Bs”d
Parshas Bereishis (5765)
by Mordechai Dolinsky
As we again start the Chumash with Parshas Bereishis, it is in a way, a renewal of life, as if we are witnessing the very creation itself. It is indeed inspiring, uplifting and surely injects us with optimism. The splendid joy of all this is abruptly broken by the sin of Adam and Chava. In our minds we think “can’t we have just one parsha, pure white, holy and clean; just one parsha!”. This theme consistently follows in the rest of the Chumash; a chronicle of the constant falling of man. Just to mention a few: Kayin, the ten generations from Adam to Noach, culminated by the great flood, the fall of the Chom, Lot, Yishmael, Esav, the selling of Yosef by the Shvatim, From this point of view of a consistent theme throughout the Chumash it is appropo to have a fall right from the beginning.
There was no human who had the level of realization of the presence of Hashem in the world more than Adam HaRishon. If Adam failed to have self-control in his obedience to Hashem how can anyone else be expected to have it? The same query applies to all the great spiritual giants in the Tanach that failed in their free-will opportunities.
The redeeming side of all of this is that by relating these incidents, openly and candidly revealing the weaknesses, the slips and falls, the Chumash is enlightening us about a basic, vital and crucial principle and fact regarding the makeup of mankind and reveals the greatest truth of the constitution of mankind.
Our makeup is such that there are principles we believe in absolutely, there are concrete goals we have, great spiritual aspirations or even goals of materialistic nature for which we have our own pure interest and enjoyment in mind, or certain idealistic principles that make up our hardcore values. All these and more you would expect the person to be loyal to, yet the opposite is true; the human must have constant reminders. It is absolutely necessary to be persistently reminded of these ideals and principles. They must be continuously “pumped” into our conscious awareness. The Vilna Gaon testified about himself that any single day he was lax in inspiring himself to the importance of Torah he observed a definite shortcoming in his accomplishment.
This is not due to a specific weakness of a specific individual but the state of reality of the whole human race. One moment he is on the highest level and the next it is all gone. He is not a hypocrite or inconsistent, just an uncharged soul. All this is imperative to understand the giants of Tanach, all other human beings, and ourselves. It enlightens us to the necessity to always be inspired.