An difficult aspect of the first portion of the Torah is the apparent contradictions between the account of creation in the first chapter of Genesis and that in the second. One of those discrepancies concerns the creation of Woman. While it originally appears that Man and Woman were created together, Woman is later described as being formed from Man’s rib. The traditional explanation for this difference is that originally Man and Woman were created as a composite hermaphrodite being, connected back to back; and later divided into two separate beings, becoming whole again in the face to face encounter of sexual union. This is the meaning of the verse that follows: ‘therefore Man should leave his mother and father and cleave to his Woman and become one flesh’.  While some see the ‘one flesh’ as signifying the child born from their union, the literal meaning expounded by many of the commentators is that it refers to the  sexual union itself. It is thus G-d’s will that rather than being joined at the hip with a similar being, we must achieve oneness with a face to face encounter with a different being. We become whole only by intimate connection with the ‘Other’. This can also be seen in the list of forbidden sexual relationships enumerated in the Torah. The vast majority concern incest, or intimacy with members of our own family. In our intimate relationships we are forbidden to seek the comfort of the familiar, safe home environment. Rather we are enjoined to seek fulfilment in what is different from us. Therefore the verse, traditionally seen as prohibiting incest for all humanity, stresses the need to leave our parents: the familiar, and cleave to our partner: the different. This idea, of course, has a resonance far beyond our sexual relations. If in the most important and intimate area of our lives G-d enjoins us to leave the safe and familiar and seek out the exotic and different, how much more so in other spheres. At the very beginning of the Torah we are warned not to cocoon ourselves in a comfortable environment, eschewing the challenges of confronting the new and  the divergent. Only by facing difference are we enabled to emotionally and spiritually grow. Only in the mirror of the face of the other can we truly see ourselves.

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Sidra Statistics

Parshat Bereishit

·               is the  1st  in Genesis,  1st  in the Torah

·               5th longest in Genesis,  7th  longest  in the Torah  

·                has  one mitzvah 

PAST PARSHAH PUZZLE

In the beginning Israel..

The first and last words of the Torah; read on Simchat Torah.

PARSHAH PUZZLE

A violent polygamist.

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