Bereishis 5783: Order from Chaos

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October 18, 2022

9 min read

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Bereishit (Genesis 1:1-6:8 )

GOOD MORNING! We certainly live in interesting times. We have a failing despot in Russia with a full complement of nuclear weapons at his disposal who is blithely sending ill equipped and ill trained soldiers as cannon fodder into a war funded by the United States and its allies.

We have a president who appears to be on the verge of senility. He seems increasingly confused at public events; at a recent press conference he called out looking for a congresswoman who had died almost two months earlier. Just last week, he forgot where his son Beau died – claiming he died in Iraq.

On the other side, we have an immediate past President with an ever growing litany of serious legal issues who opined on a Fox channel interview that he can declassify documents simply by thinking it so.

Perhaps the most disturbing part is that it is quite likely that both will once again be the nominees for their respective political parties in 2024, because their supporters will blindly accept and defend any nonsense that comes out of their mouths.

In addition, the world is once again at the precipice of another very painful recession caused, in part, by soaring inflation and the Federal Reserve’s main weapon to fight it is raising interest rates at a staggering pace. The financial markets are roiling – last week was the first time ever that the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 500 points and then gained over 800 points on the same day. The ongoing war in Europe and the uncertainty of the world economy over the next two years pretty much guarantees that the volatility will continue and will most likely erode the wealth of any Americans with a pension plan.

As a society we are also being challenged to accept illogical concepts that our grandparents – both Democrat and Republican – would be shocked to hear. These include ideas like gender fluidity, that you can fight crime by not prosecuting it, that we are somehow safer with less police and law enforcement, and the ridiculous concept that you can fight past discrimination with current discrimination.

Not surprisingly, studies show that 36% of all Americans suffer from serious loneliness and depression. Of course, this is partly a residual effect of the pandemic lockdowns. I remember a friend telling me how relieved he was when he was able to go back to work, “I was tired of saying ‘God bless me’ every time I sneezed.”

However, there is hope! Much of this instability has been around forever. My older readers will undoubtedly recall the scary days of the 50’s and 60’s and the ongoing Cold War with Russia. Schools would regularly run air raid drills and have the students dive under their desks in the event that the school came under aerial attack. There were signs everywhere for fallout shelters to flee to in case of a nuclear attack.

We experienced the Cuban Missile Crisis and wars in Vietnam and in the Middle East (as a child I lived in Israel during the Yom Kippur War and I have vivid memories of those frightful days). We saw interest rates that reached 22% in the 80’s, and suffered through diseases like Polio and AIDS. All within the last sixty years. Somehow we not only survived, but we came out stronger.

Still, there is a fundamental difference between our times and previous generations. Much of the ills of our society can be attributed to the breakdown of structure. Allow me to explain.

Having completed the Torah this past week (on Simchat Torah), we once again begin the Torah cycle by reading from Genesis. The first verse in the Torah is, “In the beginning God created heaven and earth” (Genesis 1:1).

Structure is the very source of existence. The second thing that the Almighty created (after the concept of time) was the notion of structure. Until the actual creation of heaven and earth (and all within it) everything was part of an undifferentiated reality because God’s existence is both an existential imperative and an indivisible reality. It was only when God gave everything it’s unique structure that “things” came into being; heaven and earth and everything in between – above and below.

Thus, structure is the very foundation of life. When everything operates within a defined structure we have order and harmony. When said structure is disrupted we inevitably find pain and misalignment – a good example of this is what happens when you smash your hand against a wall. The more the innate structure is disturbed the more pain there is and the longer the pain will endure.

In many ways the very fabric of our society and its institutions have been ripped apart. We have broken families, a dysfunctional public school system, seriously flawed political and legal systems, and perhaps most importantly our religious institutions are being abandoned at an ever increasing pace. According to a 2018 study almost half of all adults under the age of thirty do not identify with any religion.

This last piece is particularly frightening. Erica Komisar, a well-known therapist, writes: “A 2018 study in the American Journal of Epidemiology examined how being raised in a family with religious or spiritual beliefs affects mental health. Harvard researchers had examined religious involvement within a longitudinal data set of approximately 5,000 people, with controls for socio-demographic characteristics and maternal health.

“The result? Children or teens who reported attending a religious service at least once per week scored higher on psychological well-being measurements and had lower risks of mental illness. Weekly attendance was associated with higher rates of volunteering, a sense of mission, forgiveness, and lower probabilities of drug use and early sexual initiation.”

Those who don’t believe in God are left with the inescapable alternative that everything is an accident with no higher purpose or meaning other than maximizing selfish pleasures. Altruism is then an act against oneself and should be avoided at all costs. The resultant self-centeredness won’t garner much in the way of meaningful relationships. Is it any wonder that this nihilistic approach to life leads to depression and loneliness?

But belief in God isn’t enough – you also have to act. Anyone who studies the infrastructure of Judaism will notice that the primary focus is on creating community by building a relationship with the Almighty and others through selfless and altruistic behavior. For example, our daily prayer gatherings naturally build community as they require us to live near one another. This encourages the structured family life seen in this week’s portion.

After the creation of Adam God said, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will create a compatible helper for him […] A man shall therefore leave his father and mother and be united with his wife and they shall become one” (Genesis 2:18-24). God also blesses Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply.

The verities of faith and the shared immutable moral values drawn from the Torah are the essential elements of building a powerful community – one with the ability to withstand many thousands of years’ persecution and the willful horrors imposed on the Jewish people for millennia. The Jewish people have not only survived, but they have thrived and become a world-wide force and contributor on the world stage – far outstripping their comparatively meager numbers.

(Of course, this focus on Torah values isn’t limited to Judaism or its adherents. My brother Rabbi Akiva Zweig, who spent the Sukkot holiday at our campus in Pennsylvania, was asked by a local weekly bible study group to share some thoughts with them. They came to his Sukkah and he taught them all about the holiday and what is being celebrated.)

I would like to suggest to all my readers that, if you are not already doing so, you commit to reading the Torah portion in its entirety every week. It is the very source of our lives and the foundation of morality that it contributed to the world at large. Make this a “tent pole” of your week – the structure that holds everything else up.

My suggestion is that you use the excellent English translation of the Torah by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, of blessed memory, called The Living Torah, which is easily the most readable and scholarly English version of the Torah that I have ever seen. If, for whatever reason, you are unable to buy a copy of The Living Torah, please drop me a note and I will try to help. You may reach me at rabbizweig@shabbatshalom.org.

  Wishing all my readers a year of renewed commitment to growth in both Torah and building one’s personal and communal structure.

Torah Portion of the Week

Bereishis, Genesis 1:1 – 6:8

The Five Books of Moses begins with the Six Days of Creation, the Shabbat, the story of the Garden of Eden – the first transgression, consequences, and expulsion; Cain & Abel, the ten generations to Noah, the Almighty sees the wickedness of man in that generation and decrees to “blot out man” (i.e. the flood).

One of the most profound verses in the whole Torah is “And God created man in His own Image.” Since God does not have a physical being, this means that we are endowed with free-will, morality, reason, and the ability to emulate God Who bestows kindness. Also, if we really appreciate that we are created in the image of God, we realize that we have intrinsic worth. Therefore, there is no need to be depressed wondering if you have intrinsic worth!

Candle Lighting Times

When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.
— G.K. Chesterton

Dedicated in Loving Memory of

Roberta Herzog
Rose bas Faigie

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