No other Parashat tests our faith more than Bereshiet. And more so now than a thousand years ago. For this Parashat has been the counter weight of Darwin and millions of scientist after him. It is also the excuse of many not to believe in Ha-Shem (The Name). And as time goes on, those who do not believe, think they’re proven right with the uncovering of yet one more fossil.
None of our Sages really dives into the rapid beginnings of this Parashat. It’s only on the sixth day that they come into action after the creation of animals and man. It is as if the creation of earth, wilderness and all other life, that Darwin used as his theory of evolution, is a given to our Rabbis.
The exact order in which Ha-Shem creates Olam (the world), is also Darwin’s order of evolution theories; fishes and birds (on the fifth day) followed by animals and man (on the sixth day). And some modern Rabbis will sometime allow themselves to think that God’s days of creation were perhaps longer days than regular modern days are. Could the first day have been a few millions of years long? With other days being equally that long, thereby making the creation in fact the evolution?
This is the Parashat that tests us in another way. It asks us to believe or not. This is where the Hebrew word ‘Daht’ - ‘Believe’, comes into play and makes us who we are. Almost always do modern writers translate the word ‘Daht’ for the English word ‘Religion’, and measure people by the words; ‘He’s very religious or he’s not very religious’.
That’s a mistake. Hebrew does not have a word for religion. Bereshit tests us by asking us to believe it or not. To be ‘Dahti’ or not. To be a ‘Believer’ or not. The Torah does not measure us whether we are religious, very religious or super religious. It cannot, because it doesn’t have a word for religion.
The Torah asks you only one thing; ‘Are you a believer in all of this, or not? And the answer isn’t, I believe a little, or very, or I’m an orthodox believer. Believing is black and white. Believing is simply a yes, or a no.
We are blessed. We are created in God’s likeness - ‘Be-Tzalmoh’. Which gives us the responsibility, the duties and the glory we can achieve in this newly created world. Prof. Gutman in his book; Dat Umadda, - Religion (wrongly translated) and Science, dwells on the thought; ‘The Image of God’; “The personality of man is placed vis-a-vis the personality of God…” Meaning, every individual is equally significant before God, since every man was created in His image. Darwin will of course disagree, but in the words; “And fill the earth and subdue it: And rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of heaven; and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth”, - Ramban understands that man has been given dominion over the earth to do as his will with the rest of he animal creation, to build, uproot, plant, mine metal from the earth and the like. As if God gave man the right to complete creation.
Upon creating man, God does not speak the phrase: And God saw that it was good” as He did before upon delivering other creations. Many have said that this is because man has his own road to walk and can be good or bad. Ramban, in Tshuva 5 states; Freewill is accorded every man. If he desires to take the evil one and be wicked, he is free to do so…the Creator does not preordain man to be good or bad.
There are a few reasons that have been discussed in the past and present for the creation of the woman:
1- She is the ‘help’ every man needs. (Literally; cook for him - Yevamot)
2- She is the companion every man needs. (Loh-tov hayot ha-adam le-vadoh.)
3- A life without a wife is without joy, blessing and well-being. (Talmud)
4- Without a woman, man would have to devote all of his effort to supply his daily needs. (Sforno)
The Talmud comes closest to establishing the clear partnership that evolves later in the Torah between man and woman upfront. Like a reporter who gets the story first, the Talmud ’sees’ the future benefits of a woman. But is that written in hindsight?
There’s a strange thing going on here. Before the creation of man, there’s clearly the creation of male and female animal, in order to multiply. The Torah announces ‘man’ and ‘female’ creation of ‘man’ before the more explicit way in which He creates first him then her. - “And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created He him, male and female created he them.”
Then why is there any discussion that a woman should be created as a reaction to loneliness? Is that just to point out that man should seek woman for time to come? The Sages see this as evidence that marriage is sacred, and that without this divine institution, man cannot be complete. But it is as if the Torah backtracks in telling us how woman was created later out of man’s rib. We are asked to believe without questioning. As is Adam in Eve. And when Eve believes in the wrong, Adam follows her down the wrong path, turning good into bad. Proving that Ha-Shem’s worry about man’s freewill in doing good or bad, right. The blessing; and it was good - Va-Yareh Elohim Ki-Tov, was indeed good for the sees, the skies, the plants, the trees and the animals, but not man. For he and she, has a mind of their own.
He and she can decide to believe or not to believe. And the answer is either a yes or a no. It’s not something that can be measured in a word called ‘religion’.
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