Here is a thread from my Covenant & Conversation essay on #Bereishit called "The Genesis of Love". Read: bit.ly/2qzeLkg (English), bit.ly/35WkKzU (Hebrew). Family Edition: bit.ly/2W7EyM8 (English). Listen: spoti.fi/33Npq9s. #ShabbatShalom
In Genesis 1, God creates things – chemical elements, stars, planets, lifeforms, biological species. In Genesis 2-3, He creates people. In the first chapter, He creates systems, in the second chapter He creates relationships.
It is fundamental to the Torah’s view of reality that these things belong to different worlds, distinct narratives, separate stories, alternative ways of seeing reality.
In Genesis 1, God creates the universe. Nothing vaster can be imagined, and we keep discovering that the universe is bigger than we thought.
And yet, almost in the same breath as it speaks of the panoply of creation, the Torah tells us that God took time to breathe the breath of life into the first human, give him dignified work, enter his loneliness, make him a wife...
...and robe them both with garments of light when the time came for them to leave Eden and make their way in the world.
The Torah is telling us something very powerful. Never think of people as things. Never think of people as types: they are individuals. Never be content with creating systems: care also about relationships.
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