Why does the Torah begin with the Genesis story? If it is a book of Law, ask the rabbis, why not start with the first commandment?

To teach us Rashi says, that God, having created the whole world, is its owner and has the right therefore to give Israel to the Jewish people. Here. Rashi turns a universalistic story into a nationalistic one.

The Midrash sees it differently. Why start with Genesis? To teach us that just as God created light from darkness, so too do human beings have the power to transform their lives, face all challenges and turn the deepest night into day. As the Hasidic rebbe said, a little bit of light has the power to drive away all the darkness.

But it's left for Ramban to suggest that we begin with the Genesis story to teach a fundamental truth—sin results in exile.

I've always been bothered by this idea. After all, many sinners live in mansions, and in the post Holocaust era it's impossible to conclude that those who suffered sinned.

Perhaps Ramban was suggesting that exile is not only a physical but a psychological state. Sin, separates one from God, and in that metaphysical sense one is exiled.

God, for example, tells Cain after he murdered Abel, that Cain will be a wanderer. The text then says that Cain left the presence of God and lived in the land of Nod.

Is not the last part of this sentence contradictory? If he lived and took up residence why is he a wanderer?

But the answer may be; having sinned and left the presence of God he became a wanderer. Although living, physically in the land of Nod he was in perpetual inner exile.

One of the key messages of Judaism is to feel the presence of God. If I can feel Him, if I can feel that God cares about me and caresses me, says David in the Psalms, then even in the midst of suffering, I am not alone.


Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Avi Weiss