Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan Parshat Bereshit 1

Shalom Alim welcome everyone we are starting a new series for this new year 5784 with parat bit parat bit Genesis is of course the beginning of the Torah and being that it is beginning of the Torah it contains within itself all the secrets of the creation of the world as well as everything that's going to happen in time and that is because the beginning that is where the blueprint the plan of God is we start the Torah that in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth and with that beginning not only he created created the physical structure of the universe but he created the purpose of the universe God decided that Universe must exist for his own reasons what are some of the reasons that God wanted so first of all we have to understand and we are going to cover some of the F fundamental principles of Judaism things that we may have discussed in the past and you may have heard from me but now that we're going another Circle through the Torah and we're going to deep to dig a little bit deeper still on the surface still simple explanation but we will understand it better you will notice that the more times you go through the Torah the bigger and brighter the picture gets and more full the picture becomes even if we read it and even if we learned it and we read the commented it it is enough it's it is uh different when you read it again when you think about it again when you become more mature and more knowledgeable and you review the Torah and you think about it again New Visions are going to open up new information will be revealed new understanding and therefore as um the Russian um saying goes repetition is the mother of all learning if you want to learn you have to review so why did God decide to create the world at the beginning God created the Heaven and Earth why the Torah doesn't say it however the Jewish sources say that our concept of God is unlike any other and that is that our God is fully independent he doesn't have any needs wants desire requirements as one of my rabbis said God doesn't need that we should itch his back he doesn't have any needs he is completely independent so the great question is why did he need to create a universe out outside of himself besides himself wasn't he happy just being there forever by himself and uh the answer that Jewish philosophers give and if you will notice that Jewish philosophy and Torah always speaks to us on our level what we need to hear so that we can improve our life and become better people so they say like this the reason why God created the world was so that he can give God is good but what is good if you don't do it good is only good if you do it towards others otherwise the potential good has no no value and therefore although God was perfect and independent he needed and this is a term we use needed not like we need we need because of our deficiency we need because of our weakness God's need is out of his abundant power kindness generosity it's a need to give as the sages say in describing this more does the cow enjoy feeding her calf then the calf enjoys Nursing From The Cow which means the pleasure of giving is greater than the pleasure of taking and so God being that he is the ultimate good by definition had to have someone to give and therefore he created us for the sole purpose of giving to us so now right away as we start the Torah we describe God as this great good being that wants to give and the only reason he created us was to give to us and that means that God created us only so that we receive the greatest good God created the world not for any ulterior motive not for himself he created the world for us the our Sages say every person man woman and child must say and we should all say it right now the whole world was created for me Bish because that is the truth God created the world so that I and you and everyone I should benefit I should get pleasure I should receive from the Divine goodness why was the universe created for me for my benefit for my pleasure so we see that from the beginning God is teaching us I created the world for you you go and enjoy it and that is the command that he gave to Adam the first man he told him look around yourself you see beautiful garden that I created you can eat anything you want benefit enjoy and not only that be fruitful and multiply create more people just like you who are going to enjoy God said to Adam become just like me become Godly I God created you to enjoy and I want you a human being to create other human beings so that they can also enjoy and that is why our sages say it is such an important Mitzvah to have children why because we are becoming like God we are creators and even more importantly we are becoming givers like God if we don't have a child that entity that could have been our child will be missing out on lifetime of pleasure benefit enjoyment and growth by giving life to a child we are not only giving him those few decades 80 90 100 years on this Earth but we're also giving him opportunity to earn eternal reward and that is the other reason why God created the physical Universe because God said I can create two various worlds I can create the world of Angels the spiritual world where from the moment they are created they will be getting pleasure knowledge closeness to God and can create a different world physical world where they will also get all their needs taken care of they will enjoy their entire lifetime and that is the the world of animals but Hashem said I don't want to stop at creating Angels I'm not happy with the world of malim of angels that's not the goal of creation because they are stationary they are stuck in their position they were created great and they stayed there they don't strive they don't work they don't grow they're not tested and similarly God said the physical animalistic world I'm not happy with they are born and from early age they already have all the instincts they need and all the skills and they have all the grass they can eat in their lifetime ready in front of them they stand and chew their entire life enjoying the delicious juicy grass but that's not what I want because both for malim the Angels receiving great spiritual pleasure and for the animals receiving constant physical pleasure no limitations animals don't have restrictions on food animals don't have restrictions on who they can marry they can enjoy their entire day Hashem said that's not the ultimate pleasure why and Hashem recognized that the ultimate pleasure is only when you become like God himself you become independent independent means that you work for your pleasure you deserve it you earn it and then you feel good about taking it then the enjoyment is so much greater and therefore God said the angels are great but they didn't work for their greatness and therefore as much as pleasure I will give them as much as spiritual Bounty and light I will shine upon them yes it's great but it's not the greatest same with animals their entire life they have opportunities to mate opportunities to eat but they don't get the ultimate pleasure from it Hashem said I'm going to combine the Angelic Essence with animalistic Essence and I will create a human being so that he will have struggle he will have tests he will be working and enjoying the fruit of his labor and as such human being is the only creature in the entire universe who will have access to the ultimate pleasure the ultimate pleasure being pleasure that you deserved you worked for and you earned for yourself so bit the Torah begins in in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth what's the purpose let's see what the next sentence says and the land and the Earth so now Hashem forgets about the heaven we don't worry about the spiritual world and we don't worry about the physical Heaven the sky our Pursuit our happiness is not in outer worldly experiences and knowledge rather the Earth and the Earth and as R says if you follow this path that is being branched out for us where does it lead us first we speak about the heaven the spiritual Heaven and the physical Heaven and the Earth and we forget about the heaven and we concentrate on Earth we go down that path and God speaks about all kinds of plants and birds and animals and people so who is the more important one and then it concentrates on his relationship with Adam and K with the first people we forget about all the animals which means the whole world was created for the Earth not for any other planet planet or Star the whole world was created for a human being and then we go further in the para it says Adam Aron had three sons K heav and Shad we forget about K who killed heav and we concentrate on Shad the third son of Adam and Shad had many children but we only concentrate on those that lead us to Noah the righteous man who was loyal to God and so although there were other people God chose Noah and then as we're going to learn in the next week's para Noah is the only one saved from him come all other people 70 Nations but Hashem says I'm only choosing one Abraham and then Abraham has has two sons plus six more sons from concubines eight children Al together not counting his daughters and Hashem says out of all of them I'm choosing only and then further clarification purification distinction y has two sons and he God chooses yob and that is the purpose of the creation the Jewish people and the sages say within the word the very first word in the Torah we already see the entire purpose of creation as it says for the sake of because of the first born RIT the first God created the world who is the first the one that God is consist consistently choosing ending with the Jewish people so the sages say for the sake of the Jewish Nation God created the entire universe and we understand why because God wants to give greatest pleasure who can receive the greatest pleasure the one who works for it who works for it the most the Nations have seven Commandments the seven mitv of Noah they if they are righteous righteous Gentiles they work for it with seven mitv however the Jewish people have 613 Commandments every area of their life is limited is ruled delineated and the Jewish people are working for God 24/7 the Jewish people are earning their reward constantly and therefore we the Jewish Nation fulfill God's purpose for creation of the world the most why because we fulfill the most of God's Commandments we have the most of them of anyone more than the malim more than the animals more than any other nations the Jewish people have now from here it's clear that if you want to receive the greatest good you have to do the most for God God loves every Jew and God is willing to give us all the blessings but God knows that just giving us the blessing for free is not going to feel good long term yes now in this physical world we might be happy receiving something for free but in the next World when we will have total understanding and we will see that those people worked and they got reward and I didn't work so much God just had pity on me we will be saddened we will be jealous looking at others because their reward is so much greater because they earned it and so although God can provide us with all the benefits all the blessings all our needs but it's actually going to be hurting us because if God is patient which he is and he will say rather than giving you the free reward I will withhold it from you and wait until you recognize who is the giver and what he wants from you and you follow his command and then I will open the gates of heavenly Bounty you will thank me for it and people ask doesn't God know know what I need and what I want why doesn't he give it to me the sages say Hashem loves prayers of righteous why does he want us to talk to him to ask him to do his mitv and that is because it's going to feel better when you have a relationship when you have a communication when you do something and then you receive it feels so much better so even when God seemingly is cruel seemingly is not listening and not giving us what we want it is actually God's kindness that is operating because he wants to to give us the most we are asking him for a penny and he says I'm not giving you a penny why not God but I want a penny because I want to give you a dollar and for people who can do more God says I don't want to give you a dollar because I know you can earn $100 and we should actually be searching for ways to do more the more I do the more independent I become from others I'm not looking for service of other people because I can do it myself and not only that I can serve others because the more I do for myself and for my fellow Jews and for the entire world and for God the greater I become the more independent I become and the greater will my pleasure be when I receive my reward this in um brief is the purpose of the entire world and our existence and a path is paved for us to earn the greatest possible pleasure now coming back to our partial let's quickly go through the uh flow of it so that we understand what's going on at the beginning God created Heavens on earth now the commentators right away point out that the Torah is not a technical uh book for engineers on how to create a universe the Torah as I mentioned before is here to teach us lessons that we can use in our life we're not about to create another universe and therefore it would be useless for God to spend precious uh space in the Torah to tell us information that we don't need and therefore when we learn about the creation we have to understand that God informed us only about things that we can derive practical uh benefit from so we should not try to figure out exactly what atoms did God move and what forces were operating at the time of creation we will not be able to we were not there and this information is not given to us and even science that is trying to figure it out there's a lot of guesswork there are a lot of unknown things in sence and let them search that's perfectly fine but for us the purpose is not to find out how did God create the world for us the purpose is why did God create the world and what does he want from us now that he created the world and uh therefore we are not going to spend too much time in this series analyzing the creation if you would like we have lectures on this in previous years we have studied and recorded parad bid in depth uh you can also refer to my class on um Torah and science where we discuss the these three words in great depth in the beginning God created and with all the scientific background um but here we will try to concentrate on the simple flow of the uh the Torah portion and how it applies to us now Darkness was upon the surface of the deep first there was darkness no light and then God said let there be light light represents good light represents God infusing us with everything we need as we all know that everything that everything that um we have comes to us because of light in in this case sunlight the food that we ate today came to us because there is sunlight sunlight gives energy to plants plants produce oxygen for us to breathe plants produce um the fruits and vegetables that we eat or all thanks to the energy they receive from the Sun in the form of light light also provides us with warmth without light there would be no plastics because Plastics come from uh crude oil and crude oil at least that's the theory in science come from ancient plants which grew because of sunlight so we would not have not cotton which comes from plants and not polyester which also ultimately comes from Plants Earth would be desolate no life no oxygen and even now the atmosphere the winds and the rain everything is because of sunlight so by saying let there be light God is saying let the entire universe fill up with goodness you should recognize every time you see light you recognize godliness you recognize Godly kindness every time you see light sunlight artificial light any kind of light the first thought should be God is shining his face upon me God