Parshat Bereshit: Human Essence and Creation

The 5772 parasha series is made possible by the dedication of our donors Randy Gangbar in memory of Marcy Gangbar, Jacob Langer and Ferne Sherkin-Langer and family, an anonymous donor in memory of Esther and Sheldon Litowitz, and many online weekly donors.

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Bereshit, A new message from Rabbi Elyse Goldstein

Dear Reader,

Shana Tova and welcome to a new year of Kolel weekly Parasha study. I am deeply grateful to our donors who have enabled us to once again reach out across time and space to teach Torah in an open, liberal and thoughtful way. In this vein I want to thank our past online parasha scholar Rabbi Michal Shekel. Her weekly posts have always been insightful, engaging, interesting and timely. Her voice has enriched our pages immeasurably for the pst 4 years.

For this New Year, we are going to change things a bit. First of all, I will be our online parasha author. I love teaching Torah and I love writing. In all the years of offering online parasha study, I have always given the floor to one of my colleagues. But this year I would like to offer my own online learning for the next little while, and I hope you will enjoy it.

The new format will provide a brief synopsis of the weekly portion, followed by a question that highlights a particular challenge, issue, story, or verse in that portion. An answer will come from a different commentator each week. I will provide some context and analysis of the commentary, and then present some concluding thoughts. Sometimes the issues will be broad and sometimes narrow; sometimes theological, at other times grammatical, or historical, or emotional, or literary, or psychological. I’m excited to learn and to teach each week with you, and I look forward to your comments!

PARSHAT BERESHIT

Synopsis: In this first parasha of the Torah, it all begins, and then almost ends. In the beginning, the Torah describes how the Eternal One created the Universe day by day, beginning with the Heavens and the Earth and culminating with humanity. After six days, God ceases from the acts of creation and sanctifies the seventh day as the crown jewel of creation - the Sabbath. The parasha continues with the stories of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the conflict between their sons Cain and Abel, and then a review of all the generation from Adam to Noah. The portion concludes with God's regret over the wickedness of human beings, and the decision to destroy everything on earth.

Our Text: Genesis 1:1: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Our Question: It makes sense to begin at the beginning. When you read the line “In the beginning” you are faced with an immediate question: In the beginning of what? Was there something that came before? What is this first sentence trying to teach us, and why does the Torah start this way?

Our commentator: Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev. He lived 1740-1809 and was a Chasidic leader known as the Berdichever Rebbe. He was a disciple of the Maggid of Mezerich who was a direct disciple of the founder of Chasidism, the Baal Shem Tov. Levi Yitzchak is known as “minister for the defence” of the Jewish people; he loved each Jew as an individual embodiment of Divine Presence. His book of Torah commentary, Kedushat Levi, was published after his death.

Commentary: “When a person sees themself as “ayin”, (nothingness, not there yet, ‘in process’) G-d is still in the process of creating them. Only when a person looks at themself as “yesh”, (something, an essence, a reality) have they been (fully) created. The “ayin” (in the process of being created) works supernaturally. The “yesh” (already created) works within nature. It is with the Torah that we are able to really join together the “ayin” and the “yesh” states...That is what “In the beginning G-d created” means; that G-d created “yesh” (essence, possibility, being, possibly even: G-d’s own Being?) because before that everything was in a state of flux/process, the “ayin” state. (Translation from the Hebrew mine.)

Explanation: G-d as Creator seems to be taken as a given. The first chapter of Genesis isn’t so much a history of the people of Israel, but a history of G-d’s works, an introduction, as it were, to the central character of the whole Torah: The Holy One. G-d’s role and “identity” as Creator is paramount in the creation narrative. Levi Yitzchak’s comment really has three parts. First, he begins by asking a theological question: How could G-d start creating the universe, things and beings with essences, until G-d created the ability to contain an essence? While I am shaping a piece of clay, it isn’t a vase. It has the possibility of becoming a vase but it could just as well become a cup or be thrown away. I have to have the essence of the form in my mind before I start shaping. I have to know that clay can be made into a vase. I have to know what a vase is and what it is used for. I cannot be a creator until I understand how creation works, where it leads, and where it starts. Levi Yitzchak is suggesting, I think, that even G-d needed to first create the possibility of creation before creation itself could proceed.

Second, Levi Yitzchak strives to understands our place in this scheme. We are not vases. We are between created beings and beings still being created, depending on how we view ourselves. Only when we recognize our full essence—our yesh, our “is”ness, our “here”ness— do we recognize ourselves as creations of a Creator. Then we live in the natural world and are taken out of the world of fluidity and development.

Third, the Berdichever turns to the role of Torah in all this. What is Torah’s job? To meld and weave together these two worlds: the world of finitude and infinity; the worlds where anything is possible and everything is already decided and done; the worlds where we grow and change and where we stay the same; the worlds of time as now and time as forever. The Torah is a bridge between possibility and certainty.

Concluding Thoughts: The act of creating is truly a supernatural experience. Ask anyone who has had a baby. Ask an artist, or a sculptor, or a composer. They will often tell you that the piece comes not “from” them but “through” them, as if it has a source in a higher realm. But then the painting is done and sold; the music is played and transcribed; the child grows up and lives their own life. All that process of creating is taken out of our hands and given a life of its own.

From a modern point of view, we would say we are evolving creatures at the same time as we are finished products. We are constantly being shaped, molded, created, changed: are we ever really fully “created”, one complete and static essence, finished, yesh?

Perhaps the two most powerful words of our lives are “I am.” Those are yesh words. Remember later in Exodus that is G-d’s own Name: “I am that I am.” That declaration of essence, of yesh, is our consciousness as humans. Only when we see our yesh, our being created, can we acknowledge a Creator. I agree with our commentator that only when we see ourselves as essential, as important, as valuable, can we move into the world and make a real contribution. We should not see ourselves as ayin, as nothing. And yet too much yesh is not any better than too much ayin. Bereshit is the story of finding the balance between nothingness filling us and too much “I am” filling us.

As Levi Yitzchak suggests: “It is with the Torah that we are able to really join together the “ayin” and the “yesh” states.” This year I see our study of Torah as a noble attempt to live in between the evolving process (the Torah as we study it and unpack it, the experience of the Torah as an ever changing, ever new, ever revealed reality), and the finished product (the Torah itself that we have already received in its completed form.) May we do so humbly and yet in full presence.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Elyse Goldstein