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Vayeishev 5758 Volume V Number 12

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Vayeishev 5758 Volume V Number 12 Beraishit 5778 Volume XXV Number 4 Toras Aish Thoughts From Across the Torah Spectrum eternal token not only of the generic limitations of the RABBI DOV LERNER living, but of Adam’s personal failure. In G-d’s offer of Ascending Scales dignity there appears to lie a ghastly torment; with dam and Eve err, even rebel; they follow hungry expulsion and curse as punishment enough, we might impulses and find themselves exposed. As the ask why G-d would comfort man with such a disturbing Aguilt seeps into consciousness and the blood gown. drains from their aware faces, a resounding whisper Perhaps we misunderstand the presence of gathers pace; it is the sound of Divine reckoning. In failure, and with the aid of two suggestive scenes we can alleviate the seeming cruelty of Adam’s cloak. haste they flee and hide in the woods—an act which 5 carries the flavor of mortal fear, a flavor that resonates One Midrash describes a desert teaming with in our wooden coffins.1 Naked and ashamed, barely snakes that had the strange effect that if they touched born and now unmasked, G-d curses man and offers the shadow of a bird overhead, the bird would burst into the now required dignity of dress: “The Lord made pieces. The symbol of failure cannot be concealed; to coats of skin for Adam and his woman”.2 soar over past misdoings and ignore former misdeeds Coats of hide, not leaves or fabric, leave is to undo all possibility of success; to try and obscure mankind clad in the residue of death’s touch. Forever blunders in the shadows is to invite an inner splintering. accompanied by the texture of animate vulnerability, When G-d washes away the world’s moral Adam and Eve are inescapably alerted to their own degeneracy and recreates it with Noah, Rashi invokes an image in which rather unexpected passengers alight limits. So the text implies. 6 Rabbi Meir, though, refutes such an image and the ark: demons. Emmanuel Levinas suggests that, infuses the scene with sacred illumination; he, the “These are the tempters of postdiluvian civilizations, 3 without which, no doubt, the mankind of the future 7 ,עור—Midrash reports, would read the word for skin .”Or—meaning light. could not be, despite its regeneration, a true mankind ,אור—Or—as its softer twin Extracting the guttural undertones of the sound, Rabbi In a moving reading of a phrase in Psalms, our Sages Meir simultaneously erases the moral distaste for the proclaim the truth that, “If a human being uses a broken image. Man is no longer draped in death, but radiates vessel it is shameful, but the vessels that G-d use are specifically broken ones, as per the verse, ‘G-d is close light. Although expelled, warmth remains; although east 8 of Eden, the hope of paradise lives on. to those of a broken heart’”. Any attempt to forget our Rabbi Eliezer, however, refuses to lighten the failures is an ill-conceived illusion, unattainable and cloth’s sting, and in fact adds a vast new weight to its unhealthy. In Freud’s terminology, the repressed will already heavy load. Taking the text at its word—the return. cloth was skin—but burying deeper into detail, he asks, To complete the picture we turn to another ‘Whose skin was it?’ It was, Rabbi Eliezer claims, the desert scene, where Israel are seen surviving on the skin of the snake.4 A creature of cruel persuasion, it backs of engendered serpents: “When Israel walked in was the serpent that had triggered human error and the desert, in abundant love, G-d directed the snakes to shaped the toxic hubris which led to mankind’s demise. Being enrobed and enveloped by the scaly skin of man’s initial tempter, it would seem, serves as an Please keep in mind Ita bas Blima Leah for a refuah shelaima 1 Genesis Rabbah, 19: “‘Adam and his wife hid among the 5 Mechilta D’Rebbi Shimon bar Yochai 15:22; Midrash woods of the garden’ – R’ Levi said – this hints to Tanchuma, Beshalach, 18. descendants placed in wooden coffins.” 6 Rashi Genesis 6:19 2 Genesis 3:21 7 Levinas, Emmanuel. Nine Talmudic Readings (New York: 3 Genesis Rabbah, 20 Indiana University Press, 1994), 33 4 Pirkei D’ Rebbi Eliezer, 20 8 Leviticus Rabbah, 7 2 Toras Aish fateful dilemma. By creating Homo sapiens, God was TORAS AISH IS A WEEK LY PARSHA making the one being other than Himself capable of NEWSLETTER DISTRIBUTED VIA EMAIL destroying life on earth. Read Jared Diamond’s Guns, AND THE WEB AT WWW.AISHDAS.ORG/TA. Germs and Steel or Collapse and you will discover how FOR MORE INFO EMAIL [email protected] destructive humans have been wherever they have set The material presented in this publication was collected from foot, creating environmental damage and human email subscriptions, computer archives and various websites. devastation on a massive scale. We are still doing so. It is being presented with the permission of the respective authors. Toras Aish is an independent publication, and does This is how the Talmud describes what happened not necessarily reflect the views of any synagogue or before God created humankind: organization. When the Holy One, blessed be He, came to TO DEDICATE THIS NEWSLETTER PLEASE CALL create man, He created a group of ministering angels (973) 277-9062 OR EMAIL [email protected] and asked them, “Do you agree that we should make man in our image?” They replied, “Sovereign of the form bridges, and Israel passed over them as a man on 9 Universe, what will be his deeds?” a bridge”. Snakes and serpents and sins are cunning God showed them the history of mankind. The creatures and will forever haunt our steps—to ignore angels replied, “What is man that You are mindful of them is fatal. But to privately carry the knowledge of our him?” [in other words, let man not be created]. failures can offer comfort in the spirit of recognized God destroyed the angels. progress. In confronting our pasts, our hissing sins He created a second group, and asked them dissipate into service, and in harmony we ascend their the same question, and they gave the same answer. scales. In crossing the bridge toward our destinies, we God destroyed them. merge the fibers of Rabbi Meir’s and Rabbi Eliezer’s He created a third group of angels, and they imagining, as when we wear our sins and recognize replied, “Sovereign of the Universe, the first and second them we can convert icy misdeeds into beams of group of angels told You not to create man, and it did light. © 2013 Rabbi D. Lerner and Yeshiva University Straus not avail them. You did not listen. What then can we Center for Torah and Western Thought. Rabbi Lerner is the say but this: The universe is Yours. Do with it as You assistant rabbi of Congregation KINS in West Rogers Park, wish.” Chicago, IL. Then God created man. RABBI LORD JONATHAN SACKS When it came to the generation of the Flood, and then to the generation of the builders of Babel, the Covenant & Conversation angels said to God, “Were not the first angels right? n stately prose the Torah in its opening chapter See how great is the corruption of mankind.” describes the unfolding of the universe, the effortless I Then God replied (Isaiah 46:4), “Even to old creation of a single creative Force. Repeatedly we age I will not change, and even to grey hair, I will still be read, “And God said, Let there be … and there was … patient.” (Sanhedrin 38b) and God saw that it was good” – until we come to the This goes to the core of the dilemma even God creation of humankind. Suddenly the whole tone of the could not escape. Were He not to create humanity narrative changes: there would be no-one in the universe capable of And God said, “Let us make man in our image, understanding that he or she was created and that God according to our likeness, and let them rule over the exists. Only with the birth of humanity did the universe fish of the sea, and over the birds of heaven, and over become self-conscious. Without us, it would be as if the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every moving God had created billions of robots mindlessly doing thing that moves upon the earth.” what they been programmed to do for all eternity. So, So God created man in His image, even though by creating humans God was putting the In the image of God He created him, entire future of creation at risk, God went ahead and Male and female He created them. made humankind. (Gen 1:26-27) This is radical theology indeed. The Talmud is The problems are obvious. First, why the telling us is that the existence of humankind can only preface, “Let us make …”? In no other case does God be explained by the fact that God had faith in man. As verbally reflect on what He is about to create before He the Sifre explains the phrase in Moses’ song, “the God creates it. Second, who is the “us”? At that time there of faith” – this means, “the God who had faith in the was no “us.” There was only God. universe and created it.”10 The real religious mystery, There are many answers, but here I want to according to Judaism, is not our faith in God.
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