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CHAPTER 1
Bere'shit
A Fence Too Tall
Genesis 1:1–6:8
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it; for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die." ... [The serpent] said to the woman, "Did God really say: 'You shall not eat of any tree of the garden'?" The woman replied to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the other trees of the garden. It is only about fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said: 'You shall not eat of it or touch it, lest you die.'" And the serpent said to the woman, "You are not going to die."
— Genesis 2:16–17, 3:1–4
P'shat: Explanation
The creation of the world in Genesis 1 is described as filled with goodness and promise. Then, in Genesis 2, man — adam — is created and placed in the ideal world.
Now, for the first time, a limitation has been placed upon what he is permitted to do. And with this prohibition comes the possibility it will be disobeyed. Indeed, this is what happens.
The question is, What brought about the transgression? Who was responsible for it? The Torah's account does not elaborate. It says that the serpent told Eve, who, unlike Adam, had not heard God's prohibition, that if she and Adam ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and bad, they would not die but become like divine beings. Eve was somehow persuaded, ate fruit from the tree, and gave the fruit to Adam to eat. For this they were all punished.
This story of Adam and Eve's expulsion from Eden, commonly known in the Western world as "the fall of man" because of its emphasis on the sinful nature of human beings, became a central pillar of belief in Christianity and Western culture. In later Judaism, however, it plays almost no role. On the contrary, the Jewish view is that humans are not inherently sinful. Jews traditionally recite this prayer daily: "The soul that You have implanted in us is pure." At Jewish weddings one of the seven recited blessings even includes a positive reference to Adam and Eve: "Let these loving companions [the bride and groom] rejoice even as You made Your creatures in the Garden of Eden [Adam and Eve] rejoice."
D'rash: Exposition of the Sages
The members of the Great Assembly said ... Create a fence around the Torah.
— Avot 1:1
It is said, "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, 'Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it; for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die'" (Genesis 2:16–17). Primal Adam, however, ... told her, "... from the fruit of the tree in the middle of the Garden God said: 'You shall not eat of it or touch it, lest you die'" (Genesis 3:3). At that very moment, the wicked serpent began to plot, thinking "Since I cannot foil the man, I will foil Eve!" ... He stood and touched the tree with his hands and feet, shaking it until its fruit fell to the ground. ... Then he said to [Eve], "If you say, 'The Holy One has commanded us not to eat from it,' watch how I eat from it and do not die! So too can you eat from it and not die!" What did Eve think to herself? "Whatever my Master (Adam) commanded me from the very beginning is nothing but lies ..." and she immediately took from it, ate it and gave it to Adam who ate it. ... So what caused her to touch it? The barrier that Primal Adam created around his words. From this we learn: One should not add to the words one has heard. Rabbi Yosi said: A barrier of ten handbreadths that remains standing is preferable to one a hundred cubits high that collapses.
— Avot de-Rabbi Natan A 1
The saying concerning a fence around the Torah is attributed to the "men of the Great Assembly," a legendary body about which we know very little. It seems to have been a group of Sages gathered together by Ezra in the fifth century BCE to help create and codify the text of the Torah, which was then accepted as Judaism's official law in a great ceremony held in Jerusalem in 444 BCE. They then continued the work of interpreting and teaching the Torah to the populace.
"Create a barrier around the Torah" is usually understood to mean that in order to make certain that the Torah's commands will be observed and not violated, even unintentionally, a barrier or fence — that is, additional prohibitions — are to be added to whatever the Torah commands. For example, if the Torah commanded there be no commerce on the Sabbath, the Sages added that it was prohibited to even handle money. If the Sabbath is to begin at sunset, then we should begin it even earlier just to be sure it will not be violated. If the evening Sh'ma could be recited until the beginning of the dawn, the Sages decreed that it should be completed before midnight so that we would not postpone it until it was too late.
Avot de-Rabbi Natan (The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan), a third-century commentary on Avot, details many such barriers illustrating the general rule to "keep far from what is hideous or even seems hideous." One barrier mentioned there, however, is different because it had a negative effect: the barrier Adam created.
The Sages noted the difference between what God said to Adam and what Eve relays to the serpent. Eve adds the prohibition against touching the tree, which was not part of God's command. Wondering where she got that idea, they decided she was only repeating what Adam had told her. Because he did not trust her, he added a "fence" to God's command, assuming that if she did not touch the tree, then she surely would not eat fruit from it. But that very "fence" proved to be Adam and Eve's undoing, because the "wicked serpent" took advantage of it to trip her up.
This Rabbinic midrash (interpretation) also addresses the question, Who was ultimately responsible for the first transgression of humankind and the expulsion from Eden? In Western culture it is indubitably Eve, the ultimate temptress responsible for Adam's actions and a perpetual symbol of the femme fatale. One has only to read Milton's Paradise Lost or look in any gallery of medieval art to see Eve holding the apple out to Adam.
Yet our Sages took a different view of the matter. In their Rabbinic retelling, the man, Adam, not the woman, Eve, is to blame. By adding an unneeded prohibition, Adam brought about the couple's expulsion from Eden.
Rabbi Yosi summed up the Sages' conclusion: we must be careful about adding too many prohibitions, because if there are too many, in the end none will be observed. Piling up restrictions may lead to contempt for what is truly important.
D'rash: Personal Reflection
A Fence Restricting Jewish Rights
For many years I was the head of the Rabbinical Court of the Rabbinical Assembly of Israel, affiliated with the Masorti (Conservative) movement. We handled matters of personal status and conversion. On a number of occasions, we received appeals from immigrants born in the former Soviet Union who had been denied a Jewish marriage by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel because they could not prove their Jewishness to the Chief Rabbinate's satisfaction. They were being asked for documentation that simply did not exist in Soviet Russia.
Yet Jewish law does not require such documentation. The law stipulates that one is to take the word of a person whom the Jewish community has regarded as a Jew unless there is a very good reason to doubt it. Thus, by adding strictures that were not only unrequired but impossible to uphold, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel was denying these people their rights as Jews.
Our rabbinical court would therefore investigate the matter by asking questions about the couple's family and speaking to friends who had known them for years. In most cases, we had no reason to doubt their testimony and proceeded to officiate at their marriages.
A very learned expert in Jewish law once told me that when asked if something is permissible or forbidden in Judaism, the easiest response is to say, "It is forbidden." The greater challenge is to prove that it is permitted.
Similar situations occurred regarding conversions. The most serious case concerned a group of non-Orthodox parents, many of whom were observant of Jewish tradition and who had adopted non-Jewish infants from various European countries. When they tried to have these babies converted to Judaism, the Chief Rabbinate told them that unless they themselves adopted an ultra-Orthodox lifestyle, their children would not be converted. In desperation they came to us.
Again we discovered that nothing in Jewish law required this of them. As long as they wished their children to be Jews and promised to arrange for them to become bar or bat mitzvah, we told them, we would convert the babies, and indeed we did. The mass conversion ceremony we conducted became headline news, but, more importantly, we were able to create Jewish families in accord with Jewish law. It was one of the finest days of celebration I have ever had.
CHAPTER 2
Noah
Human Nature
Genesis 6:9–11:32
The Lord smelled the pleasing odor, and the Lord said to Himself: "Never again will I doom the earth because of man, since the devisings of man's mind are evil from his youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living being as I have done."
— Genesis 8:21
P'shat: Explanation
At the beginning of the portion God is said to have decided to "put an end to all flesh, for the earth is filled with lawlessness because of them" (Genesis 6:12). Now, after the Flood, God vows never again to destroy all living beings. It seems as if God has had a change of mind. Why this new position? After all, nothing has really changed. Human beings are the same after the Flood as they were before, and there is no reason to think they will not "fill the earth with lawlessness" once again. Indeed, we have seen that very occurrence in modern times.
If there is a change, it is not in human nature but in God's understanding of it and in God's willingness to deal with it. In this verse God clearly acknowledges that evil is an integral part of human beings from their youth, and therefore the struggle against human evil will never cease. If man were nothing but good, man would not be man. To be human is to learn to overcome the potential evil that exists in oneself. It is almost as if God is saying, "Well, what did I expect? I created humans with the inclination toward evil."
D'rash: Exposition of the Sages
Rabbi Hiyya Rabba says: How unfortunate is the dough when he who created it testifies that it is truly bad — the devisings of man's mind are evil from his youth." Antoninus asked Rabbi Judah the Prince, "When is the evil impulse planted within a person, before or after the child emerges from the mother's womb?" He answered him, "Before he emerges from the mother's womb." He said to him, "No, for if it were implanted before birth, the infant would tear up the mother's insides in order to emerge immediately." Rabbi Judah accepted that opinion since it agreed with what the verse says, "... from his youth."
— Genesis Rabbah 34:10
The evil impulse begins to develop in the mother's womb and is born with the person. ... Thirteen years later the good impulse is born. ... If he goes to commit a terrible transgression it reprimands him.
— Avot de-Rabbi Natan A 16
The figure of Antoninus, a Roman emperor of the Antonines dynasty, appears often in Rabbinic literature in friendly discussion with Rabbi Judah the Prince, the head of the Jewish community at the end of the second and beginning of the third century CE. Rabbi Judah was in close touch with the Roman authorities, but we are not certain of who Antoninus was, including whether he was a real person or a literary creation representing Roman officials who were in touch with Rabbi Judah. The midrash's positive attitude toward him can be seen by Rabbi Judah's willingness to accept Antoninus's opinions over his own.
Rabbi Hiyya Rabba, a student of Rabbi Judah, is often found in Rabbi Judah's company. Here he comments on the fact that God, the creator of human impulses, pronounces God's very own work to be "evil." Rabbi Hiyya compares the evil impulse to the leaven in the dough, which causes it to ferment. On Passover, when we remove all leaven — hametz — from our homes, many Haggadot contain this reflection, "Just as I have removed the leaven from my home, so may I be worthy to remove the evil inclination from my heart and so may You remove all evil from the world."
Rabbi Hiyya then references a discussion of the evil impulse by Rabbi Judah and a Roman official. He cites Genesis 8:21, where, for the first time, the two words comprising the expression yetzer ha-ra (the evil inclination) appear in the Torah. The Hebrew for the English word "devisings" is yetzer. This verse is the source of this concept the Sages developed, which depicts the impulses in human nature that can lead to evil if not properly controlled. The discussion concluded that the evil impulse comes into being at the moment of birth. It is an integral part of human beings from the moment they emerge into this world. In contrast, the good impulse is said to develop much later — only when one reaches maturity, defined as age thirteen, the traditional time of bar mitzvah.
According to this point of view, children are neither good nor evil; they are simply unformed and undisciplined. The evil in the evil impulse does not always incite children to do wrong; rather, it simply fails to prevent them from doing wrong. When children mature, they know something they did not know before: they know right from wrong. The good impulse, what we would call "conscience," has emerged. It chides one when one is tempted to do wrong and therefore may be able to prevent wrongdoing.
I am reminded of the suggestion of Freud's protégé, Theodore Reik, that there is "an unconscious root of all temptations to break prohibitions." Reik tells the incident of a child who breaks some crockery. His mother asks him to promise not to do that in the future, and he says, "Bubi wants to be good, but Bubi can't be good." As the Sages said, the evil inclination is thirteen years older than the good inclination. Only with maturity do we develop the ability to regulate our drives and emotions and overcome the temptation to give in to impulses. "Who is a hero?" asked the first-century Sage Ben Zoma. "He who conquers his impulse [yetzer]" (Avot 4:1).
Perhaps the evil inclination could more accurately be termed the inclination toward evil. It could refer to what today we might call human impulses, or in psychoanalytical terminology, the id. These impulses can lead to evil, but they can also be put to good use. As the midrash in Genesis Rabbah 9:7 put it, "Were it not for the evil impulse a man would not build a house, marry a woman, produce children or engage in business."
D'rash: Personal Reflection
Human Nature at Its Worst and Best I visited the then USSR in the midseventies to meet and help Jews there who were being prevented from leaving. I was in Riga, a town in present-day Latvia, which had been part of the Soviet Union since the end of the Second World War. Nazi occupiers had decimated the once-flourishing Jewish community. A small number of Jews remained. There was still one synagogue at the center of whatever Jewish life still existed, severely curtailed as it was by the strictures of the Soviet regime. There I met a few dozen Jews who were studying Hebrew and trying to obtain exit visas, but without success.
This small group of young men and women in their late teens or early twenties had formed a very special bond as they studied and undertook important tasks together. On Sunday they asked my companion and me to accompany them on their usual Sunday endeavors. First they took us to the forest of Rumbele outside the town and showed us the mass graves of Jews whom the Nazis had murdered there by the hundreds. As usual in the Soviet Union, there was no official monument or signage to designate this graveyard of Jewish martyrs, nor were government officials doing anything to care for it. This extraordinary group of young Jews were taking it upon themselves to care for the graves, cleaning them every week and making sure they were not desecrated.
Then the young people guided us to a rather rundown farm, where we met an elderly woman and her son, a middle-aged man with severe mental disabilities. We learned that during the Nazi era this woman and her husband (now deceased), both devout Christians, had saved many Jewish lives at the peril of their own lives by hiding Jews in a secret spot under their barn. After the war, their neighbors scorned and isolated them for having saved Jews. Now that the husband was dead and the son incapable of real labor, the woman was in dire straits. So these young people came weekly to do chores and bring her food and supplies.
I asked the woman what had caused her to undertake that dangerous task. Her reply was very simple: "They were human beings. We had to help them."
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "A Year with the Sages"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Reuven Hammer.
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