Shabbat Table Talk

Parashat Bereshit

Erev Shabbat, 28 October 2005
Week of 23 - 29 October 2005
Torah portion: Gen.1:1-6:8
Haftarah: Is. 42:5-43:11
Readings for Sunday, 30 Oct.: Mal. 1:14-2:2, 8-10; 1 Thess. 2:7-9, 13; Mt. 23:1-12

Introduction
The theme of Creation serves as an introduction to the central motif of this Parashah, and indeed of the entire Torah: Yah's role in history.

Time has not diminished the power or the majesty of the familiar biblical account of the creation of the world, nor has familiarity dulled its impact. It still moves us, conveying so much in so few words. What kind of world does the Torah envision Yah creating? We already know that the opening chapters of Bereshit are not a scientific account of the origins of the universe. The Torah is a book of morality, not cosmology. Its overriding concern, from the first verse to the last, is our relationship to Yah, truth about life rather than scientific truths. It describes the world Yah fashioned as "good," a statement no scientific account can make.

Yah's world is an orderly world, in which land and water each has its own domain, in which each species of plant and animal reproduces itself "after its own kind." But it is also an unpredictable world, a world capable of growth and change and surprise, of love and pain, of glory and tragedy, not simply replication of what is, because it includes human beings who have the freedom to choose how they will act. And it is an unfinished world, waiting for human beings to complete Yah's work of creating.

Chapter 1
The Torah assumes the existence and overwhelming power of Yah. We find here no myth of the birth of the Divine Being, as we find in other cultures' accounts of creation, only a description of Yah's actions. It seems that the Torah is saying, "This is the premise on which the rest stands. Only if you accept it is everything that follows intelligible." Yah created the world, blessed it with the capacity to renew and reproduce itself, and deemed it "good." This is the answer to the basic and inevitable fundamental questions: Why is there something instead of nothing? Why is there life instead of inert matter?

A Play of the Hebrew Language through Midrash
The first letter of the first word in the Torah, "bereshit" is the Hebrew letter "bet". This prompted the Midrash to suggest that, just as the letter bet is enclosed on three sides but open to the front, we are not to speculate on the origins of Yah or what may have existed before creation (Gen. R. 1:10). The purpose of such a comment is not to limit scientific inquiry into the origins of the universe but to discourage efforts to prove the unprovable. It urges us to ask ourselves, "How are we to live in this world?" and it urges us to live facing forward rather than looking backward. Jewish theology generally has been concerned with discerning the will of Yah rather than proving the existence or probing the nature of the Divine. Ultimate origins ("Who made God?") are hidden from view, but all the rest of the world is open to inquiry. The Torah begins with bet, second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, to summon us to begin even if we cannot begin at the very beginning.

Again, the Midrash takes the word for "beginning" (reishit) as a synonym for "Torah" (as in Proverbs 8:22), interpreting the verse as declaring: "With reishit did Yah create the heaven and earth." Yah created the world by consulting the Torah, fashioning a world based on Torah values, or for the sake of the Torah, so that there would be somewhere in the universe where the values of the Torah could be put into practice (Gen. R. 1:1, 6). The beginning of all knowledge and morality lies in the recognition that Yah created the world. Rabbi Akiva taught: "Just as the existence of a house testifies to the builder and the existence of a garment testifies to the weaver, so the existence of the world testifies to Yah who fashioned it." And again, "whoever teaches a child the Torah's account of Creation is to be considered as having participated in creating the world personally." To shape the moral imagination of a child is to create a new world. Yah creates the world with words. This is the first invocation of the Torah's belief in the reality of words, their power to create and to destroy.

Let there be light
Light, the first thing Yah created, can be seen as symbolizing Judaism's commitment to clarity rather than mystery, to openness rather than concealment, to study rather than blind faith. Light, Yah's first creation becomes a symbol of Yah's Presence (Shechinah), in the fire of the Burning Bush and the revelation at Sinai, the menorah of the tabernacle and the Shabbat lights. Light functions as a symbol for God because light itself is not visible, but makes everything else visible. "By your light do we see light" (Ps 36:10). Light is the first creation by Yah's utterance. Light serves as a symbol of life, joy and deliverance. The notion of light independent of the sun derives from the observations that the sky is illumined on days when the sun is obscured and that brightness precedes the sun's rising. Light itself is a feature of divinity.

From this week's Haftarah
The theme of creation links the readings, showing us something of the range and purposes of the theologies of Creation in the Bible. Compared to the exalted narrative style in Gen. 1:1-2:4, references to the creation in the haftarah (Is. 42:5-6) are part of a divine proclamation through Yah's prophet. The prophet expresses the continuity of divine action or its effects by using verbs in ongoing present time. Thus in the haftarah, the theme of creation serves as the basis for theological reflection on Yah's ongoing concern for the world.

In the prophet's theology, the images of light and darkness undergo significant shift. In the parashah, darkness makes up the original state of the world, which is transformed by the reality of light on the first day of Creation. Light (or) marks difference, clarity and order. However, in the haftarah, the images of darkness and light express other realities. The darkness of exile is both the oppression of servitude, to be transformed by divine liberation, and the inner void of despair that is redeemed by Yah's promise of renewal. Recreated anew by Yah, Israel will be the light (or) of hope in the eyes of all (Is. 42:6-7).

For Reflection and Discussion: [1] The world Yah fashioned as "good" is also an unpredictable world, a world capable of growth and change and surprise, of love and pain, of glory and tragedy. What role can we humans play in this "unfinished world"? [2] In the context of the Midrash on the word "Bereshit" and the letter bet, how do you see your life's direction? [3] Yah creates the world with words. How do you see the Torah's belief in the reality of words and their power to create and to destroy in day-to-day life? [4] Share something of what the Shabbat Lights mean to you.

Bibliography: Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary (New York, 2001); Fox: The Five Books of Moses (New York, 1995); N. Leibowitz, New Studies in Bereshit (Jerusalem); G. Plaut: The Torah, A Modern Commentary (New York, 1981).

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This week's teaching commentary was prepared by
Roy da Silva, C.F.C., Bat Kol alumnus, 2002, 2003, 2004; Bangalore, India.