B'reishit ~ בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית ~ Genesis 1- 6:8 Making Torah Personal

(1) When God began to create*When God began to create Others “In the beginning God created.” heaven and earth—(2) the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from*a wind from Others “the spirit of.” God sweeping over the water—(3) God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.(4) God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness.

The Lord created me as the beginning of his way, the first of his works of old.

בראשית, at the beginning of time; this is the first moment which is indivisible into shorter periods. There had not been a concept “time” previous to this, i.e. there had only been unbroken continuity. [The author perceives “time” as one of the creations. Ed.]

(26) And God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth.”

(27) And God created humankind in the divine image, creating it in the image of God—
creating them male and female.(28) God blessed them and God said to them, “Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on earth.”

בצלם אלוהים, when the word אלוהים appears as a description, i.e. in the nature of an adjective, it refers to creatures who are spiritual in their essence, not just that they possess spiritual potential. Such beings are devoid of such physical matter, are totally disembodied. This is what makes them basically infinite. This is the reason why such an adjective, attribute, is applied to G’d as well as to His angels. The term is also used in connection with judges, i.e. describing the predominating intellectual function they must perform if their decisions are to reflect true justice. Whereas it is an undisputed fact that the human intellect operates without direct dependence on any part of the body, that it does not age along with the remainder of the body it inhabits, but, on the contrary, sometimes improves while the body ages and becomes barely able to sustain the soul which inhabits it, and while it is also a fact that exercise of the intellect does not result in fatigue, etc, it is still not called אלוהים, something divine, but only צלם אלוהים, “something which mirrors something divine.” Until this intellect has acquired חכמה, i.e. a reverence for G’d and love for Him, its Creator, it is completely imperfect. It follows that it is man’s task to perfect his G’d given intelligence by acquiring the knowledge and insights which can be provided only by the study of Torah and by the practice of the laws of the Torah. If man, i.e. religiously atheistic intellectuals, do not use their intellect in the manner G’d meant for them to use it, it actually becomes a negative asset, a hindrance, so that in the end it turns out to be completely vain, as pointed out in Psalms 49,21 אדם ביקר ולא יבין נמשל כבהמות ידמו, “if man does not understand the divine gift his intellect represents he is comparable to the beasts which perish.” This entire lesson is condensed in the two words בצלם אלוהים.

(29) God said, “See, I give you every seed-bearing plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours for food.(30) And to all the animals on land, to all the birds of the sky, and to everything that creeps on earth, in which there is the breath of life, [I give] all the green plants for food.” And it was so.(31) And God saw all that had been made, and found it very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

(1) The heaven and the earth were finished, and all their array.(2) On the seventh day God finished the work that had been undertaken: [God] ceased*ceased Or “rested.” on the seventh day from doing any of the work.(3) And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy—having ceased on it from all the work of creation that God had done.

(7) God יהוה formed the Human*the Human I.e., the progenitor of the species and the point of origin for human society. Heb. ha-’adam; trad. “man.” In the eyes of ancient Israel, the typical initiator of a lineage was male, and so the first human being would also have been imagined as male. See further the Dictionary under ’adam. from the soil’s humus,*soil’s humus Heb. ‘afar min ha-’adamah, rendered to emulate the wordplay with Heb. ha-’adam “the Human”; more precisely, “loose dirt from the soil.” NJPS “dust of the earth.” blowing into his nostrils the breath of life: the Human became a living being.(8) God יהוה planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and placed there the Human who had been fashioned.

(20) And the Human gave names to all the cattle and to the birds of the sky and to all the wild beasts; but no fitting counterpart for a human being was found.(21) So God יהוה cast a deep sleep upon the Human; and, while he slept, [God] took one of his sides*sides Heb. ṣela‘ot, trad. “ribs” and closed up the flesh at that site.(22) And God יהוה fashioned the side that had been taken from the Human into a woman, bringing her to the Human.(23) Then the Human said,
“This one at last
Is bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh.
This one shall be called Woman,[Heb. ’ishshah; so trad. More precisely in context, “a (female) member of the human species.](24) Hence a man [man So trad.; Heb. ’ish]leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife,[wife So trad.; Heb. ’ishshah] so that they become one flesh.(25) The two of them were naked, the Human[Heb. ha-’adam; trad. “the man.”] and his wife, yet they felt no shame.

(5) יהוה saw how great was human wickedness on earth—how every plan devised by the human mind was nothing but evil all the time.(6) And יהוה regretted having made humankind on earth. With a sorrowful heart,

(7) יהוה said, “I will blot out from the earth humankind whom I created—humans together with beasts, creeping things, and birds of the sky; for I regret that I made them.”(8) But Noah found favor with יהוה.