Parshat Bereishit

AND THE LORD GOD CALLED TO THE HUMAN, AND SAID TO HIM: "WHERE ARE YOU?"

(Bereishit 3:9)

 

The Story of the Jewish People is the Story of the First Human, which is the Story of Every Human

Rabbi Abahu said in the name of R. Hanina: It is written: They, as a man [k'adam], transgressed the covenant (Hosea 6) - they are like the first man [Adam].

Just as I placed Adam in the Garden of Eden, and commanded him, but he transgressed my command, and I sentenced him to be expelled and sent-out, and I made a lamentation over him; I placed him in the Garden of Eden, for it is said, and placed him in the Garden of Eden (Bereishit 2), and I commanded him, for it is said and the Lord God commanded the human, and he transgressed the command, for it is said have you eaten from the tree I commanded you not to eat from? And I sentenced him to be sent out, for it is said, and He sent out the human, and I sentenced him to expulsion, as it is said, and He expelled the human, I said a lamentation over him, saying eikhah [how could it be?], for it is said, and said to him, ayekah [where are you] - which is written like eikhah. So too, I caused his children to enter the Land of Israel, and I commanded them yet they transgressed My command, I sentenced them to be sent out and expelled, and I made a lamentation over them. I brought them into the Land of Israel, for it is said, and I brought you to the land of the Carmel (Jeremiah 2), and I commanded them, for it is said, and you, command the Israelites (Shemot 27), they transgressed My commands, for it is said, and all of Israel transgressed Your Torah (Daniel 9), and I sentenced them to be sent out, for it is said, Send them away from My presence (Jeremiah 15), and I sentenced them to be expelled, for it is said, I shall expel them from My house (Hoshea 9), and I lamented over them saying eikhah, for it is said How does [the city] sit [lonely].

(Bereishit Rabbah 19:9)

 

Ayekah - Where are you? What position have you assumed? What level have you reached?

(Rabbi S.R. Hirsch ad loc)

 

 

And Abel was a shepherd, but Cain was a worker of the land

Gili Zivan

Much has been written (and will be written) about the story of Cain and Abel, the first murder in human history. Both literal and midrashic explanations have been offered of the crime's motive (and Cain said to his brother Abel - what did he say to him out there in the field?); of its destructive after effects (the voice of our brother's blood cries out to Me from the ground - "his blood and the blood of his descendants," in the words of the midrash); of Cain's attempt to escape responsibility for his deed (And he said: I do not know, am, I my brother's keeper?); of the significance of Cain's punishment (You shall wander through the land)... but I wish now to explore the source of Cain's power.

How was it that Cain could find the strength to mortally attack his brother, and why was Abel unable to overcome him? In his article, "Profane and Sacred" (which originally appeared in English in the year 5705 and is here reconstructed from the Hebrew translation in Adam Ve'Olamo, pg. 146), Rav Soloveitchik addresses this question, answering it with some empathy towards Cain:

Cain was stronger than his brother Abel because he was a farmer, while Abel was a shepherd, a nomad. Cain killed his brother because he was stronger than him and because he had a strong connection with his land, and he was prepared to fight for it. Abel the nomad was weak and did not know how to defend himself. Abel lacked the psychological qualities that could have strengthened him and made him fight his brother. And so, Cain's most appropriate punishment was to become a wanderer in the land, restless because of his brother. Indeed, the most appropriate punishment that could have been meted out to Cain was to decree him to be a wanderer in the land, lacking rest and tranquility.

Cain was a typical settler, a man rooted in his land, someone who had something to fight for. In the eyes of Rav Soloveitchik, the farmer has an element of loyalty to a place, an element lacking in the nomadic character. He asks, "What is the advantage of the settler, who has a place, over the nomad, who has no such place of his own?" (pg. 145) and answers:

First of all, the nomad is exploitive and parasitical; he wanders from place to place, from one grazing area to another. When the weather or other conditions inconvenience him, he immediately pitches his tent elsewhere. He has no aspiration or intention to work the land because he has no land of his own... secondly, the nomad has no psychological connection to the land; he has given the land nothing and received nothing from it. The nomad lacks any consciousness of place. In contrast, the agricultural settler creates and produces. This is his land, and he has worked and toiled over it. He prays for rain to fall, and he is prepared to fight anyone who wants to dispossess him of his land... the farmer-settler has a connection to the land, his estate is part of his personality... he has consciousness of place. (ibid)

What is Rav Soloveitchik trying to tell us, himself a "wandering Jew" who was born in Poland, moved to Germany for his academic studies, and afterwards emigrated to the U.S.A, where he lived for the remainder of his years? What is this "consciousness of place" that he finds so impressive? To what struggle for land is he referring?

These questions find their answers in the continuation of the cited article. It seems that Rav Soloveitchik is not at all referring to the muscular farmer, whose face is sun burnt and whose solid feet are planted in the clods of earth of the land with which he is completely identified. Rav Soloveitchik quickly reveals to his readers that the question of settlement vs. nomadism is the question of loyalty and obligation to a certain world view, and the land is just an allegorical symbol for a particular philosophy and way of life.

The settlement that Rav Soloveitchik is preaching is much more than the settlement of actual land. He suggests that we think of the characters of the nomad and the settler as archetypical of two different lifestyles, two different personality-models. If so, the spiritual and cultural nomadism which we, in our own locale, are grappling with becomes the issue of interest. "The nomads and settlers may be understood a symbols and thought of in terms of concepts of spiritual values" (pg. 146). The nomad is a "spiritual parasite," someone who may know a lot but who is unwilling to commit himself to any particular world view or way of life. Rav Soloveitchik says that such people "show no sign of consciousness of place in connection to spiritual norms and values and they lack "a world-view of their own" (146).

What is loyalty to a world view? Such loyalty cannot consist merely of individual opinions, it must include obligation towards values and norms. The "spiritual nomad" jumps from one value system to another. Both the nomadic shepherd and the spiritual nomad sanctify immediate gratification and fast service. "From the moment some experience stops being gratifying, he deserts it" (pg. 146). Thus, one who "lacks personal connection to a world view... [lacks] consciousness of place and the feeling of belonging" (pg. 147).

In contrast to the nomad, the settler does not merely acquire opinions, he also takes on an obligation to his world view in the way he lives his life. The believer, who is a kind of "spiritual settler," cannot make due with theological utterances alone - he must experience his faith, translate it into a practice consisting of a way of life, into personal and social norms. A way of life connects the believer/settler to his ancient land and inheritance. Prof. Rabbi David Hartmann, a student of Rav Soloveitchik's, gave this idea a direct and honest formulation:

I was educated in a religious home, in a yeshiva framework and in a community whose lives gave testimony to God's existence. Their lives were the testimony... I am of the opinion that one cannot start from this is my God and I shall enshrine Him. Rather, one must start from the God of my father, and I will exalt Him. That is to say that the spiritual-communal framework with which you identify gives testimony, by its very existence, to God's worship. (David Hartmann, She'ailot al Elohim pg.13)

The believer is a "settler" who is loyal to his land, even in times of grievous difficulties. Even when his homestead has disappointed him, it would no occur to him to replace it with another, for it is his. He loves it, he is devoted to it and belongs to it with every fiber of his soul. As Rav Soloveitchik put it in his picturesque fashion:

How can the title Makom [place] be used in connection to God, who is infinite and omnipotent? By using this designation, the halakhah revealed a revolutionary conception of divinity to the entire world. He is not invisible to us... the Creator is, so to speak, our companion... Just as the settler experiences his home... so the Jew experiences his God. The Holy One blessed be He does not reach people through philosophical thought and metaphysical arguments. The Jew encounters his Creator through experience and intuition. (pp. 148-9)

The settlement of which Rav Soloveitchik is speaks is not, in essence, settlement of the Land of Israel, but rather settlement within the Jewish world view, within the Jewish experience.

Indeed, we have wandered far away from the story of Cain and Abel, but the story may have been nothing more than a convenient opportunity for Rav Soloveitchik to address the woes of his generation: "The tragedy of many modern Jews is that they neglect their ancient heritage and untie their spiritual bonds... (pg. 148).

We, who read these words in Israel in the beginning of the year 5766, fifty years after they were written, can only speak of our own world and say that in our internet-generation, the generation of jerky video-clips, the question of spiritual rootedness and loyalty has become even more pressing than in Rav Soloveitchik's day. It seems that nomadism - in the spiritual sense - has become the central characteristic of Israeli society in the twenty-first century. Loyalty to "my" world view and dedication to its values and mores has long become a very rare and precious commodity in hedonistic Israel. Ours is a society that has commercialized every value, selling, and transferring ownership to the highest bidder, while firing workers, breaking compensation agreements and moving on to the latest profitable industrial project...  

Dr. Gili Zivan directs the Yaakov Herzog Center for Jewish Studies in Kibbutz Ein Tzurim

 

 

And God said, "Let us make humans in our image after our likeness, and they shall rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of heaven and the beasts and over all the earth and over all the creeping things that creep on the earth. And God created the human in His image, in God's image he created him, male and female he created them.

 (Bereishit 1: 26-27)

 

...the human was created to possess the soul of life, for in his image, i.e., in his body, there dwells a soul endowed with mind and knowledge, and more than that, if he merits it the divine presence will descend upon him and speak with him, that is why only his image is called the image of God, that is to say, an image whose characteristics make it prepared to accept the higher soul, and have God's glory descend upon it...

after our likeness - That his ways and customary behaviors be similar to those of the Holy One blessed be He, as he said, and walk in His ways. That is: with the power of the soul of life that is planted within him. For when the soul comes from above and it is endowed with its powers for purposes of wisdom; mind and understanding to understand God's greatness and his glorious deeds, love to love God and the ways of justice, hate to hate injustice and despicable deeds, and so forth. He should be similar to Him in his ways to do justice, the ways of God which He favors. Of all the creatures, angelic and earthly, only humans have the power of choice; in that, too, he is similar to his Creator, may He be blessed.

(R. Yitzhak Shemuel Reggio ad loc)

 

And love your neighbor as yourself - Not that one should love every person as he actually loves himself, for that is impossible, and Rabbi Akiva already taught that "Your life takes precedent over your friend's life." Rather as yourself in the sense of [your neighbor] who is like you - as in [the verse] for you are like unto Pharaoh. So here too as well Love your neighbor who is as yourself; he is equal to you and similar to you in that he was also created in the image of God, he is a human being just as you are, and that includes all human beings, for they were all created in the divine image.

(R. Yitzhak Shemuel Reggio on Vayikra 18:19)

 

after our likeness - ... the purpose of man is to make himself similar to his God...  there should be nothing in his heart that goes against the divine attributes of truth and loving-kindness, justice and holiness - no man can become God's equal, but he must resemble Him. The purpose of every person is to "become holy" and to aspire to ascend the ladder of divine holiness. This is the meaning of the verse: Let us make it a source of strength for us, in its proper accoutrements, as is worthy of Him whom we wish to imitate.

(Rabbi S. R. Hirsch on Bereisit 1:26)

 

And love your neighbor as yourself (Vayikra 19) - Ranni Akiva says: This is a great principle of the Torah.

Ben Azzai says: This is the book of the generations of Adam (Bereishit 5) is an even greater principle.

(Yerushalmi Nedarim 9:4; Sifra)

 

"This is the book of the generations of Adam (Bereishit 5) is an even greater principle." This verse expresses the unity of the human race. The greatest criminal, the lowest of the most corrupt, all are written into God's book and included in the generations of Adam. All of them came from one person, who was created in God's image... and so, all human beings are called adam. No man will ever completely lose his divine image - that is the first truth written down at the dawn of human history.

(Rabbi S. R. Hirsch on Bereishit 5:1)

 

 

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