BS”D Parashat Bereisheit 5783
by Rabbi Nachman Kahana | Oct 20, 2022
The Message of the Sixth Day
This Shabbat we will begin a new cycle of Torah reading, with the episode of the creation leading up to the fall of man and the world-wide flood that killed all humanity, save the family of Noach.
The Creator divided His handiwork into six days. Day one was the only time when HaShem created matter from nothing – ex nihilo; including light, the remaining five days saw various forms of entities which evolved from created matter. Every day was distinct in the items which entered the world. Day two saw the creation of the void we call the universe. Day three, the appearance of the continents above the ocean waters and the flora world. Day four the heavenly bodies including the 200 billion trillion stars and our miniscule solar system were put into place. Day five the ocean creatures and those that fly took their place in the world. On day six HaShem created terrestrial beasts and humans.
Question: Why were humans created together with the terrestrial animals on day six? Would it not have been more appropriate to have all the sea and land animals, including fish and birds, created on Thursday, and then leave Friday, day six, to be dedicated to the highest achievement of creation – human beings?
In addition, humans and chimpanzees share a surprising 98.8 percent of their DNA. How can we be so similar, yet so different?
Answer: HaShem was delivering a message: humans and beasts share very similar DNA, but with one very essential difference: humans were gifted with the ability to distinguish between high ethical and moral behavior versus hedonistic and animalistic lifestyles, which prioritize pleasure above all else.
The message was a warning to humans; that they could easily drift into bestiality with greater craftiness and cunning. A chimpanzee can attack and even kill a human being, but he cannot make crematoria or gas chambers. The Germans and their allies including the church fathers in Spain and all those who partook in the many pogroms in Europe are living examples of humans who became animals.
In the Shoah, the Chelmno killing center began the murders. The Germans later establish other such camps in that general area, such as: Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek. Victims at Chelmno were killed in gas vans. The Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka camps used carbon monoxide generated by stationary engines attached to gas chambers. Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of the killing centers, had four large gas chambers using Zyklon B. The gas chambers at Majdanek used both carbon monoxide and Zyklon B.
Millions of our brothers and sisters were murdered in the gas chambers and by other diabolical sadistic means as part of the culturally advanced German ideal called the “Final Solution”. However, as we Jews know so well, every generation had its Nazis who were no more moral although less technologically advanced.
In the final verse in the Book of Yona, HaShem explains to the runaway prophet why He so much does not want to destroy the evil does in the city of Ninveh:
וַאֲנִי לֹא אָחוּס עַל נִינְוֵה הָעִיר הַגְּדוֹלָה אֲשֶׁר יֶשׁ בָּהּ הַרְבֵּה מִשְׁתֵּים עֶשְׂרֵה רִבּוֹ אָדָם אֲשֶׁר לֹא יָדַע בֵּין יְמִינוֹ לִשְׂמֹאלוֹ וּבְהֵמָה רַבָּה:
And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left and also many animals!?
HaShem declared that the 120 thousand inhabitants of Nineveh had lost their sense of conscience and descended to the level of animals, but He must give them an opportunity to return to human behavior by doing teshuva.
The people of Nineveh did repent their evil ways and the city was not destroyed at that time. However, the prophet Nachum (seventh of the 12 minor secondary prophets) in chapter three predicts that since the city reverted back to their animalistic way of life they will be destroyed. It was destroyed in 612 B.C.E by a Babylonian alliance.
But even the animal world has its beneficial ones and dangerous ones which have to be destroyed like poisonous snakes and scorpions. Amalek is one of them, and there are elements of Amelek in every nation with whom we have had contact among the descendants of Aisav and Yishmael.
Down Under
We have been informed that the government of Australia has repealed their recognition of Yerushalayim as the capitol of the State of Israel. Australia is known as “down under”, a most appropriate name. But what can one expect from a country that was founded by convicted criminals? On January 26, 1788, Captain Arthur Phillip guided a fleet of 11 British ships carrying convicts to the colony of New South Wales, effectively founding Australia. In recent times, the country has become increasingly controversial when recalling that these “aristocratic” colonizers dispossessed the continent’s indigenous people from their land.
It appears that the emotional and psychological infrastructure of the descendants of Aisav and Yishmael are unable to inculcate that their success is dependent on the degree with which they relate positively to the Jews within their borders and to the degree that they assist, abet, advance, encourage, facilitate, and defend the State of Israel.
What Australia has done is irrelevant to our relations with the world at-large. However, since a gentile is never far from crossing the Rubicon (expression that refers to a difficult decision with irreversible consequences or to pass the point of no return) of anti-Semitism, it takes very little to create a snowball effect wherein other countries will reject our capital of 3000 years and eventually reject the “legitimacy” of our national state.
A short anecdote to illustrate the point:
A Jew converted out at the insistence of his gentile wife-to-be; so Max became Mathew. On the morning after the wedding, Mathew got up to daven and donned his tefillin. The new bride angrily called out, “Mathew, you are now a gentile”! The confused groom put his hand on his forehead and screamed out, “Oy, a Goi’ishe kop” (someone who clearly doesn’t think ahead)!
A short question on a very large subject:
What comes to your mind when seeing the dramatic scenes of Russian Jews scrambling to escape “Mother Russia”, with many locked in, unable to leave? (Feel free to add your thoughts on MeWe, Twitter or Facebook).
Shabbat Shalom and a healthy winter.
Nachman Kahana
Copyright © 5783/2022 Nachman Kahana
No comments:
Post a Comment