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“D'VREI TORAHS
TEACHINGS OF OUR ONCE CHILDREN,
NOW ADULT MEMBERS
ON THE DAY OF THEIR B'NEI MITZVAHS
Kayla Gal
Parashat Bereishit — Genesis 1:1 In the beginning
September 29, 2007 — 17 Tishri 5768
Shabbat Shalom!
The Torah portion we read this Mincha afternoon is called Bereshit. Bereshit is the first parsha and the first book of the Torah and we begin reading the Torah again next week. On the seventh day of creation, God rests and that is Shabbat. But on day six, which you can see is the longest day by far (as far as chanting goes), the famous passage says, “I shall create adam in God’s image,” (not the man, Adam’ as it is usually translated, but an ‘earth-creature, Adaaam — from the word adama. This was said by the Creator Himself (Him-Her-Itself?) In this story of creation, it says that man and woman were created at the very same time and then separated into two different genders.
This is one way of putting the creation of male and female. Just a little bit later in Bereishit, “Adaam” is translated as “the man named Adam”. It says that woman was created from man’s rib.. It specifies that the man was put on to earth first, and then when God saw that he was getting lonely, God took a rib out of man and formed it into a female being. Why do we have the second story about the creation of the human being, where Aadam suddenly turns into a man, and the person coming out of his rib is suddenly defined as a woman? Most people think it is because the man is supposed to be superior to the woman. Well, I, being a strong believer in equality of the sexes, disagree strongly!!!
Rabbi Fred mentioned to me that there was this dude called Rashi who lived in France about 1,000 years ago. Maybe it’s because he had three daughters, but it seems to me that he was on the right track and that he, too believed that females were not in any way inferior to men. Rashi interpreted the word tzela, which is usually translated as”rib,” as actually meaning “side,” so that the woman is not being created out of Adaam’s rib, but is just another side of Adaam. Rashi also said that there are “two faces” to this new human being — a male face and a female face. What Rashi is saying is that both male and female are equal and that man and woman are important sides of each other. This is a pretty awesome, cool and smart guy that we have here!
Now I would like to say a few words on my opinion of creation. When I was little, I used to think that every time it started raining, that only meant 1 thing. God was crying. I used to think it was because someone had died who didn’t deserve to die. Of course, though, as I grew up, I realized that that misconception was just a way to cover up to me the true facts about nature, and here they are:
I completely believe that God and Nature both had something to do with the evolutionary process. First, God created something out of nothing, which then led to Nature taking over and doing its own thing. For example: in science we learn that the earth was formed when the solar system started to form from leftovers from when the sun was formed. And science teaches that the sun itself was formed from leftovers from the “big bang”. But — where did the big bang come from in the first place?
In my opinion, the “big bang” came from God. Well, none of us will ever know for sure, because we weren’t there to experience it. Once the water was there, everything was fine — and the world evolved according to the will of Nature. That is why sometimes things happen that I think that God wouldn’t want, like earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados or tsunamis that kill lots of people — that’s just Nature taking its course.
My Bat Mitzvah is taking place during a wonderful week called Chol ha-moed Sukkot. During Sukkot, Jews are required to perform practices and do daily rituals under a Sukkah, which means a fragile hut in Hebrew. A Sukkah can be known as many things. It is Shelter, an eating place, a place for praying and studying and more. A Sukkah can remind us about the fragile world that we live in. For one of the movie nights that I had at Habonim Dror Camp Moshava, which by the way is the best camp EVER, we watched Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth. This was after a whole day dedicated to helping the environment. I learned that global warming and other problems are caused to a great extent by human beings polluting our world and making us all suffer, and it’s up to us to help make the world healthy again.
My friend, Rabbi Arthur Waskow, who I have known since I was a baby, couldn’t be here today because he is celebrating a wedding. I used to sit on his lap and braid his long beard when I was a little girl. Arthur wrote that once “ we built a sukkah in Lafayette Park near the White House . . . as a symbol of the fragility of all peoples and the need to make our security not from steel and concrete. . . but from accepting how vulnerable all of us have become. . . On the seventh day of Sukkot, we prayed that a healed earth heal its earthlings, that the plagues of cancer subside, that we and the earth learn to nurture each other in joy.”
Arthur teaches a lot about taking care of the earth, but the very first lesson about that is in the Torah itself. In Genesis chapter 2, verse 15, it says that God took Adaam, the earth-creature and put him/her/it into the Garden of Eden (which symbolizes the whole world) l’ovdah u-l’shomrah — to till the Garden l’ovdah) and to tend to it (’l’shomrah). The word l’shomrah comes from the Hebrew word shmirah or shomer — which means to guard or protect. What God was saying to Adaam is that his/her/its purpose in the world was to guard and protect the earth — to take care of this wonderful planet we call home! That’s what the fragile Sukkah reminds us of each year, that’s what the Torah teaches us in Parashat Bereishit, that’s what my friend Rabbi Arthur teaches every day, and that’s what I’m teaching you now! Listen to our teaching! It may be an inconvenient truth, but it’s very, very important!
Shabbat shalom!
Noah Lindner
Noach –
Genesis chapter 3
The torah quotes that Noah was the only righteous man of his generation, but if he was the only one, his righteousness would only be relative to that of those around him. Everyone has a good side, but it is not very easy to be good. Noah could have warned those around him that they would die unless they changed their ways, but he did not. Noah could have prayed for those about to be killed as the rain began to fall, but he did not. It is easier not to try to do what’s best, but we should still try to. Noah can be looked at as the first prophet of his time, but if he was, he was a pretty lousy prophet. Most prophets do not blindly follow Gods rule, but rather fight with god to do what they think is best. I think Noah makes a bad role model in that when he was told that everyone on earth was going to be killed except for him, he simply started building the ark. The torah never once mentions any remorse Noah might have had.
God made a covenant with Noah after the flood that destroyed the earth that he would never again flood or destroy the earth. This can be tied directly to the environmental situation that we are facing today. Every year, the Arctic Ice Cap unfreezes a bit during the summer, and re-freezes during the winter. Usually, the amount of ice goes from about 2.2 million square miles to about 2 million square miles. This summer, the ice melted to a record low, 1.6 million square miles. In about 30 years, the arctic ice cap could be completely melted, rising the water level high enough to destroy every major seaport in the world. Almost sounds like a flood, doesn’t it? However, god promised Noah that he would never again destroy the earth, which shows that we are flooding the world ourselves. We must act to form an agreement, or covenant with ourselves and people across the world to come to an understanding about what must be done, and how we will do it. Again, it is easier to do nothing to help the environment and simply watch other people try to help it, but we must work to help sustain the beautiful world we live in.
Humans where originally intended to be vegetarians and live off plants, but after the flood, God gives permission for humans to eat meat from all the animals of the earth. With this gift, came the promise that we would never kill a fellow human. This could be because god realized that humans could be very violent and instead of using their violence on other people, we could use it to hunt animals. This reminds us that the meat we eat is a gift, and wars with our fellow people are a clear violation of the gift. Is it really not enough to be able to eat all of god’s creation, and that all the gifts we have are not enough to keep us from fighting each other? Apparently not.
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