My Dvar Torah B’reshit

    The Torah begins with a story we all know. My Torah portion is Parshat B'reishit which means, " in the beginning". This parsha is the story of creation. It begins with God saying, "Let there be light!" and there was light. A first day. Then, God says "Let one water divide from the next!" and there was water and sky. A second day. The sky's only function is to hold the water in the air from coming down to Earth. After that, God collects the water in one place until there is dry soil. God says, "Let there be vegetation, and seed-bearing plants!" and there was land and plants. A third day. Fourth but not last, God says, "Let there be two great lights in the sky!" and there was a sun and a moon. A fourth day. There were three more days, but I only have four aliyot.

     When thinking about this portion, I had to keep in mind it was not a science textbook I was looking at. You cannot look at this portion and say, "Oh God did not create the world in six days, that's impossible, the Torah is useless fiction." The creation story was included in the Torah to show that God does everything for a reason. The first three days are the foundation for the next three. God creates light, water and sky, and vegetation on the first three days. Then God creates the sun and moon – to light the sky on the fourth day, fish and birds- to fill the sea and sky on the fifth day, and land animals –to fill the land on the sixth day. God also does the same thing every day of creation. He speaks, divides, sees that everything is alright, and calls things by their names.

We can all learn something from this portion. God never does things without thinking. God does not tolerate the world to look incorrect for humans. In fact, the setup of the world, according to Genesis, shows it was created for humans. How do we say thank you? God thinks we say thank you by celebrating the seventh day of creation, Shabbat. The Earth would be a better place if we all took one day of the week to put aside work and celebrate the creation of this world we all live in. We take one day out of the week and remove all other work so that people can pray. We can also thank God by doing something with our world. God spoke to create the world. We have to think and speak in our world, it's the only way to make a difference. Every time we speak, we create something. I am creating a thought in our minds right now. The Torah teaches us to think before we speak, because you just might be creating a world.