Sefat Emet on the Parsha

Bereishit

*Please note that all citations are from the Sefat Emet, unless otherwise indicated. I will usually be offering
original translations, but this week I have drawn from Art Green’s selected translation, The Language of Truth.

Welcome to 5782. Welcome to Breishit/Genesis and new beginnings. Welcome to the world of
the Sefat Emet, Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter of Gur (1847-1905).

We begin our studies together with one of the opening teachings of the book, recorded in the
first year of the Rebbe’s teachings, 1870. In it, he reflects on the very first of Rashi’s [Rabbi
Shlomo Yitzchaki, 1040-1105] commentaries on the Torah, which is itself a midrash rooted in
the first word of the Torah, Breishit, “In the beginning.” Why does the Torah--the story of the
Jewish people--begin here, he wonders. Why not with the legal material of later portions,
inaugurated by the commandment to mark the start of each month?

IN THE BEGINNING — Rabbi Yitzchak said: The Torah which is the Law book of
Israel should have commenced with the verse (Exodus 12:2) “This month shall be unto
you the first of the months” which is the first commandment given to Israel. What is the
reason, then, that it commences with the account of the Creation? Because of the thought
expressed in the text (Psalms 111:6) “He declared to His people the strength of His works
(i.e. He gave an account of the work of Creation), in order that He might give them the
heritage of the nations.” For should the peoples of the world say to Israel, “You are
robbers, because you took by force the lands of the seven nations of Canaan”, Israel may
reply to them, “All the earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He; He created it and
gave it to whom He pleased. When He willed He gave it to them, and when He willed He
took it from them and gave it to us” (Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 187).

This question, posed by Rabbi Yitzchak, presumes the central importance of mitzvot
(commandments) to the life of the Jew. Our collective story should have begun with laws, he
suggests, because it is laws, commanded actions, that define us. It is laws that enable human
1|Sefat Emet on the Parshah
Rabbi Dr. Erin Leib Smokler

© Institute for Jewish Spirituality 2021

contact with divinity; laws that govern how we might be with God. The great narrative of the
Torah should have begun with a commandment because we are, essentially, a commanded
people.

In response to his own question, Rabbi Yitzchak offers a theological justification for the
alternate beginning, the creation narrative. The creation story affirms God’s sovereignty over
the world and thus God’s “right” to apportion it as God sees fit, he suggests. Law is indeed
crucial to our self-understanding, he concedes, but so is politics.

The Sefat Emet, however, is not swayed. Indeed, in a noteworthy omission, he cites Rabbi
Yitzchak’s question, but not his answer.

“In the beginning” (Gen. 1:1). Rashi opens his commentary by quoting R. Yitzchak, who
asked why the Torah did not begin with: “This month is the first of months for you” (Ex.
12:2) [since that is the first commandment to Israel]. He answered by quoting, “He
declared to His people the power of His acts” (Ps. 111:6) ...

The ellipses are admittedly there (the equivalent of etc., in Hebrew), but the text cited
unquestionably surfaces a question without its stated resolution.

In place of the political turn of R. Yitzchak, the Sefat Emet offers a pedagogical one. God
started the Torah in this way to tell us something about what Torah is. The story of creation and
the tales of the Patriarchs that follow (all pre-legal)--the intermingling of divine words and
human actions--are the very essence of that holy teaching.

Its meaning is as follows: Indeed, Torah was revealed primarily for the commandments.
That is the Written Torah. But God also wanted to make it clear that all of creation,
including this world itself, had come about by the power of Torah. “In the beginning,” we
are told, means that “He looked into the Torah and created the world.” That is called Oral
Torah--and it depends upon human acts.

In these few words, the Gerrer Rebbe implicitly transforms an abstruse statement from the
Zohar: “The Holy One gazed into the Torah and created the world.”

The Torah was/is not a parchment document that served as an architectural plan for the built
universe. (Nor is it a political manifesto to settle scores.) It is sacred testimony to human
yearning and human reckoning with God. It is a way of life that is both created for and created
by human beings in active relationship with God. The early stories of creation actually create
Torah. “Out of their stories, Torah is made,” says the Rebbe. The actions of our ancestors, and
the stories we tell about them, become our eternal foundation.
2|Sefat Emet on the Parshah
Rabbi Dr. Erin Leib Smokler

© Institute for Jewish Spirituality 2021

The Sefat Emet here makes a radical claim about the nature of Torah in sharp contrast to a
received tradition. The Rabbinic tradition has long distinguished between Torah she’bichtav,
Written Torah, and Torah she’beal peh, Oral Torah. The written word is usually identified as
the Five Books of Moses and the Oral Torah refers to all of the commentaries built on top of
that initial revelation. The Sefat Emet argues instead that the Written Torah--etched in stone and
rigid--is circumscribed to law alone. It begins with the first law regarding new moons and ends
with the final commandment of writing a Torah. It is Rabbi Yitzchak’s Torah, so to speak. But
the Oral, spoken Torah--imbued with the breath of life--is to be found within human beings,
dynamic, creative, evolving human beings. It begins with creation and does not end. Indeed, it
precedes the Written Torah itself and seemingly outlasts it. The Oral Torah, which begins “in
the beginning,” is sourced by the Source of Life, animated by human life, and in turn endows
the world with vitality, or chiyut.

Creation, on this read, importantly reflects the synchrony between divine energy and human
flourishing. Through maaseh breishit, the act of creation, God injects koach maasav, God’s
own power, into those of God’s people (amo) and amplifies their power in turn. This dynamic is
similarly reflected in another verse quoted by the Sefat Emet, Isaiah 51:16.

I have put my words in your mouth, and sheltered you with My hand; I, who planted the
skies and made firm the earth, have said to Zion you are My people.

Focusing on the last phrase, the Rebbe, in line with our Sages, reads ami, my nation, as imi,
with me. God says to God’s people, Zion, “You are with Me” as partners in creation--creation
of the world and creation of Torah.

There is yet one more word reworked by the Sefat Emet in this verse, one that comes to anchor
an idea that will permeate the book that lies before us, Zion.

The word “Zion” in this verse refers to the point [nekudah] that exists within each thing,
an imprint or sign that reminds us of its divine origin. It is this force [chiyut] that gives
life to all. The person who is joined to this inner point [nekudah], and all of whose life
[chiyuto] is drawn to this point, indeed becomes a partner in the act of creation.

Zion is not a place and it is not a people here. It is an invitation. Building on the resonances of
the Hebrew verb ‘le’tzyen,’ meaning ‘to point out or to distinguish,’ the Gerrer Rebbe
understands Isaiah’s statement to mean that God calls us to locate our inner point, our nekudah,
that distinguishes us as individuals and joins us to our inner Source. We all contain an “imprint”
of the divine, a gift of creation and a pull toward creation. This subtle force grounds us and it
also impels us forward into the swirl of life. It enlivens us, sets us in motion, gives us chiyut, or
vitality. When we attune ourselves to this inner nekudah, when we actively make space for its
3|Sefat Emet on the Parshah
Rabbi Dr. Erin Leib Smokler

© Institute for Jewish Spirituality 2021

powerful emergence and recognize its powerful origins, we become most ourselves, most
Godly, most partners in the act of creation. We are each enchanted and we contribute to the
enchantment of the world.

Genesis begins with the story of creation because that is our essential story and our guiding
task. We are created and creative beings, endowed with a spark of divinity within, marked by a
capacity to transform worlds without. Our actions, like the actions of our ancestors, generate
forcefields. They also create a dynamic Oral Torah, understood by the Sefat Emet to be the
stories that we make and the stories that we tell out our lives lived with chiyut, spiritual passion,
conviction, and devotion.

Reflection

In this opening essay, the Sefat Emet begins to talk about the nekudah, a theme that he and we
will return to again and again. Consider your own point of divinity, or essence, or inner core of
authenticity. When do you feel most alive? What gives you energy? Where do you feel most
generative? What would it take for you to truly, fully, self-consciously live your life?

He also talks about the radical idea that we human beings create Torah, that the fabric of our
lives is the holy script of our people. How does that inform your understanding of what Torah
is? And of who you are?

As we start the new year together, let us aim to pay attention to our nekudah points; to cultivate
vitality; to live Torah and to create Torah, as inheritors of our ancestors’ stories and as mindful,
powerful agents of our own.

4|Sefat Emet on the Parshah

Rabbi Dr. Erin Leib Smokler

© Institute for Jewish Spirituality 2021