Back to the Beginning & Back to the Basics
Having moved through the finish line of our fall holiday marathon with Simchat Torah earlier this week, we now arrive at Shabbat Bereishit, where we begin our cycle of Torah anew. The work we have done throughout the holiday season -- to connect ourselves with our community and our people, our tradition and values, and our highest aspirations for our lives in this New Year -- culminates in a great reset.
As we move back to the beginning of the Torah this week, I also want to draw our attention to an important "basic:" one of the most fundamental principles in all of Jewish tradition.
In the earliest chapters of Genesis, God creates the natural world, finishing with the pièce de résistance: the creation of human beings in Genesis 1:26-27:
(כו) וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֔ים נַֽעֲשֶׂ֥ה אָדָ֛ם בְּצַלְמֵ֖נוּ כִּדְמוּתֵ֑נוּ וְיִרְדּוּ֩ בִדְגַ֨ת הַיָּ֜ם וּבְע֣וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֗יִם וּבַבְּהֵמָה֙ וּבְכָל־הָאָ֔רֶץ וּבְכָל־הָרֶ֖מֶשׂ הָֽרֹמֵ֥שׂ עַל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃ (כז) וַיִּבְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים ׀ אֶת־הָֽאָדָם֙ בְּצַלְמ֔וֹ בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹהִ֖ים בָּרָ֣א אֹת֑וֹ זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה בָּרָ֥א אֹתָֽם׃
(26) And God said, “Let us make a human in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth.” (27) And God created the human in [God's] image, in the Divine image, God created [the human]; male and female, [God] created them.
Commentators have spilled lots of ink trying to derive deep truths about God, the universe, and humanity from these two verses, which contain a number of puzzling elements. For today, I simply want to focus on the words I've bolded above -- "et ha-adam" / "the human" (or you could translate it "the earth-being," since the word adam is a play on adamah/earth): the singular individual who is created in God's own image at the beginning, before there are multiple humans ("them") and even before gender differentiation.
The early rabbis wonder aloud why "adam ha-rishon" -- this first human being -- was created singularly. One of the (many) rabbinic texts that answers this question is Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5:
לפיכך נברא אדם יחידי ללמדך שכל המאבד נפש אחת מישראל מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו איבד עולם מלא וכל המקיים נפש אחת מישראל מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו קיים עולם מלא ומפני שלום הבריות שלא יאמר אדם לחבירו אבא גדול מאביך ... ולהגיד גדולתו של הקב"ה שאדם טובע כמה מטבעות בחותם אחד כולן דומין זה לזה ומלך מלכי המלכים הקב"ה טבע כל אדם בחותמו של אדם הראשון ואין אחד מהן דומה לחבירו לפיכך כל אחד ואחד חייב לומר בשבילי נברא העולם...
…Therefore the first human being, Adam, was created alone, to teach us that whoever destroys a single life, the Torah considers it as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a single life, the Torah considers it as if he saved an entire world.
Furthermore, only one person, Adam, was created for the sake of peace among people, so that no one should say to his fellow, 'My father was greater than yours....
Also, the human (Adam) [was created singly] to show the greatness of the Holy Blessed One, for if a person strikes many coins from one mold, they all resemble one another, but the King of Kings, the Holy Blessed One, made each subsequent human in the image of the original Adam, and yet not one of them resembles his fellow.
This is one of my favorite rabbinic teachings: such a classic that even if you know it well, it's worth returning to and reconsidering each year as we read this parasha. (Of course, if this teaching is new to you, I commend it to you for learning well and making part of your core-Jewish-values repertoire!)
In our first session of the Kavana High School Program last month, RLO and I had the opportunity to study this text with our teens. (We were talking about what makes a person's life valuable, in preparation for a year of wrestling with some contemporary hot-button/"on the ballot" issues.) The teens studied this Mishnah in chevruta (study pairs), and drew a number of conclusions about what Judaism has to say on the topic of human beings being created "b'tzelem elohim," in God's image. In their own words:
Every human life has inherent value.
Destroying a life is destroying a world.
Each human being should be understood as having been created in God's image.
God is diminished when a human life is taken.
Life's value is not measurable - it simply is.
Uniqueness and human diversity have intrinsic worth.
Diversity is a tribute to God's awesomeness.
This basic building block of a concept has the potential to be helpful at every level. Rooted in Parashat Bereishit and in the Mishnah's teaching, first, I hope that each of us can cultivate the personal esteem we need to treat ourselves with kindness and compassion, understanding that despite our imperfections, we ourselves are created with a Divine spark in each of us! Second, on a Kavana level, we also aspire to build relationships within our community on this foundation. Hopefully, this manifests in how our partners and community members treat one another, how our educators relate to each child in our youth education programs, how we cultivate effective working relationships among staff and board members, and more. Finally, the fundamental principles derived from the creation of a single human being in God's image should inform how we live in the world and relate to society at large. Right now, some of these "basics" -- like human equality, dignity for all, and the value of diversity -- are under attack here in our American society. Grounded in this piece of Torah, we should feel secure in our understanding of what Judaism calls on us to believe and to do.
I look forward to seeing some of you at the first Shabbat Morning Minyan of this new year tomorrow -- it's exciting to have the opportunity to hear the Torah read from the very beginning! I also look forward to seeing others of you at the No Kings rally afterwards (I'll be walking down to the Seattle Center a bit late, although we also have a group meeting at 11:30), as we march for democracy and human dignity, the same fundamental principles outlined above. And finally, this coming week, we will embark on our year of learning, with the kick-off of youth education programs like Moadon Yeladim and the Middle School Program, and also Adult Ed classes (Rabbi Jay's Mussar group begins next Tuesday night, and I'll be sneaking in Living Room Learning sessions whenever I can this year, including next Wednesday night -- stay tuned for more details in Monday's newsletter).
Wishing you a Shabbat Shalom, as we move back to the beginning of the Torah and back to the basics together,
Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum
