The New Torah Cycle Started! Parshas Bereishis: First Aliyah
What I learned from reading the first aliyah of Parshas Bereishis:
Hashem gives the Land of Israel to whomever He pleases, and He gave it to the Jewish people B”H. This shows us that the whole world belongs to Hashem.
Bereishis 1:1 does not say “Lord G-d’s Creation (bara Adokai Elokim)” but says “G-d’s Creation (bara Elokim)” because initially G-d’s Intention was to create the world with the Divine Standard of Justice. But He saw that the world would not endure, so He preceded it with the Divine Standard of Mercy, allying with the Divine Standard of Justice.
Hashem hollowed the seventh day with manna, by not having manna descend at all. He doubled up the work on the sixth day, so as to do no work on Shabbos. This is what Jewish people need to do as well.
Hashem blessed the creatures in the sea and the fowels, because He knew the people would decimate and hunt them. However the beasts were not included in the blessing even though they needed the blessing too, lest the serpent would be blessed, because the serpent was destined to be cursed.
It was as though Hashem created men with a mold, which was the image of the likeness of the Creator Himself. Also the rest of the Creation was created by His verbal commands, whereas men were created with hte Hands of G-d. Originally men were created with two faces and afterwards Hashem divided them.
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When Rashi says man was created with a die (or a coin stamp/seal), he means that God formed humanity using a specific mold or impress, contrasting it with how the rest of creation was spoken into existence. [1]
The Meaning of the “Die”
- Creation by Mold: On Genesis 1:27 (“So God created man in His image”), Rashi explains that man was made like a coin minted from a metal die or pressed with a seal (coin in old French). [1]
- By Hand vs. By Word: Everything else in the universe was brought into being through a verbal command (fiat), whereas man was formed through a direct, physical act (“by hand”), like a stamp pressing an imprint into clay or metal. [1]
- Shared Form: This signifies that humanity was assigned a unique, deliberate physical and spiritual template — the form of the Creator — rather than just appearing through general spoken decree. [1, 2]
Male subdues female and she should not be a gadabout. The men are commanded to propagate, not the women.
The reason there is a hei added to shishi (hashishi), is to tell us that the world was created under the condition that Israel will except the five books of the Torah. The numerical value of hei is five. Also it alludes to the Sixth day of Sivan, which was prepared for the giving of the Torah. ‘The’ Sixth Day = Yom ‘Ha’Shishi.
