breishit
I VERSES ME
The nature of people is that there are a couple of voices inside us, a few different emotions. When we decide the way we feel or how we would like to think, this means that we just chose one of the many things going on inside us that we prefer to support. Impulsivity is when there is no conscious decision of which emotion is the healthiest or most effective, or which thought is the truest. Instead, the most powerful emotion or most repetitious thought just takes over without the person being aware of what is going on inside. This also true when people talk about themselves. We may hear someone say, “I hate myself”, and the like. This just means that “I” is not “myself” . And that there is a voice, deeper inside than myself. Getting in touch with that deeper voice can help us to understand who we truly are and ultimately, what we truly want.
In our parasha we discover something amazing about the Evil Inclination, the inner voice, and we learn exactly how “inner” it is. The Talmud (Shabbat 146a) writes that the Nachash did not just push Chava. He had marital relations with her and put in Chava his זוהמה or foulness. R’ C. Volozhin explains this foulness to mean that the Nachash put the Evil Inclination in Chava and in all humanity. Before the Nachash was together with Chava, the Evil Inclination was outside the person and tried to persuade him – from outside – to do evil. After the Sin, the Evil Inclination became a part of the inner person. In other words, when the Evil Inclination is talking inside the person, the person thinks that it is himself talking. When one feels that he wants to sin, to give in to lust, get angry and the like, it is the inner voice that says, “I want to sin, I want what I lust, I am angry. I am hungry. I am tired.” This is in stark contrast to the Good Inclination that says “You need to learn Torah”, “You must pray”, and not “I want to learn” or “ I want to pray”. Being that the Evil Inclination became so integrated in the “me” after the Sin, it is so much harder to recognize it and fight it. The first thing that one must do is, of course, to recognize that the inner voice that is suggesting we sin is not the real “me”. (See (נפש החיים א,ו הגה”ה
When listening to people, I follow them all the way through. And then I ask them, “So, what do you want to do about this?” And then they say that they do not know. This is amusing. Before they poured out their hearts, they approached me knowing what they wanted to do. After being listened to, the person listens to himself and realizes that what he wanted to do at first is not at all what he really wants. This is probably what happens with the Evil Inclination inside people: that the person at first has this inner feeling saying this is what “I” want. And then he realizes that this is not at all what he really wants.
And this is the secret of the successful as well. They have only one inner voice going on. The know how to control all the other voices inside that lead them away from what they really want to do. They have only one ambition inside, one goal. This is what is meant in the recital of the daily Shema, to love our G-d with all our hearts, all our soul and all our being, even with our evil inclination.The only way one can succeed is by realizing that all the inner voices say that the “I” wants to love G-d, to serve Him and be dedicated to Him.
LOVE AFTER HATE
In the Talmud (in Sotah 14a), R’ Simlai states that the Torah starts off with Gemilut Chassadim (kindness) and it ends with Gemilut Chassadim (kindness). It starts off with G-d’s kindness because it says “And Hashem made for Adam and for his wife Kotnot Or, and He dressed them”. And the Torah ends with G-d’s kindness, regarding Moshe’s burial. And G-d buried Moshe in ”Guy” in the land of Moab… This Midrash seems to be telling us about the importance of doing Chessed, doing kindness, by stating that the Torah begins and ends with kindness, and that the Torah is full of kindness.
The question is obvious. Why does R’ Simlai bring out the point that the Torah starts with Hashem’s kindness of clothing Adam and Chava after the Sin? Why not mention that the Torah starts off with G-d’s ultimate kindness in creating this Universe with so much good in it to give to mankind?
The answer I saw for this is that the level of kindness after sin is on a completely different level from that before sin. G-d’s kindness to humans after the sin shows how kind He really is. This is somewhat similar to what happens with newlyweds. They are loving toward each other, excited to be together, until their first disagreement. Then, after their first dispute, they have the real test to see if they love each other or not. Can they get back together again, or not? A loving couple is not one that does not disagree. It is one who knows how to deal with the differences and look past shortcomings.
Sukkot is a beautiful holiday, and it is hard for all of us that is over. The holiday of Sukkot is one of love and happiness. So, I thought it would be nice to connect the aforementioned idea, explaining exactly why the holiday of Sukkot is one of love and of happiness. Sukkot is, in some ways, a celebration of our ability and desire to live with G-d and His commandments. It is for a purpose that Sukkot is immediately after Yom Kippur. We are happy to live in His Presence, knowing that He can still find place to accept and atone our sins. This was the love of G-d that we felt when He gave us the Second Tablets and gave us the Mishkan. He wanted to live in our midst, despite the Sin of the Calf. And this is why we make a Simchat Torah after Sukkot, and not on Shavuot. There is no dancing on Shavuot. On Shavuot we accepted the Torah through G-d’s command, not knowing what was in it. We were afraid that we might not be able to live by the Torah. After we receive the Torah and know what it says, when we know that it has a Yom Kippur in it, and that G-d is forgiving, we know that G-d in His Mercy will have patience with us, although we are humans and have human flaws. We now know that He is willing to accept that and forgive us after true repentence. This is a new happiness, a new love. So we dance with the Torah, circling the Bimah seven times, as a remembrance of the seven times we circled the walls of Yericho with Yehoshua, bringing down the walls. On Simchat Torah we bring down the walls that stand between G-d and His People. The day of Simchat Torah is over, but the relationship is not. The relationship has just begun, and it just went up to a new level.
SIBLING – FRIEND OR FOE
Siblings are either friends or rivals. There is no pareve. There is no position where one says I do not love my brother but I do not hate him. This is because the natural state of brothers is to love each other. If they do not love each other, then they have to give a reason why they do not love each other. This reason, whatever it is, is an excuse to hate. Sometimes, it is not felt as hate. But that is just a misinterpretation.
When brothers have something like a block between them, such as the thoughts, “Why does he not care for me?”, or “How come he always outsmarts me and gets more out of my parents, more out of our relationship than I do,”- there is not usually something rational that can help such a person get over things and get on with his or her sibling relationship. The reason is because such issues have been hashed and rehashed in the mind, with all types of negative beliefs and thoughts of how things should go, the way “I” perceive them. By adding to the hurt sibling a piece of information, or helping to change perspective, this does not have a long lasting effect in him getting along with the situation at hand. The reason for this is because it is not a matter of having knowledge or perception. It is a matter of applying it.
We find this in the last conversation Kayin had with his brother, mentioned in the Midrash (Breishit Rabba 22). And who was stronger of the two? R’ Yochanan says that Hebel was stronger than Kayin. We see this from the words that Kayin “got up” to Hebel, and he killed him. The word that Kayin got up intimates that Kayin was on the floor, pinned down by Hebel. Hebel was about to kill Kayin to defend himself. But then, right before his defeat, Kayin pleaded with Hebel, saying , “We are the only two people in this world, and our father Adam will know that it was you who killed me. How are you going to explain this to Dad? Hebel was immediately filled with mercy on his father and brother, and he let Kayin go. Then, Kayin “got up” and killed his own brother..
R’ C. Chechik points out that Kayin should have asked himself the same question he asked his own brother:, “What are you going to answer your father?” But this did not cross his mind when he was overcome with jealousy. When he was incensed about his brother, he had something – compelling emotion – that he just could not rein in. It was not the lack of knowledge. It was a matter of applying it.
Another thing we notice about sibling rivalry. The answer given by Kayin to G-d, when G-d asked Kayin where his brother is, “Am I to be the one to watch my brother?” The Midrash explains that Kayin was actually saying, “Excuse me G-d, but it is your fault; You did not save my brother – it is not my job to watch him, it is Your job! You gave me an Evil Inclination, but how did you let me kill him?” The brother who hates has, and will find, any justification he can in order to back up his side of the argument, and there is just no way to help the angry brother by explaining to him that he is wrong.
As a matter of fact, the fights between siblings are always deeper than it appears on the surface. According to P’ dR’ Eliezer (21), Kayin was so jealous because Hebel’s first-quality sacrifice was accepted and his low-quality sacrifice was not. Even deeper than that, Hebel’s twin sister (who Hebel took as a wife) was the prettiest of all woman, prettier than Kayin’s twin sister. Kayin awaited the time that he could get rid of Hebel and then marry his wife. The Breishit Rabba adds another opinion. Hebel was a triplet with another two sisters, while Kayin was born with only one twin sister. Kayin claimed that he had rights, for he was the oldest and deserved double portion, while Hebel claimed that he had the rights to her for she was born together with him. And to top all this off there is something else underlying Kayin’s animosity. Kayin did not believe that the curse of the land that Adam received after the sin of the Tree of Knowledge was applicable to him. He split the whole world with his brother Hebel: Kayin got all the land, and Hebel got all the livestock. Kayin said that the decree was only given to my father, for only he sinned, not his offspring. (Midrash Aggada) Kayin believed in every way that his brother was to be killed for stealing; Hebel’s livestock were eating from his grass, without permission. The law of Noachites states that one who steals is to be punished by death. So, Kayin believed that he was doing the right thing by killing his brother. And this is what G-d told him, הלא אם תיטיב שאת ואם לא תיטיב לפתח חטאת רובץ If you will become better, you will be forgiven, and if not, the sin will haunt you… This is the simple explanation. But this can be understood in another way: if you, Kayin, would be able to better yourself, and get over your jealousy towards your brother and forgive him for allowing his livestock to eat your grass, he would not be considered as having stolen, and he would not be liable for death.( Alter of Novordohk, Madreigat Ha’adam)
The Zohar says that this is why the Torah forbids wearing wool and linen together in the same cloth. Wool is from livestock, and linen is fruit of the land. They must always be separated, for they caused the first fight. Only in theHolyTemple, the place of real peace and harmony in the total absence of jealousy, was shaatnez, a mixture of wool and linen, allowed on the garments of the Kohen. But in essence, wool and linen, Kayin and Hebel, are to be separated.
“Separated”, here, does not mean that they should go each his own way. Not at all. It means that if Kayin, as is true for most of us, was living with a competitive mindset, one in which he looked at what his brother had, he could have done much more had he been busy doing the best he could do within the framework of his own given circumstances. He could have brought another sacrifice, one with a higher standard. For some reason, he did not think of that. Why? Because he was busy looking at his brother and what his brother had.
The way that a sibling can get over something is by asking himself , or having others ask him, ” So, what can you do about this? Sometimes, something. Sometimes, nothing. But this is a better way of dealing with jealousy than by comparing one person to the other and “seeing” who was right.
THE BIG BANG THEORY – by Shloime Fogel
After Edwin Hubble realized that the universe is constantly expanding, the “BIG BANG” theory was postulated. It states that about 15 billion years ago, a tremendous explosion started the expansion of the universe. At that point of time, all of the matter and energy of space was contained at one point, and what existed before the blast is completely unknown. This was an event which filled all of space, with all of the particles of the embryonic universe rushing away from each other. The Big Bang actually consisted of an explosion of space within itself. The galaxies were not all clumped together, but rather the Big Bang lay the foundations for the universe.
We, us practicing Orthodox Jews know, however, that the world is 5773 years old, and was created by G-d in a period of 6 days, as we read in this week’s parsha.
Quoting the posuk נעשו שמים ‘ה בדבר, the midrash teaches us that the heavens were created with an action. Hashem took fire and water, and combining them, the heavens were formed. The midrash also relates the following story. There was a weaver by the name of Avnimos, who asked the rabbonim, “How did G-d create land at the beginning of creation?” They referred him to a builder, known as Aba Yosef, who explained this subject as follows: G-d took a load of dust from under His heavenly throne and threw it on the water. This turned into land. The clumps of dirt and rocks formed the mountains and valleys.
The Zecher Yitzchok (Ovos 5,1) explains that the world was created using 10 ma’amorot. The first being בראשית and the other 9, the typical ויאמר. This was because heaven & earth weren’t created by a mere command, but rather by using an action.
Nowadays, we all live in a “BIG BANG GENERATION”. Technology has advanced to an extremely sophisticated level, at a speed which seems only to steadily increase. Cars are being made my robots, the military fly over enemy territory using unmanned drones, and people are hooked onto the internet, which affects basically every aspect of life, beginning with emails & skype, and ending with shopping and banking. The computers we sit at are operated with the click of a key. BANG! And everything works by itself. We are getting more and more used to seeing immediate results, and people are becoming increasingly lazy, anti-social and depressed. For example, when people are snowed in, they are more content, calmer and more patient. Before Facebook came along, people had true friends and real lives.I think that there is a great lesson which can be learnt from this very point. The “BIG BANG” theory suggests that a bang laid the foundations of the universe, and from there it just continued forming itself, until it ended up being the world as we see it now. It all happened by itself!
Heaven and earth, the foundations of our universe, were created with concrete actions. Our world was created with 10 ma’amorot, which are paralleled by the 10 commandments, the basis of our Torah, which too, can only truly be mastered through hard work. The universe was created for man, who, we all know, was born to toil. We believe that work and nothing else brings results.
The world we live in and that many people believe in, is blinding us from seeing our true goal. “THE BIG BANG THEORY” is a myth. There’s no such thing as “the easy way in life”, either. Only once you’ve done some concrete actions can things begin to move independently. People are destroyed when the realization that one has to work hard hits them like a hammer on the head. Avoid that and look at life at face value. Don’t wait until it’s too late. It’s just not worth it.
