Over the next few days, I’ll be sharing some perspectives on the arc of the Genesis narrative leading to Abraham and how some of its eternal truths and enduring challenges might speak to us in our contemporary context. As we complete a summer that was the warmest on record, the emergency of climate change becomes even more apparent. The Genesis stories serve as one more reminder of our responsibilities to our planet’s wellbeing and the security of the generations that will follow us. (If you are starting to read these texts midweek, you may want to start from Monday’s Kavanah for context.)
Bereishit – the Creation of Humanity
Humans are created twice in Bereishit. In the first iteration “Man is created in His image” and yet “male and female did God create them.”* Clearly the author of this story is at pains to assert that the “image” of God inherent in humanity is both male and female despite the Bible’s convention of using masculine pronouns for God. As the story continues, the created beings are addressed in the plural indicating that, of all the responsibilities incumbent on humanity, that which immediately follows the moment of creation applies through the first humans (male and female) to all of humanity.
“Be fertile and increase,” says God, “Fill the earth and conquer it, rule the sea, the sky, and the land.” This is an account of dominance and domination. But the text continues: “I give you every seed bearing plant…tree…fruit…[as] yours for food.” In this telling, humans were to be vegetarians even as they are dominant over all creation.
The second story (chapter 3) is the more familiar account of Adam, formed of earth, and Eve, from his rib. Here the (still vegetarian) humans are placed in the utopian garden to till and tend, not to conquer. They thrive in this abundance until they reach beyond their means and strive to be God-like in their knowledge by eating the fruit of the forbidden tree. As a consequence of their overreach they are banished to a life of hardship.
Our relationship with our earth is complex. We are tillers and tenders, and we are capable of destroying nature to fulfill our will. As our forests burn, cities flood, and earth’s biodiversity diminishes, we must become tillers and tenders once again to restore the balance that our domination has upended. By incorporating two versions of humanity’s creation, our wise ancestors suggest that we both have the power and the responsibility to restore balance and sustainability to life on this planet.
— Rabbi Ron Stern
*Note that we generally do not use a gender pronoun to refer to God because God is conceived as being beyond gender. I am using the masculine here to make the point that the text actually corrects itself by saying: ‘Male and female, God created them.” That is, both genders are in the Divine image and equally responsible to manage creation sustainably.