THE LORD GOD CALLED TO THE HUMAN AND SAID TO HIM;

WHERE ARE YOU?

HE SAID: I HEARD THE SOUND OF YOU IN THE GARDEN AND I WAS AFRAID,

BECAUSE I AM NUDE, AND SO I HID MYSELF.

HE SAID: WHO TOLD YOU THAT YOU ARE NUDE? FROM THE TREE

ABOUT WHICH I COMMAND YOU NOT TO EAT, HAVE YOU EATEN?

THE HUMAN SAID: THE WOMAN WHOM YOU GAVE TO BE BESIDE ME,

SHE GAVE ME FROM THE TREE, AND SO I ATE.

THE LORD, GOD, SAID TO THE WOMAN: WHAT IS THIS THAT YOU HAVE DONE?

THE WOMAN SAID: THE SNAKE ENTICED ME, AND SO I ATE.

(Bereishit 2:2-13)

 

 

Man Is A Creature of Dialogue and Is Capable of Change

You find that when the first man was created, he was placed in the Garden of Eden, and He commanded him, saying: "From this you may eat and from this you may not eat, for on the day of your eating thereof you will die" (Bereishit 2). Adam violated God's command, so He decreed a sentence; came Shabbat, He sent him away. He began to talk with him, perhaps he would repent, as is written, (Bereishit 3) "and Adonai the Lord called man and said to him: Where are you?". The name 'Adonai' signifies the attribute of mercy, as is written (Shemot 34), "Adonai Adonai, merciful and forgiving God" - He placed the attribute of mercy before the attribute of law, so that he repent. This is to say "For you are not a God who desires wickedness", who has no wish to condemn any creation. He began to converse with him, as is written (Bereishit 3), "Who told you that you were nude?... The man said, The woman You put at my side - she gave me of the tree etc." He left the man and began to speak with the woman, as is written (ibid.), "And the Lord God said to the woman, What is this that you have done etc." But when He came to the serpent He did not engage in conversation with him as He did with the woman, but immediately He handed down a sentence, as is written, "And the Lord God said to the serpent... I will put enmity between you and the woman etc." and then he returned to woman and said to her "I will make most severe your pangs in childbearing" and then he returned to man, but He did not sentence him before hinting at repentance.

(Tanchuma, Tazria, 9)

 

 

PROSAIC MAN - POETIC MAN

Yair Eldan

 

The Creation narrative begins with a shewa [a silent vowel- indicated by two vertical dots beneath a consonant] - "B'reishit". Beneath the first letter, there is a shewa. Thus the word is "B'reishit" ["In a beginning"] - rather than "Bareishit" ["In the beginning"]. That is to say that that the Torah, by not using the definite article "the", is describing one of the beginnings, and not "the beginning". From this we derive that "The Holy One, Blessed Be He, creates worlds and destroys them". S. H. Bergman wrote about the influence of the Copernican Revolution, which proclaimed that the planet earth was no longer considered to be the center of the universe. "This was an awesome event for man, and it was difficult for him to get used to the new situation." Bergman claims that, in answer to this distress, the philosophy of the modern age began to deal with the "I" of man rather than with the planet earth. The Torah began a similar revolution by reducing the significance of the world known to us, and reminding us of its transience and fragility. From this existentialist point of view derives R' Yitzchak's apologetic explanation, "The Torah should have begun at "This New Moon for you" for this was the first mitzvah with which Israel was commanded". Aside from "the world" being only one world of many, R' Yitzchak finds it difficult to accept the fact that the story of the first creation does not position man (and, of course, Israel) at its center. The story of the first creation is composed in prose - the hero of the story is God, and the creation of man is presented as another chapter in the creation process. After the creation of light, its differentiation from darkness, the setting of the firmament, creation of the seas, vegetation, and the light sources, the living creatures appear. On the fifth day God creates beast and fowl. This is the first time that the Torah uses the verb "bet-resh-aleph" and it is used in reference to creation of the beasts: "And God created the great sea monsters... and God saw that this was good... God blessed them, saying, Be fertile and increase".

On the sixth day, God created man. The Bible employs the same terms used in reference to the animals to describe the creation of man: "And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them and God said to them, Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on earth." The creation of man in the first creation narrative is just part of the total creation process. The process of creation is presented as a progression; man is not seen a priori as the crown of creation, but only post-factum. My great-great-grandfather, R' Baruch Freudenberg notes this in his commentary on the Torah, "Mekor Baruch":

"Now let us imagine, were God to have created a being also on the seventh day. Then this being would have been more perfect than man... he [man] would then have been of a lower level just as is the beast in comparison to man...therefore, it was not the sixth day - the day on which man was created - that was blessed [but the seventh - Y.E.], before it could be determined whether this creature would survive, and whether he - man - is the purpose of the creation"

The first Creation story not only speaks of a prosaic man; it is also written in the prose genre. The story is committed to a time frame (Paul Valery: "Prose is walking; poetry is dance") which moves from point A to point B and brings the drama to climax and denouement. The second chapter of Bereishit, on the other hand, presents a different picture of man's creation. In this chapter, the creation of man is presented in poetic genre:

            "These are the begettings of the heavens and the earth, their being created.

            At the time of Lord God's making of earth and heaven,

            no bush of the field was yet on earth,

            no plant of the field had yet sprung up,

            for Lord God had not made it rain upon the earth,

            and there was no human/adam to till the soil/adama..."

This description is of totally different quality than that of Chapter one. The style is condensed and concentrated, and has no commitment to a coherent time frame. There is also no development leading to a climax, but harmonic wrapping of the text. True, all these can also be characteristic of a prose text; the essential difference between the two descriptions of man's creation is man's placement in each of the stories. In Chapter two, man is described, from the very beginning, as the crown of creation. In Chapter two, man is the basic premise - "there was no human to till the soil". The poetry is based on man's central position, on man's focusing upon his feelings, on man's looking inward and drawing out a personal, one-time, point of view. Such looking requires internal and external sensitivity, but it is, at the same time, bound up with a certain egotism and with application of force on the environment by establishing the presence of the poet's exclusive point of view. Prose, on the other hand, makes possible a range of points of view - it is possible to identify with a story's hero or with his adversary, with one of the secondary characters, or with all of them. Man, in the second creation story, is poetic, because the universe was created for him, and he is self-conscious. This man assigns names to creatures, including woman. The giving of a name is, on the one hand, an act requiring great sensitivity; on the other hand it is an act of force, expressing mastery and ownership; even more - it includes the pretension of really knowing the identity of the receiver and having the courage (or the conceit) which facilitates description of this identity. Rav Soloveitchik identified in the first creation story the social potential of creative man, and in the second creation story, the philosophical potential of lonely man; he saw in both of them an "inclusive personality" and human dialectic. Reading the Creation narratives in terms of prose and poetry teaches davka a relationship of dependence and not one of dialectic. Poetic man delves into the recesses of his soul, and is capable of publicizing his findings. This exposure tells things about ourselves that are difficult to express or even to think about. Thus, davka through egotism is achieved the most immanent intimacy between all men who identify their equal human base. Prosaic man keeps an open channel with creation - both animal and human. Prosaic man maintains the human tie daily, thereby ultimately facilitating the poetic immanent intimacy; the poetic man builds the strong foundation for the daily bridges which - were it not for the poetic revelations - would rot and collapse. Fitting the mode of writing to the type of man the genre seeks to describe, i.e., the fact that Chapter One of Bereishit is prose describing prosaic man, and Chapter Two is poetry describing poetic man, informs us of the importance of language in the formation of human consciousness and the creation of interpersonal relationships. In this sense, the decision to begin the Torah with a shewa - signifying lack of movement (and thereby openness and receptiveness)-and not with a kamatz, (which signifies closing-off and reduction) is a decision with ideological significance. On Simchat Torah the Jewish tradition crystallized the custom of reading the story of Creation of prosaic man (from "At the beginning" through "that by creating, God had made"). We read about the creation of the universe as a process, and about the creation of man as a spontaneous part of this process. Simchat Torah, like other festivals, deals with formation of the community and the strengthening of its ties. Therefore, poetic man is left outside of Simchat Torah. His acuity, his egotism, and his truths are set aside in order to permit the community to consolidate its prosaic ties, so that through the year it will also be able to declaim poetry.

 Yair Eldan is a M.A. candidate in the Cultural Studies program in the Hebrew University.

 

 

All Humans Were Created In The Image, and Therefore Every Affront to Man Is, As It Were, An Affront to The Holy One, Blessed Be He

"Beloved is man, for he was created in God's image... as is written: 'For in the image of God He made man" (Avot 3:18)... every man, said R' Akiva. R' Akiva wanted to confer merit upon every man, even upon the Sons of Noah. Rambam wrote in Laws of Kings 8:10):

"Moshe, on the authority of the Almighty, commanded to obligate all mankind to accept the commandments with which the sons of Noah were charged. And whosoever refuses to accept them should be killed, and one who accepts them is called a 'ger toshav' [literally: a resident alien - K.G.]. etc... Whoever accepts the seven mitzvoth and is conscientious in their observance is one of the righteous of the nations of the world, and he has a portion in the world to come..."

I find it puzzling that the commentators strayed so far from the path of R' Akiva's plain meaning, which applies to every man and not to Jews alone. They base their interpretations on Chazal's declaration that "You are called Man, but idolaters are not called men." But this is only a drash [homiletic exposition] upon a drash. Thus they - forcedly - brought in the matter of the image and explication of the scripture which he offered as proof. But in my opinion, the following is the well-paved and spacious path [of explication]: R' Akiva comes to do right with all human beings, as we were commanded by Moshe, our teacher, as explained by Rambam. And if we were commanded to impose [upon the idolaters] by killing and destroying, all the more so are we charged to impose upon them by acts which attract their hearts to the will of their creator... They are remembered positively. And he taught them to understand that they are beloved for they were created in the image.

(Tosafot Yom Tov, Avot 3:14)

 

R' Akiva expounded: Whoever sheds blood is considered as though he diminished the [divine] image.

What is the reason for this: "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed". Why? "For in the image of God did He create man."

 (Midrash Rabba, Bereishit, 34)

 

"In the image of God": This means that the mold prepared for him [for man] was a mold in the image of his creator.

(Rashi, Bereishit 1:27)

 

R' Nehemiah says: From where do we derive that one man is the equivalent of all creation? It is written (Bereishit 5), "This is the record of the begettings of Adam".

 (Avot D'Rabbi Natan, 31:6)

 

 "When a man has sin guilt, resulting in a sentence of death, and is put to death, and you hang him up on a wooden stake, you are not to leave his carcass overnight on the stake, rather you are to bury, yes, bury him on that very day for an insult to God is a hanging person - that you not render your soil tamei that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

(Devarim 21:22-23)

 

"For an insult to God is a hanging person" - this is an insult to the king, for man was created in the mold of his image and Israel are his children. This may be compared to two brothers who resembled each other, one became king, and the other was apprehended in robbery and hung; all who see him say 'The king is hanging.'

(Rashi, Devarim 21:22)

 

Man Was Created Singly

Man was created alone in the world, so that families not quarrel with each other. And if now, when man was created singly, they quarrel with each other, had he been created two at a time, how much more so!

(Tosefta, Sanhedrin 8:2)

 

Therefore was man created singly... for the sake of peace among men, so that one not say to his fellow: My father is greater than your father.

(Mishna, Sanhedrin 4:5)

 

Progress and the Legal System Are No Guarantee of an Enlightened World

Even though Cain and his sons established a city and a political organization, and instituted laws and methods of social leadership, if wisdom does not add its voice and if people are not just and justice-loving by nature, none of the laws will avail, for should a despot arise, he will laugh at all the laws and will expropriate judgment and justice.

(Malbim, Bereishit 4:23)

 

After the Torah mentioned the innovations in human civilization produced by Cain and his brothers, it quotes Lemech's song, which proves that material progress was not accompanied by ethical progress. Corruption ruled, and those generations took pride in their corrupt behavior; davka those attributes detestable and odious in the eyes of God were praiseworthy in men's eyes. In such a situation, it was impossible that He who judges the entire earth not do justice. All the achievements of material culture are worthless unless accompanied by ethical behavior.

 (Prof. M. D. Cassuto, "From Adam to Noach", p. 130)

 

 

 

 

 

Editorial Board: Pinchas Leiser (Editor), Miriam Fine (Coordinator), Itzhak Frankenthal and Dr. Menachem Klein

Translation: Kadish Goldberg

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