Light In Torah

In Genesis Chapter 1, we are introduced to the character of God. All we really know about Him is that He existed before the world was created. And yet, He makes the decision to bring us—humanity—and everything we need to survive into the picture. And God really does seem to go out of His way for humanity. Each of the days of creation, God declares about what He has made that it was good (except day two). And it is humanity that stands to benefit from all that goodness. Each day is another day of creation that needs to be declared as good,  ki tov , before God can introduce man into the picture. In chapter 2, God declares that it is not good for man to be alone, and He creates the woman (Gen. 2:18). In the first two chapters we see that it is God who declares the difference between what is good and what is not good for mankind. Seemingly, God creates the world for man and tells him to be fruitful and multiply and conquer the earth (Gen. 1:26–28). Which brings us to the million-dolla...

Cain had just inadvertently murdered his brother Abel, and God confronts him (Gen. 4; Num. 35). He asks a pretty straightforward question: "Where is your brother, Abel?" ( Ei Hevel achicha? ). And Cain responds with an answer that would resonate for millennia:  Hashomer achi onochi —"Am I my brother's keeper?" And God, who is now pretty upset with Cain's glib answer, doles out punishments:  V'atah orrur atah min ha'adamah —"Now you are going to be cursed from the land."  Ki ta'avod et ha'adamah loh tosef tet kochah loch —"When you work the ground, it will not yield its strength to you." Then God says to Cain, "Nah v'nad tiheye ba'aretz"—"You are going to be a wanderer, a nomad." He is exiled from his home. And finally, Cain cries out in anguish at this final punishment: "Today you have driven me out from the face of the earth, and now I will be hidden from your face" (Gen. 4:10–14). It...

This past week, we started our venture into the book of Genesis.  Today, I want to give you an overview of how Genesis and Scripture work. Many view Genesis as just an anthology of moral stories and cautionary tales that we learned in Sunday School: "Try to be a good guy, like Moses was. Do not disobey God, like Adam and Eve." Many of us treat the laws and stories in the Torah just like that—like isolated episodes. Week after week, we hear about the laws of sacrifices, the story of the Golden Calf, a little mini-series on Joseph and his brothers, and all the other stories that we often treat as isolated events. Could it be that these are not isolated? Could it be that they are all part of one large story? If you have been with me long, you know that some of the passages in the Torah connect to each other in surprising ways, structurally and linguistically. Parallels to the Tree of Knowledge pop up everywhere, as do certain themes like repeated sins and their redemption. Inqui...

Today, we get one step closer to the days of Noah... yippee! But... before we get to him, there is a genealogy in Genesis 5 that is noteworthy for its emphasis on death—each entry ends with the phrase, "and he died," unique among Genesis genealogies. You would think it is obvious that within a genealogy you have "and he died," but there is more to the story, for sure. Amazingly, there is a break with Enoch, who walked with God (Gen. 5:22), but the phrase "and he died" begins again with Methuselah (Gen. 5:20, 27). Drumroll, please... At the end of the chapter, we are introduced to Noah, the son of a new Lamech. Lamech gives Noah his name as part of a prophecy that Noah will bring comfort from man's toil, which comes from the soil ( adamah ) which the Lord cursed ( arur ) (Gen. 5:29). Then Lamech dies, and the chapter ends in the middle of Noah's genealogy (Gen. 5:32). This is a cliffhanger—we are not told that Noah dies, but we are also not told how...

In order to understand the bride of the second man ( adam ) (1 Cor. 15:47) and the end times (Isa. 46:10), we need to know more about the first man ( adam ), his role, his wife, and the patterns established in their obedient and disobedient behaviors. The purpose of these short studies is to give us some fruitful food for thought to live by and to long for the "garden" days where  ish  and  ishah  are naked and not ashamed (Gen. 2:25). In Genesis 3, after  ishah  and  ish  eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 3:6), God points out to  adam , on two occasions, that he has eaten from what God commanded him not to eat (Gen. 3:11, 17). He has failed to do what God said, and as a result, all the relationships established in Genesis 1–2 begin to break down. Ugh. On the flip side, in next week's Torah portion, Noah, prior to the flood, did all that God commanded him to do, and his house was saved. This obedience caused him to be ...

  With all that is happening in the world, looking for the end-time events makes for some dynamic conversation. If we want to uncover some of the end-time mysteries, we have to go back to the beginning (Isa. 46:10; 45:21). In Genesis 1:26–28, man ( adam ) is created in God's image and likeness, blessed, and commanded to multiply, fill the earth, and take dominion over all of creation. God also gives a unique food to the man ( adam ). In addition to green plants, man is also given food from the fruit tree ( peri ) (Gen. 1:29). Let us go back to the beginning so we can understand the end. The creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2 differ greatly because of the perspective in which they are written: one from a masculine perspective (ch. 1) and the other from a feminine one (ch. 2). When we come to Genesis 2, we get more details on the creation of mankind. Instead of a watery environment, we have barren soil, where there is no food (Gen. 2:5). The text says that there is no food because t...

Many of you have begun your studies in Genesis all over again. The cycle of life and beginnings continues. For me, another new cycle begins; a new chapter. Personally, I think we are all confronted with or presented with opportunities for new beginnings frequently, but more often than not, we (speaking of me, myself, and I) find ourselves sliding right back into the old patterns, even when new opportunities arise before our eyes. Part of my daily study is to spend time in Genesis ( Bereshit ), the book of beginnings. It seems to me that no matter how far into the Scripture one reads, every story has a connecting thread to the Garden of Eden—a story that has become too familiar to my "hooked on phonics" reading ability. When Adam and his honey bunny, not yet named, eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they run into the trees (trees in Scripture are pictures of men—Deut. 20:19) and hide because they are naked and afraid (Gen. 3:10). "And he said, I heard th...

Sukkot is over. The Fall Feasts are over, and so is our study of the first five books of the Bible. Every year, on the Sabbath after Sukkot, we begin a new cycle in Genesis. There are two thousand years of history in this one section, so it is hard to cover it all at once. Marriage is often seen as a man "acquiring" a woman, as though she were property. To modern people, that sounds offensive—like she is just something to be bought. Is that really what happens under the  chuppah , when the bride circles the groom seven times? Is he acquiring her like a pair of shoes? How do we make sense of this? The answer, I believe, is in this week's parsha—the Torah's description of the original romance between Adam and his honey bunny, also known as Eve (Gen. 2). The story starts in a decidedly unromantic way. God says, "It is not good for man to be alone, so I will make a companion alongside him" (Gen. 2:18). If you were God, what would you do next? Create Eve, right? ...

  Today, we start all over again in the book of Genesis. It is fun to compare John 1:1 with Genesis 1:1—the very first verse of each book and the first word, "In the beginning." If we put together the letters of  Bereshit , always staying in the same order without mixing and matching, we will find over a dozen words that lay out the entire message of the Bible. Hebrew is the bomb diggity. Let us keep it simple for the morning 😊 Bet (ב):  Represents a house, tent, or dwelling place. Resh (ר):  Represents a person, head, or leader. Aleph (א):  Represents God, an ox head, or strength/power (the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet). Shin (ש):  Represents teeth, meaning to consume, destroy, or press. Yod (י):  Represents a hand, an arm, or a work/deed. Tav (ת):  Represents a cross, a sign, or a covenant (historically written as an "X" or cross shape). It is time for a new beginning with proper focus! Shalom! Alan www.lightintorah.org  

I asked earlier in the week what the big deal was about Sukkot. Observing Sukkot doesn't seem as earth-shattering as revelation or the Exodus. But I think the answer is: it  was  earth-shattering- what happened that first night. Earth-shattering in a quiet, terrifying kind of way. The act of faith is always earth-shattering. The pit in your stomach as you look around in the desert and feel all alone, only to have it dawn on you—you are not really alone. There is someone else there, one other Being—and it is God. It is just you and Him. And you have just left behind everything you took for granted and made this harrowing choice to completely rely on God. If God does not come through here for you, the next night could just be your last. The prophet Jeremiah says something to us about God's own memories of that first night. Here is his language:  "Go, and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying: Thus says the LORD: I remember the gifts of kindness of your youth, the love of thi...

  We are approaching the end of Sukkot, and we are two days away from finishing up our question: Why are we where we are? Here they were, the first night away from Egypt. It was the first night they experienced without a master's lash at their backs. That night, they breathed in the heady air of freedom. For the very first time in generations, they could come and go as they pleased. They could make choices. On the one hand, it was like living a dream. But the dream was also terrifying. They were in the desert. And they had nowhere real to sleep. No home to call their own. They were sleeping with their cattle, for goodness' sake—right next to Bessie the cow and Spotty the sheep. You could almost imagine what was going through their minds:  This is ridiculous. What am I doing here? To add to the ridiculousness of the situation, the Torah tells us one more thing about that night. It tells us what they ate that night in Sukkot. Let us read a little bit more from these verses: ...