Sparking the Lineup (B'reishit)

It’s time to bat leadoff, put our feet on the ground
and start to explore this Torah scroll we’ve unwound.
With just the first letter, we’ve already found
deeper levels available – here, let me expound:
B’reishit has started, and with no further adieu,
that letter’s a bet, No. 2 in Hebrew.
It’s closed on three sides and open on one,
forcing us to move forward, now that we’ve begun.
And though we haven’t started at the beginning,
Midrash says it’s encouragement to show us that winning
is possible when your head is spinning
by being thrown into whatever is sitting
on your plate at the moment,
and that despite any confusion, you can still own it
by looking forward, not back and putting the onus
on not the “why” of existence, but rather the “how”
and what you can do if you focus right now.

So let’s start with a God of transcendent being,
for whom time and space are tools he’s wielding
to create a world with life that is teeming.
This creation (barah) is solely divine,
and beyond capability for the human mind.
God started his work, saying, “Let there be light,”
and split that from the day, to create the first night.
It was good, and with Day One in the books,
God turned to the waters,
creating the sky to separate the two proper.

With seas and the rain with sky in between,
Day Two is the only one God fails to deem as good,
which should scream with symbolism –
in the Midrash, it means
separation sometimes is necessary, though not always good
and God twice blessed the third day, so we’ve understood
this tells us that Tuesday is a day on which we should
schedule big events on for luck and success,
but now we move on – the events of Day Three are next.

The seas get gathered and dry land is blessed
with vegetation because God moved to divest
some power into the Earth, so it could manifest
seed-bearing plants and trees of all kinds.
God called this good twice and put Day Three behind.

God moved to Day Four, starting the cycle anew,
reflecting the first three, but with motion imbued,
starting with stars, so we’d at least have a crude
way to tell time as our lives moved on through;
so sun during the day, and at night the moon.

This was all good and we shift to Day Five,
when God commands the waters to bring forth much life,
from sea monsters below, to birds in the sky;
and blessed them to give birth so they could multiply.
God saw it was good with animals up in the mix,
so he had the Earth bring forth cattle and a few creeping things –
and while he was at it, wild beasts
on Day Six.

This was good, too, but not quite enough,
so God made man (adam) in our image –
a collective pronoun, indeterminate, with no limit.
Midrash guesses are puzzled, infinite:
maybe a secret cabal of God and the angels,
or maybe God and the animals created perfect strangers –
evolution’s highest art, by co-working painters.
Humans are given nature to rule,
male and female together are intended to pool
their efforts, be fertile and increase,
and eat vegetarian – there’s no mention of meat.

This was all very good and God was appeased,
so on Day No. 7, God finally ceased
the act of creation though it wasn’t complete.
The Vilna Gaon tells us this means
we should put aside work when we come to the Sabbath
and just live in this world we’ve come to inhabit
because God blessed Day Seven, declaring it holy –
a timely decision that historically only
serves to contrast thoughts of Babylonian origin about creation
because they built a temple to allow veneration
at the end of their own creationdom epic.

So the quick recap in 27 words:
Light, night, sky, seas, dry land and herbs,
sun, moon, stars, time, things swimming and birds,
cattle, wild beasts, man, woman in turn,
the Seventh Day rest – that’s all we’ve observed.

Now that this interpretation is done,
let’s all relax and step back,
because we’ve only begun.

---

Save to del.icio.us