An Essay on Breishis Which the Rebbe Edited

Welcome to our weekly program, "The Inside Story of Chabad in America," from the Mindel Archives. I hope we all had a good Yom Tov. We didn't have our program for a couple of weeks because I was out of town and very busy, so now, baruch Hashem, we'll continue with our weekly Thursday night program.

This week is Parshas Bereishis. We're beginning to read the Torah from the beginning. Parshas Bereishis is not only the beginning of Chumash Bereishis, but it's also the beginning of the entire Chumash. It's an introduction to the entire Torah—it's very essential, it's an akeida.

It says that many Rebbes were asked shailos by moon people—people asked them about the moon, they had questions, doubts about the moon and Hashem. So they gave them an answer to strengthen their emunah. They said, learn Bereishis, and with all the information there, that will give you emunah in the moon.

By the way, if you remember, this summer we had about five programs—and there's still more to go, maybe I'll do another time—about the class in Manhattan with Mr. Calvin and Mr. Stillman, which the Frierdiker Rebbe was very interested in, and he sent Rabbi Mindel every week to give a report. These were intellectual people, and they had their shailos. And Rabbi Mindel gave a report, and I showed you the sichos of the Rebbe, how he answered many questions. This was about Bereishis—this is based on the fact that Hashem created the beginning, and so on, and this gave them strength in their emunah. So we see also that to strengthen emunah is to learn Sefer Bereishis.

Number two: Bereishis, in this parsha, it says that you can learn all the taryag mitzvos—all 613—with your mazel through this parsha.

This Sedra is also very unique: the entire Torah, from the beginning until the end, is to give over to our children. We see this in the first word, "Bereishis," and the last word is "l'einei kol Yisrael" [children/Israel]—that the whole Torah, in other words, is to instill emunah in children, to know that Hashem, with His middos, is Bereishis—from the beginning. "Bereishis" and "l'einei kol Yisrael"—the beginning and the end—means the whole Torah teaches us how we should teach children.

When children start learning, the first parsha they learn is Bereishis, and the first thing they ask is: why does Bereishis begin with a big bais? Also, we should start the Torah with an aleph—when they learn the alef-beis, aleph comes first and bais comes second—so why does the Torah begin with a bais? Of course there's a sefer that speaks about it, and they say it's because the aleph had a complaint—that the Torah should have begun with me—but [Hashem] said, when it comes to the Ten Commandments, it will begin with Anochi Hashem Elokecha. But there's another reason why the Torah begins with a bais, and this is an answer, I guess, for children—they have to know that bais is number two, aleph is one—derech eretz comes before Torah. In order for the Torah that they're going to learn—for the children first—how can the Torah be kiyum if there isn't proper respect before Torah?

Also, when a child becomes bar mitzvah, the teacher puts him on tzitzis and davening—so that before learning Torah, there will be proper derech eretz, and then Torah will be learned properly.

And we all know the Frierdiker Rebbe was also very much into teaching children with chumash and with Rashi, and the Frierdiker Rebbe said that's how we should learn with children, because that will give children a yerusha of emunah—that will give them emunah for the entire life.

Another reason for the bais—speaking about emunah—we once spoke that nine is a lucky number, because nine is emes: aleph is one, mem is 40 (or 400), tav is 400 (or 4)—four plus four plus one is nine. So nine is emes. What is the opposite of nine? Sheker. When you take a nine and put it upside down, it becomes a six—six is shin, which is three; koof is one hundred; reish is two hundred—shin-koof-reish—so sheker.

Every number that we multiply by nine, the answer always comes back to nine. Nine times two is eighteen—eight and one is nine. Nine times three is twenty-seven—seven and two is nine. And so on to millions, because nine is emes—it always has to go back to emes. When we count, usually it's counting by threes, sixes, nines, twelves.

The Torah begins with a bais to show that the Torah is emes. If the Torah had begun with an aleph, let's count: aleph, bais, gimmel—gimmel is six. What comes after gimmel? Daled, hei—that's fifteen, five and one is six again—and till the end of the alphabet it keeps going back to six. That's why the Torah begins with a bais—because counting from bais: bais, gimmel, daled is nine; then comes hei, vov, zayin, ches—that's nine again—and till the end it all comes back to nine. That shows emes. And this is the idea here—to put into children that emunah, that emes, is the beginning of Bereishis—how we should teach children.

Now let's go back to Parshas Bereishis—and this is a talk, I guess, that Rabbi Mindel wrote down, and it has many hagahos, many notations, from the Rebbe. That's why I'm going to go through this with you, because the Rebbe put a lot of work—I mean, a lot of pages here—but I'm going to make it, b'kitzur, short.

The root of the word Torah, he writes here, is "horaah"—a lesson. The beginning, Torah, is a teacher—Torah teaches us how we should live in our everyday life. That's why it's called Torah. And as the Rebbe writes here, we should know about Hashem, our Creator, and follow the ways of Hashem, the Creator. So the Torah begins with Bereishis, that we should know Hashem through creation.

How does the Torah teach us? There are three ways: number one, the whole Chumash—the stories, the maasim—we can learn out how we should conduct ourselves through stories. Number two, mitzvos—it tells you exactly how we should do, how we should live—mitzvos. And the third thing, he says, is intensive study—when you study with intensive study, that will give you a way of life, how we should conduct ourselves.

The Torah begins, Bereishis, with the story of creation, and the first human being was born—Adam and Chava—and Rabbi Mindel didn't write "chas v'shalom," but the Rebbe wrote himself an added comment—meaning that the happening of the first generation, the highlights of Sedra Bereishis, are creation and the birth of Adam and Chava. That's it, nothing else. Parshas Noach, the second, next generation, is also Noach, the flood, and the Tower of Bavel.

We should know that the first twenty generations happened within a period of 2,000 years—meaning Parshas Bereishis and Noach happened within a period of 2,000 years. Why? Because Torah is from lashon "hora'ah," Torah is a teacher—there's nothing that we can learn besides these few things. I'm sure more things happened within a period of 2,000 years, but there's nothing we can learn out from them—the only thing we can learn is the creation of man and the flood. That's it, that's all.

Now the rest of the Torah happened within a period of 500 years. The first two parshiyos [cover] 2,000 years, and the other parshiyos [cover] 500 years. The reason for this difference is because Avraham Avinu was born in the year 1948 [from creation]—1,948 years after Bereishis, after creation—and 52 years later it was 2,000 years, and this became a new phase, because this was the time that Avraham Avinu began to spread the knowledge of Hashem and consequently became what he was. So this is why the Torah—this is 2,000 years—and this [next period] is more in detail. The beginning of our story goes into more detail, so all the stories that we learn in the Torah go into more detail, because there's more that we can learn.

In other words, all the things that [Hashem] created this week—trees, birds, fishes, land animals, and man—the purpose, the sake of everything, is because of Adam and Chava, and this is what we can learn as a yerusha from it. [After that,] it speaks about Sarah and all the things that happened in the desert, and everything that happened within a period of 500 years—because this is the only thing that we can learn out—so that's why this goes into details. So the reason is—history, you could learn out from this, but this is not what Torah is. Torah is not a history book. Torah is not history, Torah is a lesson. This is very, very important—that's why we see, as the others paved their path, their derech, for us to learn out—this is example, this is the maasim, the stories of Torah.

Number two is, of course, mitzvos—we said before, what you have to do, what you don't have to do. Shabbos—why do we keep Shabbos? Because Hashem kept Shabbos, and also Kiddush Hashem we learn out, and whatever it says in the stories.

And the third part is the deep understanding of Torah, that will bring us—by learning more in depth—that will bring us how we should live in our everyday life, how we should look at the whole world. Now, any history book that we learn, that we read, or a person goes to college and gets his PhD—that's it, that's all, he has that, that's all it is. Torah is bli sof [without end]—so the more you learn Torah, the more you see the depth, the more you see how much you don't know.

I just want to mention, before I finish here, that Rabbi Mindel writes—but the Rebbe makes sure to correct—that people write "Adam and Chava"—this week again in English they call Adam and Chava "Adam and Eve." They call Chava "Eve," and [the Rebbe] didn't like that. This also—I hear many speakers also say "Adam and Eve," and you shouldn't say "Eve." In old English, "Eve" comes from the word "evil"—a woman is "evil," which is the opposite of Torah. Torah—a woman is called "Chava," from "chai"—she brings life into this world. She is praised—women are very important. But because of the translation over the years, it remained like this, that a woman is called "Eve."

Just like, for example—also in old English, I think I mentioned it once—Rabbi Mindel writes [that] "levaya" means to accompany, but in English they call it "funeral," because "funeral" comes from "fumes," used to burn the body. There are many, many words that you have to be very careful with. The Rebbe was very careful that every word has to be exact—that if the usage is not correct, that's what I want to bring out in this.

So there's much more to speak about on the parsha, but of course we'll leave it for another time, and next week we will continue our weekly program. Thank you very much.