Jewish Beliefs: Creation
Sermon, August 10, 2007
Rabbi Bruce Kadden
The Torah begins with a seemingly straightforward statement
about creation: “B’reisheet bara Elohim et hashamayim v’et ha’aretz.”
This sentence has been traditionally translated: “In the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth.” However, many contemporary translations see this
phrase as a sub-clause of the second verse, preferring: “When God began to
create the heaven and the earth the earth was unformed and void, and darkness
was over the surface of the deep, and a wind from God was sweeping over the
water.”
This is more than a semantic difference, based upon the
idiosyncratic Hebrew text. Rather, as the medieval commentator Rashi pointed
out, if the Torah wanted to explain the order of the acts of creation, it would
have said: “Barishona bara Elohim/First, God created.”
Furthermore, understanding the text to mean, “In the
beginning, God created the heaven and the earth” implies that God created
everything ex nihilo, out of nothing, whereas, “When God began to create
the heaven and the earth…” implies that the raw materials of creation were
already present when God began the process of creation. As Rabbi Gunther Plaut
points out, “it is not likely that the biblical author was concerned with the
question of matter’s origin.”
This evening, as I continue my series of summer sermons on
Jewish beliefs, I want to examine creation. What does Judaism teach about
creation?
First of all, Judaism teaches that God is creator. The
prophet Isaiah quotes God saying: “I form light and create darkness, make peace
and create evil” (45:7). When the rabbis adapted this phrase as part of the
Yotzer, the morning prayer for creation, they changed the word “evil (ra)”
to “everything (hakol).” Either way, the implication that God is
ultimately responsible for everything, both good and evil.
However, this does not necessarily imply that God directly
causes everything that occurs, but rather challenges those who believe that
there is another power responsible for the evil that exists in the world.
A second important belief concerning creation is that
creation is an ongoing process and that we human beings play an important role
in the continuing process of creation. Creation was not a one-time occurrence,
but is an ongoing process.
Indeed, the prayers of creation, the Yotzer in the
morning and the Ma’ariv Aravim in the evening, both use present tense
verbs: yotzer or/creator of light; oseh et hakol/maker of
everything; borei yom valailah/creator of day and night; ma’ariv
aravim/who brings on the evening. Each day the sun rises, it is as if light
is created anew.
The story of creation in the first chapter of Genesis
culminates with the creation of the first human being. God says, “Let us make
a human being in our image, after our likeness… And God created a human being in
the Divine image, in the image of God a human being was created, male and female
God created them” (Genesis 1:26-27). The rabbis derived important lessons from
this passage.
The Mishnah teaches, “Only a single person was created to
teach that if anyone causes a single person to perish, Scripture considers it as
though an entire world had been destroyed, and if anyone saves the life of a
single person, Scripture considers it as though an entire world had been saved.
Furthermore, only a single person was created for the sake of peace, so that no
one could say to another, ‘My father is greater than your father….’ And, only a
single person was created in order to emphasize the greatness of God. For when
a human being stamps many coins using one die, they are all alike. But though
God stamped every individual with the die of the first human being, each one of
them is, nevertheless, unique. Therefore, each person must say, ‘For my sake
the world was created.’”
Thus, from the creation of the first human being, the
rabbis derived three important teachings:
--taking another person’s life is wrong because it is like
destroying a world;
--no human being can claim to be superior to any other
human being; because we are all created in God’s image, we are all essentially
of equal worth.
--each of us is unique, with a unique contribution to make
to the world.
While all of us are quite familiar with the account of
creation in Genesis, there is another Jewish story of creation that also offers
important lessons. It is the story developed by Rabbi Isaac Luria, a 16th
century Kabbalist from Safed.
Rabbi Luria taught that prior to creation God –which he
called Ein Sof/without end—was everywhere. God filled all of space. In
order to create the world, therefore, God had to contract, to draw back, and to
make room for something other than God. Luria called this act of Divine
contraction “tzimtzum.” What emerged in the space left void by
tzimtzum were rays of light and a glass vessel composed of ten spheres, each
representing a Divine attribute such as wisdom, strength, lovingkindness,
compassion, etc.
While the three upper spheres managed to contain the light
which flowed into them, when the light reached the other vessels it was too
strong for them and they shattered. This shattering of the vessels led to the
creation of the world as we know it. That is why the world exists as it does,
with all its faults and problems.
According to this creation story, our role as human beings
is to participate in the ongoing process of tikkun, of repairing the
shattered vessel, i.e., our world. We are called to try to restore wholeness to
our world, which we do when we reach out to others. Each of us can make the
world a better place through tikkun olam, repairing our world.
Judaism teaches that God created the world and that God and
human beings participate in the ongoing process of creation. We derive
important lessons from the creation of one human being, and most importantly, we
recognize our responsibility in helping to repair the world.
A midrash teaches, “When God created the first human
beings, God took them and led them around to all the trees of the Garden of Eden
and said, ‘Behold My works, how beautiful and commendable they are! All that I
have created, for your sake I created it. Be sure that you do not corrupt and
destroy My universe, for if you corrupt it there is no one to repair it after
you.’” Taking care of our world is up to us.
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