Precious Potential

Every year that I learn through פרשת בראשית, I experience a sense of dejection. I ask how Adam and Chava could’ve been so close to perfection and made such a boneheaded decision. How could Kayin’s first reaction be one of violence against his brother. As רש''י explains, the trees were supposed to grow with their wood tasting like the fruit but they chose not to. Whatever that means, the beginning of the world fills me with the same feeling I get when watching the Mets. This same sorry mistake again? We have so much going for us but we can’t even make the playoffs?

In a word, a central theme throughout the פרשה (and arguably the entire תורה) is the role of potential. There are countless examples of the importance of potential throughout בראשית. The רמב"ן places the concept of bringing the כח אל הפועל at the very center of Creation as a whole. He understands that ברא is the Hebrew word of creating יש מאין and that before anything else, הקב"ה needed to create the initial basic matter from which everything else would be formed. In another sense, the moon had the chance to be equally as significant as the sun, yet it lost that chance due to pettiness.

In the most obvious example, as referenced above, Adam and Chava needed to abide one negative commandment, yet they were coaxed into failure by the נחש. As seems to be the general perception of חז"ל, if they had been able to say no, we would’ve never left גן עדן. The entire trajectory of the world shifted drastically because of that one choice. There was so much potential in the world, yet everything went wrong from the start.

The story continues with קין and הבל. The מלבי"ם explains that קין was under the mistaken impression that humans had no potential at all. Instead, they lacked free will, just like animals. This was why הקב"ה told him אם תיטיב שאת ואם לא תיטיב לפתח חטאת רובץ ואליך תשוקתו ואתה תמשל בו. Hashem was teaching קין that he has the choice before him how to act. However, he took הקב"ה literally and thought לפתח חטאת רובץ to be referring to the only other physical being in his orbit– his brother (ויאמר קין אל הבל אחיו – and he said that 'ה must be referring to הבל his brother). He was unable to see that הקב"ה was trying to show him that humans have the ability to choose, resulting in his choice to eliminate the threat before him.

Switching gears, I was always curious as to the connection between שמיני עצרת and שמחת תורה. What is the connection between the end of the ימים נוראים season and the restarting of the תורה cycle?

Based on the above and picking up from where Zach left off last week, I would suggest that the point is maximizing our potential. After a long יום טוב season where we hopefully renewed our relationship with הקב"ה, we return to our houses and our day-to-day lives. With that return, we need the reminder that we have so much potential with our fresh slate. בראשית reminds us of the importance of capitalizing on that potential and the disastrous consequences of going the wrong way. As I heard from Rav Isaac Rice quoting Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, our directive of וכבשוה highlights our job to be creative and active in our lives. We are here to produce and build. We are here to bring our כח אל הפועל.