in human society, but there they are. But they are laws of right and wrong.
It was wrong for a man and a woman to be naked. Why? The Book doesn’t say why. But both Adam and Eve instantly noticed this one detail, and they quickly covered themselves with fig leaves.
Maybe mankind is at a disadvantage compared to the other animals. The other animals live in harmony with the laws of nature. Their instincts inform their behavior. The live where it is best for them to live. They find food wherever they happen to be. And their bodies are coated with fur to protect them.
People have to clothe themselves, build their own homes, and grow food and prepare it. Moreover, we are much less in touch with instincts; we behave according to conscious decisions and choices we make every moment. In our decision making is always the question of right and wrong.
Is there a universal set of rules? According to the Torah there is. (We’ll see more on that in Parashat Noach.) What is right is what God says is right. And what is wrong is what God says is wrong.
A person who lives strictly according to these rules, always doing what is right, is called a “tzaddik” (male) or “tzaddika” (female).or “righteous person.” And perhaps such a person finds greater solace and peace than most others. (This is not the place to speculate about after death experiences of the soul. The Torah is about living persons, about life itself. )
As the camera lens zooms out, we see Adam and Eve banished from the garden where they met. They are wearing coats of animal skins, and looking toward a 6000 year heritage of billions of people being born, living, doing some good, and making some errors, And they look at each other say, “This planet is in for the ride of its life.”
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