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Volume 1
Unrolling
the Scroll
genesis/BreisheeT
,hatrc
Breisheet
In the beginning
Torah Genesis 1:16:8
Haftarah Isaiah 42:543:10
he scroll of the Torah is the oldest and most

sacred of all Israels Scriptures. It contains
five books. The Hebrew name for the first one is
Breisheet (,hatrc). It is also the first word of the
book in the Hebrew text, as well as the name for the
first parashah (the first weeks reading). Breisheet
means in the beginning.
The English name Genesis comes from the
Septuagint (LXX), the Greek translation of the Hebrew
Bible. Genesis means origins. Therefore, the Greek
name for the first book of the Bible means The Book
of Origins.
Genesis describes the origins of everything. It
begins with the origins of the universe, focuses on
the origins of man and then explores the origins of
the nation of Israel.
As we study the first weeks reading from the book
of Genesis, we will learn a great deal about God, but
even more about ourselves. After all, this is the story
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of our origins. When properly understood, the story

of our origin helps us find our destination.
The View from Earth

In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth. (Genesis 1:1)
The view from earth, when seen on a clear, dark

night, reveals a glimmering canopy of a billion bright
points of light spread across sky. It may be compared
to a man who was traveling from place to place, seeking a house in which to stay, when he saw a great palace in the night, brightly gleaming in the darkness,
with light streaming out of its windows. The traveler
comforted himself with the hope of a warm meal
and a soft bed. He said to himself, Is it possible that
such a grand building lit with so many lights is left
untended and abandoned? Surely someone is home
in that great place. Surely there is an owner.
Unrolling the Scroll BreisheetSAMPLE DOCUMENT
The rabbis told a similar story about Abraham.

When Abraham saw the starry night lit up like a palace shimmering in the darkness, he asked himself, Is
it conceivable that the universe is without a guide?1
He realized that in some way, a god must exist.
The Torah is a book about God. It is actually five
books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and
Deuteronomy, the first five books of the Bible. It is
not a physics textbook or a formal history book. Its
not a book about life after death or how to get to
heaven, although it certainly touches on those concerns. The Torah is really about finding God, the
owner of the palace.
The Torah tells the story of Israel, the Jewish peoplethe descendents of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Because you are a disciple of Yeshua of Nazareth, the
Messiah of Israel, it is your story too. The Torah can
change your life. It is an invitation to join the family,
to know what it is like to be a child of God.
Expound Me!
In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth. (Genesis 1:1)
This verse says nothing but Expound Me! Thats

what Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchak (Rashi for short) said
about the Torahs first verse.2 Rashi explained that the
verse might be misunderstood to mean that God was
in the beginning, as if the beginning was something
that actually existed and contained God. It might
also be misunderstood to mean that God created
the heavens and the earth first, and subsequently
got around to creating the other things mentioned
later in the chapter.
Rashi was a master of the Hebrew language. The
Torah was written in Hebrew. Our English Bible is actually a translation. The original text of the Torah (and all
the books of the Old Testament) is Hebrew. Thats why
we call the Old Testament the Hebrew Scriptures.
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Rashi examined the Hebrew construction of the

first verse of Genesis. He said, According to its simple
meaning, it says, In the beginning of the creation of
the heavens and the earth. It does not mean that
there was an earlier time called the beginning. It
means that everything we know as reality around
us, above us and below us began when God started
creating things.
That teaches us some important things about God.
Everything we know and experience is defined in
terms of length, width, height and time. God was
before there was length, width, height or time. He is
eternal because He is timeless. He is transcendent
because He is not part of creation. He is all powerful
because He is the power that created all.
Try to imagine something that has no width,
length, breadth or place in time. Of course we cannot.
Therefore we should not try to imagine God as if He
were a creature with a certain width, length, breadth
or confined to a certain moment in time.
Monotheism and the

Six Days of Creation
God called the light day, and the darkness He called
night. And there was evening and there was morning,
one day. (Genesis 1:5)
Not every culture has come to the same conclusion

about the nature of the supernatural. Ancient human
religions explained the observable phenomena we
see around us as the result of a whole pantheon of
spiritual forces at work. The sun is controlled by a
sun-god; the moon by a moon-god; the rains are
brought by a rain-god who waters the ground to produce vegetation in cooperation with an earth-god.
The story of the six days of creation has one great
implication: monotheism. It teaches us that nature,
despite all its beauty and splendor, is not to be wor-
shipped or considered as God. The Torah warns us

about this:
Beware not to lift up your eyes to heaven and see the
sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven,
and be drawn away and worship them and serve them.
(Deuteronomy 4:19)
Instead we serve God who created the sun, moon,

stars and host of heaven. Because there is only one
Creator, there is only one God. Any other spiritual
beings are created and therefore less than the Creator. This is the core of monotheism, the belief in
one God.
When you think about it from a physics perspective, monotheism makes sense. If polytheism were
true, it would imply several different gods all creating and manipulating the fabric of reality according
to their personal preferences. It would not allow for
an orderly universe that follows a unified code of
physical laws. Polytheism would result in a great deal
of disconnected randomness in the universe as different creator-gods sought to impose their will on
things. Monotheism, on the other hand, results in
a seamless chain of cause and effect behind every
event, according to rules set in motion by a single
Creator. The modern world of scientific naturalism
has proven the latter to be true. Scientifically speaking, polytheism is out of the running, and the smart
money is on monotheism.
This can be compared to a man who had seven
secretaries, one for each day of the week. Each of
the secretaries had a different filing system. There
was no order, no consistency, no discernable pattern from day to day. Schedules were changed and
rewritten every day. Memos were lost, important
meetings forgotten, everything was amok. What did
he do? He fired them all and hired a single secretary.
MonoSecretarianism.
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Seven Heavens
God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening
and there was morning, a second day. (Genesis 1:8)
In the creation narrative of Genesis 1, God separates heaven and earth. He creates a firmament
above the earth in which He hangs the sun, stars
and moon. We call this the sky. The Hebrew word for
sky is the same as the Hebrew word for heaven
(shamayim, ohna). When the ancient man looked
into the heavens, he imagined it to be the realm of
the gods. Always high above him and ultimately unreachable, it became a metaphor for divinity itself.
The ancient Hebrew declared, The LORDs throne
is in heaven (Psalm 11:4).
Gods throne is not in the sky. Today we know that
the heavens, as they appear to us, are actually distant stars burning in the cosmos. We know that the
moon is a planetoid orbiting the earth, and the earth
is in turn orbiting the sun, which is itself just one
of countless such stars. As wise King Solomon once
said, The heavens and the highest heavens cannot
contain Him (2Chronicles 2:6).
But the metaphor remains. We still speak of heaven
as a metaphor for the divine. We speak of God looking
down upon us from heaven. But the place of Gods
dwelling is not in the sky or in the cosmos. He is beyond and above the universe, just as the sun, moon
and stars are above and beyond the earth.
Early Judaism taught that there are seven heavens.
The Talmud, a collection of rabbinic lore, legislation
and Bible commentary from the centuries after the
apostles, describes the seven heavens. The first and
lowest level corresponds to our atmosphere. Above
that is the second heaven, the firmament in which
the sun, moon and stars exist. The third heaven
is the realm in which the manna was made. The
fourth heaven is the place of heavenly Jerusalem,
the heavenly Temple and the heavenly altar. In the
fifth heaven, the ministering angels worship God in

song by night. In the sixth heaven God stores the
elements. The seventh and highest heaven is the
place of right and judgment and righteousness, the
treasures of life and the treasures of peace and the
treasures of blessing, the souls of the righteous and
the spirits and the souls which are yet to be born,
and dew with which the Holy One, blessed be He,
will one day resurrect the dead. There too are the
Ofanim [a type of angel] and the Seraphim and the
Holy Living Creatures and the Ministering Angels
around the Throne of God, and the King, the Living
God, high and exalted, dwells over them.3
Is this true? Are there really seven heavens? The
Apostle Paul claimed to have been caught up into the
third heaven into paradise and heard inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to speak
(2Corinthians 12:4). It is possible that He subscribed
to the traditional Jewish notion of seven heavens. Be
that as it may, after introducing the idea of the seven
heavens, the Talmud itself warns us from speculating
on matters that are none of our business:
Seek not things that are too hard for you, and search
not things that are hidden from you. Mediate on the
things that have been permitted to you. You have no
business with the things that are secret. (b.Chagigah
12b quoting Ben Sira)
Evening and Morning

God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very
good. And there was evening and there was morning,
the sixth day. (Genesis 1:31)
Did you notice how after each day the Torah says,
There was evening and there was morning? We
usually think of a day beginning either at dawn or at
midnight. We think of nighttime following daytime.
The Bible sees the daytime following nighttime. The
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phrase and there was evening and there was morning is used by the Jewish people as a time marker.
Judaism reckons the new day as beginning after
sunset, and the ending at sunset twenty-four hours
later. That is why the Sabbath begins on Friday night
and ends on Saturday night. It takes some getting
used to, but its important to start to think of time
in biblical terms.
Perhaps God arranged the daylight to follow darkness to teach us not to lose hope. Day and night are
universal metaphors for light and dark, good and
evil, life and death. From our point of view, it seems
that night follows day; light is swallowed by darkness; good is eclipsed by evil; life ends in death. From
Gods perspective (the biblical perspective), it is just
the opposite. Day follows night, darkness is dispelled
by light, evil is conquered by good and death gives
way to life.
The Sabbath
Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it,
because in it He rested from all His work which God
had created and made. (Genesis 2:3)
God finished creating after six days. On the seventh

day, He rested from His work of creating.
He rested on the seventh day, but not because He
was tired. God stopped creating because the work
of creation was finished. The Hebrew verb for rest
in Genesis 2:3 is the word shavat (,ca). The same
word appears in noun form as shabbat (,ca), a word
that is transliterated into English as Sabbath. Every
week the Jewish people celebrate the seventh day in
commemoration of the great miracle of creation. It
is the Sabbath day. It begins Friday night at sunset
and ends after sunset on Saturday.
The concept of a seven-day week, which is now a
standard calendar unit for the entire world, began
with the Sabbath cycle. Resting on the seventh day and
setting it apart from the other days is one of the laws

of the Bible. It is one of the Ten Commandments:
Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the
seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in
it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your
daughter, your male or your female servant or your
cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six
days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea
and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day;
therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made
it holy. (Exodus 20:911)
Resting on the Sabbath day from the work of creating is an eternal law for Gods people. He says that the
children of Israel are to keep the Sabbath throughout
their generations as a perpetual covenant a sign
between Me and the sons of Israel forever (Exodus
31:1617). The seventh day of the week is still the
Sabbath day.
God gave the Sabbath as a special gift and a sign
to the Jewish people. But the Sabbath can also be
enjoyed by Gentile believers. Isaiah the prophet says
that the Sabbath is also for the foreigners who join
themselves to the LORD, to minister to Him, and to
love the name of the LORD, to be His servants, every
one who keeps from profaning the Sabbath (Isaiah
56:6). In the earliest days of Christianity, the days
of the apostles, all believers were Sabbath-keepers
because the Sabbath was the weekly day of worship.
Sadly, the Sabbath was abandoned by Gentile Christianity early in the second century. Today, disciples of
Yeshua are rediscovering the beauty of the Sabbath.
On the Sabbath, Sabbath-keepers abstain from
work and production. It is a day off.
Sabbath-keepers observe the Sabbath by hosting
festive meals and by gathering together in congregations to hear the Scriptures read and taught. Sabbath
is a day set aside for honoring God and enjoying the
company of friends and family.
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Adam
Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;
and man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7)
The Torah is not particularly interested in arguing over the origin of our species. From the Torahs
perspective, human life is a miracle from God. The
creation of human beings was a deliberate act by
God. This gives human life dignity and purpose.
In the late first century, Clement of Rome, a disciple
of the Apostle Peter described the creation of man as
the crowning achievement of Gods creation:
Above all, with His holy and undefiled hands He formed
man, the most excellent of His creatures, and truly great
through the understanding given him the express likeness of His own image. (1Clement 33:4)4
Adam means man. According to the Torah, God

formed man out of something already existing;
namely, the ground. The Hebrew words translated as
ground and man are from the same root, adamah
(vnst) and adam (ost) respectively.
To animate the man, God breathed His breath of
life into him. The Hebrew uses the word neshamah
(vnab), one of the words Judaism commonly uses
for soul. It says, Then the LORD God formed man of
dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils
the neshamah of life; and man became a living being
(Genesis 2:7). Man became a living being only when
God breathed a living soul into him. Every human
being contains a living soul, a portion of Gods own
breath.
Clement explains that God knows us, our thoughts
and our desires, because He is the one who has
placed the soul within us. So long as Gods breath
remains within us, we are alive:
For He is a Searcher of the thoughts and desires of the
heart: His breath is in us; and when He pleases, He will
take it away. (1Clement 21:9)
Human life exists in constant tension between

these two very different points of origin. On one
hand, we are made out of the stuff of earth. We are
physical creatures, part of the biological system of
earth, little more than an advanced species of primates. On the other hand, we are vessels containing
a spark of the immortal and the ineffable.
We are a hybrid of sorts. We exist in two worlds.
We are the stuff of earth. Our short days are primarily concerned with the common, ordinary things of
life. We are born, we grow, we live, we reproduce and
we die. We spend the time between birth and death
seeking food, shelter and prosperity, fleeing pain and
pursuing pleasure. Yet at the same time, we have an
innate tendency toward spirituality. From our earliest
ancestors, every human society has practiced some
form of religion. We seem to be preprogrammed to
seek God, to reach for the supernatural, in much the
same way as migratory birds are preprogrammed to
migrate. Our yearning for the divine seems to be an
instinctual, universal reflex.
According to the Torah, both sides of the human
state are natural products of our two points of origin.
We are that which exists between heaven and earth,
and we are made of the stuff of both.
When God set out to make man, He said, Let Us
make man in Our image, according to Our likeness
(Genesis 1:26). We are made in the image of God:
God created man in His own image, in the image of
God He created him; male and female He created them.
(Genesis 1:27)
What does it mean to be made in Gods image?

Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (Rambam for short) offers
his interpretation:
Among all living creatures, Man alone is endowedlike
his Creatorwith morality, reason and free will. He can
know and love God and can hold spiritual communion
with Him; and Man alone can guide his actions through
reason. It is in this sense that the Torah describes Man
as having been created in Gods image and likeness.5
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Man is made in the image of God in that he is a

thinking, reasoning animal, with free will and selfdetermination. He has free agency and moral obligation. In short, man is godlike by attribute of his
sentience.
What does this mean? When God created man, He
wanted to create a real being, like Himself but part
of His created, physical world.
This can be compared to an artist who painted a
beautiful picture of a countryside scene. The painting
included a green pasture, trees, animals, blue skies
above, clouds and sunlight on distant mountains.
Then the artist painted himself into the scene. Using
the same paints and colors with which he had covered the rest of the canvas, he painted a representation of himself in the midst of the picture.
We are like the man in the picture, made of the
common paints, strokes and pigments that form
the rest of the picture. Yet at the same time, we are
representations of the artist.
Our job on earth is to cultivate the godly side of
our nature and integrate it into the earthy side of our
nature. Our job is to reveal heaven on earth, and as
creatures containing elements of both heaven and
earth, we are perfectly suited for the job.
Eden
The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in
Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had
formed. (Genesis 2:8)
Mans original habitat was a garden that God

named Eden. Eden means delight. God placed
man in the garden of delight, an orchard. The Greek
version of the Bible, the Septuagint, describes Eden
as the place of paradise.
It was paradise. Within Eden, Adam enjoyed fellowship with God. The Bible says that God met with
man, walking in the garden under the trees in the
cool of the day. In Eden, there was no striving, no
competition, no pain or dying. All that we needed

was close at hand. Within Eden was every tree that
is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of
life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:9).
The tree of life represents potential immortality.
God created man mortal, like all other creatures. Yet
He gave man the gift of choice. To achieve immortality, man needed only to reach out to the tree of life
and eat its fruit.
There was also another treethe tree of knowledge
of good and evil. But the tree of knowledge was also
a tree of death, because God told the man:
From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but
from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you
shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will
surely die. (Genesis 2:1617)
This is an essential part of being human. We can

choose good, which is the way of life, or disobedience, which results in death. We choose between the
tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil countless times every day. We always have this
choice before us:
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today,
that I have set before you life and death, the blessing
and the curse. So choose life. (Deuteronomy 30:19)
Not Good
Then the LORD God said, It is not good for the man
to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.
(Genesis 2:18)
God declared everything He created to be good.

And behold, it was very good (Genesis 1:31). The
only thing in creation that God declared to be not
good was mans loneliness.
No suitable partner could be found for the man
among all the creatures of creation. Despite his in-
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nocence, his capacity for fellowship with God and

all the pleasures of Eden, man was lonely. He sought
a partner.
The desire for love and companionship is hardwired into human beings. If you are single or divorced, reading these words may be painful. You
may be feeling like Adam, who searched among all
Gods creatures but could not find a suitable partner.
Regardless of your situation, take comfort in knowing
that God sees human loneliness and is concerned
about it.
Some people are called to remain single for the
sake of Gods work. The Master Himself (Yeshua of
Nazareth) never married. There is great merit and
reward in the single life when it is lived for God.
There are also [those who remain single] for the sake of
the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this,
let him accept it. (Matthew 19:12)
Even if you are married, you should find direction in these words. Though you may find marriage
difficult at times, remember that the other option is
not good.
One Flesh
For this reason a man shall leave his father and his
mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall
become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24)
Adam named the new creation Eve (Chavah, vuj),

a word that means living, because she was the
mother of all the living (Genesis 3:20). The Torah
says that the man and his wife were both naked and
were not ashamed (Genesis 2:25). This is the Torahs
view of sexuality. God does not see sex as something
sinful, shameful or perverse. He made it. He designed
it to be a beautiful and fulfilling part of paradise.
Consider the simple innocence of our first mother
and father in the midst of Eden, the garden of delight.
The Torah says that husband and wife, when joined

together in marriage, are one flesh. In the Bible, the
term flesh means human body. This is the amazing mystery of marriage. When a man and a woman
are married, they are spiritually and physically
united. They in essence become one new human
body. Henceforth, neither one is complete without
the other. Thats why marriage can be so wonderful.
Thats why divorce is traumatic and tragic. This also
explains why infidelity and sexual relationships outside of marriage are so damaging. The apostle says,
Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the
marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and
adulterers God will judge (Hebrews 13:4).We are not
designed for multiple partners. We are physically and
spiritually designed for a committed, monogamous
relationship.
Once Yeshua was asked about divorce. On what
grounds is it permissible to divorce your wife? the
people asked Him. He answered that although divorce is permissible by Torah law, it is not the ideal
and is not supposed to happen.
And He answered and said, Have you not read [in Genesis 1:27] that He who created them from the beginning
made them male and female, and said [in Genesis
2:24], For this reason a man shall leave his father and
mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall
become one flesh? So they are no longer two, but one
flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no
man separate. (Matthew 19:46)
Today it is common for people to go through several sexual partners before committing to marriage.
It is also common for marriages to end in divorce.
Things are completely out of kilter.
God wants us to experience and enjoy sexuality
within a committed, monogamous marriage, just like
our first father and mother. When that happens, we
experience a small portion of the joy of Eden. When
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we take sex out of that context, we twist it into something ugly and destructive.
Rabbi Akiba, a famous second-century Torah
teacher, taught that when husband and wife are
worthy, the Dwelling Presence of God abides with
them, but when they are not worthy, fire consumes
them.6 Rabbi Akiba had in mind the letters of the
Hebrew words man and woman. The Hebrew
word for man is ish (aht). The word for woman
is ishah (vat). Both words have common letters and
unique letters. If we recombine the unique letters
from the two words, taking the yod (h) from ish (aht)
and heh (v) from ishah (vat), the two letters spell
Yah (vh), which is part of Gods holy name. Removing
those unique letters from both words changes the
words to eish (at), which means fire. Rabbi Akiba
uses this to illustrate that when a marriage is godly
and the marriage bed is kept pure, God is present
with husband and wife. When a marriage is godless
and the marriage bed defiled, it is a consuming fire
that will destroy both husband and wife.
Man
Ish
Woman
Ishah
HaShem (God)
Yah
Fire
Eish
aht
vat
vh
at
Holy Moly! A Talking Snake!

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the
field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the
woman, Indeed, has God said, You shall not eat from
any tree of the garden? (Genesis 3:1)
Eve wasnt born yesterdayor maybe she was. Its

hard to say. For some reason, she fell for the sales
pitch of a talking snake.
The Bible is a pretty sober piece of literature. It

is not given to fairy tales. Things like talking snakes
stick out as unusual in the Bible. What are we to
make of this? Did Eve really talk with a snake? Yes,
she did. It is admittedly a little surprising, but, after
all, Scripture says that the serpent was more crafty
than any beast of the field (Genesis 3:1). That statement acknowledges that this was no ordinary animal.
In the story, the snake inquires, Has God said,
You shall not eat from any tree of the garden?
(Genesis 3:1). This is a subtle approach. God had not
made such a rule. Eve corrects the serpent, saying,
From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may
eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the
middle of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat
from it or touch it, or you will die (Genesis 3:23).
This gives the serpent the opportunity to make his
argument. If God allows them to eat of all the other
trees, why forbid this one? Could it be that God is
afraid of what might happen if they eat of the tree of
knowledge of good and evil? The serpent says, You
surely will not die! For God knows that in the day
you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you
will be like God, knowing good and evil (Genesis
3:45). Eve had a choice to make. We always have
this choice before us.
Good and Evil

For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes
will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good
and evil. (Genesis 3:5)
What is motivating the snake to cause this trouble

for Eve? If the snake is evil, what does that say about
God? Why would a good God create an evil creature?
By the same token, why did God place a forbidden
tree in the garden? Isnt that entrapment?
To know good and evil means to experience good
and evil and to the know the difference between them.
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Evil is not only a moral attitude. In Hebrew, the same

word can also mean bad things that happen. And bad
things do happen. Thats the problem with evil.
In order for anything to be a fair choice, we need
to have options. If God had said, Do not eat of the
tree of knowledge, but then had not placed that tree
within the reach of Adam and Eve, there would not
have been a choice to obey or disobey. It was important to God that human beings be free creatures
with real choices. He did not want automatons, nor
did He want caged pets; He wanted creatures that
made choices according to their own volition. In
other words, He wanted real people.
Gods desire to make a real world with real people
explains a great deal. Atheists and agnostics often
object to the idea of God because they cannot see
Him, and besides, the universe seems to run pretty
well on its own by a series of natural causes and effects. Worse yet, the presence of suffering and evil
seems to make the existence of a loving, all-powerful
creator unlikely.
Lets think about this. If God had created a reality that contained Him, so that He was evident and
clearly, manifestly visible, it would not be separate
from Him. It would not be possible for things to exist
independently. The geometry does not work. The
Infinite fills all space. God wanted to make a real
universe, one that would run pretty well on its own
by a series of natural causes and effects.
If God had created a world in which loss, suffering and death were impossible, it would not
be a real, functioning world; it would be more
like a still-life painting than a motion picture.
The existence of a tree of knowledge of good and
evil suggests that God made the universe with the
potential of evil. If God had created a world where
evil was not possible, it would also preclude the possibility of good. In a world that was completely light,
without any darkness, light would have no mean-
ing. For good to be good, it must have an antithesis.

Thus, when God declared creation to be good, He
was also declaring that it had the potential to not
be good. An all-good world in which evil was not a
possibility would not be a good world. Good could
have no meaning in such a world. It would not be a
world with any real choice. Freedom would also be
meaningless. For God to create a real universe and
to place within it real people with real choices that
have real consequences, He had to create the world
with the real potential of evil.
Sin
When the woman saw that the tree was good for food,
and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree
was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit
and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and
he ate. (Genesis 3:6)
Eve succumbed to the temptation to be like

God and ate the forbidden apple. Actually the Bible
doesnt say what kind of fruit it was. Rashi says it
was a fig. It could have been a fig or an apple, or it
might have been something never seen since Eden.
The point is that Eve did what God told her not to
do. It was a sin.
What is sin anyway? We often hear people talk
about sin with a great deal of conviction, identifying
different sorts of things as sin. It sometimes seems
arbitrary, and what is a sin to one person isnt necessarily a sin to another person.
We might think of sin as something wrong: when
we do something wrong, it is a sin. This is a bad definition because its hard to define what is right and
wrong in absolute terms. The biblical definition of
sin is disobedience to Gods commandments.
Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness;
and sin is lawlessness. (1John 3:4)
Volume 1
If a person sins unintentionally in any of the things

which the LORD has commanded not to be done, and
commits any of them (Leviticus 4:2)
Only God can define sin because sin is a violation

of His law, the breaking of one of His commandments. God only gave Adam and Eve one prohibition.
They broke His commandment. The first sin.
Their Eyes were Opened

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and
they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig
leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.
(Genesis 3:7)
The snake told the truth. He told Eve that her eyes
would be opened. She and Adam ate, and their eyes
were opened to behold good and evil. For the first
time they experienced a flood of shame, remorse and
guilt. They felt an immediate disconnection from
God. They were suddenly aware of their potential
for evil, lust, ambition, hatred and violence. More
than that, they became keenly aware of their own
frail vulnerability to suffering, pain, want and need.
It was a different world.
The first thing to change was their conception of
sexuality. What had previously been beautiful and
innocent was suddenly a source of shame to them.
This basic function of human biology had twisted
into something with the potential for evil. Since that
moment, the human sex drive has been damaged,
enticing us into all sorts of self-destructive behaviors
and situations.
Rashi explains that prior to the opening of their
eyes, they were not aware of the way of modesty, to
distinguish good from bad. Even though Adam had
knowledge, he did not have the evil inclination [an
impulse to do evil] until eating from the tree. The
evil inclination entered him then and he knew the
difference between good and evil.7
10
Yeshua explains, Everyone who commits sin is

the slave of sin (John 8:34). In the book of Romans,
the Apostle Paul, a disciple of Yeshua, expounds on
this idea:
Do you not know that when you present yourselves to
someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the
one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or
of obedience resulting in righteousness? (Romans 6:16)
Adam and Eve had stepped out of the kingdom of

God and into the kingdom of darkness. By disobeying
God and obeying the serpent, they became servants
of evil. They had stepped out from under the authority of God.
Where Are You?

They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the
garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife
hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God
among the trees of the garden. (Genesis 3:89)
Once there was a Chassidic teacher, a great rabbi,

who was observing the children playing hide-andseek. One child covered his eyes and counted while
the other children scattered and hid. Then he went
and began to find the children, one after another. As
he found them the others join the search.
After watching the children play for a while, the
rabbi returned to his books. Time passed, and the
voices of the children faded away. He was eventually
disturbed from his studies by the sound of a lone
childs voice crying in the schoolyard. He went out to
see what had happened, thinking perhaps the child
might be hurt. He asked the child, Son, what is it?
Why all this weeping? The boy explained, We were
all playing hide-and-seek. I was hiding, and they
didnt find me. They quit looking for me, and they
all went home. He began to sob. The rabbi realized
that this childs sorrow was like Gods sorrow. God
Volume 1
has, in a sense, concealed Himself and bid us to look

for Him, but no one is looking for Him.
Why does God conceal Himself? Why is He hidden
from us? Why doesnt He reveal Himself?
In the garden of Eden humans experienced God directly, maybe even tangibly. In the paradise of Eden,
human beings lived in simplicity and innocence,
without sin, guilt, shame or knowledge thereof. God
was present; He was immediate; He was revealed.
He spoke with them. Walked with them. They knew
His presence; they recognized His voice. He was not
hidden. There was no seeking after God. God was
everywhere; His voice carried through the orchard.
What has happened since then? Why has God removed himself? Why has He hidden Himself away?
Lets look at the story. Who hid from whom? The
Torah says, The man and his wife hid themselves
from the presence of the LORD God among the trees
of the garden (Genesis 3:8). In the story, it is God
who calls out to man. God did not hide Himself. God
searched for man. He called out to the human beings,
Where are you? (Genesis 3:9).8
We are the ones who have hidden ourselves from
the presence of God. In our fallen and rebellious
state, in our place of sentience, self-awareness and
self-determination, we are unable to bear the presence of God.
Where is God? This is the wrong question. The real
question is, where are we?
Passing the Buck

The man said, The woman whom You gave to be with
me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate. (Genesis 3:12)
When God confronted His creatures about the

incident with the tree of knowledge, Adam blamed
Eve. Eve blamed the serpent. Neither were willing
to take responsibility for their actions. This is a consistent characteristic of human psychology. When
11
we do something wrong, we are loath to admit it.

We attempt to rationalize our behavior. We point
toward extenuating circumstances and try to find
someone to blame. We find it easy to see others faults
but rarely see our own.
Why do you look at the speck that is in your brothers
eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
(Matthew 7:3)
So long as we insist on blaming other people or circumstances for our own bad decisions, we can never
change. Until we admit that it is our own fault, God
will not grant us the inner power to rectify the fault.
Rather than hiding from God and blaming each
other and the serpent, Adam and Eve should have
admitted what they had done, apologized and asked
for forgiveness. Things might have turned out differently if they had.
Satan and the Seed

And I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise
you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.
(Genesis 3:15)
As God pronounces judgment on the serpent

for his role in the undoing of humanity, He offers a
cryptic promise. In the future, a child of the woman
will bruise the head of the serpent, and the serpent
will bruise the child on the heel. This prophecy is
like a riddle. Who is the serpent? The serpent is the
enemy of humanity, the enemy of God. He is called
the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan,
who deceives the whole world (Revelation 12:9). The
prophet Ezekiel tells us that he was once an angel,
one of the messenger-princes of God.9 His realm
is the stuff of nightmares, horror, sleepless nights,
cruelty, suffering and death.
He doesnt try to hide. He is always eager to stick
up his head and show himself off. His handiwork
Volume 1
is always before us. We see his inky fingerprints everywhere, marring the beauty of Gods creation. He
has his fingers in everything, adding pain and suffering, decay and destruction to every process. Hes
not hiding. The only reason he hides is in order to
ambush us.
He is called the accuser of our brethren (Revelation 12:10). Thats what Satan means. Satan (Iya) is a
Hebrew word that means accuser. A better modern
English equivalent would be prosecuting attorney.
Think of him more as a high-powered attorney than a
fang-mouthed ghoul. He does not live in hell, neither
does he have horns and a tail, as far as we know. His
realm is the earth itself. When Adam and Eve chose
to obey him, they lost the authority over the world
that God had entrusted with them.
Who is the seed of the woman? The seed of the
woman is the promised Savior, the Messiah, the Man
who will reverse the curse and take back the authority over creation and give it to God. The identity of the
seed of the woman and the meaning of the prophecy is studied in detail with help from the rabbis in
Torah Club Volume Two.
Paradise Lost
Therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden
of Eden. (Genesis 3:23)
God sent Adam and Eve out of paradise and barred

them from reentry. They lost their opportunity to eat
of the tree of life. As a result of their sin, they found
themselves trapped in mortality and doomed to die
as citizens of the kingdom of darkness.
The same is true for all of us, the children of
Adam and Eve. We are outside of paradise. We live
in a broken world, vulnerable to pain, suffering and
death. The Apostle Paul speaks about our situation.
He demonstrates how the sin of one man, Adam,
doomed the entire human race, even over those who
12
had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam

(Romans 5:14). He said, Judgment arose from one
transgression resulting in condemnation (Romans
5:16). By the transgression of [Adam], death reigned
through [Adam]. So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men
(Romans 5:1718)
What if things had been different? What if Adam
and Eve had not sinned? What if they had made the
right choice? Then we would still have access to paradise. We would be able to reach out and take hold
of the fruit of the tree of life. Immortality would be
within our grasp.
The Son of God, Yeshua of Nazareth, is like a second Adam. He made the right choices. He never
broke the commandments of God. He lived a sinless life. The Apostle Paul explains that through Him,
we have the hope of redemption and salvation. This
is explained in the following passage from Romans.
I have added a few clarifying words in brackets to
make it easier to read:
The free gift [of salvation in Yeshua] is not like the
transgression [of Adam]. For if by the transgression of
[Adam] the many died, much more did the grace of
God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Yeshua
the Messiah, abound to the many. The gift [of salvation] is not like [the condemnation that came] through
the one who sinned. For if by the transgression of
the one [Adam], death reigned through the one, much
more those who receive the abundance of grace and
of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through
the One, Yeshua the Messiah. So then as through one
transgression there resulted condemnation to all men,
even so through one act of righteousness there resulted
justification of life to all men. For as through the one
mans disobedience the many were made sinners, even
so through the obedience of the One [the Messiah] the
many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:1519)
By living a righteous and sinless life, Yeshua offers us

a way back to Eden. It requires us to believe Him, fol-
Volume 1
low Him, submit to Him and receive His free gift, the
grace of God. Thats what it means to be a believer.
For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and
transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in
whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
(Colossians 1:1314)
This is what salvation is all about. If we will confess our sins, renouncing our waywardness, and cast
our allegiance with Him who knew no sin, [God] is
faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1John 1:9). He
will make us into new creatures inwardly, and we can
begin the return to Eden.
Cain and Abel

If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted
up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the
door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.
(Genesis 4:7)
The course of humanity began to play out with

Adam and Eves first children. Cut off from God and
exiled from Eden, Cain and Abel attempted to reach
out to God by offering Him sacrifices. Abels heart
was right toward God, but Cains heart was clouded
with sin. God accepted Abels offering but rejected
Cains, because Cains deeds were evil, and his brothers were righteous (1John 3:12). God warned Cain
that he was in danger of being mastered by sin. He
counseled him to struggle against it and overcome
it.
Wounded and jealous, Cain vented his displeasure
by committing the first murder.
This is the first recorded religious service. It is the
first story of competition. It is the first story of murder. The sad reality of humanity is that these three
things are bound together. Religious convictions
and resentments give rise to competition between
worshippers, which leads to hatred and, all too often
13
though out history, murder. When irreligious people

see the way that religious people behave toward one
another, they feel vindicated in their rejection of God.
If thats what religion does to you, who needs it?
Yeshua taught a different religious path, a path He
derived from the Torah. He taught that the two greatest commandments of the Torah are to love God and
to love one another. The practice of religion, even true
religion, is wrong if it is not predicated on love.
Humans tend to hate one another with or without
the help of religion. Its easy. Yeshua warns us that hatred is not that different from murder.10 The Apostle
John said that anyone who does not love his brother
is a child of the devil and that a person without love
for others abides in death:
For this is the message which you have heard from
the beginning, that we should love one another; not
as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother.
And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds
were evil, and his brothers were righteous. We know
that we have passed out of death into life, because
we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in
death. (1John 3:1114)
As people of God and followers of Yeshua, we

should be different from the rest of the world. People
should be able to observe that we are unique because
we are not swayed by petty jealousies, competitions,
hurt feelings and retaliations as others are. Instead
we are motivated by love that manifests itself in patience, kindness and gentleness. According to John,
our love for others is the means by which we know
that we are children of God.
The Family of Lamech

Lamech took to himself two wives: the name of the
one was Adah, and the name of the other, Zillah.
(Genesis 4:19)
Volume 1
After Cain and Abel, Adam and Eve begat many

more children. In those days while humanity was
still young, men lived for hundreds of years. They
had many children and quickly began to populate
the earth.
Among the descendents of Cain was a man named
Lamech. He took two wives and had three notable
sons. Jabal pioneered the nomadic lifestyle of shepherding. Jubal developed the art of music and song.
Tubal-Cain began forging and smithing metals into
tools. They were the most famous and successful men
of the human race, each one celebrated by society.
Their story sets the paradigm for human technological advancement and achievement.
Since the inception of our species, we have demonstrated that we are indeed made in the image of
God, for we are creators, shapers, makers and formers as He is. He has gifted us with diverse talents and
skills. Whether we are breeding cattle, making music
or forging tools, we are doing so in imitation of God.
Yet there is a danger in being a demi-creator. Lamech
did not raise His sons to know the Lord. They used
their talents for self-serving purposes and turned
their backs on the ultimate Creator. Human progress
and technological advancement is not real progress
so long as it is godless.
Seventy times Seven

If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold. (Genesis 4:24)
When injured in a fight, Lamech retaliated by murdering the other man. He later bragged to his wives
that, though Cain may be avenged sevenfold, Lamech
would avenge himself seventy-sevenfold. Lamechs
law of retaliation became a societal norm that filled
the earth with brutality and bloodshed, as Genesis
6:11 says, The earth was filled with violence.
14
The next time you feel yourself bristle when someone slights you or wrongs you, remember the story of
Lamech. His single act of vengeance set a process of
violence in motion that ended with the near extinction of humanity.
Yeshua corrects Lamechs sadistic mathematics by
turning the same equation around and applying it
to forgiveness:
Then Peter came and said to Him, Lord, how often
shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up
to seven times? Yeshua said to him, I do not say to
you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.
(Matthew 18:2122)
Yeshuas law of forgiveness is an antidote to

Lamechs law of retaliation. We should always be
willing to set aside hurt feelings and injured pride
for the sake of forgiveness. The alternative is the path
of bitterness and hatred.
The Heart of Man

Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was
great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts
of his heart was only evil continually. (Genesis 6:5)
The Bible has a realistic view of human beings and

human society. When given a choice, we generally
choose the bad. We are motivated primarily by selfish
interests. Given the opportunity to sin, we do. Paul
says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory
of God (Romans 3:23).
As God observed humanity He was saddened to
see the rampant wickedness of His creations. They
turned on one another with violence, covetousness,
lust and robbery. He saw that every human heart
harbored evil. The seed of sin first planted by Adam
and Eve had grown and produced a full harvest of
wickedness. Mankind had fallen a long way from the
innocent simplicity of Eden. The LORD was sorry
Volume 1
that He had made man on the earth, and He was

grieved in His heart (Genesis 6:6).
Our sin actually grieves God. Sometimes people
think of God as a cruel, cold, impassive judge meting
out punishment and reward without concern. Not so.
The God of the Bible is concerned for His creatures.
The sin of human beings actually causes Him sorrow.
Reluctantly, God determined to wipe the slate
clean by flooding the earth. The world had reached
such a state of lawlessness that for Him to leave
humanity unpunished would have been unjust. Yet
He did not intend to leave humanity completely
unredeemed. He already had a savior in view: the
righteous Noah. But thats another story.
Study More from Parashat Breisheet

A wise sage once encouraged us to keep studying
the Torah by saying, Turn it over, and turn it over
again, because everything is in it. Look into it, grow
gray haired and old in it, and do not depart from it,
for you have no better standard of conduct than it.11
In Torah Club Volume Two: Shadows of the Messiah we will learn how Messiah is present in the first
chapters of Genesis, concealed with God from the
beginning of creation. We will discover how the six
days of creation lay a blueprint for redemption. We
will explore the relationship between Adam and Messiah and see how the Cain-and-Abel story foreshadows the crucifixion of Yeshua and quite a bit more.
In Torah Club Volume Five: Rejoicing of the Torah
we will learn the poetry of creation, discover how
God reveals His glory through creation, unravel what
the Apostle Paul calls the doctrine of demons, attend the first wedding through rabbinic eyes, see how
the story of Adam and Eve teaches about the body
of Messiah and more.
15
Questions for Small Groups

1. What is the main thrust of the opening chapter of Genesis? How does reading a modern scientific perspective into it obscure its original message?
2. What message might God be communicating to us by reckoning the beginning of the day at sundown
rather than sunrise?
3. Though it is not observed by the entire world, in what way does the world continue to give credence to
the Sabbath?
4. What sets man apart from all creation? What do you think about Rambams explanation of the image of
God? What has been your common perception of Gods image in humanity? How does the image of God
shape our sense of human worth?
5. How does the account of Adam and Eve show Gods intention for marriage?
6. Why did God place the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden? What does this show
us about Gods desire for our lives?
7. How are the actions of Cain common to most religions in the world? In what way are disciples of the
Master called to live differently? Reflect upon the ways that we sometimes leave the way of the Master
for the way of Cain.
8. How does the Master correct Lamechs understanding of retaliation?
9. God in the Old Testament is sometimes characterized as delighting in cold punishment and judgment.
But what does Genesis 6:6 tell us about Gods feelings toward our sin?
Volume 1
17
Endnotes
1 Genesis Rabbah 39.1.
2 Rashi on Genesis 1:1. To learn more about Rashi, see the introduction.
3 b.Chagigah 12b.
4 Learn more about Clement in the introduction.
5 Rambam, cited in the Stone Edition Chumash, Artscroll (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah Publishers), 9, note 27.
To learn more about Rambam see the introduction.
6 b.Sotah 17a.
7 Rashi on Genesis 2:25.
8 Abraham Joshua Heschel took the title of his famous philosophy of Judaism from this narrative: God in
Search of Man. Recommended reading for everyone.
9 Ezekiel 28:14.
10 Matthew 5:22.
11 Ben Bag Bag in m.Avot 5:22.
Volume 1
19
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First Fruits of Zion

First Fruits of Zion

PS. Be sure to listen to the accompanying audio lesson samples at www.torahclub.org.

he scroll of the Torah is the oldest and most

of our origins. When properly understood, the story

The View from Earth

The view from earth, when seen on a clear, dark

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The rabbis told a similar story about Abraham.

This verse says nothing but Expound Me! Thats

Rashi examined the Hebrew construction of the

Monotheism and the

Not every culture has come to the same conclusion

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shipped or considered as God. The Torah warns us

Instead we serve God who created the sun, moon,

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fifth heaven, the ministering angels worship God in

Evening and Morning

God finished creating after six days. On the seventh

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setting it apart from the other days is one of the laws

Adam means man. According to the Torah, God

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Human life exists in constant tension between

What does it mean to be made in Gods image?

Man is made in the image of God in that he is a

Mans original habitat was a garden that God

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competition, no pain or dying. All that we needed

This is an essential part of being human. We can

God declared everything He created to be good.

nocence, his capacity for fellowship with God and

Adam named the new creation Eve (Chavah, vuj),

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The Torah says that husband and wife, when joined

Holy Moly! A Talking Snake!

Eve wasnt born yesterdayor maybe she was. Its

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The Bible is a pretty sober piece of literature. It

Good and Evil

What is motivating the snake to cause this trouble

Evil is not only a moral attitude. In Hebrew, the same

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ing. For good to be good, it must have an antithesis.

Eve succumbed to the temptation to be like

If a person sins unintentionally in any of the things

Only God can define sin because sin is a violation

Their Eyes were Opened

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Yeshua explains, Everyone who commits sin is

Adam and Eve had stepped out of the kingdom of

Where Are You?

Once there was a Chassidic teacher, a great rabbi,

has, in a sense, concealed Himself and bid us to look

Passing the Buck

When God confronted His creatures about the

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we do something wrong, we are loath to admit it.

Satan and the Seed

As God pronounces judgment on the serpent

God sent Adam and Eve out of paradise and barred

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