Comentários de Citação sobre Gênesis 2:4

ואלה המשפטים, “and these are the ordinances, etc.;” Rashi has pointed out that whenever a paragraph in the Torah commences with the word אלה, this signifies that it is not a continuation of something that had been written previously. However, when the paragraph begins with the word: ואלה, “and these, etc., it signals some kind of continuation. From Rashi’s words it would appear that the laws promulgated from here on in did not originate at Sinai as when the Torah wrote in Exodus 19,20 that Hashem descended to Mount Sinai, the whole point was that He did so in order to give the people the whole Torah.In order to solve this apparent contradiction, we need to view the word: פסל used by Rashi to signify a break with what preceded it, is to be understood as in Exodus 34,1 where G–d told Moses to hew himself two Tablets to replace the ones he had shattered after coming down from the Mountain for the first time. The act of “hewing” means to separate what you carve out from a greater quantity of the same base material, i.e. rock. In other words, what we are going to read from here on in are laws that, though of the same origin as the Ten Commandments, had been separated somewhat in time from when and how they were presented to the people. What Rashi meant to tell us was that if this paragraph had commenced with the word אלה, I would have thought that what followed was not of Sinaitic origin at all. In order not to mislead the reader, the Torah added the prefix ו to make clear that what follows was also of Sinaitic origin, i.e. G–d taught Moses all the Torah while he was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights. The letter ו here has the same meaning as the word את in Exodus 9,29, where Moses said: כצאתי את העיר, “when I go out from the city.” We find a similar construction in Deuteronomy 28,69: אלה דברי הברית, “these are the words of the covenant, ”where the admonitions have been separated from the blessings. The blessings in that paragraph had been preceded by curses. We find something similar in Deuteronomy 1,1: אלה הדברים אשר דבר משה, “these are the words which Moses had spoken, etc.” where we cannot understand this as something unconnected to what preceded it, but the letter ו is omitted as we are dealing with a different Book of the Torah, one that had not been dictated to Moses, but which G–d had approved after the event as deserving to be part of the written Torah. In Genesis 2,4 the words אלה תולדות השמים והארץ, “these are the generations of heaven and earth are separated from the prehistoric period when the Torah had described the tohu vavohu which had preceded the creation of light.

בראשית ברא אלוקים, let the “intellectuals” realize that all the words of our sages and their interpretations are true and accurate. This is what the Talmud (Shabbat 63) had in mind when it quoted Rav Kahane saying that he had studied the Talmud until the age of 18 and had not yet appreciated that although the laws of the Torah are derived from the text, none of the interpretations are such that they can uproot the plain meaning of the text. They are based on anomalies in the text, not on the text itself wherever the law derived from the Torah appears to conflict with the plain meaning of the text. One example is Genesis 2,4 where the word בהבראם, a most unusual construction, used by the sages to declare that the world was created “for the sake of, or with the help of אברהם,” (Bereshit Rabbah 12,9) seeing that the letters in that word are the same as the ones in the name אברהם, [though in a different sequence. Ed.]
I shall list the explanations of earlier commentators of old, in order to demonstrate why I did not follow in their footsteps. Some scholars understand the first verse to mean that “at the beginning G’d created heaven and earth.” This is an erroneous explanation, seeing that water preceded the creation of heaven and earth as we know from verse 2 where “the spirit of G’d” is described as already “hovering over the surface of the water.” Moreover, the Torah did not write בראשונה, which would have been appropriate if it had wanted to tell us that heaven and earth preceded all other phenomena in the universe. The word בראשית is in a construct mode, as in Genesis 10,10 ותהי ראשית ממלכתו בבל “the mainstay of his kingdom was Babylon.” A construct mode like this cannot describe the commencement of something but refers to something already in existence. As to the scholars who understand the word as equivalent to the word תחלה in Hoseah 1,2 i.e. so that it would mean “at the beginning G’d created the heaven,” i.e. before He created heaven and earth there was chaos, darkness on the face of the water, etc., so that it emerges that water had been created first, this too is nonsense. How could the Torah refer to a state of the earth prior to creation of the heaven?
The plain meaning of the text is, as occurs many times, that something may be mentioned first in one instance although elsewhere this same phenomenon is mentioned as having occurred at a later stage. In Genesis 9,18 we are told about the three sons of Noach who left the ark after the deluge being Shem, Cham and Yephet, and the Torah adds that Cham was the father of Canaan. Although the information about Canaan is quite out of place at this juncture, the fact that later on the Torah tells us that Noach cursed Canaan, makes it necessary to mention him here, as otherwise we would not have known who this Canaan was whom Noachh cursed in verse 25 of the same chapter. We have a similar situation in Genesis 35,22 where, although Reuven’s conduct with Yaakov’s concubine Bilhah is mentioned, Yaakov’s reaction is not mentioned until shortly before his death when he explains why Reuven had not been viewed by him as suitable to occupy the position normally accorded to a firstborn (Genesis 49,3-4). In 35,22 the Torah already tells us that Yaakov had heard about what Reuven had done. Had the Torah not done so, the reader would have been taken aback at Yaakov’s remonstrating with Reuven at this late stage.
There are many such examples. Our entire paragraph here was written by Moses in order for us to understand what is written in the Ten Commandments concerning the reason why the Sabbath is holy, i.e. that it is a symbol reminding us of the fact that G’d created the universe in 6 days and rested on the seventh day. (Exodus 20,10) If anyone were to think that the universe as such had already existed then in the format that we see it now, the Torah corrects such thinking by continuing with

And Moses called, etc. It is evident that this section is one of comfort and is meant to reassure Israel after the ninety-eight curses, which do not fall on any [other] nation or culture when they are exiled and punished by the ruling nation. Which is to say that the dispersal is not so far—among all the nations from one end of the earth, etc. (Deuteronomy 28:64), and also the suffering at the time of their destruction is not so extreme, as Daniel said: He fulfilled his word on us that he spoke against us... bringing on us this great tragedy, that there has never been done under the heavens what was done in Jerusalem (Daniel 9:12). And Moses intends to placate the people.

But these comforts are not transparent. And what new disclosure did he make to them that would calm their hearts? And the final verse also isn’t clear: And you shall keep the words of this covenant, etc.—what is there to keep and to do with this covenant, which is nothing but receiving blessings and curses?

Before we come to the explanation of the verses, we must remark that Israel are called by God’s name for His glory and kingship—so that through them, God’s glory and kingship may be revealed over the whole world. And if the glory of God’s kingship cannot be revealed any other way, we cannot clamor against this, because it is for this purpose that we were created. And like a flesh and blood king, who conscripts his soldiers to great labor in frequent war—in the day they do not rest, and in the night they have no quiet, and also they are endangered and injured in the war—they cannot complain about this at all. For this is not, God forbid, from the ill intentions of the king. Rather, it is because he needs to expand his kingdom, and that is how he comes to be king in the province. And thus, they enter into his service with strength and guard the kingdom with their bodies and with their lives. So too, the King of kings of kings, the Holy Blessed One, created His world in order that His glory fill all of creation, as is written in the book of Genesis 2:4. And to that end, He took us to be His nation and His slaves, so that this purpose will be fulfilled through our agency. Therefore, any way necessity provides to arrive at that end, we have nothing to complain about at all. We have already explained in Genesis 17:4 that this is the meaning of I have made you the father of many nations (Genesis 17:4)—that Abraham and his descendents were sanctified as the chosen nation to be a covenent of peoples and a light of nations (Isaiah 42:6) through their faith, even without them being converts and entering within Israel, rather by displacing idolatry from the land. And this is clarified also in the binding of Isaac, that the descendents of Abraham were sanctified for this purpose, to reach that end, even through all the suffering in the world. And we explained there King David’s statement in the name of the children of Israel, though you crushed us in a place of beasts, ... For your sake we were killed all day, we were considered as sheep for the slaughter (Psalms 44:20-23); see there (Harchev Davar on Genesis 22:17). That is the overall essense of the matter.

And now we will come to the clarification of the verses with which Moses our teacher placated all of Israel, and said you saw all that God did, etc. (Deuteronomy 29:1)—he began that in everything you saw, God showed the essense of His desire, that His name and glory grow in the whole land. And he explained how He thus demonstrated this purpose:

ברא אלהים GOD [AS JUDGE] CREATED — It does not state 'ברא ה “The Lord (the Merciful One) created, because at first God intended to create it (the world) to be placed under the attribute (rule) of strict justice, but He realised that the world could not thus endure and therefore gave precedence to Divine Mercy allying it with Divine Justice. It is to this that what is written in (Genesis 2:4) alludes — “In the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven”.