TC Volume 1 Sample

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Each Torah Club volume is designed to be studied over the course of twelve months. The material is broken into weekly segments.

This sample contains one week’s worth of study material—commentary and insights on the first five chapters of Genesis. It’s just the first of fifty-four weekly installments designed to introduce you to the study of Torah from a Messianic Jewish perspective. By the time you finish studying Volume One, you will have read and learned the whole scroll of the Torah from Genesis 1:1 to the end of Deuteronomy.

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Volume 1 Unrolling the Scroll geneSiS / B’reiSheeT בראשית

B’reisheet

Volume 1 Unrolling the Scroll — B’reisheet SAMPLE DOCUMENT 1

Torah genesis 1:1–6:8

Haftarah isaiah 42:5–43:10

“In the beginning”

,hatrc

of our origins. When properly understood, the story of our origin helps us find our destination.

The View from Earthin the beginning god created the heavens and the earth. (genesis 1:1)

The view from earth, when seen on a clear, dark night, reveals a glimmering canopy of a billion bright points of light spread across sky. it may be compared to a man who was traveling from place to place, seek-ing a house in which to stay, when he saw a great pal-ace in the night, brightly gleaming in the darkness, with light streaming out of its windows. The traveler comforted himself with the hope of a warm meal and a soft bed. he said to himself, “is it possible that such a grand building lit with so many lights is left untended and abandoned? Surely someone is home in that great place. Surely there is an owner.”

The scroll of the Torah is the oldest and most sacred of all israel’s Scriptures. it contains

five books. The hebrew name for the first one is B’reisheet (,hatrc). it is also the first word of the book in the hebrew text, as well as the name for the first parashah (the first week’s reading). B’reisheet means “in the beginning.”

The english name genesis comes from the Septuagint (LXX), the greek translation of the hebrew Bible. Genesis means “origins.” Therefore, the greek name for the first book of the Bible means “The Book of Origins.”

genesis describes the origins of everything. it begins with the origins of the universe, focuses on the origins of man and then explores the origins of the nation of israel.

As we study the first week’s reading from the book of genesis, we will learn a great deal about god, but even more about ourselves. After all, this is the story



The rabbis told a similar story about Abraham. When Abraham saw the starry night lit up like a pal-ace shimmering in the darkness, he asked himself, “is it conceivable that the universe is without a guide?”1 he realized that in some way, a god must exist.

The Torah is a book about god. it is actually five books: genesis, exodus, Leviticus, numbers and Deuteronomy, the first five books of the Bible. it is not a physics textbook or a formal history book. it’s not a book about life after death or how to get to heaven, although it certainly touches on those con-cerns. The Torah is really about finding god, the owner of the palace.

The Torah tells the story of israel, the Jewish peo-ple—the descendents of Abraham, isaac and Jacob. Because you are a disciple of Yeshua of nazareth, the Messiah of israel, it is your story too. The Torah can change your life. it is an invitation to join the family, to know what it is like to be a child of god.

Expound Me!in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth. (genesis 1:1)

“This verse says nothing but ‘expound Me!’” That’s what rabbi Shlomo Yitzchak (“rashi” for short) said about the Torah’s first verse.2 rashi explained that the verse might be misunderstood to mean that god was in the beginning, as if the beginning was something that actually existed and contained god. it might also be misunderstood to mean that god created the heavens and the earth first, and subsequently got around to creating the other things mentioned later in the chapter.

rashi was a master of the hebrew language. The Torah was written in hebrew. Our english Bible is actu-ally a translation. The original text of the Torah (and all the books of the Old Testament) is hebrew. That’s why we call the Old Testament the hebrew Scriptures.

rashi examined the hebrew construction of the first verse of genesis. he said, “According to its simple meaning, it says, ‘in the beginning of the creation of the heavens and the earth.’” it does not mean that there was an earlier time called “the beginning.” it means that everything we know as reality around us, above us and below us began when god started creating things.

That teaches us some important things about god. everything we know and experience is defined in terms of length, width, height and time. god was before there was length, width, height or time. he is eternal because he is timeless. he is transcendent because he is not part of creation. he is all powerful because he is the power that created all.

Try to imagine something that has no width, length, breadth or place in time. Of course we cannot. Therefore we should not try to imagine god as if he were a creature with a certain width, length, breadth or confined to a certain moment in time.

Monotheism and the Six Days of Creation

god called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. (genesis 1:5)

not every culture has come to the same conclusion about the nature of the supernatural. Ancient human religions explained the observable phenomena we see around us as the result of a whole pantheon of spiritual forces at work. The sun is controlled by a sun-god; the moon by a moon-god; the rains are brought by a rain-god who waters the ground to pro-duce vegetation in cooperation with an earth-god.

The story of the six days of creation has one great implication: monotheism. it teaches us that nature, despite all its beauty and splendor, is not to be wor-



shipped or considered as god. The Torah warns us about this:

Beware not to lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, and be drawn away and worship them and serve them.” (Deuteronomy 4:19)

instead we serve god who created the sun, moon, stars and host of heaven. Because there is only one Creator, there is only one god. Any other spiritual beings are created and therefore less than the Cre-ator. This is the core of monotheism, the belief in one god.

When you think about it from a physics perspec-tive, monotheism makes sense. if polytheism were true, it would imply several different gods all creat-ing and manipulating the fabric of reality according to their personal preferences. it would not allow for an orderly universe that follows a unified code of physical laws. Polytheism would result in a great deal of disconnected randomness in the universe as dif-ferent creator-gods sought to impose their will on things. Monotheism, on the other hand, results in a seamless chain of cause and effect behind every event, according to rules set in motion by a single Creator. The modern world of scientific naturalism has proven the latter to be true. Scientifically speak-ing, polytheism is out of the running, and the smart money is on monotheism.

This can be compared to a man who had seven secretaries, one for each day of the week. each of the secretaries had a different filing system. There was no order, no consistency, no discernable pat-tern from day to day. Schedules were changed and rewritten every day. Memos were lost, important meetings forgotten, everything was amok. What did he do? he fired them all and hired a single secretary. MonoSecretarianism.

Seven Heavensgod called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. (genesis 1:8)

in the creation narrative of genesis 1, god sepa-rates heaven and earth. he creates a firmament above the earth in which he hangs the sun, stars and moon. We call this the sky. The hebrew word for “sky” is the same as the hebrew word for “heaven” (shamayim, ohna). When the ancient man looked into the heavens, he imagined it to be the realm of the gods. Always high above him and ultimately un-reachable, it became a metaphor for divinity itself. The ancient hebrew declared, “The LOrD’s throne is in heaven” (Psalm 11:4).

god’s throne is not in the sky. Today we know that the heavens, as they appear to us, are actually dis-tant stars burning in the cosmos. We know that the moon is a planetoid orbiting the earth, and the earth is in turn orbiting the sun, which is itself just one of countless such stars. As wise King Solomon once said, “The heavens and the highest heavens cannot contain him” (2 Chronicles 2:6).

But the metaphor remains. We still speak of heaven as a metaphor for the divine. We speak of god looking down upon us from heaven. But the place of god’s dwelling is not in the sky or in the cosmos. he is be-yond and above the universe, just as the sun, moon and stars are above and beyond the earth.

early Judaism taught that there are seven heavens. The Talmud, a collection of rabbinic lore, legislation and Bible commentary from the centuries after the apostles, describes the seven heavens. The first and lowest level corresponds to our atmosphere. Above that is the second heaven, the firmament in which the sun, moon and stars exist. The third heaven is the realm in which the manna was made. The fourth heaven is the place of heavenly Jerusalem, the heavenly Temple and the heavenly altar. in the



fifth heaven, the ministering angels worship god in song by night. in the sixth heaven god stores the elements. The seventh and highest heaven is the place of “right and judgment and righteousness, the treasures of life and the treasures of peace and the treasures of blessing, the souls of the righteous and the spirits and the souls which are yet to be born, and dew with which the holy One, blessed be he, will one day resurrect the dead. … There too are the Ofanim [a type of angel] and the Seraphim and the holy Living Creatures and the Ministering Angels around the Throne of god, and the King, the Living god, high and exalted, dwells over them.”3

is this true? Are there really seven heavens? The Apostle Paul claimed to have been caught up into the third heaven … “into paradise and heard inexpress-ible words, which a man is not permitted to speak” (2 Corinthians 12:4). it is possible that he subscribed to the traditional Jewish notion of seven heavens. Be that as it may, after introducing the idea of the seven heavens, the Talmud itself warns us from speculating on matters that are none of our business:

Seek not things that are too hard for you, and search not things that are hidden from you. Mediate on the things that have been permitted to you. You have no business with the things that are secret. (b.Chagigah 12b quoting Ben Sira)

Evening and Morninggod saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (genesis 1:31)

Did you notice how after each day the Torah says, “There was evening and there was morning”? We usually think of a day beginning either at dawn or at midnight. We think of nighttime following daytime. The Bible sees the daytime following nighttime. The

phrase “and there was evening and there was morn-ing” is used by the Jewish people as a time marker. Judaism reckons the new day as beginning after sunset, and the ending at sunset twenty-four hours later. That is why the Sabbath begins on Friday night and ends on Saturday night. it takes some getting used to, but it’s important to start to think of time in biblical terms.

Perhaps god arranged the daylight to follow dark-ness to teach us not to lose hope. Day and night are universal metaphors for light and dark, good and evil, life and death. From our point of view, it seems that night follows day; light is swallowed by dark-ness; good is eclipsed by evil; life ends in death. From god’s perspective (the biblical perspective), it is just the opposite. Day follows night, darkness is dispelled by light, evil is conquered by good and death gives way to life.

The SabbathThen god blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he rested from all his work which god had created and made. (genesis 2:3)

god finished creating after six days. On the seventh day, he rested from his work of creating.

he rested on the seventh day, but not because he was tired. god stopped creating because the work of creation was finished. The hebrew verb for “rest” in genesis 2:3 is the word shavat (,ca). The same word appears in noun form as shabbat (,ca), a word that is transliterated into english as “Sabbath.” every week the Jewish people celebrate the seventh day in commemoration of the great miracle of creation. it is the Sabbath day. it begins Friday night at sunset and ends after sunset on Saturday.

The concept of a seven-day week, which is now a standard calendar unit for the entire world, began with the Sabbath cycle. resting on the seventh day and



setting it apart from the other days is one of the laws of the Bible. it is one of the Ten Commandments:

Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LOrD your god; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the LOrD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LOrD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy. (exodus 20:9–11)

resting on the Sabbath day from the work of creat-ing is an eternal law for god’s people. he says that the children of israel are to keep the Sabbath “throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant … a sign between Me and the sons of israel forever (exodus 31:16–17). The seventh day of the week is still the Sabbath day.

god gave the Sabbath as a special gift and a sign to the Jewish people. But the Sabbath can also be enjoyed by gentile believers. isaiah the prophet says that the Sabbath is also for “the foreigners who join themselves to the LOrD, to minister to him, and to love the name of the LOrD, to be his servants, every one who keeps from profaning the Sabbath” (isaiah 56:6). in the earliest days of Christianity, the days of the apostles, all believers were Sabbath-keepers because the Sabbath was the weekly day of worship. Sadly, the Sabbath was abandoned by gentile Chris-tianity early in the second century. Today, disciples of Yeshua are rediscovering the beauty of the Sabbath.

On the Sabbath, Sabbath-keepers abstain from work and production. it is a day off.

Sabbath-keepers observe the Sabbath by hosting festive meals and by gathering together in congrega-tions to hear the Scriptures read and taught. Sabbath is a day set aside for honoring god and enjoying the company of friends and family.

AdamThen the LOrD god formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. (genesis 2:7)

The Torah is not particularly interested in argu-ing over the origin of our species. From the Torah’s perspective, human life is a miracle from god. The creation of human beings was a deliberate act by god. This gives human life dignity and purpose.

in the late first century, Clement of rome, a disciple of the Apostle Peter described the creation of man as the crowning achievement of god’s creation:

Above all, with his holy and undefiled hands he formed man, the most excellent of his creatures, and truly great through the understanding given him the express like-ness of his own image. (1 Clement 33:4)4

Adam means “man.” According to the Torah, god formed man out of something already existing; namely, the ground. The hebrew words translated as “ground” and “man” are from the same root, adamah (vnst) and adam (ost) respectively.

To animate the man, god breathed his breath of life into him. The hebrew uses the word neshamah (vnab), one of the words Judaism commonly uses for soul. it says, “Then the LOrD god formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the neshamah of life; and man became a living being” (genesis 2:7). Man became a living being only when god breathed a living soul into him. every human being contains a living soul, a portion of god’s own breath.

Clement explains that god knows us, our thoughts and our desires, because he is the one who has placed the soul within us. So long as god’s breath remains within us, we are alive:

For he is a Searcher of the thoughts and desires of the heart: his breath is in us; and when he pleases, he will take it away. (1 Clement 21:9)



human life exists in constant tension between these two very different points of origin. On one hand, we are made out of the stuff of earth. We are physical creatures, part of the biological system of earth, little more than an advanced species of pri-mates. On the other hand, we are vessels containing a spark of the immortal and the ineffable.

We are a hybrid of sorts. We exist in two worlds. We are the stuff of earth. Our short days are primar-

ily concerned with the common, ordinary things of life. We are born, we grow, we live, we reproduce and we die. We spend the time between birth and death seeking food, shelter and prosperity, fleeing pain and pursuing pleasure. Yet at the same time, we have an innate tendency toward spirituality. From our earliest ancestors, every human society has practiced some form of religion. We seem to be preprogrammed to seek god, to reach for the supernatural, in much the same way as migratory birds are preprogrammed to migrate. Our yearning for the divine seems to be an instinctual, universal reflex.

According to the Torah, both sides of the human state are natural products of our two points of origin. We are that which exists between heaven and earth, and we are made of the stuff of both.

When god set out to make man, he said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” (genesis 1:26). We are made in the image of god:

god created man in his own image, in the image of god he created him; male and female he created them. (genesis 1:27)

What does it mean to be made in god’s image? rabbi Moses ben Maimon (rambam for short) offers his interpretation:

Among all living creatures, Man alone is endowed—like his Creator—with morality, reason and free will. he can know and love god and can hold spiritual communion with him; and Man alone can guide his actions through reason. it is in this sense that the Torah describes Man as having been created in god’s image and likeness.5

Man is made in the image of god in that he is a thinking, reasoning animal, with free will and self-determination. he has free agency and moral obli-gation. in short, man is godlike by attribute of his sentience.

What does this mean? When god created man, he wanted to create a real being, like himself but part of his created, physical world.

This can be compared to an artist who painted a beautiful picture of a countryside scene. The painting included a green pasture, trees, animals, blue skies above, clouds and sunlight on distant mountains. Then the artist painted himself into the scene. Using the same paints and colors with which he had cov-ered the rest of the canvas, he painted a representa-tion of himself in the midst of the picture.

We are like the man in the picture, made of the common paints, strokes and pigments that form the rest of the picture. Yet at the same time, we are representations of the artist.

Our job on earth is to cultivate the godly side of our nature and integrate it into the earthy side of our nature. Our job is to reveal heaven on earth, and as creatures containing elements of both heaven and earth, we are perfectly suited for the job.

EdenThe Lord god planted a garden toward the east, in eden; and there he placed the man whom he had formed. (genesis 2:8)

Man’s original habitat was a garden that god named eden. Eden means “delight.” god placed man in the garden of delight, an orchard. The greek version of the Bible, the Septuagint, describes eden as the place of “paradise.”

it was paradise. Within eden, Adam enjoyed fel-lowship with god. The Bible says that god met with man, walking in the garden under the trees in the cool of the day. in eden, there was no striving, no



competition, no pain or dying. All that we needed was close at hand. Within eden was “every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (genesis 2:9).

The tree of life represents potential immortality. god created man mortal, like all other creatures. Yet he gave man the gift of choice. To achieve immortal-ity, man needed only to reach out to the tree of life and eat its fruit.

There was also another tree—the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But the tree of knowledge was also a tree of death, because god told the man:

From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die. (genesis 2:16–17)

This is an essential part of being human. We can choose good, which is the way of life, or disobedi-ence, which results in death. We choose between the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil countless times every day. We always have this choice before us:

i call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that i have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life. (Deuteronomy 30:19)

Not GoodThen the LOrD god said, “it is not good for the man to be alone; i will make him a helper suitable for him.” (genesis 2:18)

god declared everything he created to be good. “And behold, it was very good” (genesis 1:31). The only thing in creation that god declared to be “not good” was man’s loneliness.

no suitable partner could be found for the man among all the creatures of creation. Despite his in-

nocence, his capacity for fellowship with god and all the pleasures of eden, man was lonely. he sought a partner.

The desire for love and companionship is hard-wired into human beings. if you are single or di-vorced, reading these words may be painful. You may be feeling like Adam, who searched among all god’s creatures but could not find a suitable partner. regardless of your situation, take comfort in knowing that god sees human loneliness and is concerned about it.

Some people are called to remain single for the sake of god’s work. The Master himself (Yeshua of nazareth) never married. There is great merit and reward in the single life when it is lived for god.

There are also [those who remain single] for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. he who is able to accept this, let him accept it. (Matthew 19:12)

even if you are married, you should find direc-tion in these words. Though you may find marriage difficult at times, remember that the other option is “not good.”

One FleshFor this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. (genesis 2:24)

Adam named the new creation eve (Chavah, vuj), a word that means “living,” “because she was the mother of all the living” (genesis 3:20). The Torah says that “the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (genesis 2:25). This is the Torah’s view of sexuality. god does not see sex as something sinful, shameful or perverse. he made it. he designed it to be a beautiful and fulfilling part of paradise. Consider the simple innocence of our first mother and father in the midst of eden, the garden of delight.



The Torah says that husband and wife, when joined together in marriage, are “one flesh.” in the Bible, the term flesh means “human body.” This is the amaz-ing mystery of marriage. When a man and a woman are married, they are spiritually and physically united. They in essence become one new human body. henceforth, neither one is complete without the other. That’s why marriage can be so wonderful. That’s why divorce is traumatic and tragic. This also explains why infidelity and sexual relationships out-side of marriage are so damaging. The apostle says, “Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers god will judge” (hebrews 13:4).We are not designed for multiple partners. We are physically and spiritually designed for a committed, monogamous relationship.

Once Yeshua was asked about divorce. “On what grounds is it permissible to divorce your wife?” the people asked him. he answered that although di-vorce is permissible by Torah law, it is not the ideal and is not supposed to happen.

And he answered and said, “have you not read [in gen-esis 1:27] that he who created them from the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said [in genesis 2:24], ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore god has joined together, let no man separate.” (Matthew 19:4–6)

Today it is common for people to go through sev-eral sexual partners before committing to marriage. it is also common for marriages to end in divorce. Things are completely out of kilter.

god wants us to experience and enjoy sexuality within a committed, monogamous marriage, just like our first father and mother. When that happens, we experience a small portion of the joy of eden. When

we take sex out of that context, we twist it into some-thing ugly and destructive.

rabbi Akiba, a famous second-century Torah teacher, taught that “when husband and wife are worthy, the Dwelling Presence of god abides with them, but when they are not worthy, fire consumes them.”6 rabbi Akiba had in mind the letters of the hebrew words “man” and “woman.” The hebrew word for “man” is ish (aht). The word for “woman” is ishah (vat). Both words have common letters and unique letters. if we recombine the unique letters from the two words, taking the yod (h) from ish (aht) and heh (v) from ishah (vat), the two letters spell Yah (vh), which is part of god’s holy name. removing those unique letters from both words changes the words to eish (at), which means “fire.” rabbi Akiba uses this to illustrate that when a marriage is godly and the marriage bed is kept pure, god is present with husband and wife. When a marriage is godless and the marriage bed defiled, it is a consuming fire that will destroy both husband and wife.

Man Ish ahtWoman Ishah vathaShem (god) Yah vhFire Eish at

“Holy Moly! A Talking Snake!”now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LOrD god had made. And he said to the woman, “indeed, has god said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” (genesis 3:1)

eve wasn’t born yesterday—or maybe she was. it’s hard to say. For some reason, she fell for the sales pitch of a talking snake.



The Bible is a pretty sober piece of literature. it is not given to fairy tales. Things like talking snakes stick out as unusual in the Bible. What are we to make of this? Did eve really talk with a snake? Yes, she did. it is admittedly a little surprising, but, after all, Scripture says that “the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field” (genesis 3:1). That state-ment acknowledges that this was no ordinary animal.

in the story, the snake inquires, “has god said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” (genesis 3:1). This is a subtle approach. god had not made such a rule. eve corrects the serpent, saying, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, god has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die’” (genesis 3:2–3). This gives the serpent the opportunity to make his argument. if god allows them to eat of all the other trees, why forbid this one? Could it be that god is afraid of what might happen if they eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil? The serpent says, “You surely will not die! For god knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like god, knowing good and evil” (genesis 3:4–5). eve had a choice to make. We always have this choice before us.

Good and EvilFor god knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like god, knowing good and evil. (genesis 3:5)

What is motivating the snake to cause this trouble for eve? if the snake is evil, what does that say about god? Why would a good god create an evil creature? By the same token, why did god place a forbidden tree in the garden? isn’t that entrapment?

To know good and evil means to experience good and evil and to the know the difference between them.

evil is not only a moral attitude. in hebrew, the same word can also mean bad things that happen. And bad things do happen. That’s the problem with evil.

in order for anything to be a fair choice, we need to have options. if god had said, “Do not eat of the tree of knowledge,” but then had not placed that tree within the reach of Adam and eve, there would not have been a choice to obey or disobey. it was im-portant to god that human beings be free creatures with real choices. he did not want automatons, nor did he want caged pets; he wanted creatures that made choices according to their own volition. in other words, he wanted real people.

god’s desire to make a real world with real people explains a great deal. Atheists and agnostics often object to the idea of god because they cannot see him, and besides, the universe seems to run pretty well on its own by a series of natural causes and ef-fects. Worse yet, the presence of suffering and evil seems to make the existence of a loving, all-powerful creator unlikely.

Let’s think about this. if god had created a real-ity that contained him, so that he was evident and clearly, manifestly visible, it would not be separate from him. it would not be possible for things to exist independently. The geometry does not work. The infinite fills all space. god wanted to make a real universe, one that would run pretty well on its own by a series of natural causes and effects.

if god had created a world in which loss, suf-fering and death were impossible, it would not be a real, functioning world; it would be more like a still-life painting than a motion picture. The existence of a tree of knowledge of good and evil suggests that god made the universe with the potential of evil. if god had created a world where evil was not possible, it would also preclude the pos-sibility of good. in a world that was completely light, without any darkness, light would have no mean-



ing. For good to be good, it must have an antithesis. Thus, when god declared creation to be good, he was also declaring that it had the potential to not be good. An all-good world in which evil was not a possibility would not be a good world. good could have no meaning in such a world. it would not be a world with any real choice. Freedom would also be meaningless. For god to create a real universe and to place within it real people with real choices that have real consequences, he had to create the world with the real potential of evil.

SinWhen the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. (genesis 3:6)

eve succumbed to the temptation to “be like god” and ate the forbidden apple. Actually the Bible doesn’t say what kind of fruit it was. rashi says it was a fig. it could have been a fig or an apple, or it might have been something never seen since eden. The point is that eve did what god told her not to do. it was a sin.

What is sin anyway? We often hear people talk about sin with a great deal of conviction, identifying different sorts of things as sin. it sometimes seems arbitrary, and what is a sin to one person isn’t neces-sarily a sin to another person.

We might think of sin as something wrong: when we do something wrong, it is a sin. This is a bad defi-nition because it’s hard to define what is right and wrong in absolute terms. The biblical definition of sin is disobedience to god’s commandments.

everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. (1 John 3:4)

if a person sins unintentionally in any of the things which the LOrD has commanded not to be done, and commits any of them … (Leviticus 4:2)

Only god can define sin because sin is a violation of his law, the breaking of one of his command-ments. god only gave Adam and eve one prohibition. They broke his commandment. The first sin.

Their Eyes were OpenedThen the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. (genesis 3:7)

The snake told the truth. he told eve that her eyes would be opened. She and Adam ate, and their eyes were opened to behold good and evil. For the first time they experienced a flood of shame, remorse and guilt. They felt an immediate disconnection from god. They were suddenly aware of their potential for evil, lust, ambition, hatred and violence. More than that, they became keenly aware of their own frail vulnerability to suffering, pain, want and need. it was a different world.

The first thing to change was their conception of sexuality. What had previously been beautiful and innocent was suddenly a source of shame to them. This basic function of human biology had twisted into something with the potential for evil. Since that moment, the human sex drive has been damaged, enticing us into all sorts of self-destructive behaviors and situations.

rashi explains that prior to the opening of their eyes, “they were not aware of the way of modesty, to distinguish good from bad. even though Adam had knowledge, he did not have the evil inclination [an impulse to do evil] until eating from the tree. The evil inclination entered him then and he knew the difference between good and evil.”7



Yeshua explains, “everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin” (John 8:34). in the book of romans, the Apostle Paul, a disciple of Yeshua, expounds on this idea:

Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? (romans 6:16)

Adam and eve had stepped out of the kingdom of god and into the kingdom of darkness. By disobeying god and obeying the serpent, they became servants of evil. They had stepped out from under the author-ity of god.

Where Are You?They heard the sound of the LOrD god walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LOrD god among the trees of the garden. (genesis 3:8–9)

Once there was a Chassidic teacher, a great rabbi, who was observing the children playing hide-and-seek. One child covered his eyes and counted while the other children scattered and hid. Then he went and began to find the children, one after another. As he found them the others join the search.

After watching the children play for a while, the rabbi returned to his books. Time passed, and the voices of the children faded away. he was eventually disturbed from his studies by the sound of a lone child’s voice crying in the schoolyard. he went out to see what had happened, thinking perhaps the child might be hurt. he asked the child, “Son, what is it? Why all this weeping?” The boy explained, “We were all playing hide-and-seek. i was hiding, and they didn’t find me. They quit looking for me, and they all went home.” he began to sob. The rabbi realized that this child’s sorrow was like god’s sorrow. god

has, in a sense, concealed himself and bid us to look for him, but no one is looking for him.

Why does god conceal himself? Why is he hidden from us? Why doesn’t he reveal himself?

in the garden of eden humans experienced god di-rectly, maybe even tangibly. in the paradise of eden, human beings lived in simplicity and innocence, without sin, guilt, shame or knowledge thereof. god was present; he was immediate; he was revealed. he spoke with them. Walked with them. They knew his presence; they recognized his voice. he was not hidden. There was no seeking after god. god was everywhere; his voice carried through the orchard.

What has happened since then? Why has god re-moved himself? Why has he hidden himself away?

Let’s look at the story. Who hid from whom? The Torah says, “The man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LOrD god among the trees of the garden” (genesis 3:8). in the story, it is god who calls out to man. god did not hide himself. god searched for man. he called out to the human beings, “Where are you?” (genesis 3:9).8

We are the ones who have hidden ourselves from the presence of god. in our fallen and rebellious state, in our place of sentience, self-awareness and self-determination, we are unable to bear the pres-ence of god.

Where is god? This is the wrong question. The real question is, where are we?

Passing the BuckThe man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and i ate.” (genesis 3:12)

When god confronted his creatures about the incident with the tree of knowledge, Adam blamed eve. eve blamed the serpent. neither were willing to take responsibility for their actions. This is a con-sistent characteristic of human psychology. When



we do something wrong, we are loath to admit it. We attempt to rationalize our behavior. We point toward extenuating circumstances and try to find someone to blame. We find it easy to see others’ faults but rarely see our own.

Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? (Matthew 7:3)

So long as we insist on blaming other people or cir-cumstances for our own bad decisions, we can never change. Until we admit that it is our own fault, god will not grant us the inner power to rectify the fault.

rather than hiding from god and blaming each other and the serpent, Adam and eve should have admitted what they had done, apologized and asked for forgiveness. Things might have turned out differ-ently if they had.

Satan and the SeedAnd i will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel. (genesis 3:15)

As god pronounces judgment on the serpent for his role in the undoing of humanity, he offers a cryptic promise. in the future, a child of the woman will bruise the head of the serpent, and the serpent will bruise the child on the heel. This prophecy is like a riddle. Who is the serpent? The serpent is the enemy of humanity, the enemy of god. he is called “the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world” (revelation 12:9). The prophet ezekiel tells us that he was once an angel, one of the messenger-princes of god.9 his realm is the stuff of nightmares, horror, sleepless nights, cruelty, suffering and death.

he doesn’t try to hide. he is always eager to stick up his head and show himself off. his handiwork

is always before us. We see his inky fingerprints ev-erywhere, marring the beauty of god’s creation. he has his fingers in everything, adding pain and suf-fering, decay and destruction to every process. he’s not hiding. The only reason he hides is in order to ambush us.

he is called the “accuser of our brethren” (revela-tion 12:10). That’s what Satan means. Satan (Iya) is a hebrew word that means “accuser.” A better modern english equivalent would be “prosecuting attorney.” Think of him more as a high-powered attorney than a fang-mouthed ghoul. he does not live in hell, neither does he have horns and a tail, as far as we know. his realm is the earth itself. When Adam and eve chose to obey him, they lost the authority over the world that god had entrusted with them.

Who is the seed of the woman? The seed of the woman is the promised Savior, the Messiah, the Man who will reverse the curse and take back the author-ity over creation and give it to god. The identity of the “seed of the woman” and the meaning of the proph-ecy is studied in detail with help from the rabbis in Torah Club Volume Two.

Paradise LostTherefore the LOrD god sent him out from the garden of eden. (genesis 3:23)

god sent Adam and eve out of paradise and barred them from reentry. They lost their opportunity to eat of the tree of life. As a result of their sin, they found themselves trapped in mortality and doomed to die as citizens of the kingdom of darkness.

The same is true for all of us, the children of Adam and eve. We are outside of paradise. We live in a broken world, vulnerable to pain, suffering and death. The Apostle Paul speaks about our situation. he demonstrates how the sin of one man, Adam, doomed the entire human race, “even over those who



had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam” (romans 5:14). he said, “Judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation” (romans 5:16). “By the transgression of [Adam], death reigned through [Adam]. … So then as through one trans-gression there resulted condemnation to all men” (romans 5:17–18)

What if things had been different? What if Adam and eve had not sinned? What if they had made the right choice? Then we would still have access to para-dise. We would be able to reach out and take hold of the fruit of the tree of life. immortality would be within our grasp.

The Son of god, Yeshua of nazareth, is like a sec-ond Adam. he made the right choices. he never broke the commandments of god. he lived a sin-less life. The Apostle Paul explains that through him, we have the hope of redemption and salvation. This is explained in the following passage from romans. i have added a few clarifying words in brackets to make it easier to read:

The free gift [of salvation in Yeshua] is not like the transgression [of Adam]. For if by the transgression of [Adam] the many died, much more did the grace of god and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Yeshua the Messiah, abound to the many. The gift [of salva-tion] is not like [the condemnation that came] through the one who sinned. … For if by the transgression of the one [Adam], death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Yeshua the Messiah. So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One [the Messiah] the many will be made righteous. (romans 5:15–19)

By living a righteous and sinless life, Yeshua offers us a way back to eden. it requires us to believe him, fol-

low him, submit to him and receive his free gift, the grace of god. That’s what it means to be a believer.

For he rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:13–14)

This is what salvation is all about. if we will con-fess our sins, renouncing our waywardness, and cast our allegiance with him who knew no sin, “[god] is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). he will make us into new creatures inwardly, and we can begin the return to eden.

Cain and Abelif you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it. (genesis 4:7)

The course of humanity began to play out with Adam and eve’s first children. Cut off from god and exiled from eden, Cain and Abel attempted to reach out to god by offering him sacrifices. Abel’s heart was right toward god, but Cain’s heart was clouded with sin. god accepted Abel’s offering but rejected Cain’s, because Cain’s “deeds were evil, and his broth-er’s were righteous” (1 John 3:12). god warned Cain that he was in danger of being mastered by sin. he counseled him to struggle against it and overcome it.

Wounded and jealous, Cain vented his displeasure by committing the first murder.

This is the first recorded religious service. it is the first story of competition. it is the first story of mur-der. The sad reality of humanity is that these three things are bound together. religious convictions and resentments give rise to competition between worshippers, which leads to hatred and, all too often



though out history, murder. When irreligious people see the way that religious people behave toward one another, they feel vindicated in their rejection of god. “if that’s what religion does to you, who needs it?”

Yeshua taught a different religious path, a path he derived from the Torah. he taught that the two great-est commandments of the Torah are to love god and to love one another. The practice of religion, even true religion, is wrong if it is not predicated on love.

humans tend to hate one another with or without the help of religion. it’s easy. Yeshua warns us that ha-tred is not that different from murder.10 The Apostle John said that anyone who does not love his brother is a child of the devil and that a person without love for others abides in death:

For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another; not as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous. … We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. he who does not love abides in death. (1 John 3:11–14)

As people of god and followers of Yeshua, we should be different from the rest of the world. People should be able to observe that we are unique because we are not swayed by petty jealousies, competitions, hurt feelings and retaliations as others are. instead we are motivated by love that manifests itself in pa-tience, kindness and gentleness. According to John, our love for others is the means by which we know that we are children of god.

The Family of LamechLamech took to himself two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other, Zillah. (genesis 4:19)

After Cain and Abel, Adam and eve begat many more children. in those days while humanity was still young, men lived for hundreds of years. They had many children and quickly began to populate the earth.

Among the descendents of Cain was a man named Lamech. he took two wives and had three notable sons. Jabal pioneered the nomadic lifestyle of shep-herding. Jubal developed the art of music and song. Tubal-Cain began forging and smithing metals into tools. They were the most famous and successful men of the human race, each one celebrated by society. Their story sets the paradigm for human technologi-cal advancement and achievement.

Since the inception of our species, we have dem-onstrated that we are indeed made in the image of god, for we are creators, shapers, makers and form-ers as he is. he has gifted us with diverse talents and skills. Whether we are breeding cattle, making music or forging tools, we are doing so in imitation of god. Yet there is a danger in being a demi-creator. Lamech did not raise his sons to know the Lord. They used their talents for self-serving purposes and turned their backs on the ultimate Creator. human progress and technological advancement is not real progress so long as it is godless.

Seventy times Sevenif Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sev-enfold. (genesis 4:24)

When injured in a fight, Lamech retaliated by mur-dering the other man. he later bragged to his wives that, though Cain may be avenged sevenfold, Lamech would avenge himself seventy-sevenfold. Lamech’s law of retaliation became a societal norm that filled the earth with brutality and bloodshed, as genesis 6:11 says, “The earth was filled with violence.”



The next time you feel yourself bristle when some-one slights you or wrongs you, remember the story of Lamech. his single act of vengeance set a process of violence in motion that ended with the near extinc-tion of humanity.

Yeshua corrects Lamech’s sadistic mathematics by turning the same equation around and applying it to forgiveness:

Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and i forgive him? Up to seven times?” Yeshua said to him, “i do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” (Matthew 18:21–22)

Yeshua’s law of forgiveness is an antidote to Lamech’s law of retaliation. We should always be willing to set aside hurt feelings and injured pride for the sake of forgiveness. The alternative is the path of bitterness and hatred.

The Heart of ManThen the LOrD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (genesis 6:5)

The Bible has a realistic view of human beings and human society. When given a choice, we generally choose the bad. We are motivated primarily by selfish interests. given the opportunity to sin, we do. Paul says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of god” (romans 3:23).

As god observed humanity he was saddened to see the rampant wickedness of his creations. They turned on one another with violence, covetousness, lust and robbery. he saw that every human heart harbored evil. The seed of sin first planted by Adam and eve had grown and produced a full harvest of wickedness. Mankind had fallen a long way from the innocent simplicity of eden. “The LOrD was sorry

that he had made man on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart” (genesis 6:6).

Our sin actually grieves god. Sometimes people think of god as a cruel, cold, impassive judge meting out punishment and reward without concern. not so. The god of the Bible is concerned for his creatures. The sin of human beings actually causes him sorrow.

reluctantly, god determined to wipe the slate clean by flooding the earth. The world had reached such a state of lawlessness that for him to leave humanity unpunished would have been unjust. Yet he did not intend to leave humanity completely unredeemed. he already had a savior in view: the righteous noah. But that’s another story.

Study More from Parashat B’reisheetA wise sage once encouraged us to keep studying the Torah by saying, “Turn it over, and turn it over again, because everything is in it. Look into it, grow gray haired and old in it, and do not depart from it, for you have no better standard of conduct than it.”11

in Torah Club Volume Two: Shadows of the Mes-siah we will learn how Messiah is present in the first chapters of genesis, concealed with god from the beginning of creation. We will discover how the six days of creation lay a blueprint for redemption. We will explore the relationship between Adam and Mes-siah and see how the Cain-and-Abel story foreshad-ows the crucifixion of Yeshua and quite a bit more.

in Torah Club Volume Five: Rejoicing of the Torah we will learn the poetry of creation, discover how god reveals his glory through creation, unravel what the Apostle Paul calls “the doctrine of demons,” at-tend the first wedding through rabbinic eyes, see how the story of Adam and eve teaches about the body of Messiah and more.


Questions for Small Groups1. What is the main thrust of the opening chapter of genesis? how does reading a modern scientific per-

spective into it obscure its original message?

2. What message might god be communicating to us by reckoning the beginning of the day at sundown rather than sunrise?

3. Though it is not observed by the entire world, in what way does the world continue to give credence to the Sabbath?

4. What sets man apart from all creation? What do you think about rambam’s explanation of the “image of god”? What has been your common perception of god’s image in humanity? how does the image of god shape our sense of human worth?

5. how does the account of Adam and eve show god’s intention for marriage?

6. Why did god place the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden of eden? What does this show us about god’s desire for our lives?

7. how are the actions of Cain common to most religions in the world? in what way are disciples of the Master called to live differently? reflect upon the ways that we sometimes leave the way of the Master for the “way of Cain.”

8. how does the Master correct Lamech’s understanding of retaliation?

9. god in the Old Testament is sometimes characterized as delighting in cold punishment and judgment. But what does genesis 6:6 tell us about god’s feelings toward our sin?


Endnotes 1 Genesis Rabbah 39.1.

2 rashi on genesis 1:1. To learn more about rashi, see the introduction.

3 b.Chagigah 12b.

4 Learn more about Clement in the introduction.

5 rambam, cited in the Stone Edition Chumash, Artscroll (Brooklyn, nY: Mesorah Publishers), 9, note 27. To learn more about rambam see the introduction.

6 b.Sotah 17a.

7 rashi on genesis 2:25.

8 Abraham Joshua heschel took the title of his famous philosophy of Judaism from this narrative: God in Search of Man. recommended reading for everyone.

9 ezekiel 28:14.

10 Matthew 5:22.

11 Ben Bag Bag in m.Avot 5:22.

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