Am Yisrael Chai!

Bereshit

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 1:5 “And God called the Light “Day” and the Dark “Night.” And there was evening and morning, a first day.”

Dividing night from day is an elemental part of Creation. There is light and there is darkness. These are, and always have been, metaphors for good and evil.

            What we witnessed in Israel last Shabbat is the epitome of evil. I merely state the obvious: there is evil in this world, and nowhere is it better exemplified than by Hamas, which murdered young and old, men and women, children and their mothers and grandparents. There is also evil in those who suggest somehow that this is Israel's fault.

            Those who object to Israel's retaliation against the evil that has been committed don't seem to understand (or care) that a failure to retaliate leaves those who committed the atrocities unpunished. Even worse are those who celebrate the wanton terror of this despicable group, who use human shields of their own people, and who have abducted an untold number of civilians from many nations, threatening to kill them should Israel dare  seek justice. 

            Dr. Erica Brown, Vice-Provost of Yeshiva University Sacks-Herenstein Center, today quoted Rabbi Sacks (z'l) as follows:

            

 “Though Israel has had to fight many wars, from the very beginning it sought peace. The Hebrew language has two words for strength: koach and gevurah. Koach is the strength you need to win a war. Gevurah is the courage you need to make peace. Israel has shown both kinds of strength. But peace is a duet, not a solo. It cannot be made by one side alone. If it could, it would have been made long ago.”

 

Am Yisrael Chai!

Our choices

 Deut. 3:26 “Enough from you; do not speak to me of this matter again.”

In our reading for Simchat Torah, we see once again Moses’ pleas rejected  to be allowed to enter the land, in this case in the most emphatic terms. As Jonathan Sacks noted in Covenant and Conversation (9/26/18), Moses is described no fewer than 18 times as “God’s servant,” a title no other individual in the Tanach is provided even twice. Why could Moses not appeal to a Heavenly Court and seek mercy over justice for just a few days?  As stated in Deut. 34:10, the Torah reads: “Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses.” Where was the compassion?

Sacks suggests that the hint of an answer lies in the following reading, from Bereshit: “In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth.” There is Heaven and there is Earth, and they are not the same. Sacks goes on to quote what he calls one of the most important questions of our tradition: “What is man that you are mindful of him?” (Ps. 8). In all of the known universe, we are the only beings who can ask this question.

            While many human civilizations have attempted to harmonize the human and the Divine, Judaism has steadfastly refused to do so. Modern science has tended to eliminate the Divine altogether, and instead suggest that humans are no more than a collection of living cells. Judaism rejects this position as well: we are neither Gods nor are we mere collections of random cells. Our tradition teaches that we may be the dust of the earth, but we were animated by God’s breath.

            For us, humanity, even at its most enlightened level, is still humanity. We live, we achieve, but we also die. Sacks suggests, “None of us should feel guilty or frustrated or angry or defeated that there are things we hoped to achieve but did not. That is what it is to be human.” Moses was human, and his frustration with the rock led to his inability to enter the Land.

            Yet, Maimonides states that despite the fact that there was only one Moses, we can all be like him: while not prophetically, at least humanly. He died, failing to see the culmination of his greatest act of righteous behavior.

            Our Torah reading ends with a profound lesson: we are all human, we all die, and so we must make the most of each day we live. We all make mistakes, and perhaps we can learn from them. That’s what being a human is all about. God is God, and God’s choices are God’s. We are human beings, and our choices are ours.