The name of this week’s Sidra means “At the beginning”. It comes from the Hebrew word Rosh, which means HEAD. The first chapter describes the creation of the world in seven days. It is worth noting that many commentators agree that the Torah is not meant to teach only history and that the account we have before us is not a scientific presentation of how the world came into being. Many of the details can be explained in terms of science, but this is not the main purpose. The Torah’s purpose is to teach eternal religious truths. Its lessons are many; some are obvious whilst others are a little more concealed. Many of the ideas in it have helped shape our world. The first important idea is that the world was created. It has not always existed. There is a creator. The next central insight is that we, human beings, are not here through an accident; that there was a decision to have the universe created; that human beings represent the crown of creation. Third, the Torah emphasises that human beings are made in the image of God, which means, according to some commentators, that we have been endowed with divine intellect enabling us to be creative, somewhat like God. It follows that human life is precious and deserves to be protected. The fourth important idea, in the first chapter of Genesis, is that God created men and women as equals. The fifth concept is that there has been built into the creation of the world a day in which we should be resting from all our work, as God did. We have a duty to emulate him. The story of creation also affirms, in no uncertain terms, the perception that the world is very good. The careful structure of the story shows that there is order in the world and nothing has been created haphazardly.
In the second chapter, which is also an account of the creation of the world, we are presented with other extremely important lessons. The first and foremost is that human beings are tempted, by nature, to disobey God and transgress. The underlying message is that God has given us a code of conduct which we should follow. We are accountable for our deeds. We cannot blame others and circumstances. There is reward and punishment.
In the story of Cain and Abel we learn that we are our brother’s keeper. We also learn from Cain that God forgives us if we are sorry about what we have done, even if we have committed extremely serious crimes.
The six days of creation can be divided into two parallel groups. The first group supplies the resources that are to be used by the corresponding creatures in the second group, as the chart below describes:
Group 1: The Resource Group 2: The Utilizer
Day 1 light Day 4 the luminaries
Day 2 sky, leaving terrestrial waters Day 5 fish and fowl
Day 3 dry land/vegetation Day 6 land creatures
Professor Umberto Cassuto, who taught Bible at the Hebrew University in the first half of the 20th century, demonstrated at length, in his book From Adam to Noah, the use of patterns of sevens in the creation story which shows that this number really does symbolize perfection and the idea of design. A few examples illustrate this literary device. The first verse contains seven words; the description of chaos in verse two contains two times seven words; each of the three central thematic nouns in the first verse, God (Elohim), heavens (shamayim), earth (eretz), are repeated in multiples of seven (God, 35; earth, 21; heavens or firmament, 21). In the final paragraph, about the Sabbath, recited in the Kiddush on Friday nights, three of its main sentences have seven words, as befits the seventh day.
The story of creation concludes with the statement that God saw that everything in the world that he created was “very good”. In the second story of creation, we learn about man’s responsibilities. Some things are not automatically good. Man has to take the right decisions. It says: “It is not good for man to be alone; I will make a fitting helper (ezer kenegdo) for him”. The message is that, for man to be complete, he needs a partner. The phrase “ezer kenegdo,”, describing a wife means that she was created to help her husband in a unique way. She is a part of him but also apart from him. She is endowed with different mental and emotional powers so as to be able to offer him complementary, sometimes, opposing interpretations about his work, thought and life. In other words, the ideal marriage is not at all one of total agreement in all matters; a healthy marriage includes conversations of questioning, criticizing, examining and discussing for a common purpose. The story teaches that human beings need to be married in order to fulfill their potential to the fullest. It is a natural condition for man and woman to be married and that it is not right to remain on one’s own, voluntarily.