Four Pesukim About Man

This is Mosha Teragan for the OU all para video series for paras. I'm recording this on the day that we of course are saying the day that 20 of our hostages are being returned and hopefully many many if not all of those who were murdered by the Arurim are being returned for Kavitz Israel is um paras braces of course has a lot a lot to discuss um even if we want to take as I sometimes try to do an overarching picture of the entire para doesn't easily lend itself to that instead I wanted to focus on four crucial seinal resonant sukim from the second parak as the rav of course highlighted but not The first perk casts men as just part of the general brio in day number six towards the end of day number six without much halibaloo and he's part of nature. He's not not that much different from the other elements that Hashem created during those six days. But the second paric is focused upon man. It doesn't discuss the planets. Doesn't discuss darkness and light. Doesn't discuss doesn't discuss much. It just discusses the fact that the ground was bare. And the reason the ground was bare was because there was no man to work that land. And then immediately the perk surges into the description of the creation of man and the commandments and instructions given to man. Helves famously in the lonely man of faith distinguish philosophically how man views himself visav his universe. Is he part of the universe? Is he different from it? Um Adam one and Adam 2. Um I want to discuss four other less existential less philosophical but each of them formative and foundational specifically because they appear before the sin and they describe not punishments for the sin or new world orders that landscapes after the sin but these are foundational. They're part of our DNA. This is how we were when we were pure and pristine and this is how we still are because not much changed. Obviously the became internalized obviously and there's certain ownership that we incurred but the belief that we can look back at those murky moments before the and itself is murky and tease out foundational elements of human identity and religious identity. So I want to discuss for and then just pay a little more attention when you read on if you're listening to this after sim when you read para's braces to that second parag the first par has very little to teach us about man in general the first peric doesn't the second per does and in most cases it's really about man in general not just Jews humanity because Adam is just a human being although there is a famous statement by the balatana which even though the puss is universal the balatana narrowed into a more nationalistic puss. So the first thing that leaps out is of course as I mentioned before that decided to create his world or certain parts of the world because of man. So the grass and the vegetation yet to grow had yet to provide rain because there was no man. And now that Hashem is at the stage where he wants to create man. So he creates a mist whether the mist is to create man or the mist is to create rain and vegetation. And at that point he creates man. So this is of course not a chronological timeline. This is more an axiological or logical timeline that cause and effect. The reason that Akesh Baru created the grass and the vegetation and the food and the crops and the rain and at least the potential for the land to produce food and nutrition was because man was on the way. Man was at the doorstep of history of human history and um how you work out the timelines that goes back to Rashi in the first parak in which created the grass earlier in the week but the grass was at the ground level. It had yet to peer through the ground. And Hashem waited until the sixth day when man appeared for the grass to actually sprout forth the grass and vegetation, the crops and the nutritional capacity of the earth to actually produce itself. And in this causality, cause and effect that sparkle creates the entire world because man is about to arrive because man is about to enter the universe. It reaffirms the supremacy of man as the masterpiece of the purpose of this world is to serve human interests and human needs so that human beings can bring hashem into this world. We're the only people with sanctity and and sacral knowledge and free will and we can serve our keshbu and think about an other beyond ourselves. So the world serves man so that man can serve our kadesh bar and even without needling in or diving under the hood about God creating man which obviously it's explicit in the in the Pak it establishes man as not just a part of the evolutionary tree alongside of apes. Remember there are two parts to Darren. One is the theological component. Did Hashem create man as the Torah writes or did man just evolve as part of a broader evolutionary wheel? But the second part is once you accept Darwin's notion that man shares evolutionary DNA even if let's say you in theory believe that God created man but he created him as part of some larger evolutionary reality then man doesn't really have any distinctiveness superiority supremacy he's not different than the apes and this has led in in our day to a muddling or a confusing an erosion of the difference between human beings and animals and animal rights and again animal rights are important and doesn't want to stand cruy. There's several mitzvah that at least hint to that and there's an isra possibly the right of but not because animals have rights that are akin to human beings and not because it's a very clear hierarchy that places man and positions man at the apogee of this pyramid of creation and that second paric stresses that Hashem in the second paric only creates the world as it were because human beings are going to be created and the world is created to serve man something you don't get from the first par at that point Hashem puts him into gaden and He plants trees there and rivers to provide water and health and um nutrition and and places of shambra very famous couplet of words. So the Shambra hints at what I said earlier that we are custodians of this world and as much as we want to try to harness the potential of this world to advance the world to create creativity and our masur is not something we have to steal from hashem he hands it to us m shabas by delivering fire to us rather than say lad in Greek mythology where prometheus has to steal fire from the gods and he's punished for it he's bound to a rock hashem delivers creativity and wants us to change our world and improve our world and relent cape our world, but he also wants us to preserve more or less the terms of our world. And whether that is an environmentalist message, not necessarily in sync with some of the environmentalist messages that are popular in our culture, mother nature or man doesn't have the right, man has the right. But because he is the masterpiece of creation, he's not just the beneficiary, he's also the steward or the custodian. And it also makes us think about how far we push back the frontiers of science and creativity. Something which a lot of people are thinking about today. Now that we are creating creativity and how will creating creativity not just change the way we view ourselves which is probably the more important question but also change the world that Hashem delivered to us and what where's the line where's the shot line you could call it as opposed to the majino line in France in World War II where's the shot line the shot line is clearly the line beyond which we're not meant to pass we're not meant to combine flax and uh cotton and and linen wool and linen we're not meant to combine certain types of fruits certain types of animals and Where's that line between creativity and surpassing the boundaries that Hashem wants us to maintain? It's hard to know, but that word lash reminds us that while we are loved, we're also lash. So, it's a um it's a dynamic between and lash. But the word leavda doesn't just mean to process this world and to advance the world as opposed to lash to preserve and to protect its original pristine form. But means to work which means that work in safer braces and work in para's braces is not just a curse. You could have said well man wasn't expected to toil at all and all that toil is just a product of but the ideal state of man is to be an absolute repose and lacking any work and an endless vacation. And pointed out to us that no that work is built into the DNA of human identity. any noble's human character was expected to work even before the sin. Now obviously it would have been different would have been that much of a strain. It would have been would have come with so much frustration and so much hard toil and effort and futility but and Rea spoke to us so often about building a healthy work ethic and a work ethos and not being lazy and and is not the time or place to elaborate Renstein's belief and stress of a work ethic. But this is a posik that he would always lead with. He would lead with his pic embracious that work is a defining character of human identity. It's not just a fallback consequence of sin. And Hashem wants people to work. And when you don't work, you are less of a human being. And when you work hard, you're more of a human being. And that metric of how hard you work isn't just expressed by how hard you work in a hashem in the ritual sense, although that's the primary sphere that you should exert toil and energy, but in every area, you shouldn't be afraid to work and you shouldn't fall into laziness. So that's another puck that defines who we are as human beings even before we sin and certainly before ma which is well off into the horizon in parro the third and again stress this is afterm delivered commanded you should eat from all the trees in the garden but don't eat from the we typically believe that the instructions focused on not partaking of the adas. But believe that the concept of seivo was overarching. Hashem commanded Adam eat from all the trees and don't eat from the das. And what does it mean for the seivo to encompass even the trees you are eating from? But let's say that day Adam wasn't hungry. He has a mitzvah to eat a fruit from a tree. That's what the suggests. How does the to eat from all the trees manifest itself? Is it just a pass if you absolve or avoid eating from the you have ipso facto inherently not eaten from theas and avoided the felt no there are two different types of civo there's the mic I'm using my words micro the is the mitzvah in general in our life of of thee but let me take a different tact how do you view the world of rashus um is there a world of rashus is there a realm of rishus So on one end of the spectrum people would say of course as long as it isn't addressed by mitzvos and averos and do what you'd like. On the other end of the spectrum people would say there is no such moment in our life which isn't addressed by mitzvos and aos and if you parse it you could get to a moment where every single second you're facing if you're a man just think about to learn every second available is raits. So you can create a world in which there is no gray space that everything is at civo. And on the other hand, some people feel like and there's the world of and then everything else is just free to make your own decisions. And carved out that middle space where there is a world of rash in which you can make choices about what you want to do. And those choices aren't dictated by a mitzvah and a but they're still dictated by rat moral conscience. So you should never feel that you're operating outside of vit even when your other marishon is just eating from I don't know a orange tree or he's uh drinking eating a maybe a ramon tree I don't think the kazal say that ramon was one of the umadas was an atas an apple tree so he has no civo there's no lava mitzvah but hashem wants him to eat in a certain way again not overeating not steal it's not he can steal from anyone but there's a there's a larger message that even when you're not confronting mitzvah and a per se, you're still operating under the rubric of it, hashem, even if that civo can't be or shouldn't be translated into details every moment. What does Hashem want from me when I'm taking a walk? What does Hashem want for me at business? What does Hashem want for me in my marriage? What does Hashem want for me as I drive in the roads? And I think it it it stretches and incorporates a vote that there are differences. Learning Torah, performing a mitzvah, avoiding an ava is one type of vote. And then when you leave that space of ritual, those dal as we would say. So you don't necessarily stretch or have to stretch mitzvah and aos to cover that space, but you're still operating under the ages and the supervision of aeshbu. It isn't just a free reign to behave as you'd like and and as you choose as long as you can avoid mits and veras. It's a little bit like the ramban and kadosh don't be no bushes but is operating in a very very limited space. Don't overeat, don't have too much sexual encounter. Don't drink too much wine. Okay. So don't be indulgent but for is not just don't be indulgent but leave a lifestyle that sees itself as being informed by the hashem. So these are three sukim in perk bays all of which teach us a little bit about human identity. Excuse me. Number one is that human beings are the apogee the zenith of the pyramid and reality creation was intended to serve human beings so that we can serve our number two because we are at that apogee we have custodial responsibility to this worldra. Number three, I guess that's saying posicly of the work is not a curse. Work is part of what Hashem sees as human identity. And then number three is even when you're not avoiding or performing mitzvah, you're still engaged ine. Now, of course, I'm turning back to the creation of man. And this is of course a very famous fourword phrase. When Hashem created man, he breathed into him the breath of life of life. However you interpret is obvious. He breathed into him. Now this was the source of course for the most famous probably one of the most famous phrases in all of I think pera of the safer medaf when you breathe as opposed to when you speak. When I speak, the air is emerging from my voice box, from my larynx, moving up my my throat to my mouth. When I breathe, it comes from my belly. It comes from my gut. It comes from my diaphragm. So deep breaths come from someplace deeper. And as the Zara says, so Hashem by breathing life into human beings actually breathed part of his essence into human beings. Now I keep using the word human beings because that's the context. But certainly those who know the Tanya know that he created a hierarchy and that within that hierarchy this breath from Hashem which he described as nephesh ala mim mish which I'll describe in a moment part of hashem himself does not apply to non-Jews. And I don't think it's a racist statement. It's just he he and and there's a separate almost a separate constitution and a separate system that defines non-Jews. It just in his period he wasn't really addressing the relation with Jews and and non-Jews. It doesn't come up that much. He was looking to describe Jewish identity to deconstruct Jewish identity. But what's interesting is he lifts a PK that's meant to be universal and he applies it not just in a narrow field but he contrasts that this of only applies to Jews. Non-Jews don't have the midlay this part of shalom mameish. But for Jews, what it does revolutionize is as follows. We believe before they were created in the image of Hashem, which means we have a whole set of capacities and faculties that are similar to Hashem being topped off with free will. And with that free will and valition, we can decide what path in life to take. We aren't driven by hormones and instincts and um internal needs and urges. But if we rebel then we can find ourselves very distant from Hashem and there's always a path back for chuva but we can push ourselves as the Rambom says situate ourselves in a place that's very very far from Hashem whereas inos if and in the tiniest if there's a part of Hashem within you then as far as you stray you're still with and that distance really doesn't change that much. It's a little bit different from the Rambo, a little bit different from Yona who who runs from Hashem and then has to rebridge himself and restitch himself back to Hashem through here. If you have Hashem in you, you can't hide from yourself. You can't run from yourself within each human being. And that leads to the whole doctrine that as much as a person sins, he really isn't internally a sinner because a his internal core is defined by an essence of hashem. Nephes and number two, not only does sin not define him, but it doesn't really create that much distance from hashem because you can't create distance from yourself. So these are four fascinating foundational in parasa's batas in peric bay about man. Firstly about men. The fourth according to the is about Jewish person. Number one, the world was created for men. We have responsibilities towards nature, towards animals, lambra, but we are meant to harness the potential of this world for human advance and for the advance of the human condition. Number two, work isn't a curse. Work isn't a punishment. Work hard in all facets of life because that's part of Hashem's design for human experience. Number three, everything is part of Hashem's Civo even if it can't be parsed into a particular mitzvah and a vera because other only had one a one is and finally according to the Hashem delivered breathed into infused into every Jew a part of himself which changes how we view ourselves when we sin and changes whether we feel we're distant from Hashem or perennially close and in the precincts of Akaresh Barl.