PARSHAT BERESHIT
Bereshit, In a Beginning, (Genesis Chapters 1-6:8)) is an interpreter’s dream. So much well known material is packed into this parsha. It begins with two different creation stories (1:1-2:14) and continues with the placement of the first humans in the Garden of Eden and then their expulsion (2:15-3:23). Then we get the story of Cain and Abel (Chapter 4) and finally a bridge chapter (5) that gets us to Noah, the protagonist of the next parsha.
I’m going to discuss five themes from this parsha.
Linear vs Cyclical time
2 creation stories
Expulsion from Gan Eden
The snake and the Goddess
How connected to the more than human world (Cain and Abel)
How we read the first sentence of the Bible has significant implications on our view of the uniqueness of this cosmos and on the relative emphasis we place on linear vs. cyclical views of time and life. If you are like me, you learned this sentence in Hebrew school as “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.” But, as scholars have been arguing for a long time, this doesn’t quite capture the grammar of the sentence. Our ancestors, the Masoretes, added the vowels for the Hebrew readings of the Bible in the 5th to 10th Centuries and they added the vowel for the indefinite article, rather than the definite article. That is they added the vowel for “a” instead of “the.” It is my speculation that they were preserving an ancient oral tradition of pronouncing the first “bereshit,” or “in a beginning,” rather than “bareshit” in the beginning. For more background, please consult Rav Google for some learned defenses of the traditional translation and this article arguing against the traditional translation https://ancienthebrewgrammar.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/genesis-1-hebrew-grammar-translation/
Translating this opening word as “In a beginning” opens up the view of history as cyclical, rather than linear. The reading most of us learned in Hebrew school has us going from the creation of the one and only cosmos to the redemption of that world with the coming (or second coming) of the Messiah. That’s a linear process. But many traditional societies viewed history as cyclical. Aztecs talked about our world as part of the fifth cosmic cycle (The Fifth Sun by Brundage), Indians from South Asia talked about multiple cosmic cycles and Eliade adduces more examples in his Myth of Eternal Return. The common core idea is that this cosmos, like the rest of creation is born and dies and is then again reborn; the cosmos is no different in this regard than the cycles of wet and dry or the four seasons, or the life of plants, trees, birds, mammals.
Why is this important? Because the extent to which we focus on linear vs cyclical time situates us in relationship to the cosmos. It also has implications for how you view your life. If, like me, you resonate to cyclicality, then the linear view of time stretching from a unique creation to a final redemption seems wrongheaded, reincarnation in some sense seems to follow and you focus more on the cycles of life. On the other hand, if you resonate more to the linear view, then you are likely to view death as more final, be interested in Messianism, subscribe to some kind of view of progress in history. These are really different ways to orient ourselves.
It's not an either or kind of choice. Jewish calendars are cyclical (how could they not be?). The more than human world, it seems to me, is inevitably cyclical.
The tension between linear and cyclical views of time--which rings truest for you and in what circumstances? What are the implications for you in which one resonates more for you?
There are two different creation stories. Scholars pick them apart and claim different sources for them. Tradition, of course, recognizes that two stories exist but seeks to harmonize them. The first story details how the cosmos was created, while the second story is much more about how humans came to be in the paradise of the Garden of Eden. If you are interested in the ancestral view of how the cosmos was created, 1:1 to 2:3 are for you. There’s a process where in the first three days three different realms are created. The realm of light is on the first day, sky on the second and land on the third, all from the primordial waters. Then on days 4-6 these three realms are populated with sun, moon and stars on day 4, fish and birds on day 5 and land animals, creepy crawlies and humans on day 6.
The cosmic creation tale only turns to humans at the tail end (1:26-2:3) Humans are created male and female, in the divine image. (1:26-27). God then says to them “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and dominate the fish of the sea and the birds of the skies and every animal that creeps on the earth.” (1:28). God then continues and tells them that the vegetation he has created is for food for them “and for all the wild animals of the earth and for all the birds of the skies and for all the creeping things on the earth, everything in which there is a living being; every plant of vegetation for food”. (1:30)
The second creation story is human or earth centric rather than cosmic centric. It barely mentions the world before humans and rapidly goes to God fashioning a human (adam) from dust (2:7), placing the non gendered human or earthling (adamah is earth or soil, and is the same root as adam) in the Garden of Eden (2:8) and commanding our earthling to “work and watch over it” (2:15). Then YHVH God says, oops, it’s not good for the earthling to be by itself, so he first creates the animate world of mammals, birds, and vegetation, but realizes he is still missing something. So he creates a woman from our earthling’s rib (2:21-23)
The verses granting humans dominion over the world are obviously problematic, given what we have made of them and the mess we have made of the more than human world. It is a totally plausible reading of them to suggest that humans are better than the rest of creation and should feel free to exploit the more than human world, as we do today.
I want to offer two counterpoints to this reading, though I will not go into great detail. The first is R. David Seidenberg’s extensive work on what it means to be created in the divine image (Seidenberg, Kabbalah and Ecology). Seidenberg compellingly argues that it is not only humans who are created in God’s image—but also the stars, the sun, the creepy crawlies etc. Therefore being created in the divine image does not privilege humans or make us better than anything else. Second counterpoint is that it is entirely plausible to read the text, including 2:15, the famous “to till and to tend” (or “work and watch over it”) line as an argument for stewardship, rather than exploitation.
And yet, this second creation story is a major part of the shift to a patriarchal and human centric world view from a world that was centered in the more than human world and viewed all the beings around humans as having equivalent ontological status. This is Animism. If we are to survive as a species and, at least in my mind, if we are to be aligned with creation and the divine, we need to find ways to experience ourselves as part of creation, rather than viewing ourselves as lords of it. Either of the two counterpoints I offered can help. If we view our divinely assigned task as stewarding the land rather than having dominion over it and taking what we want, that would make a difference. If we view all of creation as being created in the divine image, then to despoil the more than human world is to despoil the divine. That would make a difference.
How do you read this second creation story? In what contexts, if any, do you have experience with feeling part of creation rather than dominating it? What, if any, are the practices you can do that will center the more than human world rather than being centered just around humans?
The expulsion from the Garden of Eden is what actually makes us human. Thus, counter to the traditional reading, the expulsion is not a tragedy to be overcome, but something to embrace. We don’t have to get back to the Garden, because there is no going back.
Humans are expelled from the Garden of Eden, so we don’t live forever. As the text tells us “Here the human has become like one of us, to know good and bad. And now, in case he’ll put out his hand and take from the tree of life as well, and eat and live forever. And YHVH God put him out of the Garden of Eden, to work the ground from which he was taken.” (3:22-23) But we humans are not meant to live forever. We are meant to be part of the cycle of birth and death and rebirth, just like serpents are meant to crawl on their bellies (3:14), childbirth is meant to be painful for women (3:16), and we get our food through the sweat of our brows (3:19) whether that is through agriculture, gathering or hunting. Sweat is good. The expulsion makes us human.
If the expulsion is not a tragedy, this changes the entire trajectory of a story whose through line is that we seek to return to the paradise of the garden of Eden, whether that is an earthly redemption through the Messiah or a place in heaven near God. If the expulsion is not a tragedy, then we are right where we are supposed to be. If the expulsion is not a tragedy, the challenge is to embrace our human finitude, rather than attempt to deny it by dreaming of a world in which we won’t die and in which we aren’t limited. Perhaps this even challenges the idea of an eternal God who doesn’t die.
I want to offer a note on the nature of the sin for which we were expelled. We are used to thinking that the sin that caused expulsion from the Garden of Eden is sexuality, but this is a Christian and not Jewish reading. God says to the earthling “Because you listened to your woman’s voice and ate from the tree about which I commanded you saying, ‘You shall not eat from it.” (3:18) The sin is disobedience, not sexuality.
How do we embrace our finitude as humans? How do we embrace the sweat of our brow?
The snake in this story is a sacred being. His transformation into the villain of the story is part of the transition to patriarchy. Why do I say this?
One argument is iconographic. Snakes are a common accompaniment of the Goddess, as you can see in the figurines of the Goddess present in works by Marina Gimbutas, an archaeologist. I have attached one such picture at the bottom of this commentary. Those who were familiar with the association of the snake and the Goddess would make the easy connection that the myth is making about the overcoming of the Goddess. Now snakes seem pretty phallic to me, so I can’t say that I understand why snakes are associated with the Goddess. But having looked at literally hundreds of examples in the work of Gimbutas and Merlin Stone, there’s no way to deny the iconographic connection.
The second argument comes from an analysis of myths where there is an explicit transition from the power of the Goddess to a male God. This is the argument that Carol Christ convincingly makes in Rebirth of the Goddess. The core argument is that a transition to patriarchy is accompanied and buttressed by the killing of the female mother Goddess who rules with a male consort God, by the Sky God who becomes the supreme deity by himself. She gives the example of the Babylonian transition where Marduk, the male sky God kills Tiamat a Goddess associated with water and the birth of the cosmos (which is born, rather than created in this mythology). The snake, in this reading, is a stand in for the Goddess and by making the snake the villain of the story, our authors can avoid even having to mention the Goddess while promoting male supremacy.
Worship of the Goddess in an authentically Hebrew form is an enormous topic and is beyond the scope of this commentary. But whether it is a worship of the Goddess in some aspect by herself or in conjunction with YHVH as a consort (and which one is the consort of which one—that is does YHVH have priority or does Asherah as Goddess have priority), Goddess worship is a core part of indigenous Hebrew religion which I am interested in reclaiming.
What do you think of reclaiming the Goddess as an object of worship? By herself or as consort? Who has priority? How do we reclaim the snake as a sacred being?
Cain is the oldest son who becomes a tiller of the earth. Abel is a sheep herder (4:2). Cain brings an offering “from the fruit of the soil” and Abel brings “the choicest of the firstlings of his flock.” (4:3). God prefers Abel’s sheep offering and ignores Cain’s offering. Cain becomes angry and kills Abel, as we all know. Cain becomes cursed to wander the world, though he is still under some sort of divine protection. Instead of wandering, the text tells us he settles east of Eden in the land of Nod (4:16)
Cain and Abel practice two different kinds of agriculture which are often in practical tension with each other, because the best land for growing grain, for instance, is also the best land for pasture for animals. The permaculture rubric would have us use the most productive land for direct to human crops—think wheat instead of pasture. Our ancestors knew this and also knew that livestock can be raised successfully on more marginal and less intensively managed land. This is true in Israel, the Western United States where sheep are extensively grazed on less productive land and here in the east if you look at how land was used even 100 years ago. But—the divine prefers the offering of the sheep. Isaac prefers the hunting of Esau (not even agriculture) over the great sheepherder of Jacob who manages to both grow his uncle Laban’s flocks and fleece him at the same time.
Further, how we connect with the more than human world comes in a great multiplicity of forms. I connect most by raising animals to eat grass and lust after rich bottom land that would be better used for human crops—but I would prefer to graze cattle on them. Someone else can’t relate at all to cattle who they think are domesticated idiots, but are enthralled with the skills needed to track and hunt large animals the way that the !San Bushman do in South Africa—that’s Jon Young who has inspired a generation of followers to forge connections with the more than human world. Someone else relates more through medicinal wildcrafted herbs, a kind of gathering. Someone else is a great herb gardener growing 100 kinds of herbs that can be used in cooking or in teas. Someone else is all about growing the three sisters, beans, corn and squash, the staples of indigenous American agriculture, someone else about fishing, another person about hiking in mountains or kayaking in the ocean or talking with trees.
In a world in which the poverty of being connected with and caring for the more than human world is literally a potential source of human suicide, it seems to me a kind of quaint privilege to elevate one kind of connection (sheepherding) over another (raising the fruit of the soil). We need to facilitate human connection to the more than human world in whatever form is possible. So how are you connected with the more than human world? What draws you? What feels easiest? What feels deepest? What rocks your world? How does it change everything? How can you increase your connections with the more than human world?
QUESTIONS
The tension between linear and cyclical views of time--which rings truest for you and in what circumstances? What are the implications for you in which one resonates more for you?
How do you read this second creation story? In what contexts, if any, do you have experience with feeling part of creation rather than dominating it? What, if any, are the practices you can do that will center the more than human world rather than being centered just around humans?
How do we embrace our finitude as humans? How do we embrace the sweat of our brow?
What do you think of reclaiming the Goddess as an object of worship? By herself or as consort? Who has priority? How do we reclaim the snake as a sacred being?
How are you connected with the more than human world? What draws you? What feels easiest? What feels deepest? What rocks your world? How does it change everything? How can you increase your connections with the more than human world?
