Shabbat Shalom! I have become totally obsessed with this Fantastic Jewish Beasts concept and cannot seem to focus on anything else for any length of time. Luckily, next week’s parasha dovetails (pun intended) perfectly with our second annual Blessing of Animals in our Pet Memorial Garden, and this week we hear about the creation of all animals, so get ready for a full month of divrei Torah on animals, mystical Jewish folklore, and/or connections to the Harry Potter Universe.
So, as I mentioned, this week’s Torah portion contains the stories of Creation, Parashat Bereshit. Genesis 1 tells us the story of the 7 days of creation, in which God made all the animals on 5th and 6th days. Genesis 2 tells the story of Adam, the first man. Seemingly, the order and purpose to the creation of animals is a little different in this story. There are many theories on this - academic theories about these stories being written in different times and places and passed down through different tribes of Israel, then both recorded in our canonized Bible for the purposes of keeping the peace between those tribes; midrashim about Lilith versus Eve, the superior imagination of Adam over the angels when it came to naming the animals, the particulars of creating the world versus creating the Garden of Eden, and so on. Last year, I taught a unit on Midrash to the 7th and 8th graders at Gesher and used this parasha as an example study. We looked at the ancient and medieval midrashim I just mentioned, and then the students offered some of their own answers: that Genesis 1 is the overview and Genesis 2 is the zoomed in story; that woman was created alongside man but gender roles and sex differences as we understand them today were created when Eve took on full form. This Torah portion offers so much to play with and create for ourselves, all within the parameters of the text itself.
But one thing all midrashists, ancient and contemporary, can agree on, one thing Genesis 1 and 2 both have in common, is the unique power of Divine Creation, which is far beyond even the amazing powers of imagination and creativity that we humans have been imbued with. When God creates in Genesis 1, it is with words alone. God says, “Let there be…” and there is. Even in Genesis 2 where the Torah tells us explicitly that man is created out of Earth and the Talmudic rabbis say this implies that the animals too were made this way, when God breathes a soul into Adam, he becomes something entirely new. This first human is in the image of God, with a touch of the Divinity of the angels, and some measure of the traits of each of the 10 Kabbalistic emenations of HaShem, and all of the earthiness of the animals. What a creation! A creation that can go on creating - inventing names for all the animals of the Earth and tending to the plants and creatures in the Garden, and that's before he even tastes the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge!
And yet, even after Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit and learn one more secret of creation, procreation, they and we are still limited in what we bring to life. Unlike God, we do not speak creatures into physical being. And if we were to form a being out of Earth and speak it to life, it still has no soul. Even in our imaginations, in our traditions of mythical creatures, when we create a humanlike being, it is not a human. The golem is formed out of clay or mud or dust, just as Adam was. The golem is spoken brought to life with a Divine word, just as Adam was. But the golem has no imagination as Adam did, and it has no ability to create more things for itself. It is soulless, thoughtless, capable of really only one thing according to tradition, and that thing is the opposite of creation. Its purpose is to destroy. It is created in times of trouble for the Jews and brought to life to destroy those who would destroy the Jews, but if not controlled closely, may keep on destroying blindly. It is a fantastic beast with great potential for benefit for its creators and also great potential harm, without the ability to discern which of its actions does which, much like many other beasts, real and imagined.
Humans, on the other hand, in being imbued with a soul and unique, though limited, powers of creation, should be able to discern the difference between help and harm. Therefore, we have a responsibility to help. When looking at options for actions, we must ask ourselves, “Does this action cause more pain for more people, or does it help alleviate the pain in the world?” Very rarely is the answer to this question cut and dry, but that doesn't mean we ever stop asking it. This is our job, a part of the legacy passed down from that first human who was charged with the duty to care for the world, to tend to creatures of all sizes and levels of perceived liveliness. May we take this job seriously and fulfill it with honor, and may we find that we create a world of diversity and peace. Amen and Shabbat Shalom.
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