 | The High Holy Days end, Simchat Torah launches the reboot of Torah, and with Torah's beginning comes Creation anew. Or should we say "Creations" anew? After all, Torah's first portion records not one Creation narrative but two! Thus was born everything – including Judaism's wondrous sacred tradition of midrash (story telling) that will be the focus of Soul Spa for 5785. |
By Rabbi David Evan Markus
Bereishit 5785 (2024)
Click here for last year's Dvar Torah on this portion, "Creation and Our Sacred Orchard"
The High Holy Days end. Simchat Torah celebrates the end and immediate re-start of Torah. Our new start returns us to The Start, The Beginning, the primordial Creation.
The familiar narrative anchors Western thought and spiritual imagination. God created in six days and rested on the seventh (Shabbat). God began with one human ("Adam") who was lonely. So the Creator put Adam into a deep sleep, took from him a rib, and from it made Eve (in Hebrew, חוה / Havah). Along came a snake in the Garden, and a ruckus about a forbidden apple , and exile from the Garden....
"Cut!" Stop filming. That's not quite what Torah says – not even close!
Scene 1 (Genesis 1:1-2:3): The Creator forms land, then vegetation, then animals of sea and land, then humanity – together, numerously, both male and female – and gave humanity "all" trees for food. Creation was finished on the seventh day and the Creator blessed that day we call Shabbat.
Scene 2 (Genesis 2:4-3:24): Before vegetation, the Creator creates a single human, plants a garden in Eden, places the human there, causes trees to sprout in the garden, then tells the human to eat of every tree except two: the Tree of Life, and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The human finds no partner among the animals, so the Creator casts the first human to sleep and creates Eve from its side (not "rib"). Then the snake thing....
Huh? Genesis records two creation narratives, and they're inconsistent. In the first, humanity comes at the end of creation; in the second, humanity comes before vegetation and animals. In the first, humanity is created all together; in the second, only a single human. In the first, humanity can eat of every tree; in the second, there are exceptions.
Our ancestors asked: What if there were two separate creations? What if the First Creation was a rough draft, a prototype, that didn't work... so the Creator tried again?
Bereishit 5785 (2024)
Click here for last year's Dvar Torah on this portion, "Creation and Our Sacred Orchard"
The High Holy Days end. Simchat Torah celebrates the end and immediate re-start of Torah. Our new start returns us to The Start, The Beginning, the primordial Creation.
The familiar narrative anchors Western thought and spiritual imagination. God created in six days and rested on the seventh (Shabbat). God began with one human ("Adam") who was lonely. So the Creator put Adam into a deep sleep, took from him a rib, and from it made Eve (in Hebrew, חוה / Havah). Along came a snake in the Garden, and a ruckus about a forbidden apple , and exile from the Garden....
"Cut!" Stop filming. That's not quite what Torah says – not even close!
Scene 1 (Genesis 1:1-2:3): The Creator forms land, then vegetation, then animals of sea and land, then humanity – together, numerously, both male and female – and gave humanity "all" trees for food. Creation was finished on the seventh day and the Creator blessed that day we call Shabbat.
Scene 2 (Genesis 2:4-3:24): Before vegetation, the Creator creates a single human, plants a garden in Eden, places the human there, causes trees to sprout in the garden, then tells the human to eat of every tree except two: the Tree of Life, and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The human finds no partner among the animals, so the Creator casts the first human to sleep and creates Eve from its side (not "rib"). Then the snake thing....
Huh? Genesis records two creation narratives, and they're inconsistent. In the first, humanity comes at the end of creation; in the second, humanity comes before vegetation and animals. In the first, humanity is created all together; in the second, only a single human. In the first, humanity can eat of every tree; in the second, there are exceptions.
Our ancestors asked: What if there were two separate creations? What if the First Creation was a rough draft, a prototype, that didn't work... so the Creator tried again?
Michelangelo's famous fresco atop the Sistine Chapel portrays the Creator God with the first human – the singular Adam of Scene 2 – but what about humanity of Scene 1? And while we're asking questions, what's going on with Michelangelo's retinue around the Creator God? Where did they come from?
What we're seeing here is a medieval Christian artistic depiction of midrash, the Jewish story-telling tradition that will be our Soul Spa theme for 5785. As we'll unpack together starting October 26 when Shir Ami's Year 2 of Soul Spa launches, midrash is what we do when Torah appears to be inconsistent, or leaves holes, or excludes voices, or tugs at moral heartstrings. Judaism's sacred story-telling tradition, thousands of years old, uses Torah as a springboard into worlds of narrative, character development, ethical deepening and sheer fun.
The singular Adam? Midrash depicted him as Adam Kadmon, the size of the whole world (note Michelangelo's depiction of Adam equally sized to God), the spiritual source of all souls, re-formed by the totality of all human souls. The retinue around the Creator God? They are the heavenly host of angels that Scene 1 implies (Gen. 1:26-27):
The singular Adam? Midrash depicted him as Adam Kadmon, the size of the whole world (note Michelangelo's depiction of Adam equally sized to God), the spiritual source of all souls, re-formed by the totality of all human souls. The retinue around the Creator God? They are the heavenly host of angels that Scene 1 implies (Gen. 1:26-27):
| וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֔ים נַֽעֲשֶׂ֥ה אָדָ֛ם בְּצַלְמֵ֖נוּ כִּדְמוּתֵ֑נוּ וְיִרְדּוּ֩ בִדְגַ֨ת הַיָּ֜ם וּבְע֣וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֗יִם וּבַבְּהֵמָה֙ וּבְכָל־הָאָ֔רֶץ וּבְכָל־הָרֶ֖מֶשׂ הָֽרֹמֵ֥שׂ עַל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃ וַיִּבְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים ׀ אֶת־הָֽאָדָם֙ בְּצַלְמ֔וֹ בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹהִ֖ים בָּרָ֣א אֹת֑וֹ זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה בָּרָ֥א אֹתָֽם׃ | God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness. They will 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.” God created the human in God's image, creating it in the divine image, male and female God created them. |
From this excerpt of Scene 1, midrash imagined that God first created humanity as androgynous (Gen. Rabbah 8.1). Even more, midrash held that God predicted that humanity would go sideways, but without humanity there could be no virtue... so God discussed the possibility of creating humanity with the angels (Gen. Rabbah 8.4-8.5). The "us" in Torah became a supernal debate about the human condition itself.
And what of the first creation? What happened to it? A whole primordial psychological thriller about Adam's pre-Eve wife named Lilith, conjured 2,000 years ago in the era of the Dead Sea Scrolls (when Judaism and then Christianity bifurcated good from evil) and cast backwards through the prophetic Book of Isaiah into the watery opening words of Genesis. No wonder Creation needed a Take Two.
What's the point of all this? Is it just intellectual fun and games, mental backflips of culture and creativity?
Not at all. Midrash the first of Judaism's perpetually continuing engagements with Torah, a partnership of ongoing revelation. Midrash is a continuing wrestle with the human condition, a search for meaning and morality. By its nature, midrash is commended not to God or the rabbis only, but to all of us – all of us story tellers. Midrash is one of the great equalizers, profoundly democratic, given to our hands and heads and hearts.
Midrash is built into the fabric of Jewish life. Midrash is why there's a "Shabbat Bride" (Lekha Dodi). Midrash is why there's Unetaneh Tokef and "Who By Fire" during the High Holy Days. Midrash is why Hanukkah exists at all, and why Purim stood the test of time. Midrash is how Noah's Ark and Moses connect across the centuries, Abraham met Adam in a cave, Jacob mourned Joseph's disappearance without imploding, and Aaron survived the Golden Calf.
In every part of Torah, there's a Take Two – a midrashic way to bring it to life in new ways that make meaning, imbue life with morality and ethics, and enrich our people with eternity.
Welcome to year two of Soul Spa: Meet the Midrash. See you soon!
And what of the first creation? What happened to it? A whole primordial psychological thriller about Adam's pre-Eve wife named Lilith, conjured 2,000 years ago in the era of the Dead Sea Scrolls (when Judaism and then Christianity bifurcated good from evil) and cast backwards through the prophetic Book of Isaiah into the watery opening words of Genesis. No wonder Creation needed a Take Two.
What's the point of all this? Is it just intellectual fun and games, mental backflips of culture and creativity?
Not at all. Midrash the first of Judaism's perpetually continuing engagements with Torah, a partnership of ongoing revelation. Midrash is a continuing wrestle with the human condition, a search for meaning and morality. By its nature, midrash is commended not to God or the rabbis only, but to all of us – all of us story tellers. Midrash is one of the great equalizers, profoundly democratic, given to our hands and heads and hearts.
Midrash is built into the fabric of Jewish life. Midrash is why there's a "Shabbat Bride" (Lekha Dodi). Midrash is why there's Unetaneh Tokef and "Who By Fire" during the High Holy Days. Midrash is why Hanukkah exists at all, and why Purim stood the test of time. Midrash is how Noah's Ark and Moses connect across the centuries, Abraham met Adam in a cave, Jacob mourned Joseph's disappearance without imploding, and Aaron survived the Golden Calf.
In every part of Torah, there's a Take Two – a midrashic way to bring it to life in new ways that make meaning, imbue life with morality and ethics, and enrich our people with eternity.
Welcome to year two of Soul Spa: Meet the Midrash. See you soon!
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