Parashat Bereshit

This study guide is a line study. It takes the first few verses of Genesis and discusses each phrase as it appears in the text. We are looking at verses 1-5. Now before you accuse us of short-changing you remember, there are some folks who have spent a good hour or two discussing the first sentence. It's not how many verses you cover, it's the quality of the discussion. -Ed.

1 In the beginning...

• In the beginning of what? (time? creation? history? life?)

In the beginning God...

• What is assumed in the first part of this first verse?
  (That God already exists. Heaven and earth we see beginning, God has no beginning. Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures the existance of God is assumed. The rabbis did not allow speculation on the origins of God. Because there is no way we can know what happened before history any speculation in that area can lead to conclusions about the nature of God that cannot be confirmed in Scripture.)

God created...

• Elohim... What is different about this name of God?
  It is a plural form (used to describe "plentitude of might.")
  • What is "plentitude of might?
    According to the Hertz chumash, "it indicates that God comprehends and unifies all the forces of eternity and infinity." (pg 2)

• created...
  The verb is in the singular. Therefore the subject of the sentence, Elohim cannot be plural.

  (Christians sometimes point to this verse as a proof of the Christian concept of the trinity, but that proof cannot be found here. Because the verb does not agree with the subject we see that the reason for the plural "Elohim" is to, in effect, to say something about the grandeur, not the number, of God.)

• created...
  The Hebrew word for create used here is used only to refer to God. The word used for human "creation" is more along the lines of "making" or "forming."
  What does that say about human vs divine creative endeavors?

the heaven and the earth...

• The world in the realm of human existance. The visible world. That which is above (heaven) and that which is below (earth). (This is not referring to heaven as the dwelling of God.)

2 unformed and void...

• Did God create the world out of nothing?
  No, something existed but it was in a state of chaos, "unformed and void."

and darkness was on the face of the deep...

• Darkness exists over the abyss.
• Does this mean that darkness exists separate from light.
  (In other words, if darkness is an absence of light, can darkness exist if light does not?)

and the spirit of God hovered...

• What is meant by hovered?
  The Hebrew word is used elsewhere in Scripture to describe a mother bird hovering over, or sheltering, her young.

  (The first gender-based description of God in Torah is feminine.)

  (Many Christians call "the God of the New Testament" a God of love. In the Torah the very first description of God doing anything is showing the care and concern of a mother for creation.)

hovered over the face of the waters.

• Even today we call water "the source of life." Without it we cannot survive.
  From this verse it appears that water is the source of creation.

3 And God said:

• Can we assume from this that God actually spoke?

  According to Saadyah, "The phrase God said must be taken as a figurative equivalent of 'God willed'."

"Let there be light." And there was light.

• At a word from God there was light.

  What is the source? In our experience we assume a source for light. How can it be independent of the sun, or stars?

  In a very simple, matter of fact, way it happened. What ever God wills comes to be.

4 And God saw the light...

• Why would God have to "see" the light?

that it was good;

• If God made the light why wouldn't He know the it was "good?"
  Or is this put here for our benefit, to say that God looked over what was created and that it was good?

  Why would we need to be told that something that God created was good?

and God divided the light from the darkness.

• Aren't light and darkness opposites? How can they exist together so that they need to be separated?

  (We may find a hint in the tradition about the inclination to good and the inclination to evil. They both exist in us not as separate forces, but almost as a sliding scale. In day to day living few things are so simple that they are black and white. Most are in various shades of gray.

  For example, while it is good that we give tzedakah, no one would give until all of ones resources were depleted. We could almost say that it is a bit of selfishness that makes us stop giving so that we can feed our own families.)

• How can we have "Day" without the sun?

• Why is God naming Day and Night?

And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

• How can we know if the evening and morning happened before or after the light was created and separated from the darkness?

• If the day happened after light was created does that mean that creation took more than six days?