Journal 2024-10-30 Wednesday afternoon.

A week since my last post. The holiday season is well and truly finished, and the Prayer for Rain has been duly re-added to the daily prayers. The Almighty must have been listening, because, at least in my neck of the woods, the rainy season has begun right on cue.

I've had a couple of job interviews, but nothing has come through yet. The state Employment Office finally saw its way clear to approve my unemployment benefits, and I'm now getting just enough to stave off abject destitution while I scrounge up some work. I'm driving food deliveries, too, which doesn't pay a ton of money but it's a few extra dollars when I need it, which I do.

And as I'm sure everybody knows, the US election - or at least, its official date - is a week away. While I'm apprehensive about what the election and the ensuing 3 - 4 months will bring, I am mostly staying focused on practical matters and staying connected with local friends and community. [169]

Genesis - Parashath Bereshith - First Aliyah: Creation and order.

FIRST ALIYAH: CREATION AND ORDER.
[1:1 - 2:3]

In the beginning verses of the Bible, we see the Creator fashioning the world, and man in it, bringing forth first chaos, then order, then complexity.

The order of Creation is logical, not chronological. Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz (The Steinsaltz Humash, p.10, note on v. 20) points out that the creatures created after the fourth day “would not grow and develop blindly, like vegetation, but would move and have some measure of will.” I’ll add that all of the creatures created after the fourth day (when the heavenly bodies were created as distinct light sources) have eyes – unlike plants, which can “see” only light and darkness.

One thing that stands out about the creation narrative is the role of Divine speech in the act of creation. The Word of G-d is the instrument that fashions order out of primal chaos.

Another thing I’d like to point out here is the role of number. Already, in just the fifth verse of the Bible, we’ve started counting: “… and it was evening, and it was morning, one day.” And each following day is numbered in succession. People sometimes say that “the Bible is not a book of science” – well, maybe not, but there sure are a lot of numbers in it.

Here, in this very first occurrence of numbers in the Bible, what is being measured is time, and that with a specific purpose: to involve man in the process of the Creation. Although the commandment to observe the Sabbath is not made explicit until later, it is first mentioned at the end of the Creation story (at the beginning of Chapter 2).

In fact, even before the Sabbath, we’re told that the luminaries were created “for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years.” That is, man is expected to observe the regular processes of nature and study their patterns. He is to create a calendar. (And in fact, Jewish tradition understands this commandment to mean that the calendar must incorporate three elements: the solar cycle, the lunar cycle, and the week – that is, a purely numerical element which is not dependent on natural phenomena but is reckoned by the mind of man alone.)

The Creation story of Genesis is profoundly spiritual, affirming our place in the order of Creation. It is deeply moral, calling on us to act in accord with the will of the Supreme Being. And, too, it is supremely scientific in its worldview, inviting us to engage cognitively with the processes of the world around us. Genesis comes to teach us, not a mere collection of disconnected “facts”, but rather how to think about the universe: as a theatre of unfolding, orderly events, proceeding from a single First Cause, that can be known and understood – at least in part – by the mind of man. [468]