Category: Breishit

The Mishkan and the Garden of Eden — Is There Any Way Back?

by Rabbi Jeffrey S. Fox Posted on July 6, 2017

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Origins and Beginnings: Genesis, Law and the Redemptive Imagination

by Rabbi Dr. Tsvi Blanchard Posted on November 29, 2016

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Did Hevel Have A Sense of Humor?

by Rabbi Aryeh Klapper Posted on November 29, 2016

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Of Floods and Fertility: Bereishit 1-11 in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context

by Dr. Shalom Holtz Posted on November 1, 2016

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Who Wants to Hear a Story?

by Rabbi Dov Linzer Posted on October 31, 2016

  “Why,” asks Rashi, in his first comment on the Torah, “did the Torah not start with the verse, ‘This month is for you the first of months,’ (Shemot 12:2), the first mitzvah in the Torah given to the children of Israel?” If the purpose of the Torah is to tell us the mitzvot and nothing more, then who needs the narrative sections of the Torah, and in particular, who needs Sefer Bereishit?…

Rambam and Radak on the Creation Narrative

by Rabbi Dr. Yitzhak Berger Posted on October 26, 2016

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Va-Yaavek Ish Imo: The Tension Between Activism and Appeasement in Genesis 32

by Rabbi Avi Weiss Posted on October 26, 2016

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Another Look at the Kayin and Hevel Narrative (Hebrew)

by Dr. Yonatan Grossman Posted on October 21, 2016

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The Evolution of Sin: Bereishit 1-11

by Rabbi Yitzchak Etshalom Posted on October 20, 2016

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Each of Us Has A Godly Spark

by Rabbi Avi Weiss Posted on May 25, 2016

While some maintain that the human being is only physical form, the Torah, in one of its most important sentences, insists that every person is also created in the image of God – tzelem Elokim (Genesis 1:26,27). On the surface we see each others’ outward appearance, but if we look deeply, we ought to be able to perceive a little bit of God in our fellow human being.…

Breishit: A Story of Growing Up

by Rabbi Dov Linzer Posted on October 8, 2015

When the world was freshly minted and created, we heard the refrain with each act of creation, “And God saw that it was good,” and that the world as a whole was “exceedingly good.” Then, humans came and made a mess of everything, and a different refrain is heard: And God saw “massive was the evil of man on the earth, and all the thoughts of his heart were only evil the entire day” (Bereishit 6:5).…

How Humankind Became Adults: The Challenges of Knowing Good and Evil

by Rabbi Dov Linzer Posted on October 28, 2011

It is just a few hundred years since the world has been created, and everything has gone to pot. When the world was freshly minted and created, we heard the refrain with each act of creation, “And God saw that it was good,” and that the world as a whole was “exceedingly good.” Now, humans have come and made a mess of everything, and a different refrain is heard: “And God saw that “massive was the evil of man on the earth, and all the thoughts of his heart were only evil the entire day.” (Breishit 6:5).…