Religious Pluralism | Parashat Hashavua-- The Weekly Torah Portion

In the Beginning

(Shabbat Breishit, 24-25 October, 1997, 24 Tishrei 5758)

By Rabbi Amy Levin

What was the nature of man's first obligation to God?

According to the creation story in the first chapter of Genesis, we see that all creation had to undergo some sort of judgement at the moment of creation: Each day's creation is evaluated immediately: "And God saw that it was good." Only man was created with a commanded prohibition (mitzvah lo-ta'aseh).

What was it the prohibition? Eating from a specific tree. With that first bite humanity commited its first transgression: misusing another part of God's creation -- a tree.

The expectation that we will respect what God has created -- i.e. the natural world -- was not just a first test of God's expectations of man, but in a different midrash from Kohelet Rabbah, we learn that it is an expectation for all time:

Kohelet Rabbah 7: At the moment that The Holy One Blessed be He created the first human, He put him down and reviewed all the trees of Gan Eden and said to him: Look at My work! How beautiful! How fine! Everything I created, I created for you. Apply your mind in order that you ruin and destroy My world, for if you do ruin it, there will be no one to come after you to repair it.

In other words, every generation has the responsibility to make sure that the natural world -- the work of God's hands -- is passed on intact to the following generations.

This is a very universalistic mitzvah -- it knows no geographic boundaries. But it turns out that those of us living in the Landof Israel have a special responsibility: As Professor Moshe Greenberg of Hebrew University summarizes in his book:

"It is possible to sum up the biblical view of the relationship between the people of Israel and the Land of Israel with four principles:

1. The Land of Israel is a gift from God to the people Israel.

2. The Land belongs to God and His ownership of the Land is expressed in legal and ritual terms.

3. The ultimate goal of the inhabitation of the Land by the People is the establishment of a kingdom of cohanim and a holy people

4. The People will be expelled from the Land if it does not fulfill this goal.

. . . . God's Land must be sanctified in order to ensure that it will be worthy to receive God's presence (Shechina). The very fact that the Land is God's possession renders the Land holy in potential. This potential for holiness obligates the residents of the Land to work towards its sanctity and its purity."

(Moshe Greenberg, Al Hamikra v'al ha-yahadut, Am Oved, 1986, pgs, 110, 112)

I could actually end this week's drasha right here and you would be left with some valuable food for thought. You'd be left thinking about the connection between the creation of humanity and God's expectations of us.

And you'd even be left thinking about our special relationship to this land. A land we all love travelling through,; a land whose flowers and views and fruits and hills are all praised in popular songs.

But I can't stop without emphasizing that our tradition is one of action and responsibility -- not just contemplation.

Parashat Breishit comes to remind us that our very first obligation on this earth was not to misuse God's creation and to remind those of us living in Israel that we are truly a privileged generation. As adults, we all know that along with privilege comes responsibility. And our responsibility is to do what we can to preserve this Land and all of God's creation for generations to come.

Forest land and wilderness are recklessly transformed into roads and neighborhoods every day in Israel. Only a handful of communities make any effort at all to recycle. The cities are choked with cars -- most of them still running on leaded gasoline. We must work for the good of our Land, for its health, its sanctity. if we do, we will not just be working for the good of this Land -- but we will also be fulfilling our sacred obligation to our Creator and to His creation.

Shabbat Shalom

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Amy Levin has served as rabbi of the Masorti (Conservative) Family Congregation of Beit Ha-Kerem, Jerusalem, since September 1995. She is one of the first women to study in the rabbinical school of the Masorti/Conservative Seminary of Judaic Studies in Jerusalem. In addition to her congregational work, Amy teaches Talmud at Hebrew Union College's new Liberal Yeshiva -- a program designed to introduce English speakers to the basic texts and concepts of the Jewish tradition. Amy made aliyah in 1981 and is the mother of two wonderful teenagers.