Mining the Riches of the Parsha on Bereishit | 2026.10.08

Good evening and welcome to Mining the Riches of the Parsha. Tonight is Thursday night, October 8th, 2026. I missed you over the last couple of weeks, and I'm very, very happy to be back with you. And I'm looking forward to being able to continue with God's help on Thursday nights at 7 p.m. Thank you very much. Nisivo Shalom is a well-known commentary to the Torah, written by a very important Hasidic Rebbe, known as the Slanama Rebbe, Rabbi Shalom Nakh Berezovsky, and he says that every person needs to read the Torah, needs to learn the Torah, as if it is written for you specifically, for me specifically. In other words, this week, the Shabbos, we start parishes. We start at the beginning of the Torah. We're not studying parishes as history or as science. We're not studying it as something that happened a long time ago. We're studying it as something that has a message for every one of us right now. And that means that it could have somewhat of a different message for each of us. And it also means that every year it may have a different message for the same person. The Torah is speaking to me this week, this Shabbos, and to you. And so, if that's the case, then let me ask, why does the Torah tell us about Kain and Havel, Kain and Abel, the two sons of Adam and Haver? The Torah tells us that Adam and Eve, Adam and Haver, had two sons, Kain and Havel, Kain and Abel. And the Torah says, Vayomer Kain el Havel ahiv, Kain said to his brother Havel, Vayi b Yosem basada, and it was when they were in the field, Vayokom Kain el Havel ahiv vayahargehu, and Kain rose up against his brother Havel and murdered him. So the Pasek is very cryptic because it starts, Vayomer Kain el Havel ahiv. Kain said to Havel his brother. Now normally we would expect that to be followed by what Kain said, but the Torah doesn't go any further with that. Kain said something to Havel, and then the next thing we know is that Kain murders his brother Havel. So what did Kain say to Havel before murdering him, and why was Kain so apparently angry with his brother that he murdered him? It's a horrible, terrible narrative. And of course, again, it's not simply to, I'm sorry, there's someone at the someone has it. No, no, it someone has it. It's not simply to tell us the history. There's a message for me, for you, that we have to know about this story. What is it? You're correct. I did not start with the first Pasek. I also did not start with the first Pasek, Buresh Bara'elakim. I started with the first Pasek that relates to this narrative. Okay, so you're saying, okay, so you're saying maybe what they talked about was what happened before about offering offerings. Okay, it could be, but there's no, okay, that's one suggestion. Our sages in the Medrish offer three different opinions about what they were arguing about that caused Kain to be so angry that he murdered his brother Havel. First opinion goes like this. They said to each other, we're the only two people, two men. So let's divide the world between us. We have the whole world ourselves. So let's divide it and we'll do it like this. One of us will take the land, the real estate, and the other will take everything that's movable. The plants that are hard, I guess that are harvested, but the animals, everything that's movable. So one person has the movable property and the other person has the in French immoblique, the immove non movable property. So okay, they divided it like that. So the first one said to the other one, the ground that you're walking on belongs to me. I want you to fly up in the air. You have no right to walk on my ground because the ground belongs to me. And the other one says, the clothes that you're wearing belong to me. I want you to take off your clothes. And as a result of that argument, Cayenne rose up and murdered his brother Havel. That's one opinion. Second opinion is as follows. They divided everything differently. They divided both the real estate and the movable property. You get half and I get half, but they had a dispute because the dispute was they knew that in the future there would be a Baitamik Dosh, a holy temple in a very holy city of Jerusalem. But it wasn't yet known where it was going to be. So one brother said the Baitamik Dosh, the holy temple will be built in my portion. And the other one said, no, it'll be built in my portion. And that led Cayenne to murder his brother, Havel. Second opinion. The third opinion says as follows. I alluded to this a few minutes ago. Our rabbis tell us that when each of those sons were born, Cayenne and Havel, there was a twin sister born with them. The Torah doesn't mention that, but our rabbis assert that. And that's how we understand that they propagated. But when Havel was born, there weren't, there wasn't one sister. There were two. So well, I guess it was triplets, a total of triplets. One boy and two girls. So Cayenne and Havel each had a wife, but there's one extra woman. So Cayenne says, I'm the first born. I'm entitled. And Havel says, but she's my twin. She was born with me. I'm entitled. And as a result of that, Cayenne rose up and murdered Havel. Okay. That's what our rabbis say. It's very, very difficult to understand. But Rabi'uhtah, Amitah explains the truth is it's not so difficult to understand. And he explains as follows. The first opinion that they divided one person had the land, the other person had everything moveable. What was the argument? It was about power. Cayenne said, get off my land. Havel said, take off my clothes. There was a power struggle between them. We see to this day that power struggles between people and between groups and between nations lead to murder, to war, to death. So while it sounds fantastical when we're describing it, when we're asserting it for Cayenne and Havel, in fact, it is a very, very realistic situation that applies today. That's the first one. Second one, they divided both the land and the movable in two portions, but they argued where the Baitamik Dasha would be, where the holy temple would be. They argued over religion. One said, I want to have, I'm closer to God, I'm closer to holiness. And the other said, no, I'm closer to holiness. Again, sounds fantastical when we assert it to these two brothers, but look around today. Arguments over religion cause murder, cause wars, cause tremendous strife, cause death. The third opinion that they were arguing over who would marry this third sister. Again, it's a very fantastical thing and I don't know work exactly and what's going on exactly, but jealousy remains today. A reason for people who fight with each other, a reason for groups to fight with each other, a reason for nations to fight with each other, and it leads to war and it leads to death. And Rev Amital points out how much of the world surus, how much of the problems in the world and how much of the problems in our own lives are caused by one of these three, power or religion or jealousy. They remain even today. The top three, bases or reasons or provocations for war, for death, and Al says, why do we need to learn this? What is the message for us today? And I would say this lesson applies today more than any other time before, but of course every person and every generation would say the same thing, but we have to understand that these struggles, these reasons for strife, they're not new. They have existed since the very beginning of mankind, and we must constantly work to avoid, to avert the disasters that come from these three provocations. We're not going to solve it. We have not solved it as a human race. So we have to take perpetual caution not to get caught up in these areas because the destruction that they cause goes back to the very beginning of mankind. And that is a tremendously important lesson for us today. So let's explore a couple of ways to try to take this precaution, to not get caught up in this type of destructive behavior. In the Parashah of Hazinu, we read this a couple of weeks ago, the Torah says, Hatzur tamim polo, God the Rock, His works, His actions are perfect. We discussed this a couple of weeks ago. God is perfect. So if God is perfect and everything that God does is perfect, I have two questions. I have two questions about the world that God created. Number one, why did God create the world unfinished? Let me give you some examples of what I mean. Why didn't God create clothing for Adam and Eve? Adam and Eve, the Torah tells us that they had no clothes. Why didn't God just make clothes as part of this first six days of creation? It is rhetorical. I'm going to provide an answer. Number two, why did God, why didn't God create the world with food that is edible? The Torah says that bizeh s'apecha tochal echem, you're going to have to work very, very hard to be able to have food to eat. You have to plant. You have to harvest. You have to get it. It's a lot of work. It's very difficult. Even today, to earn a living, to have food can be very, very difficult. Why did God have to make it so difficult? Why didn't God create the world in such a way that people would have food ready to eat? Number two, number three, why does the Torah tell us why did God decide to create two people? God created one person, Adam and then a second person, Chava, Adam and then Eve. And the whole world is descended from the two of them. Why not create, I don't know, 10, a thousand, I don't know. Why not create a society? Why not create a community? Why create just two people? One last question. There's a midst from the Torah of Brismila, ritual circumcision. We've discussed this before. A baby boy is born, a Jewish baby boy, all baby boys, almost all baby boys are born with this extra piece of skin and Jewish boys, there's a commandment that Jewish boys, eight days old, if it's possible, you have to cut off that extra piece of skin. If God doesn't want Jewish boys to have that piece of skin, why did God create them with an extra piece that they just have to get rid of? Again, why not create the world finished, God, the way you want it to be, the final product? Why create it unfinished? That's question number one. Question number two is as follows, especially on Yom Kippur and before Yom Kippur, we discussed the Yud-Gimel Midos, the 13 attributes of mercy. We repeated that in our Slihos prayers. We repeated it over and over on Yom Kippur. Hashem, Hashem, Kail, Rakhun, M'chanun, merciful God, merciful God, etc. Slow to anger, truthful, etc. 13 attributes of mercy. The first two are a repetition, Hashem, Yud and then hay and Avav and then hay, which indicates that's God's attribute of mercy. So merciful God, merciful God, how do you count that as two in order to get to 13? It's the same word, it's the same attribute, you're just repeating it. I mean, if you want to have 13 attributes, you could just have one, repeat it 13 times. That doesn't make it 13 attributes. Why repeat it? So our sages say it's two different elements of God's mercy. The first word is that God is merciful before a person commits a sin and the second word is God is merciful after a person commits a sin. So the question is obvious. Why do we need God to be merciful before we commit the sin? If we have not yet committed a sin, we don't need mercy. Our sages explain, God is merciful in that God gives us the ability to do a sin. Well, that's very strange. That's very strange because why doesn't God prevent that? Why does God create human beings with free choice which enables us, what's the record of what we do with our free choice? Well, it includes hurting each other, God forbid, rebelling against God, God forbid, doing terrible things. And the only way that we're able to do that is because God gives us the strength, the physical ability and the mental ability to choose to do that. But if stealing is wrong, why didn't God just create the world that stealing was not possible? If God does not want Jewish people to eat treif, non-Kosha food, if that's what God wants and that appears to be the case because God does command that to us. But if that's the case, God, if that's the result you want, I've got a suggestion. Just make it that when a Jewish person lifts up the fork and there's non-Kosha food, the hand won't move. It's very simple. You can get your goal much easier. So, I want you to listen to this story. This is a fictional story, but it's a story with a very important message. Now, the story is written as if it is written by a woman who is the mayor of a small town. And she writes this story. She says, I won the election in this small town. It's called Harmony Creek, okay, fictional. I won by a handful of votes. And I came into office to be the mayor of a town that is completely consumed with arguments and controversies. Every meeting is a shouting match. Every discussion ends with people losing their temper. Nobody gets along and nothing gets done. Now, the symbol of the dysfunctionality of this town is a piece of land that's owned by the city and people call it the lot. The lot. It's a piece of land. It's not used by anybody. It's filled with weeds and junk and broken glass and parts from cars. And it's an eyesore. It is a tetanus shot waiting to happen. And everybody in the town agrees the lot is a problem. But nobody could agree on a solution. Some people wanted to sell it to a private individual. Let a developer take care of it. Some people wanted area that preserves the environment and lets nature. Some people want a park. Like, I don't know, like, like Hamstead Park. It's a beautiful park. You could walk there. There's a playground. There's a baseball field. Make it into a park. And nobody can agree. And people just, every meeting ends with an argument. And the people look to me, the mayor, that I'm going to have some kind of magic solution to be able to fix this problem. So one night, she says, she writes, I came home and I was tired and worn out and exhausted from all the arguing and the bickering and the, and I came home and I saw my kids' room and it was a mess. Like it often was. But it just, it got to me. It's such a mess. And she says to herself, you know, I told them so many times they have to clean their room. When they were younger, I did it for them. And within a few hours of me cleaning the room, it's, it's chaos. So I remembered something that my grandmother used to tell me. My grandmother used to say, sometimes you have to just let them make their own mess. And once they get tired of tripping over the mess on the floor or they see they don't have any clean clothes left, they're going to figure out a way to clean it up themselves. And with that, I'm fall with that insight, an amazing idea came to her. What if the lot she said to herself, what if it's not my problem to fix? Everyone looks to me, the mayor, to have the solution. But what if my job is not to be the town's parent? Maybe my job sometimes is to get out of the way and let them figure it out on their own. So the next week she held a press conference. And she said at the press conference that there's a new plan for the lot. And it's called the, the reporters later called it the lazy plan. So what she said was, we're not doing anything. The city is not doing anything for this lot. It belongs to you. It belongs to you, the residents of this town. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to put one dumpster there. We're going to provide a water hookup we're going to provide a shed with some basic gardening tools. And that's it. And then we wash our hands, you do whatever you want. We're not getting involved. So it was a very controversial plan because people said you're abdicating your role. You're the mayor. You're supposed to you're supposed to make the decision of what's going to happen. It belongs to the city. You're supposed to decide. And she says for two weeks, nothing happened. And I started to think maybe I made a terrible, terrible mistake. But then a woman who ran a daycare in her home took three of her own kids and a roll of garbage bags. And they came to the lot and they started clearing a little area in order to make a little just her own little area, a little playground for the kids in her care to be able to play there. Then there was another guy who never agreed to anything in his life. And he's watching from across the street. And one day he comes over with his lawnmower and he takes a different area and he cuts the lawn. And then magic started to happen. A group of teenagers decided we want a basketball court that was that had asphalt, but it was covered with with junk and glass and and and so there was a group of teenagers and they wanted a basketball court. So they decided they were going to clear this asphalt area and put up a basketball hoop. But at the same time, a group of volunteers from a church came and they said, no, no, we want this area. We want to take out the asphalt. We want a community garden. We want to plant some fruits and vegetables and to be able to share it with the people who are in need in our community. And and the mayor is saying she's watching these two groups and they're arguing. They're speaking to each other. Actually, they come to an agreement. They come to a compromise. And over the next several months, the lot became a beautiful chaotic mess. In other words, different groups decided to take on different parts of it. And so it wasn't uniform. It wasn't like, you know, a meadow or, you know, one area for one purpose. It was all these different things. But everyone got involved in making it their problem. And she writes as follows, they didn't agree on politics. They probably never would. But they proved to themselves that they didn't need me to fix their problems. They just needed the space to remember how to fix them together. Now, so she says they still call me the lazy mayor sometimes, but I take it as a compliment because she says what I learned, and this is why I'm telling you the story, is that true leadership is not only about having the perfect plan or the solution. It's about having the trust that the people you lead can figure it out themselves. It's about allowing the mess to exist and letting people discover how capable they are. Now that's a parable, but it's a perfect parable to explain and to answer the questions we asked. God in creating this world does not arrange everything, does not organize everything. God does not control us. There is no controlling behavior. By the way, let me put this as a, as a parentheses. This is another lesson to understand from the beginning of the Torah and these questions that we're raising. Controlling behavior. When I tell another adult how, when I control their behavior, when I control what friends they have or how they spend their money, I can give my opinion, but when I control another adult, that is wrong. Controlling behavior towards another adult is wrong because adults should be able to, to make their own decisions. You can give your input. You can disagree, but to prevent another adult from being able to decide what you yourself would want to decide for yourself, what friends I have, where I go, what I do, when it doesn't affect you at all, that's controlling behavior. That's wrong. God does not do that. God treats us as adults and does not control us to the extent that God gives us the ability, the energy, the wherewithal to be able to choose, to violate what God wants. God created a world that is imperfect and unfinished and God created people who are imperfect in order to give us the chance to show that we can make it better, even if so often we don't. Our sages describe what I am explaining by quoting a verse, La'olam chesed ibn God created the world as an act of compassion. In other words, God didn't need a perfect world. What would God need a perfect world for? If God is perfect, God doesn't need a perfect world. God, because God is compassionate, God had a need to create a world through compassion, meaning