Shalom. I am Rabbi Jonathan Ginsburg of Illinois. This is a Torah about portion of Genesis, the first portion of the Torah Breeisheet. First question is the scientific document? Why I need to tell you a joker in order explain this?
Fellow says to God, God in your terms, how much is a minute our terms? The God said a minute to me is like a million years to you. A penny to you, how much is that to us? And God said a million dollars. So the man said, God can I help for your pennies? And God said in a minute.
Now, it does not mean necessary that a day in our terms and God’s terms is the day in our terms, could be a billion years.
Genesis is not a scientific book, and any one of things to this is just being ridiculous. It is not trying to be a scientific book is trying to say them is the sequence like evolution of God’s creation. It took awhile to go from nothingness and voidness to the full universe we have and human kind evolving.
If you look at and like a scientific phenomenon, human being was created the very end of the 6 days.
It took a very long time to get here, that does not change the fact that the Torah is trying to teach that the God is the creator. That the first starting point and the main idea. Now, there many, many valuable lessons of Genesis and I want to talk about the few of them.
First of all, what is mean when God says “Let us make man in our image according to likeness.” Who is God to talking too?
Well, some Rabbi say God using the royal way, other say God was talking to the Angels. I think that make most senses. We know the animals were there already according to chapter 1. Then, God was talking to the animals.
And said “Let us make man in are image. I will make him part mammal, I will make a mammal like you. And I give them my spirit in actually human being is, and that is we are.
In Judaism says that were consisting of those 2 forces: mammalian and God’s spirit. And we constantly have to negotiate those 2, we cannot be just God’s spirit because were in bodies, God did want us to be that. God have already Angels like that, and God did not less to be just animals. And so, the whole commandment structure of the Torah is design the help us immediate that idea.
And one of the other idea of course is that human beings where the crown of creation, but we are not allowed just do it whatever we want. Genesis does say that we can have dominion. For he also says we have to be guardians “Shamer” guardians of the garden. We have to navigate careful between those 2 ideas of using what we need in the world but can careful guardians. It seems like right now, we are not being careful one of guardians.
Also the Bible says that in the story about God making Eve from Adam, he is trying to teach us that it says is (Hebrew Language), God made man, male and female. That is the essential equality and I will do another video on women in Judaism. But basically, man and woman are viewed as absolutely equal and God’s eyes. There is no inferiority or superiority, we have to structure to society where they are both protected equally.
Now, what about the Adam and Eve story eating the apple?
I know it is some traditions viewed that as the ultimate fall and sin of all human kind. Jews do not see the story that way at wall. There is a seductive sense of sin that occurs in the world, but does not mean that all human beings are born sinful, who come in the contrary believe the human being are born pure. But we have temptation, because where mamelion. And those temptations can be lead to access.
And so, we have to be careful and we have repentance which I have another video on to explain how to comeback to God once we have sin.
Now, what about Cain and Abel?
Well, here you have the most interesting question. One of the most interesting questions in history, where Cain kills Abel out of jealousy and if read the Bible carefully, you see lots of brothers have problems and it is nothing new.
And when Cain kills Abel, he tries to hide him. God says “where is your brother?” And Cain says “Am I my brother’s keeper? God says “Ayakah, where are you?” Am I my brother’s keeper? And God wants to know where we are and the answer to the question is yes, you are your brother’s keeper. We are responsibility in every human being, it help safeguard and make the world better place.
And finally, we do not leave in a Garden of Eden anymore. We do not. We live in the real world. We have to work, we have to serve God. And the only time we will have a taste of the Garden of Eden again is what we call life after death, the holy bliss of living in unison with God.
So, that’s some of the essential ideas of this story that starts of the Torah. “In the beginning, God created that heaven and the earth”. It is starting point for all religion. And for all western society and all of the other great idea of this portion but which begin the Torah come from those words.
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