Genesis - Parashath Bereshith - Fourth aliyah to end.

FOURTH ALIYAH TO END: CAIN, ABEL, AND VIRTUE ENVY. FOURTH ALIYAH: THE HOUSE OF CAIN. We now come to the story of Cain and Abel [4:1 - 16]. Two things stand out for me about this episode: (1) Cain's murderous jealousy of Abel is not motivated by envy for some desirable worldly possession - wealth or fame or the love of a woman - but for the favor of G-d; and (2) Cain and Abel are not employed in the same enterprise (Cain is a farmer, Abel a herdsman) - they're not playing the same game - so it's not as if they were competing to see who could be the best farmer or the best shepherd. Humans are competitive, like all living things; unlike the other animals, we have the ability to follow a moral code, and we are competitive even in that. I'm going to use the term "virtue envy" to refer to the envy of another person's moral standing. Mundane envy - the desire for another's worldly attainments - is quite bad enough. It is among the most pernicious of emotions, and with good reason is it included in the Ten Commandments. And it's always easier to tear the other guy down than to build ourselves up: if Reuben is conspicuously wealthy, and Simon is struggling to get by, then Simon might be tempted to wish ill fortune upon Reuben. This is the basis for the idea of the "evil eye" [ עין הרע | ayin ha-ra] in Jewish tradition. If mundane envy is a destructive emotion, how much more so is virtue envy. When we encounter a person known to be of excellent moral character and reputation, we might feel uncomfortable about ourselves. And we should! But the correct response is to work on oneself to improve. So when Cain's offering is rejected and Cain is "grieved and downcast", the Creator takes notice, and even tries to rehabilitate him: [4:7] "If you improve, there is advancement; but if you do not improve, sin crouches at the gate. And its desire is towards you, but you shall rule over it." In that last phrase, the language unmistakably parallels 3:16, describing the woman's desire for the man; and in fact the Hebrew word used here for "desire" [ תְּשׁ֣וּקָת֔וֹ| teshuqah] is very rare in the Bible, occurring only in these two verses and in Song of Songs 7:11. But Cain won't hear of it. He remains unredeemable. In 4:8, Cain kills his brother Abel. The Creator confronts Cain and sentences him to be "a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth" (4:10). Why did Cain kill Abel? Did he observe his younger brother's sacrifices [4:1 - 4] and think, "I, too, am a firstborn - perhaps he means to sacrifice me as he sacrificed those sheep"? And so, projecting his own violent impulses on his brother? Yoram Hazony makes the case that the story of Cain and Abel prefigures a recurring theme in the Hebrew Scriptures, where "the shepherd and the farmer are taken as representing contrasting ways of life, and two different ethics, which come into sharp conflict time and again." (Hazony, Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture, p. 104.) Here I'll just point out the irony of Cain's punishment: he is sentenced to be a perpetual wanderer, re-creating his murdered brother's nomadic lifestyle. He must literally walk a mile in his brother's shoes. Cain, still the victim in his own eyes, complains that [3:13 - 14] "my sin is too great to bear ... whoever finds me will kill me!" The Creator declares [4:15] "whoever kills Cain shall be avenged sevenfold" and sets a distinguishing mark on Cain's forehead "so that none who find him shall harm him". So Cain is protected from vigilante justice - but a fateful precedent is set. In 4:15, the key word [ שִׁבְעָתַ֖יִם | shiv'atayim] may mean either "sevenfold" (and that's how I'm reading it here) or "seven generations". The descendents of the exiled Cain are named in short order in 4:17 - 18. We learn nothing about their lives until we get to Lemekh. FIFTH ALIYAH: LEMEKH'S WIVES. Lemekh's wives Adah and Zillah are the first women mentioned by name after Eve, and Zillah and her daughter Na'amah are the first mother/daughter pair identified in the Bible. And there is a Rabbinic tradition that Na'amah was the wife of Noah. SIXTH ALIYAH: LEMEKH'S BOAST. [4:23] "I have slain a man for wounding me, and a lad for bruising me. For sevenfold is Cain avenged, and Lemekh seventy-seven." The passage is cryptic and difficult to translate, and other interpretations exist. (Rashi offers a rather elaborate explanation involving a hunting accident.) But I think the most straightforward - and also the most disturbing - is simply that he is boasting about his willingness to kill. "Perhaps, then, what Lamech is saying (quite barbarically) is that not only has he killed a man for wounding him, he has not hesitated to kill a mere boy for hurting him." (Alter, p.21, note.) Dennis Prager agrees: "Lamech boasts that if any man touches him, he will kill seventy-seven of his opponent's men in retaliation. This type of unbalanced retribution was the norm in all societies." (Genesis: God, Creation, and Destruction, p. 74) Notice the connection with Cain: Lemekh invokes the precedent of Cain's mark to justify his own ability to kill with impunity. Man has taken God's mercy and perverted it into a literal license to kill. The result is society's descent into barbarism. Is it any wonder the Creator is angry? The line of Cain disappear from the text, seemingly without trace. We do not know whether they intermarried with the descendants of Seth (chapter 5). [4:25 - 26] Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son, and she named him Seth ... and a son was born to Seth, and he named him Enosh. Then it was begun [or: it became profaned] to call upon the name of the L-rd. We can only guess at Eve's anguished state of mind as we meet her again, for the last time in Genesis. There's an ambiguity in the last part of 4:26: the Hebrew word [huchal] can mean either "it was begun" or "it became profaned". The descendants of Seth are chronicled [4:6 - 31] in formulaic fashion. Each entry in the list is given with a lifespan in years, and all but one end with the words "... and he died". Of Enoch, we are told cryptically that "he walked with G-d, and was not, for G-d took him". (In the later list of Shem's descendants [11:9 - 26], the phrase "and he died" is omitted because there are no exceptions to the pattern.) The names of Seth's descendants appear to echo the names of the line of Cain. Zvi Grumet (Genesis: Creation to Covenant, pp. 72-74) offers an interesting interpretation of this, arguing that "the descendants of Seth are intentionally giving themselves names that mirror Cain and his line ... [the] two genealogies paint for us an image of six generations desperately trying to counteract a divine curse." (This refers to the "seven generations" reading of 4:15, see above.) SEVENTH ALIYAH: LEMEKH II, NOAH, AND THE DECREE AGAINST MAN. And here we see the appearance of the second Lemekh [5:25]. This Lemekh has a son whom he prophetically names Noah (pronounced "noach" with a guttural “ch” - it's not the same as the popular girls' name No'ah, which is spelled and pronounced differently in Hebrew). The text ties the name Noah - [noach] in Hebrew - to the verb [nachem], which incidentally has two meanings, both of which are in play here. Usually [nachem] means to comfort or to console, and that's how it is explained as relating to Noah's name [5:29]. But also, and much less commonly, it can mean "to regret", and it is also used in that sense here, when the Creator is described as having "regretted" making man [6:7]. Noah's three sons [5:32] are apparently the first multiple birth in the Bible. Shem, Ham, and Japheth were born in the same year to the same woman (Noah is not recorded as having a second wife or concubine) and so must have been triplets. It's also worth noting that Noah becomes a father late in life, relatively speaking, compared to his ancestors. At 500 years old, he is past middle age (500/950 = 10/19) when he begets his three sons. Chapter 6 opens with a description of the lawless violence that has engulfed the world. There's also a reference to the "Nephilim", whose exact identity remains a mystery. The Creator places a limit on man's lifespan - perhaps to force man to start thinking beyond his own immediate gratification, and about the future. I want to zoom in on [6:2]. "The sons of the mighty [ בְנֵי־הָֽאֱלֹהִים֙| bnei ha-elohim] saw the daughters of man ..." Now this is tricky to translate, because "elohim" can mean either "God" or "mighty ones", but it's clearly used in the second sense here. Also notice that this verse very subtly echoes the refrain of 1:4, etc., "... and God [Elohim] saw that it was good," only here of course it's in a negative sense. And there's an irony in the juxtaposition of "bnei ha-elohim", as the bad guys, with "bnoth ha-adam" as the innocent party. Now the next part of the verse is often translated in English as "... [they] saw that the daughters of man were fair (or, "beautiful", etc.)", but the word that's actually used [ טֹבֹ֖ת|tovoth] simply means "good". (See Rashi on Numbers 24:5.) And in fact that's how the Artscroll edition renders it, and I think it's the most straightforward understanding of the verse - and here we see another instance of virtue envy. The daughters of man may have been beautiful or not, but they carried themselves with decency and dignity - they were morally good. And it was this goodness that the corrupt, powerful men saw in them - and they despised them for it. [1734]

Genesis - Parashath Bereshith - Third aliyah.

THIRD ALIYAH: THE SERPENT AND THE FALL. [2:20 - 3:21] When woman is created as a separate entity, man exclaims, [2:23] “This one shall be called woman, for from man she was taken.” Notice that he does not address her directly. Who’s he talking to? His words – the first recorded human speech in the Bible – are spoken in the third person, and there isn’t even a third person in the world yet! [2:24] “Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife” – here is a moral imperative, a commandment, explicitly linked to the Garden of Eden. Up until now, the text has been declarative and expository: this happened, and then that happened. Here for the first time the text says: you shall do this. The message is that our instinct to seek union and wholeness cannot be fulfilled by staying in our parents’ home. The way home is forward. [3:1 - 5] The first recorded conversation in the Bible neither involves nor concerns a man, and therefore almost passes the Alison Bechdel test. Why did Eve speak to the serpent? Maybe because it spoke to her. Why does the serpent tempt Eve? Because it can. People sometimes ask why the serpent, specifically, had a motivation to cause man’s fall. But I think this is the wrong question. What the text actually tells us, the very first thing it tells us about the serpent, is this: [3:1] “The serpent was the most cunning of all the beasts of the field.” This answers the question, Why could the serpent, specifically, cause man’s fall? Nowhere does the text ask why the serpent wanted to, because we’ve already been told that – in 1:28, where man was given dominion over all the other creatures. What the text tells us is that the serpent was unique in its capabilities; it does not say that the serpent was unique in its motives. I think the serpent’s motive was shared among all the animals: resentment towards man for man’s having been given dominion over all other life forms. All the animals had the motive, but only the serpent had the method; all had the intent, but the serpent alone had the capability. This, then, is the first instance of envy and jealousy in the Bible, even before the well-known brothers whom we’ll meet in the next chapter. And it is also of the same theme: rather than wanting to better itself and improve its own standing, the serpent wants to bring the other guy down. This is the nature of envy and it’s an all too common human weakness. Venturing just a little bit into symbol, we might take the snake – and, in my reading, the putative rebelliousness of the animal kingdom generally – as a metaphor for how our lower nature, our animal instincts, will often use rationalization to get us to do things we know we shouldn’t do. [3:20] “He named her Life [חַוָּ֑ה |chava]” – as Steinsaltz drily observes, he could have called her a lot of things at that moment. But he didn’t. He named her Life. “- because she was the mother of all life.” I think the verb here [הָֽיְתָ֖ה |hayetah] really wants to be translated as “had become” – “she had become the mother of all life.” So, what is really going on here? I think she must have been already pregnant, and perhaps she told the man her wonderful secret right then and there. And now, suddenldy, the fruit, the fall, the curse – none of that matters now, because they are about to bring a new human life into the world. [597]

Genesis - Parashath Bereshith - Second aliyah.

SECOND ALIYAH: ADAM AND EVE.[2:4 - 2:19] [2:5] because there was no human to work the ground There was no irrigation, which required human labor. "There was no one to recognize the benefit of the rain." (Rashi) [2:7] He blew into his nostrils. "He made him both of earthly and heavenly matter – his body from earthly matter, and his soul from heavenly matter." (Rashi) "The soul of man is part of G-d Himself, as it were." (Steinsaltz, p. 16, note.) [2:9] and the tree of knowledge, good and evil: Robert Alter correctly translates this as “the tree of knowledge, good and evil” (and not “… knowledge of good and evil”). The definite article here is attached to [ הַדַּ֖עַת|ha-da’at], "knowledge", and by the rules of Hebrew grammar it cannot be “knowledge of” something else. “Good and evil” therefore describes the ambiguous and ambivalent nature of the tree and its fruit – both good and evil. Also, notice that the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of life are mentioned after, and apparently excluded from, the description of "every tree pleasing to the sight and good for food". So the appeal of the Tree of Knowledge perhaps lay elsewhere than in its outward appearance. "Evil involves distortion, and yet this distortion is not too far removed from the essence of human creativity, a capacity that stems from the ability to perceive reality beyond its obvious form." (Steinsaltz, p.16, note.) The appeal of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge lay not in its beauty but in its mysteriousness. It is human nature to be attracted to the unknown and the unexplored, even if (or perhaps because) this attraction carries with it an element of danger. [2:16 - 17] Of every tree you may surely eat, but of the Tree of Knowledge, good and evil, you shall not eat, lest you die. It is possible that eating of the Tree of Knowledge would have revealed the nature and location of the Tree of Life. [2:18] It is not good for man to be alone: Notice that the solution is not to create a second Adam from scratch; rather, the single, unitary man must give up his completeness – just as (so to speak) the Creator must self-limit and withdraw to make room for man and free will. [2:19] Every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens ... to see what the man would call them: The fish are excluded from this verse, and in fact Biblical Hebrew lacked names for any individual species of fish. "... the redaction gives us first a harmonious cosmic overview of creation and then a plunge into the technological nitty-gritty and moral ambiguities of human origins." (Robert Alter, p. 13 note.) Together with the separation of the original human into two beings, male and female, we also see the emergence of language. We depend on other people to keep ourselves sane; we learn how to think, speak, and act by interacting with the people around us. And the division of the original, unitary human into two individuals signals a shift in consciousness: the ability to observe another person from the outside, and to imagine ourselves as other people see us. [531]

Genesis - Parashath Bereshith - First aliyah.

In the beginning verses of the Bible, we see the Creator fashioning the world, and man in it, bringing forth first chaos, then order, then complexity. The order of Creation is logical, not chronological. Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz (The Steinsaltz Humash, p.10, note on v. 20) points out that the creatures created after the fourth day “would not grow and develop blindly, like vegetation, but would move and have some measure of will.” I’ll add that all of the creatures created after the fourth day (when the heavenly bodies were created as distinct light sources) have eyes – unlike plants, which can “see” only light and darkness. One thing that stands out about the creation narrative is the role of Divine speech in the act of creation. The Word of G-d is the instrument that fashions order out of primal chaos. Another thing I’d like to point out here is the role of number. Already, in just the fifth verse of the Bible, we’ve started counting: “… and it was evening, and it was morning, one day.” And each following day is numbered in succession. People sometimes say that “the Bible is not a book of science” – well, maybe not, but there sure are a lot of numbers in it. Here, in this very first occurrence of numbers in the Bible, what is being measured is time, and that with a specific purpose: to involve man in the process of the Creation. Although the commandment to observe the Sabbath is not made explicit until later, it is first mentioned at the end of the Creation story (at the beginning of Chapter 2). In fact, even before the Sabbath, we’re told that the luminaries were created “for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years.” That is, man is expected to observe the regular processes of nature and study their patterns. He is to create a calendar. (And in fact, Jewish tradition understands this commandment to mean that the calendar must incorporate three elements: the solar cycle, the lunar cycle, and the week – that is, a purely numerical element which is not dependent on natural phenomena but is reckoned by the mind of man alone.) The Creation story of Genesis is profoundly spiritual, affirming our place in the order of Creation. It is deeply moral, calling on us to act in accord with the will of the Supreme Being. And, too, it is supremely scientific in its worldview, inviting us to engage cognitively with the processes of the world around us. Genesis comes to teach us, not a mere collection of disconnected “facts”, but rather how to think about the universe: as a theatre of unfolding, orderly events, proceeding from a single First Cause, that can be known and understood – at least in part – by the mind of man. [468]