BEREISHITH 1993

We have once again started the Torah cycle reading over again.  The last word of the Torah is Yisroel, and the first word of the Torah is BEREISHIS.  That means that the last letter of the Torah is a Lahmed and the first letter of the Torah is a Beis, which stands for heart.  What is essential if we are to be good Jews is to have a sensitive heart, an understanding heart.  Without this understanding heart then it is difficult to be a good Jew.  

The rabbis also note that the word Lahmed Beis stands for 32 in Hebrew, and they say that 32 times is the word heart mentioned in the Torah. We say that BEREISHIS mean "with reishis", with reishis did G-d create the world. They explain that reishis means the Jewish people and also the Torah, that G-d created the world with the Torah and the Jewish people in mind.  

There is a famous question that Rashi asks, why is it that this Torah started with the creation of the world? Why didn't the Torah start with the first commandment given to the entire Jewish people, and that is the commandment to count the months from the month Nisan and to bring the Korban Pesach right before the Exodus from Egypt? Why do we have to learn all this about the generations of the world and about the creation?  It would have been better if we just started with basically the Exodus when the Jewish people became a people.

What's more, if we look at the Haphtorah we read today we see that except for the very first line which says that G-d created the heaven and the earth it just basically talks about Israel.  It talks about the role of Israel in the world.  It talks about how Israel is to be a light unto the nations. It talks about the fact that G-d is going to make sure that the Jewish people represent a model of what He wants the world to be, and if the Jewish people stray from this model the Jewish people will punished, but that the Jewish people will eventually be redeemed and the Jewish people will serve as a model to all the nations of the world how they are to act.  Why should this be the Haphtorah? The Haphtorah should concern itself again with the creation of the world.  It should talk about G-d's great glory in creating the world, etc., but here basically it talks about the Jewish people.

I think that if we really look at the Torah, in fact the whole Tenach, we will see that the whole Torah and Tenach is really a story of G-d's failure.  G-d was a failure as a teacher.  G-d could not convince the individuals of this world to live decent and just lives starting with Adam and Eve.  They ate of the forbidden fruit.  Then we have Cain and Abel and how Cain killed Abel. We learn about the generation of the flood. We learn, too, about the Tower of Babel that the people built, so that we see that G-d was a failure.  G-d could not convince people to live the decent and right life, that G-d decided that He needed a model and we were to serve as a model, a national model.  For an individual alone it is too hard for him to live a decent and moral life.  He needs society.  He needs a group to which he can attach himself who can help and aid him in leading the moral and just life and, therefore, this could serve as a role model for all the world.  

Of course, G-d probably had this in mind in the very beginning so G-d had created the Torah and already had it in mind to create the Jewish people so the Jewish people would be His instrument in bringing salvation to the world. That's why it is so very important that we stay Jewish.  To stay Jewish is the most universal thing you can do.  So many Jews thought that being Jewish is so particularistic, that we are a small little nation less than one-tenth of one percent of the world's population.  How can we really accomplish anything? How can we really bring betterment to the world? How can we bring redemption to the world? The Torah starts out by telling us that we will bring redemption to the world.  It is the Jewish people by studying the Torah and implementing the teachings of the Torah as a group that will cause the world to become the place that it really is destined to become, that we can bring redemption to the world.  

This message is so important that we teach our young people.  It is not just important that they be Jews because Judaism adds to their personal life but they be Jews because it is important that they are able to celebrate the Jewish holidays and understand Jewish things, and it is important for the redemption of the Jewish people that they stay Jews.  That is not enough. Otherwise the Torah could have started out just with the redemption of the Jewish people from Egypt, but the reason we are Jews is because we want to redeem the world. It is true that by being a good Jew and observing the commandments that you have a richer inner life.  It is true that if you are a member of the Jewish people you will have also a more full life, but the real reason we are Jews is not just for these two aspects of Judaism, but it is for the third aspect because Judaism, itself, is going to redeem the world.

That’s why it also says in this Haphtorah that "my faithful servants are blind and my faithful servants cannot hear." The question is, if they are the faithful servants of G-d, why it is that there is nobody blind like the servants of G-d and nobody who is deaf like the servants of G-d? How could that be possible? The answer is that if we look are world history and the way nations have acted one to another we would despair and say how is it ever possible that right can make might? Might is what makes right, not right that makes might.  How could we believe that there would be universal brotherhood and peace? How could we possibly believe that we will not destroy each other? After all, we are getting better and better in scientific developments and these scientific developments are a two-edged sword.  They can destroy us as well as build us.  We know that the atomic bomb is getting so small now that perhaps a terrorist could slip it into a little suitcase or attaché case and blow up a whole city with it.  Our scientific endeavors are getting so sophisticated that they also allow us to create all sorts of chemicals which require very little chemicals in order to pollute a whole city's water supply, that we have to be very, very careful because our science can not only be for good but also for bad.  

We, though, Jews have to be blind to the fact that man can do evil things and that the history of man is not too promising.  We can believe that we really can bring redemption to the world.  There is no big problem with the story of BEREISHIS and whether the world is billions of years old or not because the Kaballah has already said that the world is billions of years old.  Science no longer believes in the survival of the fittest, which is it is very important that they no longer believes in that. It believes in the survival of the luckiest.  Chance events happen which nobody can foresee and which you cannot acclimate slowly to.  We are today in existence because of a huge comet which hit the earth and destroyed the dinosaurs and the mammals who were barely holding on were able to inherit the earth because the dinosaurs are no more.  If the dinosaurs would have stayed in existence the mammals would have been a threatened species and we here would not be in existence today. When you talk about the survival of the luckiest and not survival of the fittest that means we are talking about chance occurrences. We are talking about G-d again. We are talking about how G-d can interfere in history and change things dramatically with just one little event that nobody can really anticipate.  

In fact, all of life itself is a fluke.  Life, itself, should not exist according to the laws of statistics it was impossible for life, especially in the present form that we have on this earth, to ever occur.  It was just statistically an impossibility but it did occur. Therefore, we, too, believe and even though people say that it is impossible that man could ever better himself, that man could live in peace and harmony, that although it is impossible that man could ever create a society of justice in which man, himself, would be redeemed and in which the world, itself, will be a world of justice and  peace and harmony and brotherhood, we say it can be done.  We say that it will be done, and we say that Judaism is the vehicle which is going to bring it about. Yes, we have to be careful.  Yes, we cannot commit suicide by trying to bring about this dream, although some Jews perhaps feel so strongly in this dream that they are willing even to chance suicide.  That, of course, is not the Jewish way either.

I am reminded of the story they tell about an antelope and a lion who came into a restaurant.  The waiter came over to the antelope and said, "What would you like to eat?" He said, "Well, I'll take a bowl of hay and a bowl of radishes." Then the waiter said, "Okay, and what will your friend the lion have?" He said, "Well, the lion will have nothing." The waiter said, "What's the matter?  Isn't he hungry?"The antelope said, "Listen, sir, if that lion was hungry I wouldn't be here."

So we have to be very careful, too, that although we believe fervently that right eventually makes might that we have to implement our ideals based upon the situations at hand and not do things which will cause us to commit suicide.  On the other hand, we do not have license to act in an arbitrary and cruel and vicious manner just because we feel that possibly we may be threatened. We believe BEREISHIS, with Reishis with the Torah, with the Jewish people G-d created the world because G-d, Himself, knew that when He bases the redemption of the world on different individuals who come along the world will never be redeemed, but if He has a model people who the other nations of the world can look at, if He has a "light unto the nations", as it says in Isaiah who will follow the laws of the Torah then the world certainly will be redeemed.  Let us all hope and pray that especially our young people will get this message so that they will fervently decide that they want to actively be Jews, not just because it is good for them and not just because it is good for their families and not just because it is good for the Jewish people, but because it is good for the world because through being Jewish we will bring the redemption to the world.  Let us happen soon.  Amen.