Shabbat Shalom - Bereisheet - the gift of New Beginnings !!!
In this Parsha, the Ruach Elohim (רוּחַ אֱלֹהִים The Spirit of God) hovers
over the waters (mayim) as God separates the light from the darkness
and land from the water. He creates vegetation and creatures
- fish of the sea and birds of the air, as well as land animals.
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The earth was unformed and void [tohu v’vohu], darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God
hovered over the surface of the water.
Genesis 1:2
Shabbat Shalom - Bereisheet - the gift of New Beginnings !!!
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Shabbat Shalom
Welcome to Bereisheet
(In the Beginning), this week’s Parsha
(Torah Portion), which will be read in synagogues around
the world during the Shabbat (Saturday) service.
Please read along with us. We know you will be
blessed as the Word of God gives you a fresh start!
BEREISHEET (In
the Beginning)
Genesis 1:1–6:8; Isaiah 42:5–43:10; John
1:1–18
“In the beginning [Bereisheet]
God [Elohim] created the
heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)
Isn’t it wonderful to feel that we have a
fresh start? That we have an opportunity to begin
again?
This is the
precious gift we are given each year at the completion
of the fall feasts with Simchat Torah (Rejoicing in the Torah),
when we start our cycle of Parshiot (Torah study portions)
all over again—from the beginning.
Weekly Torah portions adopt their names from the first
unique Hebrew word that appears in the reading, instead of
being given a name or title from a theme in the text.
Both this first Parsha in the yearly cycle of Torah
readings and the first book of the Bible take their name
from the first unique word in the text—Bereisheet,
which means in the beginning.
In English, the book of Bereisheet is called Genesis.
Reading the Torah
A Good Creation
Parsha Bereisheet opens with a dramatic,
awe-inspiring narrative of the creation of our world.
In as few as 31 verses and 469 words, Genesis
describes how God created a perfectly planned universe
that proceeds from confusion
and emptiness (tohu v’vohu תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ)
to a delicate balance of order and beauty.
“The earth was unformed
and void [tohu v’vohu], darkness was on the face of the
deep, and the Spirit of God hovered over the surface of
the water.” (Genesis 1:2)
In this Parsha, the Ruach
Elohim (רוּחַ אֱלֹהִים The Spirit of God)
hovers over the waters (mayim)
as God separates the
light from the darkness and land from the water.
He creates vegetation and creatures—fish of the sea and
birds of the air, as well as land animals.
Sunrise on Israel's Hula Valley in Galilee (Photo:
Go Israel, Itamar Grinberg)
God looked at everything He had made and
declared it good; however, God was not quite finished.
On the sixth and final day of creation, God brought
forth the first human—Adam (אָדָם)—out
of the dust of the earth (adamah
אדמה).
“Then the LORD God
formed man [Adam] of the dust of the ground [adamah],
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and
man became a living soul.” (Genesis 2:7)
Notice that it took the breath of God to transform
Adam into a “living soul”—a being of flesh and blood with
personality, emotions, and desires.
Contained within the name of the first “man” on earth
is the Hebrew root word dam
(דָם blood). This is
not a coincidence, since God tells us often that life is
in the blood (Genesis 9:4; Deuteronomy 12:23;
Leviticus 17:11).
Notice as well
that humankind—both male and female—were created in
the very image and likeness of God.
Hebrew uses the word b’tzelmo
(בְּצַלְמוֹ in His image). The Hebrew
root word tzelem
is used in modern Hebrew to mean taking a photograph or making a photocopy, and
there is a very definite family resemblance between us and
our Heavenly Abba (Dad).
“And God created man (Adam אָדָם)
in His own image, in the image of God created He him;
male (zachar) and female (nikeivah) He created them.” (Genesis
1:27)
An artist at work in Jerusalem (Photo: Go Israel)
In the Image of
God: Creativity
While we don’t necessarily resemble God in our
temporary vessels made out of dust, we do resemble Him in
our souls and spirit. One of the ways we
resemble God is our capacity for creativity.
Just as God delighted in the creative process of earth
and life, so is there an innate quality within each human
being to also be creative, which can express itself as
art, writing, music, business, strategic thinking, etc.
But how did God create the universe? The Bible says
He spoke it into existence using words. For that reason,
each act of creation begins with the phrase “And God said
....”
“And God said: ‘Let
there be light.’ And there was light.” (Genesis
1:3)
Although we are
not gods, as some in the New Age movement claim, we
have been given creative power in our words. Even the
power of life or death is in the tongue!
(Proverbs 18:21)
Yeshiva (Orthodox seminary) students in Jerusalem discuss Torah.
We see this principle at work when God tells
the Israelites that He would give them that which they
had declared with their own words, even if that
meant that they would all die in the wilderness.
“‘As I live,’ says the
Lord, ‘just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will
surely do to you; your corpses will fall in this
wilderness.’” (Numbers 14:28–29)
Keeping this in
mind, let us carefully guard our mouth and watch our
words—for they have the power to create good things in
our lives and the lives of others, or to cause
destruction.
As well, the Word of God spoken in faith is powerful
and effective to create light in the darkness, and order
out of confusion and emptiness.
Everything in God’s world worked perfectly and
everything made perfect sense. He had spoken all into
existence in faith, hope and love.
A young man at the Western (Wailing) Wall gets a little help carrying the
Torah scroll.
Six Days of
Labor, One Day of Rest
After six days of an active creating process,
God instituted the seventh day Sabbath, a time to cease
from all of our labors and simply to rest and be
refreshed.
“And on the seventh day God
finished His work which He had made; and He rested on
the seventh day from all His work which He had made.
And God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it;
because that in it He rested from all His work which God
in creating had made.” (Genesis 2:2–3)
This holy day of
rest is so important that God included it in the Ten
Commandments, chiseling these words
onto the stone tablets:
“Remember the sabbath day, to
keep it holy. 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
20:8–11)
A Jewish woman recites the blessing over the Shabbat
(Sabbath) candles shortly before the Shabbat begins.
The Problem of
Loneliness
“And the LORD God said:
‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will
make him a help meet for him.’” (Genesis 2:18)
When God placed man in Gan
Eden (the Garden of Eden), He
declared that it is not good for a man to be alone.
He saw man’s need for a helper, counterpart, and
companion; therefore, God put Adam into a deep sleep and
took from him a rib to create a suitable helper for him.
“And the LORD God caused
a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and He
took one of his ribs, and closed up the place with flesh
instead thereof. And the rib, which the LORD God had
taken from the man, He made into a woman, and brought
her unto the man.” (Genesis 2:21–22)
A second century
Jewish sage, Dosetai ben Yaanai, wrote that it is
natural for a man to woo a woman.
Why? Because he seeks for that which he has lost (his
rib).
An Orthodox husband and wife take a few moments to enjoy the beauty
of nature together.
In Hebrew, a man is
called ish and
a woman, isha, the
feminine form of ish. God uses this term when He
woos Israel and promises a time when Israel will regard
Him with fond affection, rather than stand at arm's
length from Him, viewing Him as a stern authority
figure.
“It will come about in
that day,” declares the LORD, “That you will call Me Ishi (my man)
and will no longer call Me Ba'ali
(my master).” (Hosea 2:16)
God wants Israel
to serve Him out of love—like that of a woman for her
husband. Likewise, His love for Israel is that of a
devoted, tender husband.
Furthermore, God is utterly concerned with our
intimate relationships—with Him and with one another. He
wants our relationships to be borne of love and devotion,
not relationships ruled through domination, control,
manipulation, and coercion.
For this reason, Judaism has a sensitivity for finding
mates for singles in a way that is uncommon in the
non-Jewish world.
The Jewish concept of shidduchim
(matchmaking), for example, attempts to
bring Jewish men and women together for the purpose of
marriage. Creating a successful shidduch (arranged
match) is considered a great mitzvah (good
deed) in Judaism.
An Israeli groom rejoices over his bride. (Photo: Go Israel)
In Hebrew, the word used for the role of a woman is ezer k’negdo,
which literally means a helper
against him.
Helping doesn't always mean agreeing. Being placed in
the role of a helper does not mean that a woman is less
important or inferior to a man. After all, the Holy Spirit is
also called The
Helper.
A woman was not created to be a doormat. There
are times when she must stand in opposition to her man
if he is planning something that is ungodly or unwise.
We can look at the example of Haman’s wife in the book
of Esther who tried to warn her husband that his attempts
to destroy Mordechai would never succeed because he was of
Jewish origin.
To his detriment, the anti-Semite Haman did not listen
to his ezer k’negdo.
A Jewish woman comes to the Western (Wailing) Wall to pray.
The Fall in the
Garden
Sadly, due to a crafty serpent’s trickery, which
causes Chavah (Eve) to sin and drag Adam along with her, humankind
went from grace to disgrace in a single day!
Adam blamed Eve,
and Eve blamed the serpent, and men and women have
been pointing the finger at one another ever since.
There, in the Garden, for the first time in human
history, we see the emergence of shame. With shame came
forth a fear of God’s wrath. In his utter humiliation,
Adam hid amongst the trees, having become aware that he
was naked.
From their Utopian, sheltered, innocent existence in
the Garden of Eden, Adam and Chavah were thrust into a
cruel and unforgiving world of hardship and pain.
Being cast out of the Garden prevented them from
eating from the Tree of Life in their fallen state. To
have eaten from that tree would have turned their
temporary fallen state into an eternal fallen state. The
barred door of the Garden actually opened the door for
redemption in the fullness of time.
Torah and yad (Torah pointer)
How quickly the order and beauty of God’s creation
deteriorated into moral degeneracy, even to the point of
brother murdering brother (Cain and Abel).
With humankind spiritually separated from God
and deciding for themselves what was good and what was
evil, only six chapters into the book of Bereisheet,
mankind descended to such depths of evil, depravity and
violence that God’s heart is broken, and He
regrets ever creating mankind.
The good news, however, is that none of this came as a
surprise to God. Even before the
foundations of the earth were laid, God had a plan for
redemption. God sent His one and only Son, Yeshua, to pay
the penalty for all of our sins.
“All inhabitants of the
earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not
been written in the Lamb's book of life, the Lamb who
was slain from the creation of the world.” (Revelation
13:8)
A New Beginning
“By the word [davar]
of the LORD the heavens were made, their starry host by
the breath of His mouth.” (Psalm 33:6)
The New Covenant book of Yochanan (John) echoes the
Creation story. The very first word of this book is the
very same first word found in this Torah portion:
Bereisheet (In the Beginning):
“In
the beginning [Bereisheet]
was the Word (HaDavar),
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was
in the beginning with God. All things were made through
Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made…
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John
1:1–3, 14)
Yeshua was there at the beginning, and Yochanan
describes Him as the agent of creative power, the
power that made everything through the spoken word (davar).
It is also through Yeshua, who is called HaDavar (the
Word), that we enter into a relationship with God
and our true conversation with God begins.
When we accept
Yeshua, HaDavar has a home in our hearts. This means
we are born again and given a new beginning
as a child of the Heavenly Father, the God of the
Universe.
In these troubled last days, you can help give every
Jewish person a new beginning by supporting our efforts to
bring the Good News of Yeshua to Israel and the nations.
"You will again
have compassion on us; You will tread our sins
underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths
of the sea." (Micah 7:19)
"Hear the word
of the LORD, you nations; proclaim it in distant
coastlands: 'He who scattered Israel will gather them
and will watch over His flock like a shepherd.'" (Jeremiah
31:10)
Shabbat Shalom
from the Entire Bibles For Israel family !
http://messianicbible.com/
from the Entire Bibles For Israel family !
http://messianicbible.com/
“‘Bring the
whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food
in My house. Test Me in this,' says the Lord Almighty,
'and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of
heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not
be room enough to store it.’”
(Malachi 3:10)
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