Gen. 1:1 - 6:8
Précis: The first Book of the Torah, Bereshit (Genesis, literally “in the beginning” or “When God began to create”) begins with the familiar story of creation. The world is created in six days and God rests on the seventh. The stories of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden are included, as is the story of Cain and Abel.
Gen. 1:3-4, 31“God said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness… God saw everything that God had made, and indeed, it was very good.'”
Rabbi Lea Mühlstein has offered an insight on these opening phrases of Bereshit (10 Minutes of Torah, 10/13/25). At its start, creation unfolds with purposes: order out of chaos is “good.” Light and the seas and the Earth itself are “good.” It is only at the end of creation (including humans) that God looks at everything together and calls it tov me’od (very good).
According to Rashi, the world is not “very” good until it contains humans with the power to choose and act. Later thinkers also stressed human responsibility. As Franz Rosenzweig taught in “The Star of Redemption,” creation is not a finished event, but rather an ongoing process. Creation does not end in Bereshit; it continues when human beings take responsibility for the world. In other words, God declares creation “very good” not because it is finished but because it has been entrusted to us.
This stewardship is eternal, and we emphasize it as we begin another year of the Torah cycle. Mühlstein challenges us: in this year, what light must we identify? How must we separate darkness from goodness? How will we affirm what is tov me’od for our communities, for the Jewish People, and for the world?
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