Parshat B'reshit, 5776/2015 thoughts, slightly belated: This parshah has more holes than Swiss cheese :)
And that's one of reasons why it's so interesting to read and to write about.
I'm copying this from Word, so I make no promises regarding the formatting. Here goes.
I'm copying this from Word, so I make no promises regarding the formatting. Here goes.
Genesis Chapter 1 בְּרֵאשִׁית
1 In the
beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
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2 Now the earth
was unformed and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the
spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.
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3 And God said:
'Let there be light.' And there was light.
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4 And God saw the
light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.
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5 And God called
the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and
there was morning, one day. {P}
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. . .
[Later addition below, which accounts for the change in formatting--sorry.]
[Later addition below, which accounts for the change in formatting--sorry.]
| ח וַיִּקְרָא אֱלֹהִים לָרָקִיעַ, שָׁמָיִם; וַיְהִי-עֶרֶב וַיְהִי-בֹקֶר, יוֹם שֵׁנִי. {פ} | 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. {P} |
. . .
16 And God made
the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light
to rule the night; and the stars.
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17 And God set
them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
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18 and to rule
over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness;
and God saw that it was good.
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19 And there was
evening and there was morning, a fourth day.
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Given that Hashem created the Heaven "b'reshit" (in the beginning/first?), what was created on the second day, Heaven 2.0?
And given that the sun, moon, and stars weren’t created until the fourth day, what was the “light” that HaShem created on the first day?
And given that the sun, moon, and stars weren’t created until the fourth day, what was the “light” that HaShem created on the first day?
26 And God said:
'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion
over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle,
and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the
earth.'
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27 And God created
man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female
created He them.
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“ . . . b’tzalmenu/in our image"? Who was HaShem talking to and/or about?
Also noteworthy, in my opinion: In Chapter 1, Adam means human. See Chapter 2 for a completely different “translation.” And, in Chapter 1, Adam is created last; in
Chapter 2, well, see below
Genesis Chapter 2 בְּרֵאשִׁית
א וַיְכֻלּוּ
הַשָּׁמַיִם וְהָאָרֶץ, וְכָל-צְבָאָם.
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1 And the heaven
and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
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ב וַיְכַל
אֱלֹהִים בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי, מְלַאכְתּוֹ אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה; וַיִּשְׁבֹּת
בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי, מִכָּל-מְלַאכְתּוֹ אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה.
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2 And on the
seventh day God finished His work which He had made; and He rested on the
seventh day from all His work which He had made.
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ג וַיְבָרֶךְ
אֱלֹהִים אֶת-יוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי, וַיְקַדֵּשׁ אֹתוֹ: כִּי בוֹ שָׁבַת
מִכָּל-מְלַאכְתּוֹ, אֲשֶׁר-בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים לַעֲשׂוֹת. {פ}
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3 And God blessed
the seventh day, and hallowed it; because that in it He rested from all His
work which God in creating had made. {P}
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ד אֵלֶּה
תוֹלְדוֹת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְהָאָרֶץ, בְּהִבָּרְאָם: בְּיוֹם,
עֲשׂוֹת יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים--אֶרֶץ וְשָׁמָיִם.
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4 These are the
generations of the heaven and of the earth when they were created, in the day
that the LORD God made earth and heaven.
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ה וְכֹל שִׂיחַ
הַשָּׂדֶה, טֶרֶם יִהְיֶה בָאָרֶץ, וְכָל-עֵשֶׂב הַשָּׂדֶה, טֶרֶם
יִצְמָח: כִּי לֹא הִמְטִיר יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים, עַל-הָאָרֶץ, וְאָדָם אַיִן,
לַעֲבֹד אֶת-הָאֲדָמָה.
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5 No shrub of the
field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up; for
the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a
man to till the ground;
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6 but there went
up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
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7 Then the LORD
God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life; and man became a living soul.
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Whoever divided the Bible into chapters and verses was not
only a non-Jew (from what I’ve heard), he/she was also, er, “text-deaf”—why on
earth is the end of the first story of creation not included in Chapter 1 when
it’s obvious that what’s now Chapter 2, verse 4 is the beginning of a
completely different version of the creation story?
20 And the man
gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of
the field; but for Adam there was not found a help meet for him.
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21 And the LORD
God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and He took one
of his ribs, and closed up the place with flesh instead thereof.
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22 And the rib,
which the LORD God had taken from the man, made He a woman, and brought her
unto the man.
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23 And the man
said: 'This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be
called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.'
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In Chapter 1, Adam is a human being; in Chapter 2, Adam is
clearly male, whereas the female is called Ishah. So does Adam mean: “human” or “man?”
As for the “man’s missing rib” mystery, it’s really not so
mysterious—according to this creation story, HaShem performed the world’s first
surgery, and since no one inherits the results of surgery, it should come as no
surprise that every subsequent male has had a full set of ribs. ‘Scuse me, but I couldn’t resist giving the
literalists a good ribbing. J
Genesis Chapter 3 בְּרֵאשִׁית
א וְהַנָּחָשׁ,
הָיָה עָרוּם, מִכֹּל חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה, אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים;
וַיֹּאמֶר, אֶל-הָאִשָּׁה, אַף כִּי-אָמַר אֱלֹהִים, לֹא תֹאכְלוּ מִכֹּל עֵץ
הַגָּן.
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1 Now the serpent
was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And
he said unto the woman: 'Yea, hath God said: Ye shall not eat of any tree of
the garden?'
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So what if the serpent was clever? What was the serpent’s motivation? We know as little about that from the
literal text (p’shat) as we know from the literal text (p’shat) why
HaShem chose Avraham Avinu (Abraham Our Father) as the Founding Father of the
Jewish People.
Genesis Chapter 4 בְּרֵאשִׁית
8 And Cain spoke
unto Abel his brother. And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that
Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.
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Talk about holes in the text, what did Kayin actually say?!
14 Behold, Thou
hast driven me out this day from the face of the land; and from Thy face
shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth; and it
will come to pass, that whosoever findeth me will slay me.'
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Who’s gonna find him, when there are no other humans on
earth, according to the story?
כג וַיֹּאמֶר
לֶמֶךְ לְנָשָׁיו, עָדָה וְצִלָּה שְׁמַעַן קוֹלִי--נְשֵׁי לֶמֶךְ, הַאְזֵנָּה
אִמְרָתִי: כִּי אִישׁ הָרַגְתִּי לְפִצְעִי, וְיֶלֶד לְחַבֻּרָתִי.
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23 And Lamech said
unto his wives: Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken
unto my speech; for I have slain a man for wounding me, and a young man for
bruising me;
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See Chapter 5.
Genesis Chapter 5 בְּרֵאשִׁית
א זֶה סֵפֶר,
תּוֹלְדֹת אָדָם: בְּיוֹם, בְּרֹא אֱלֹהִים אָדָם, בִּדְמוּת אֱלֹהִים,
עָשָׂה אֹתוֹ.
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1 This is the
book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the
likeness of God made He him;
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ב זָכָר
וּנְקֵבָה, בְּרָאָם; וַיְבָרֶךְ אֹתָם, וַיִּקְרָא אֶת-שְׁמָם אָדָם, בְּיוֹם,
הִבָּרְאָם.
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2 male and female
created He them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day
when they were created.
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ג וַיְחִי
אָדָם, שְׁלֹשִׁים וּמְאַת שָׁנָה, וַיּוֹלֶד בִּדְמוּתוֹ, כְּצַלְמוֹ;
וַיִּקְרָא אֶת-שְׁמוֹ, שֵׁת.
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3 And Adam lived
a hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his
image; and called his name Seth.
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As I wrote previously, “An attempt is made at the end of the story
that appears second to knit both stories together: Shet/Seth is born and
is described as a replacement for the murdered Hevel/Abel. However, with
the continuation, beginning with chapter 5, of the interrupted "evolution"
story, the birth of Shet is mentioned again, but the story of Gan Eden (the
Garden of Eden), the snake, and Kayin [Cain] and [Hevel [Abel] simply vanish
from Parashat B'reshit, never to reappear.”
(The linked post isn't half bad, if I do say so myself--you might want to read the rest of it.)
(The linked post isn't half bad, if I do say so myself--you might want to read the rest of it.)
28 And Lamech
lived a hundred eighty and two years, and begot a son.
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29 And he called
his name Noah, saying: 'This same shall comfort us in our work and in the
toil of our hands, which cometh from the ground which the LORD hath cursed.'
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Lemech appears in Chapter 4 as a bragging murderer, and again
in Chapter 5 as a descendant of Shet (Seth) and the father of Noach. Will the real Lemech please stand up?
For an ancient B’reshit (B'reishit, whatever) post of mine, complete with B’reshit links, see
here.
posted by Shira Salamone at 6:01 PM
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