Bereshis / בראשית

The parshathe weekly Torah portion this week covers Judaism's primary creation myth and the almost-immediate fall of man. This is the beginning of the Torah, and the beginning of the annual learning cycle. It's (roughly) the beginning of the Jewish year. The beginning of my weekly parsha newsletter.

But it doesn't feel like the beginning of anything. We're one year into what can only be described as a genocide in Palestine, funded by America and Europe in the name of "Jewish safety" (read: Western imperialism). No one even pretends to care about the hostages anymore as a justification for flattening Gaza, displacing thousands in the West Bank, and striking Beirut. The world has felt like it's been in rapid decline since the Gulf War, America's first Forever War. The Doomsday Clock is at 90 seconds to midnight. We are not in the beginning. We're not in even in the beginning of the end.

How are we expected to greet each year, each week, each Shabos, each yontifholiday, each morning as though it were completely new? How are we supposed to find fresh joy in the world when every day in Palestine is the worst yet; when every day, new depths to the horrors of war are revealed?

It is a profoundly lonely time to be an antizionist Jew, or a Jewish leftist, or an orthodox antizionist trans Jewish leftist. But still we read and wrestle with Torah.

The whole parsha paints a bleak picture of humanity. After Hashem creates everything else, man/Odomaka Adam is formed from dust and woman/Khavaaka Eve is formed of man. (There's so much gender this week, but for once that's not what I want to talk about.) Odom and Khava disobey Hashem and eat from the Tree Of Knowledge Of Good And Evil; they gain knowledge, and shame. They are cursed for their transgression: Odom to till the land, itself now cursed; and Khava to painful childbirth and subjugation from her husband. They are both cursed to share a mutual hostility. They are exiled from Gan-Eydn. Their first son, Kainaka Cain, murders his brother Hevelaka Abel. Many more people are born and die, and none merit more than a mention of their name, their age, and sometimes their occupation. Our main characters die, and YiddishkeytJewishness moves on.

On a meta level, the parsha paints a bleak picture of Jews: what do we think of people that this is our creation myth? Humanity is inherently flawed—or worse, evil. We are gullible, ungrateful, disobedient, cursed, ashamed, burdened, jealous, and violent. We are far from Godliness, which we are supposed to associate with goodness. We are not good.

We are nothing, born from nothing, or even less than nothing: the rib of nothing. We don't matter. Eventually, we die. We may as well not exist. This is emphasized again and again in our liturgy, including with Hevel's name, הבל, which means vanity, vapor, nothingness—a word that's used throughout our prayers to describe humanity's smallness and fleetingness.

Our collective punishment for daring to know—or, to try to know—is suffering and eventual death. We are cursed to toil, and we won't forget our suffering even while eating. (Arguably, the primary command made of Jews is to remember our suffering. Remember what they did to us. Remember what we did to ourselves.)

If all our suffering wasn't enough to wish we were never born, in the final 4 pasukimverses of Torah of the parsha, Hashem regrets the creation of humanity because we are evil. Hashem wants to destroy not only us but all the animals on the Earth. (We pause to enjoy the contradiction of omnipotence and regret, the tension of being desired and undesired.) Humanity has failed so utterly that continuing, even existing, seems impossible.

But, in the final line of the final aliyaa segment of the Torah reading, Noyakhaka Noah alone merits the continuation of humanity. The parsha ends here; we don't read about Noyakh and the ark until next week. Time spirals. What did Noyakh do, what will he do, what has he always will be done?

A single good person, or a single act of goodness—of truth, solidarity, resistance—is not enough to merit our collective redemption. The world's slate cannot simply be wiped clean after so much violence and trauma and injustice and death. Yet, we continue the struggle. We keep helping each other. We keep arguing and refusing and resting and celebrating. We keep reading Torah. I don't know if we will win, or how we would even measure victory, but I know that we have to keep fighting as though our victory is assured: it's our only hope. And it's an honor to fight alongside so many principled, dedicated, flawed comrades.