Translated from Hebrew by S. NAthan

l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai

Parashat Bereisheet There Are Three Qualities in Man

    The first quality, he received from the Creator. The second one, the creative quality, he creates in partnership with the Creator, and the third, the existential one, he himself chose in his great stupidity, and to this day, he struggles with it.

     – Place and Time: A Matter of Choice, or Finding an Alternative to Truth.
     – A Helpmate, Opposite him: Woman.
    – Tsimtsum: The Mystery of Diminution – Beyond Place and Time

    Stage One: Creation “And the Lord said…” “With three ‘sayings’ the world was created.” “And the Lord said: ‘Let us make a human being. In our image and in our likeness.” From this direct “saying”, a human being was created, in utter perfection. “And the Lord created the human being in His own image, in the image of the Lord, etc.” At this stage too, the female was created, equal to the man in level and in function – together with man, under ideal conditions, for eternity.

    Stage Two: Creativity Bereisheet, 2:4: “These are the chronicles of the heavens and the earth, as they were created…on the day that God the Lord made the heavens and the earth.” At this stage, man has not yet been created, and the world, by a direct “saying” of the Creator, has been more or less formed, with the description of the world appearing after the description of the forming of the human being – whereas in the description of man’s creation, man appears as the last of the creants. This second stage deserves the name of ‘potential stage’. The universe is a force awaiting man, who will actualize its potential, for man is a partner to the Creator of man and universe. At this stage, man is charged with taking even himself into his own hands, as a project that he is working on in partnership with the Creator.

    At this stage, the human is not being created by the blessed Creator’s “mouth’s breath”, but rather from “a mist that would rise from the land”, “like smoke,” says the Even Ezra, “which prepared a golem from the earth, exactly like the birds had been created.” “For they were created from the mud,” cites the Ohr HaHaim. “And he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” This is the stage of senses and feelings, yet still not the spiritual stage, for “even the cattle and the beasts were called ‘living life force’,” cites Rashi, and he adds: “The listener could reason that this is another action, but really it is nothing more than a detailing of the first.”

    It is obviously not a reference to a separate action, but rather to a different description of the same action, at a different level of man’s essential substance. At the first level, the “life force” level, it is a description that fits most human creatures, even today. This teaches us that it was not for naught that the Torah repeated twice and thrice the description of man’s complexity, and the multiple aspects of his personality, for this multiplicity characterizes man alone, and none of the other creatures.

    We have here, in man, an entity capable of creating, of relating to the universe from its own angle of vision. This entity, within its own creative cycle, rules completely, and sets the laws of the game, by the power of free choice that has been granted it by its Creator.

    Similarly within every individual’s personal cycle of creation, that cycle that is ruled by every single member of the human race: Man creates multiple aspects, forming them in his own image rather than in the likeness of his Creator. There are different directions; there is good and evil, life and death, illusion and temptation, circles that open up and close again, all for man’s sake and in his merit.

     · A river that “divides into four major tributaries.”

     · A tree that is “good for eating, and a desire to the eyes.”

     · A Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

     · The Tree of Life.

     All of these are prepared as an opportunity for human merit, to be used for good or for evil.

     Over all of these creations, all of which obey man’s command, man is appointed and charged, and given the mandate “to work it and to preserve it.” And over all this, woman is appointed.

     Yet not entirely, for after all, she was created post facto, by force of need, and not as the original plan, for after all: “It is not good for man to be alone. I shall make him a helpmate, opposite him.”

     And once again the Torah repeats this, leaving no room for misunderstanding: “But for man, he found no helpmate opposite to him.” Add to this the degrading description of the manner in which woman was formed: “And God the Lord built the rib that He had taken from the man, into a woman.”

     In truth, it is a bit difficult to decide who was created in a more degrading manner: The man, who is created at this stage as a golem, a raw shape out of dust, or the woman, who is created from the man, or from his rib, to be precise.

     This degradation, it might be pointed out, arises from the fact of dependency entailed in woman, dependency upon the source, for after all, she was formed from the man. Hava’s sweet revenge? Henceforth, all shall be created from her.

     We learn from this that what we find here is not dependency. Rather, woman is granted the ability to become a source: “The mother of all the living.” More than woman being dependent on man, man is dependent on woman, upon his mother.

     It is quitee possible to find people who are failures and ingrates and who deny and disown their own father who has begotten them. People denying the gratitude they owe their mother are much more difficult to find.

     Therefore: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother, and cleave to his wife.” The man envied the woman as the source, and his cleaving to her was in order to participate with her as the source, a title she proudly bears.

     It should be pointed out that man’s partnership with the woman is paved with stumbling blocks of ego, for he finds it difficult to participate, to uphold the formula of parnership between man and woman.

     This partnership is elemental, however. It stands as the test of man’s ability to uphold his responsibility for his own part in the partnership with his Creator, yitbarach in preserving and repairing the world.

     “This time!” This cry of satisfaction comes to tell us that man has been given the opportunity to connect to the source, an opportunity that is offered him by his life’s partner.

     “And the two of them were naked, and they were not ashamed.” From this point onward, a chain of damages and failures bursts into the arena, and these threaten to undermine man’s capacity for partnership – the capacity that was born with Hava.

     An inseparable and indivisible union between man and his wife would have eliminated the fertile challenge entailed in partnering and pairing. There would have been no criticism, no creative openness, no assistance in times of distress. After all: “Better are the two than the one.” This is the meaning of the phrase: “It is not good that man should be alone.”

     It is not concidental that the Torah minimizes and ignores the treasures of blessing concealed in partnership, and instead commences without delay to describe its dangers. Why is nakedness for two more difficult than nakedness for one? After all, man had probably been naked while still all alone – and no apparent mishap had resulted.

     The reason is simple: When there are no two, there is also no one. This is the further meaning of the phrase: “It is not good for man to be alone.” As Hazal state: “I am single in the upper spheres, and man is single in the lower spheres,” and he might therefore come to believe that he is a deity.

     In addition to the reasons mentioned above, we must add one more reason, in principle: Wherever there is no public domain, there is also no private domain. Similarly, where there is no evil, there is no good. Where there is no light, there is no darkness.

     Just as all the dichotomies were created – fire/water; light/darkness; sea/dry land; good/evil; truth/lie – for the purpose of generating energy from the tension inherent in opposites between which a potential complementarity lies, and for the purpose of generating the dynamics of ruin and repair, as a life source, as a souce of virtue and fault that places reality’s unfolding in human hands, that charges man with responsibility for it, for it is dependent upon him, so too with the innermost circle of man himself: He has been granted the opportunity to generate himself anew, to advance his own progress in the process of human development, through incessant conflict with his own self, with his other part, with the woman who is his life’s partner.

     Thus are the dynamics of a personal circle created, and from this circle come the pathways that break open to the outside, “running back and forth,” from inner to outer, and from outer to inner, with the four walls of the private space dividing between them, and signalling the difference inherent between them.

     Solitary nakedness presents no danger, for then one is lacking a self, lacking dynamism; there is no tension and no feedback. Nakedness for two, however, is a threat to the self, a breakdown of the barriers that protect the Holy of Holies of the private domain. It is a violation of privacy, of the intimate space, an erasure of the private individual. It is the danger of losing one’s awareness of what is personal, and when there is no awareness of what is personal, one cannot form an awareness of another.

     “Love your friend as yourself.” Through the other (as the mirror reflecting yourself, reflecting the one who is attempting to understand the other) you will be able to reach “yourself” and as you progress, you will also be able to reach “your friend”. When the one is not placed opposite another, there is no one and no other.

     ‘Nakedness for two,’ say the citizens inhabiting the territories of abandon, who are privacy-free, ‘shows transparency. Nakedness for two shows moral and personal sincerity.’ Yet if there is no private domain, what purpose does transparency serve?

     An absence of a private domain brought an absence of personal awareness in its wake, and this brought about an absence of awareness of another, as mentioned earlier. This lack of awareness of another, caused the ultimate crime: Murder. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Kayin did not know and was unable to appreciate the severity of his crime, due to a lack of awareness of his brother.

     The snake’s enticement as well penetrated through a break which had formed in the wall of privacy – by absence of communication, by disinformation: “You must not touch [the Tree of Knowledge].” Because the humans added a prohibition where none existed, they ended by detracting from the real prohibition. “As it says, (Mishlei 30:6) ‘Do not add on to His words.’” (Rashi)

     One enticement drags another in its wake. “[The snake] saw them occupied with sexual relations in full view, and coveted them.” (Bereisheet Raba 18:6) Therefore he stood up as well and enticed them. This is to teach us that evil’s root is in man and not in the universe. The evil in man is the source of the evil in the universe. So too “a Torah scholar on whose clothing a stain is found: He incurs a death penalty,” and so too with ourselves, in relation to desecrating the Name of God.

     “For the Lord knows that on the day you eat of it…you will be as the Lord.” One must wonder how the snake managed to use an exaggeration that had no equal for lack of reasoning and lack of boundaries, with no fear of being rejected out of hand. This is to teach you the great importance of place, of a private space, for it provides a stake, a handhold, a yardstick by which to measure every value included in one’s circle of control. Without the clarity that place grants, evaluation is not feasible.

     Our own era, indicated by people who are privacy-deficient, proves this: The greater the lie, and the louder it is said in terms of efficiency of technical power, the more paths to the more people’s hearts it will find. This is Post-modernism: It has no relation or commitment to facts or to morality, and it is antagonistic to every yardstick of the senses.

     Had Adam and Hava had a home – not a Paradise necessarily, but merely four walls to protect their privacy, the snake would never have been tempted, and he would never have succeeded in enticing them by resorting to baseless reasoning.

     Without partnership, there is also no bond of filial affection, nor even a bond of mutual responsibility. “ ‘And she gave it also to her husband.’ So that she would not die while he remained alive, to marry another woman.” (Rashi)

     To teach you how far the break in the wall extends, in terms of corruption of human character, when there is an absence of the boundaries of the private domain. This absence prevents a distinction betweeen one individual and another, which necessarily prevents a distinction between good and evil.

     “And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked.” Had the eyes of only one of them been opened, nothing would have happened apparently, from what has been said above. Had reciprocal relations – the pre-condition, the basis for self-awareness, as mentioned – remained absent, then conditions conducive to the unfolding of the self – source of self-awareness – would never have been created. The existential human condition would have remained at the level of “Doing”. It would never have attained the “Being” dimension of depth. It would be like a copy, without the original, a peon on a chessboard, operating on the plane of events, of accomplishments. No sentient being would have developed, no hai nosai et atsmo, no living person bearing and feeling the experience of the self. Instead he would have been as “the fool who does not feel” – which is altogether fitting for the homeless, who has only an outside existence, with no private domain.

     Therefore it was necessary to emphasize the element of reciprocity: And the eyes of both of them specifically were opened, and through this, they attained an awareness of nakedness, and the need for clothing to preserve intimacy, as reverence for the private space. The private domain awakens to life specifically out of conflict – out of the conflict inherent in reciprocity.

     “And the human and his wife hid from the face of God the Lord, inside the tree of the Garden.” Space severed from time: “On the sixth day, he was created, and on the sixth day, he died.” A chain of events detached from the track of time

     It is difficult for a mortal to conceive of a reality outside of the dimensions of space and time. Yet here is a prime example of place without time: “And the human and his wife hid from the face of God.” Had they possessed a sense of time they would never have attempted such a childish device: Even if they would not be discovered immediately, they would certainly be discovered eventually.

     An anlysis of human behavior shows that people with no sense of time are either childish or lacking in sophistication – like the two who arrange to meet at a specific place but never indicate a specific point of time for the meeting, or like the Bedouin in the desert who could not understand why a car was to be preferred over a camel. Is not a car a much quicker means of travel? His response: Quickness is from the devil.

     The clever reader will now claim that this is no different from accusing someone of retardation because he is only aware of the track of time, and totally unaware of place. This claim carries with it a great deal of truth, as proven in our parasha. We referred earlier to an absence of private domain. The private domain is the prime incarnation of dimension of place, exercising its vital influence on the growth and crystallization of a uniquely original self.

     Tsimtsum: The Mystery of Diminution

     Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to describe Gan Eden as a reality that contained no dimensions of time or space, that contained only ideal conditions for the ideal human being. This explains the confusing and rather blurred descriptions of the relations between Adam and his wife, for it is no exaggeration to view Gan Eden as a reality offering perfect conditions for only one perfect human being. This human being’s perfection was not given to limitation of any sort, yet we derive from this that it was also not given to development of any sort, for the simple reason that beyond perfection – there is nothing.

     This tells us that perfection is necessarily a passive state. Perfection is permanent, and lacks the dynamics born of existential tension. Indeed this is why “the human being was created single, so that he would say: ‘For me, the universe was created,’” that he might feel the heavy weight of responsibility that he bore upon his shoulders.

     This lack of existential energy, specifically, was his undoing. He felt the lack of an ability to express his own need to create, for he was a human being created in God’s image, and therefore capable of creating “being out of being,” (something out of something else) in parallel to the Creator, who creates “being out of non-being” (something out of nothing at all) and he would thereby uphold the elemental formula that supported the creation.

     “I am single in the upper spheres, and you [human being] are single in the lower spheres.” Just as this one creates, so does that one create. When the need to create existed, yet could not be expressed due to lack of energies, then the statement was made: “It is not good for man to be alone”, and then complementary unity was created, based upon reciprocal relations, as discussed above. Thus was the human being re-created, again, as a second stage: The stage of creating. Here was an absurd, and virtuous/vicious cycle: The first was no good, but the second was no better. This absurdity finds expression – dangerous, moving, fascinating expression – in the relations between man and woman, from then until our own day, as in Hazal’s pointed remark: “Has he ‘found’ or is he ‘finding’?” (Referring to two verses: “Whoever has found woman, has found goodness.” “I am finding woman more bitter than death.”)

     “Who told you that you are naked? Did you, from the Tree…” On the surface these two sentences appear unconnected. The news about their nakedness, they did not after all receive from the tree. In what way did the forbidden eating expose this issue? A hint is glimpsed from the words of Ibn Ezra in our Parasha: “But I have an explanation: ‘In the Garden.’”

     According to our previous claim that Gan Eden was the perfect place for the perfect human being, the addition of the woman upset the perfect palance of the human being within the perfect reality. One mishap followed another. The breaching of a state of balance with the outside dragged in its wake a loss of control by inner over outer. Temptation was born, which is a breach of balance between inner and outer: An impenetration of an outside factor that is able to blur one’s sense of inner balance. Here woman is the most direct guilty party, and the One Who gave her to me should rightly share the blame, i.e., the Holy One Himself, in all His glory. These are the main elements of Adam’s claim.

     In the woman’s claim, “the snake persuaded me,” she also blames the breach of balance as the factor that caused the failure. The snake, whose very creation, whose very essence was indicated by stimulating for breach of balance, could never have succeeded in overcoming the ideal balance of the private space. However, the moment the door was opened out to the public space, the way was open to enrichment, and to development, but also to invasion by infectious bacteria.

     The Creator’s Response: Diminution “Who is wise? The one who recognizes his own place.” Here, for the first time, the dimensions of space and time make their appearance. Reducing reality to the dimensions of space and time assists human beings in defining their own image. Reduction contains definition. With reality thus diminished and reduced, they would soon become conscious of their environmental conditions as well, and of their ability to sort out good from evil.

     Evil appears as punishment: A diminution and reduction of the capabilities of the snake. “Cursed are you.” Limited shall you be, more so than any of the creatures who are able to walk. And your food shall be dust, the inferior of the inferior. To diminish the influence of the snake’s stimulating temptation, now aiva, loathing makes its appearance, meaning a negative relationship between the outside and the inside: An awareness of evil.

     However, the balance that constitutes the very axis of interpersonal balance, expressed by the basic element of relations between man and woman – this balance too will have to be breached.

     From this point onward, balance will not be granted free of charge. It will have to be toiled for, and labored over, to create it and to preserve it. “Through exhausting labor shall you bear children.” The source of fertility, of multiplicity, is presented as the factor that breaches the ideal of unity, of one person alone unto himself, which was the condition that characterized Gan Eden, as mentioned. This source shall become a problem in which one will have to invest effort; it will be a problem awaiting a human solution.

     “Through exhausting labor shall you bear children.” Not as the other creatures, whose multiplying happens through nature, with no problems requiring intervention. The very fact of the investment of effort, in terms of emotion and action, in terms of concern and anxiety, in terms of “the distress of raising children,” would create relationships of human initiative, and attempts at self-empowerment, in order to take control over the conditions of the environment, and in order to carefully sort and choose good from evil.

     The natural devotion that will accompany the bond between mother and child will create the motivation required for a toil so crushing, yet simultaneously so fertile and so empowering.

     The need to give was born with the strengthening of the bond between mother and child. Also the acceptance of mastery appears here for the first time in the relations between the man and his wife: Toward your man is your desire, and he will rule you.” The loss of the independence of the individual: Reciprocity is to become a neccessity and even a desire – a necessity accompanied by power and by compensation, and also by a heavy price: “He will rule you.” Acceptance of mastery reduces those possibilities that are not a vital neccessity, and for the first time in the universe, the equation appears: Whatever is superfluous is harmful. “Whoever adds – detracts.”

     A world without a home and without a private domain loses a sense of time and space, loses all proportion, and loses a sense of the proportions of the natural and vital needs. This applies to eating and to all the other needs as well, such as property, and the relationship between activity and rest. (Shabat)

     The more the private domain is emphasized, the greater one’s awareness of one’s own inner self and its real needs. The interdependence between man and woman is one that derives from the emergence of complementary needs shared in common: The need for protection, the desire to receive and to give – and all of these are accompanied by toil. “Through exhaustion shall you bear children” for the wife, versus “by the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread” for the husband.

     Preoccupation with the fight for survival has been born. They are now outside of Gan Eden, with its ideal conditions that do not entail any creative labor. They have been removed from the table that lays itself, and have accepted the yoke upon themselves, of the table that must be laid by human beings, both spiritually and materially. From this point onward, “man to toil is born,” so that he will now know how to appreciate and how to protect his achievements, as in “a man would rather have his own kab than nine kabs of his friend’s.”

     “Until you return to the earth, for you were taken from it.” Dependency on time and place. “Until” – time. “To” – place. From the earth back to the earth in a closed circle. The end has come for Gan Eden, not as a punishment, as the world believes, but rather as an improvement. As a way to make the existential condition suitable and beneficial for the human creative need. For personal involvement, for cultivating human responsibility and the human ability to take control. Control is attached to responsibility; control as a moral/spiritual value. Not control by brute force, first and foremost in relation to the woman. “He will rule you” in the sense that he will be responsible for protecting you. As a sign of his devotion to you. Thus is born and thus is maintained the bond of reciprocity that grows from the ground of existential human values.

     “And God made for the man and for his wife robes of leather, and He dressed them.” As preparation for their eviction from Gan Eden, from ideal environmental conditions out to a cruel universe, the Creator in His great love equipped them with a defense system, all and only for their own good.

     Eviction from Gan Eden:

     Retrofitting Reality’s Conditions – Not punishment.

     Had the newly imperfect and limited human being been left to dwell in the perfect reality, it would have been la’ag larash, taunting the beggar. How shall limited man be repaired? By serving the Creator: Torah and mitsvot are the road to repair of midot. “If you do good – [your sin] can be borne, but if you do not do good, sin crouches at the door. It desires you, and you will rule it.” This formula parallels the counsel Hava received: A positive dependency that empowers the personality, that brings with it control and the ability to repair.

     “Behold, the human being has become like one of us, knowing good and evil.” Is there really good and evil in the kingdom of heaven? Is it possible for a human being to be at the level of those who inhabit the supreme heights? “This text, cut it and interpret it.” Behold the human being has become like one of us, knowing the secret of diminution and reduction of that which is above and beyond space and time. Why does he need to know good and evil? Is it not enough for him that he distinguishes truth from falsehood, from the dimension of the absolute, like us, through the mystery of diminution?

     Distinctions between good and evil rule in the limited world, for this is a world of changing relativity, dependent on the conditions of reality, differing from person to person, from place to place, from time to time. They have no permanence. Would such limited conditions not dilute the tsimtsum? “And it will be that if he would reach his hand” Heaven forbid! “and take also of the Tree of Life, then he shall eat and live for ever.”

     “And take also” would be untenable for the limited world. It would be like giving a bomb into the hands of a small and reckless child. Putting a sort of World to Come inside this world. Would there not be something of a violation of the sacred in this?

     The perfection of Gan Eden, the Creator reserves for tsadikim like Hanoch, and like those others listed in the latter part of the parasha, people who enjoyed great longevity, producing children at the age of five hundred years old – children were tsadikim like them. Then, for hundreds of years more, in the second half of their lives, they continued to bring forth more sons and daughters, nameless and countless, because there were at the stage of creativity, which partakes of the dimensions of this world. When they rose to the third stage, they moved upward to the level of the World to Come. They were not involved in practical activity during this period, which also lasted a few centuries. They did nothing at all, because they had reached the perfection of creativity that unites physical matter with spirit, and they were preoccupied with creating their own olam haba, their conditions in the World to Come, even as they were yet living in this world.

     In a similar vein, a wise man will go into retirement in order to gain free time to purify and to refine the accomplishments he has achieved during the first two stages of his life.

     To tell the truth, the secret taste of Gan Eden remains, protected and preserved and hidden in the depths of the soul of every single individual. It makes its appearance during a moment of grace, when one is immersed in the depths of thought, and enveloped in yearning. At this point, the dimension of depth arises from one’s own depths, and for the briefest moment, allows one to taste of perfection, a taste that makes life worth living, and suffering for, the merest taste – yet it never leaves one, a sensation of perfection that becomes a source of endless yearning.

     Then there is a cruel moment when one awakens from one’s thoughts, and seems dazed, and helpless, and then as though forced by powers beyond control, like a horse, one continues the gallop. The marvelous taste still in one’s mouth does not allow for any halting or slowing of the speed and pace of the gallop, just because of a few gnats, stinging one. One has the good fortune to arrive home, to home and castle, meaning to the private domain, the home one has built through the exhausting toil of serving one’s Creator, a labor that bestows perspective on the real taste of the fight for survival, versus the third dimension of reality available to mortals, though they dwell in dust and decay.

     The Cruvim, and “the Searing Heat of the Flipping Sword”:

     These are life’s hurts, and life’s restrictions. They open our eyes. They eliminate anyone who stubbornly hangs on to the dream of Gan Eden. They open our limited “eyes of flesh” to the reality of a limited world.

     At the third stage, a human being is preoccupied and entirely involved in the world of survival where it touches the edge of the world of creativity. It is a world of yetser but of yetsira as well, a world of urges but of creativity as well, a world of ruin but also of repair, a world that threatens human perfection, but also, and to the same extent, bestows the tools of control, as in: “Whoever is greater than his friend, his yetser is also greater.” “As your eating, so your Torah.” Here we find that alchemy is possible: We have the capacity to raise physical matter to the world of the spirit. This is the raw material in the hands of the creative artist. Yet it is also the raw physical matter that can overcome the greatest of great giants, with its stimulations and temptations, as in: “From a high mountain to a deep pit.” The greater the victory, the greater the failure, as in “ascending in order to descend.” Yet the opposite is true as well; we are dealing with a see-saw, a double swing, for two.

     “For if you do good, [your sin can] be borne, but if you do not do good, sin crouches at your door.” Turned and twice turned. “And [sin] desires you, and you will rule it.” A celebration of the absurd, it seems. Desire and dependency can crush – dependency can enslave and degrade, yet this dependency can also repair and complete and perfect one’s control over the materials of existence.

     “‘With all your hearts’ – with both of your urges,” it is possible and necessary to serve God: Not through detaching from this world, but through sanctifying physical matter, and raising it up to the dimension of the sacred. This is the Jewish ideal, reserved exclusively for anshei shlomeinu, those who seek peace for those who uphold the Torah.

     “‘Whither is Hevel, your brother?’ And he said: ‘I have not known. Am I my brother’s keeper?’” “He became a sort of deceiver of the One on high.” (Rashi) A sort of deceiver, but not really a deceiver, because really Kayin had no awareness of evil. Such awareness had after all only been given to human beings as a hora’at sha’ah, as a temporary instruction, a warning to refrain from a specific action. Their awareness attached to a specific, defined act, rather than to any fundamental moral instruction that carried its own weight. Like his parents before him, who were not aware of sin until they sinned, and their eyes were opened, and they attempted to evade and to hide from God! So with Kayin: He played innocent, “I have not known, am I my brother’s keeper,” but he really was unknowing as to the nature of evil, and mainly he had a total unawareness of the results of evil; this condition he still carried with him from the Garden of Eden, but now it had become a dangerous condition.

     It is impossible to use Gan Eden’s tools of perfection, when one inhabits a shattered, limited world. This is the meaning of the statement “here the human being has become like one of us.” It is untenable that the human being will dwell in one embrace with contradictory prototypes. Perfection and relativity serving together in a chaotic mingling could derange his mind. The powers of the mystery of reduction become dangerous when introduced into a limited world.

     “‘And Kayin said to Hevel his brother:’ He killed him by a saying,” by the breath of his mouth, which was still sacred at that point – for he did not know and was entirely unconscious of the reality of death, which now appeared as an ininvited guest, for the first time in the universe.

     “The sound of your brother’s bloods are screaming to Me from the earth.” That he was unconscious of death could not undo the bitter fact. Here for the first time, we find a deviation from the formula of creativity, at this stage of Creative Man. We find the realities of existence, of a murky world, of life and death as the result of good and evil, which are to be found beyond the red line that describes the boundary of Creative Man’s circle of control.

     It stops here, the Creator makes clear to Kayin. I never gave you a mandate to rule over what precedes life, nor to rule over what follows life. The attempt to shove a long arm where it does not belong, to tamper with, and mainly to halt birth and death, is a deviation that destroys the deviator. One who abuses his power to control existence loses his own right to exist, and let him not delude himself, or cover himself with a cloak of tender words such as “birth planning” and “mercy killing”. Murder is murder is murder is a deviation from the mandate bestowed by the Creator on Creative Man, as mentioned.

     Here too we find that the punishment is educational: Kayin loses his control and his rights over the external dimensions of place and time, in order to create conditions conducive to developing an inner awareness of place and time.

     Here relativity is born, the relative relationship between Belonging and Freedom: Belonging as a sensation that lives in one’s awareness, and has no real-world connection to a place as an object or as a component of reality. Freedom as the ability to take control, to take flexible, personal control over the dimension of Belonging.

     “Cursed is the earth, for your sake.” There is to be no more direct Belonging to place. “A roamer and wanderer will you be in the land.” A roamer and wanderer means dependency without a permanent hold, without control. The capacity for control passes from the outside world to the inner self.

     “Behold, you have evicted me from the face of the earth, so from Your Presence I will hide?” Since it does not say, You have evicted me from Your Presence, what is meant by “from Your Presence I will hide?” God is pushing Kayin to the wall, and opening his eyes to the realization that he will never be able to exercise control over existence by making use of the forces of nature. The earth, meaning reality, will eject the sinner who deviates from the boundaries of existence that were determined for him; the earth will vomit him out. This is because “he must lean on no one but his Father in heaven.”

     Kayin, who discovered viduy, recognition and admission of one’s own sin, asks mercy of his Creator, asks for His protection, for His nearness. In the wake of his sin, he attains a recognition of truth, specifically as the result of sinking down to the depths of the pit of sin, as in: “From the depths, I have called You.” He discovers the true alternative, nearness to God. “From Your Face I will hide?” in the sense of “Do not hide Your Face from me,” because I have no one else, other than You.

     “It will happen that whoever finds me, will kill me.” Why? What makes Kayin draw this conclusion, that he must now be apprehensive, and fear all creatures, that he must be afraid of the beasts of the forests, and of natural calamities. And of God? And of his own sin? After all he has complained about his sin that “too great is my sin to bear,” that it is greater than the power of endurance, than his own power of endurance, due to the feeling of guilt, or due to the very fact of the phenomenon of crime, which creates a chain of circumstances within natural reality, as in: “The sound of your brother’s blood’s are screaming to Me from the earth,” “cursed is the earth for your sake” meaning because of you: By your crime you have breached the ideal balance between the human being and the natural environment. This breach is the negative reaction to crime; it is the ugly backside of crime. Thus Kayin learns the severity of crime: It is the crime itself that punishes.

     The Creator’s response is amazingly positive; He puts a letter from His Own name upon Kayin, a letter from the name of the Creator, yitbarach. “He engraved a letter for him, from the Name of the Holy One, to teach you how important teshuva is before the Creator, yitbarach.” (Maharshal, Tractate Menahot 29)

     Now the parasha begins to list the names of creators and artists, as is only fitting and proper for human beings at the stage of creativity, from then until out own day. “Then there began to be calling in the name of God” at the third stage of the human being. And then: “This is the book of the chronicles of the human being.” The Torah repeats the description of the chain of events creating the human being, as a summary of the three stages mentioned above.

     Stage one: Creation. Stage Two: Creativity. Stage Three: The Doing of the simple people, and the spiritual upward movement of the tsadikim.

     At this third stage there is also the ugly Doing of the wicked: “And it happened that as human beings began to multiply on the face of the earth…they took for themselves women from any that they chose, and God said: ‘My spirit shall not remain in man, etc.”

     God’s response is a further restriction of place and time, in order to reduce man’s tendency to attach to one single point in time, to the immediate present moment. This will help man to learn that a direct and limited attachment to reality is not in his interest, and then he will not become bewildered by an excess of choice, but rather focus exclusively on his role. This punishment includes reducing the common responsibility that man has shared with the Creator to personal responsibility for himself alone.

     “And Noah found grace in the eyes of God.” Only the few individual greats of the generation were privileged to continue the human role as partner to the Holy One in responsibility for the universe.

     “For I regret having made them.” God retracts His focus on expansion and increase, and transfers the emphasis from quantity to quality. With the tsadikim, God cultivates a connection of reciprocity, in the sense of itaruta dili’aila: The Higher One awakens in response to human initiative, and grants the tsadik a personalized Divine Providence, in merit of the initiative he has taken out of free choice.

     And why were all the rest of the people created? To serve the tsadik. From this point onward, the Torah makes the transition from “this is the book of the chronicles of man,” of mankind in general, to the stories of individual tsadikim: “These are the chronicles of Noah” and then the stories of our forefathers.