Beit Midrash
- Torah Portion and Tanach
- Torah Portion
- Bereshit
week has been one of the hardest in Israel’s
history, if not in the entire history of the
Jewish People. The shock, the anger, the sadness
combine combine to overwhelm & debilitate us.
When we struggle to find answers to the deepest
questions in life, there is only one place we can
go: to Hashem. And where do we find Hashem? In
the Torah, of course; specifically the Parsha of
the week. And so I want to focus on two themes in our Sedra that speak to us.
The first is about violence. Soon after human
beings are evicted from Gan Eden, the Torah
records the first & perhaps the worst murder ever
committed. Though they "divide" the world between
themselves, the brothers Kayin and Hevel are not
satisfied. They are greedy; Kayin is angry while
Hevel is unsympathetic, & they fight, until one
dies. The potential for violence, says G-d, is
always there, "crouching at the door." This
propensity for evil will grow until, at Parsha’s
end, G-d will decide that this society must be
utterly destroyed, & the world must begin anew,
hopefully with a better moral character.
The lesson we are being taught is that evil can
destroy a whole world, unless we eradicate it
from our midst. We, who have now witnessed pure
evil, must do all we can to utterly destroy this
source of evil epitomized by the barbarians in
Gaza, as a favor to all the earth. As the Torah
will later teach, the presence of Amalek demands
from us a merciless, uncompromising destruction.
And let us make no mistake: Gaza IS Amalek in its
basest & most cruel form, and not an ounce of mercy can be wasted on them.
The beginning of Bereisheit describes Creation, &
the day-by-day progression of life. On the 3rd,
4th, 5th and 6th days, the pasuk says: "Vayar
Elokim ki tov;" and G-d saw that it was good. But
no such phrase is mentioned on either the first
or second days. Why not?! The answer is that on
both of those days a separation takes place. On
Day 1, Light & Darkness are divided from one
another; & on Day 2, the waters above (the
sky/clouds) separate from the waters below (the seas).
The Torah is hinting that in situations where
separation & division exist, the term "tov-good"
is out of place. The not-so subtle message is
that friction & disunity cannot be called "good;"
& if that is true about inanimate entities, it
certainly applies to people. And especially to
Jews. When we divide and separate, no good can come of it.
On the 6th day, "Hashem saw that it was good"
when the animal kingdom is created, then G-d said
it was "very good" when humanity is formed &
given dominion over the animals. The message: It
is a very good thing when people, by any means,
rule over & control the animals, both those with
4 legs & those with 2. If we do not rule them, evil will rule over us.
