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Parshat Bereshit
2005
Creating Creation
Genesis 1:1-6:8
Once again, Jews of all denominations have started the cycle of the Torah reading afresh. We have returned back to the beginning, to our most cherished text's description of the creation of the world and of humanity. As we reopen the Torah again, we ask ourselves the question; what is this book? It isn't just stories and mythology, though it certainly has that element. Neither is it a book of laws alone, though it contains many ancient laws. It certainly doesn't read like a work of theology, although it has many theological implications. Indeed, we revere this text as a source of wisdom and holiness despite the fact that scientifically educated readers would not recognize what we read this week as an accurate depiction of our origins. What draws us back to it year after year? Is it merely that we are mimicking our parents and grandparents, as we say, minhag avoteinu b'yadeinu (a custom of our ancestors in our hands)? Or is there something spiritually substantive to the often confusing language that our most sacred text provides?
If we were to follow the late, revered Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik's lead in his The Lonely Man of Faith, we would see in the account of creation distinct presentations of the origins of human beings, each depicting a separate archetype of the human personality. In fact, as a colleague of mine from rabbinical school pointed out, there are three accounts of the origins of human beings if you include the beginning of Genesis 5, "These are the generations of Adam." I believe we can also follow the lead of our Sages who found in these accounts different theological descriptions of God. Rashi, referring to a Rabbinic midrash, comments that the name of God used in the creation account of the first chapter is Elohim, whereas in the story of gan eden, the Garden of Eden, the text appends the four-letter name of God before Elohim. He suggests that the reason for the dual stories and the use of different divine names - signifying different divine attributes -- is that the first plan was to create the world with strict divine justice, but seeing that the world could not last, God created it first with divine mercy. Our tradition understands that the differences between the names in the stories reflect important differences in understanding God and the place of humanity in creation.
Turning our attention to the text, we can see some of the differences more clearly. God in the first story is "divinely efficient." God states "let there be light," and without delay there is light. Comparing verse 1:11 to 2:5, we see that in one, the Torah describes God having made a single statement saying "let the land sprout vegetation" and ends with "and it was so." In the other, the Torah explains that the reason there was no vegetation was that God "had not yet sent rain on the land, and there was no human to work the earth." The God of the first story needs no intermediate steps while the God of the second story seems less efficient. Indeed, the very verbs used to describe God's actions in the garden are more varied and numerous in fewer verses, with fewer results.
A corollary of this difference is that God in the garden is more detail-oriented. In the garden, God creates a specific garden, with a specific tree and specific bodies of water for one specific human being to work in. Each verb describes a particular detail of the creation of these singular items.
Perhaps the most intriguing difference is one of effectiveness. The Seven Days story has a God who creates by fiat and it is all "good." In the garden, the juxtaposition is striking. Suddenly, it is "not good for Adam to be alone." What's more, God's first attempt at solving the problem, namely the creation of creatures from the earth, the same source Adam came from, failed to produce a suitable companion. This hardly sounds like the same God described a chapter earlier.
In the first few chapters we clearly see that our Torah is neither a science text book nor a theological dissertation. Instead, it presents in the language of mythology varying ways in which human beings encounter God. We may see ourselves as the pinnacle of the creation of a distant yet all-powerful deity, or we may be partners with a God who is palpable in our lives, but in a world that is far from perfect with the possibility of "good and evil." What's more, if we include the creation story of chapter five, God could be an important starting point for an otherwise essentially human story. I believe that this diversity of versions demonstrates that different human beings have different perspectives on God's world and our place in it, and our Torah provides a means to encounter this truly human reality.
Prepared by David Almog, rabbi, Hillel at Columbia University and Barnard College.
Learn More
Additional commentaries and text studies on Parshat Bereshit at MyJewishLearning.com.
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