Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan Parshat Bereshit 2

verse 21 so Hashem God cast deep sleep upon the man we call that anesthesia and he performed an operation he took one of his sides and he filled in flesh in its place then God fashioned the side that he had taken from the man into a woman and uh man called her Isa which is woman ish is man Isha is a woman because from man she was taken verse 24 very important verse therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and cling to his wife the only way to have a true partner in life is if you're committed to him or her and therefore if you want to have a strong healthy marriage you have to leave your father and your mother and cling to your spouse and become one flesh they were both naked and they were not ashamed and now chapter 3 speaks about the snake and the sin of Adam Aron the serpent which is the representation of yeter was cunning Beyond any beast of the feast he and he started conversation with a woman did perhaps God say you shall not eat of any tree the woman said yeah we can eat from the tree just not the tree that's in the middle of the garden the serpent said to the woman you may eat it you shall you will not surely die nothing's going to happen to you just eat go and eat it not only that God is tricking you he doesn't want you to eat because you're going to become God if you eat from from that tree which is a lie and we call it a har and the woman saw that the tree was good for eating and it was Delight to the eyes and it was desirable as me as a means of wisdom and she took its fruit and ate and she also gave to her husband and he ate now we're on page 17 and all of a sudden their eyes were opened and they realized that they were naked and so they made clothing for themselves from fig leaves and verse eight they heard the sound of Hashem they realized we disobeyed and God is still here what's going to be so they they hid among the Trees of the garden and Hashem started a conversation with him where are you as if he doesn't know and Adam said I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked so I hid so Hashem said who told you you naked and why are you ashamed have you eaten of the tree from which I commanded you not to eat and here Hashem expected that Adam will say yes I did I sorry please please forgive me and God was willing to forgive him however uh the man said the woman whom you gave to be with me she gave me of the tree and I ate he doesn't accept any responsibility he blames God and he blames the woman and for that he will be punished so Hashem turned to the woman why did you do it and the woman also instead of accepting the responsibility and saying yeah I did it I'm sorry forgive me she said the serpent deceived me it's not my fault somebody tricked me and for that she was punished as well and Hashem said to the serpent Hashem doesn't ask him he just gives him the punishment a cursed are you upon your belly shall you go thus shall you eat and I will put hatred between you and the woman people will try to trample you on your head and you will try to bite them which is a description not only of a physical uh hatred between people and snakes and the fight between them but also our spiritual struggle with our yet with the Satan with with evil inclination we try to destroy it and he tries to bite us that's a good question why was serpent punished if he was doing the will of Hashem yeah it's a good question we have to uh speak about it really uh it's not a punishment in a sense that we feel that if somebody hurts us we go and we punch him back uh God doesn't need to do that when Hashem gives a punishment he doesn't do it as self- protect ction he doesn't do it uh to receive pleasure from from Revenge he does it for the the person's own benefit when a person makes a mistake and he receives a punishment the punishment is not a crushing punishment a cruel punishment but rather it is a way for Hashem to guide that person back on the path to make him better so whatever whatever the the punishment that we're speaking about that actually is part of life and that is what um brings us um back to be good let's leave it for another time what exactly is the punishment for the snake for the physical snake the the spiritual yet and let's continue now Hashem gives a curse to The Woman verse 16 I will greatly increase your suffering in pregnancy and your childbearing child birth will be painful in pain shall you bear children that it refers to uh raising children very difficult and the final curse your craving shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you dependency on the husband now we go to page 19 curse for the man to Adam he said because you listen listen to the voice of your wife a cursed is the ground because of you through suffering shall you eat all the days of your life by the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread until you return to the ground so the punishment for man the main punishment is that man will have to work hard to earn a living and to dust shall you return and and the second punishment for man is death now until now the woman's name was Isha a woman now in verse 20 man called his wife's name k because she had become the mother of all the living which means the one that gives life but until now they were Eternal they didn't need to have children now that they will die they need to produce new generation so she became the life Giver verse 21 Hashem made them um garments of skin and clothed them now Hashem said behold the man has become like the unique one Among Us knowing good and bad and now he might stretch his hand to the tree of life and eat and live forever and it's not yet time for him to live forever I say just say that the tree of life is the Torah and Hashem said if a man would eat from the Tree of Life first he he would gain Divine wisdom that would protect him from Evil inclination and he would live forever and it would be good for him now that he introduced yet within him he can no longer eat from the Tree of Life he can no longer study Tor because we say if a person has a has a bad character trait he will actually uh um become even worse from eating from the from the um learning Torah why because the Torah will give him power and this power he will use uh to do bad and therefore Hashem said until there will come a nation that will be perfect I will test them and purify them and they will be ready to receive the torat the Torah will be hidden so Hashem decided to banish man from The Garden of e Eden verse 23 Hashem God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the soil now in chapter four we learned about K and heav K and Adam had two boys K and he we turn to page 21 K became um farmer and heav became a shepherd and they both served God but Hashem paid attention to the offering of hav and not K because havil gave the best and K offered what he doesn't need and this annoyed K which means K had a choice I can either improve my actions or I can remove competition and become the best by default and Hashem said don't do that verse 7 if you improve yourself you will be forgiven but if you don't improve yourself bad things are going to come and uh K chose bad K rose up against his brother heav and killed him Hashem said to K where is your brother and again instead of accepting responsibility K said I don't know I'm not his keeper and now Hashem says because you did it you're cursed when you work the ground it shall no longer yield its strength to you you shall be become a wonderer on the earth the soil will become infertile and K will have to go into Exile and Ken asked for protection that he should not be killed by wild animals therefore Hashem said you will not die until your Seventh Generation and Hashem placed a special Mark upon K so that n that meet him might kill him special Invincible protection now we go to page 23 descendants of Ken we have a whole list of K's uh descendants for seven generations and then in verse 23 we learn that L the in the seventh generation of K killed Ken and he said to his uh wives have I slain SL a man by my wound and a child by my bruise I didn't do it on purpose he made a mistake he thought that K was an animal and he shot him and in verse 25 we learn about the third son that Adam and kava had and his name was shed now that heaven was killed and K was decreed Extinction Adam had a third son shed and in in in on page 25 chapter 5 we learn the entire genealogy of the children of shth the 10 Generations until Noah that is page 25 and 27 and now we go to chapter 6 the Prelude to the flood Man became to in began to increase there's a population increase and because of that they start sinning and people start abusing power sons of rulers saw the daughters of men that they were good and they took for themselves wives from whoever they chose without permission and Hashem said I will not contend ever more concerning man his days shall be 120 years God limited human life to 120 years and he also decreed that in 120 years he will destroy the entire human population except for the righteous people in verse four we learned that there were a giant Nations and Nephilim were on Earth in those days verse 5 speaks about wickedness of man Hashem saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the Earth and every product of the thoughts of his heart was but evil always Hashem reconsidered having made man on Earth and he had heartfelt sadness and Hashem said I will blood out man whom I created from the face of the ground from man to animal to creeping things and to birds of the sky for I have reconsidered my having made them verse 8 but no found Grace in the eyes of Hashem Hashem is planning to save only Noah and his family bashem we finished our first Torah portion we did it very briefly there's much to learn everyone is encouraged to read all the commentaries of the Arash if you know Hebrew read the Rashi commentary on it read the ramban commentary we have Rashi in English we have ramban in English beautiful commentaries a lot of wisdom as well as many commentaries that were written in English a good one is RAB Victor Miller's commentary he has a few books um one book on every um book of the Torah he has a book onid book onot book on and um every Jew must read books of RAB Victor Miller on the the the Kash as well as if you more advanced you can read uh the commentary of Rabbi sham Samson raal h on the it comes in six volumes beautiful work uh we just did brief brief overview but there is much more to learn thank you for listening Shabbat sh