Torah Reading: Genesis: Chapter 1 through 6:8
Haftarah: Isaiah 42:5 to 43:10
Bereishit. In the beginning. It sounds so magisterial. G-d begins to create the world -- culminating in the creation of Humankind -- and the whole narrative seems to proceed in a fairly orderly manner...
... until one takes a closer look at the text. Something seems just a bit off -- enough so to draw some incredibly major implications for us.
Looking strictly at the words, there are two anamolies that stick out:
1. Each time, after G-d’s creation of six main things (day 1: light; day 2: sky; day 3: land, grass, and trees; day 4: sun, moon, stars; day 5: birds and fish; day 6: animals and people), we read: "and G-d saw that it was good." And we read the phrase, again, after all of creation. What's odd, however, is that on the sixth day, the phrase appears after the creation of the animals, but before the creation of humankind. Humankind, basically, is the only thing created that doesn't get a "and G-d saw that it was good." What's going on here?
2. This one is a bit more subtle. The six “goods” referred to above do not actually correspond to the six days. On day two the waters were created and divided and the sky was created, but there is no “good” phrase. Is the sky “not good”? On day three, however, the water under the heavens receded to reveal land, that’s “good”, and then “grasses and trees” were “good”. (I.e., day three gets two “goods” – its own and the missing one from day two). Why is this?
Perhaps, then, we need to alter our definition of “good.” It seems that “good” is reserved for when G-d’s creations have found their proper place. The waters that helped create the sky on day two weren't fully settled until day three -- and then the "good" phrase appears. If that's the case then we draw the following conclusion: if Humankind is not defined as good, then Humankind had or has not found its proper place.
This, then, begs the next question: what is that “proper place?” For that, we need more background. Follow me inside . . .
(Note: the above questions, and various answers, have been around for millennia. This year I read a terrific essay that is now my favorite articulation of an idea that's also been around for millennia: it's by Rav Chanoch Waxman, in the first volume of Torah MiEtzion: New Readings in Tanach, produced by the leaders of Yeshivat Har Etzion. Much of what follows is derived from his essay).
In the first verse, we read “In the beginning G-d created (using the Hebrew word: bara) the heavens and the earth.” It seems that, here, “heaven and earth” is more a colloquialism for “the whole world” meaning: “everything” or “the universe”. At that point the universe was Tohu v’vohu (void and formless), and, the text tells us, ruach Elokim (the spirit of G-d) moved over the surface of the waters.
Now, let's break that down a bit:
Bara typically indicates creating something from nothing. But after that first verse, the word practically disappears from the narrative. For all the rest of the creations of the first six days, G-d speaks and makes (v’ya'aseh, from the Hebrew root aseh, to make or do). It’s as if, as Ramban suggests, that on the first day G-d created, out of nothing, the basic materials that he needed, and then “formed” everything else after that. (Which, frankly, is pretty close to how modern physicists describe the Big Bang).
Until, that is, we get to the creation of Humankind. Genesis 1:26-27 reads: “Let Us make (na’aseh) Man… (from the root aseh), so G-d created (vay’vra, from the root bara) Mankind in his own image (b’tzalmo), in the image of G-d (b’tzelem Elokim) he created (bara) him, male and female he created (bara) them. Here we have it backwards: the planning stage is aseh, and the execution stage is bara, which, until now had only been used for planning (and or creating out of nothing) the whole world (aka universe).
Most notably, we're getting bashed over the head with a threefold repetition that Humankind was created with bara -- something that is unfinished, something that is created out of nothing, something upon which order needs to be brought. Just as, above, when the world was void and formless (tohu v'vohu) until the spirit of G-d (ruach Elokim) brought some order (aseh). And yet, it is Humankind itself that is b'tzelem Elokim, made in the image of G-d. The conclusion is inescapable: it is Humankind's job to finish creation.
Waxman writes:
All of this is meant to force upon us the following conclusion. If mankind stands in parallel to the world, if the creation process of mankind parallels and resembles that of the world, then just as the world is created in an initial state, so too mankind is created in an initial state. If the world begins its way possessed by the void, empty, dark and deep, so too mankind begins its way possessing void, emptiness, darkness and depths. If the positive element in the world at the beginning of its making is the wind, spirit, or presence of Elokim, then so too the positive in mankind at its beginning is its “tzelem Elokim.” Just as Elokim of Chapter One counters the darkness and chaos and forms a well-ordered and good world, so too must tzelem Elokim (the image of G-d) counter his own internal dark chaos and form a well-ordered and good world….
The entire parallel implication provides another challenge to making, another mission: the task of self-making. Hence we have stumbled upon another sense in which man is not yet complete, not yet good. Mankind has yet to imitate the labor of Elokim, not just in the external real of the world, but also in the internal realm of man’s self.
In short, the clear message is this: everything other than Humankind was created and put in its place and fulfills its function and mission. G-d saw it and it was good. But for Humankind: it's "mission not yet accomplished." We have to finish making ourselves, and we have to finish making the world into, as Waxman says, "a well-ordered and good world."
We have a mission and we're not done.
Get to work!