Likkutei Sichos Vol. 5 – Bereishis 1 – Why the Torah Begins with Creation: Rashi's Approach
1. It has already been discussed many times that Rashi's commentary on the Torah — although he comes to explain the plain meaning of Scripture, as Rashi himself emphasizes a number of times[1], and right in the first sidrah: "I have come only to explain its plain meaning"[2] — also contains "wondrous matters"[2*] from the other parts of the Torah, even[3] the "secrets of the Torah"; and well known[4] is the saying of the Alter Rebbe that "Rashi on Chumash is the wine of the Torah."
In fact, in order to get to the bottom of the "wondrous matters" and the "wine of the Torah" in Rashi's commentary, one must first study and understand the plain interpretation. For these too — the wondrous matters and the wine of the Torah — Rashi placed into his commentary in accordance with "the plain meaning of Scripture"[5].
It may be said that since Rashi did not write a separate introduction to his commentary (as other commentators on the Torah did), logic requires that he at least alluded to one, by way of hint, in his very first comment: "Rabbi Yitzchak said: The Torah should not have begun except from 'This month shall be for you,' which is the first mitzvah that Israel was commanded. And for what reason did it open with Bereishis?…"
By underscoring the order — that first comes "In the beginning G‑d created…" and only afterward "This month…" — and by explaining the reason why the Torah begins with "Bereishis" (so that "if the nations of the world will say to Israel, 'You are robbers, for you conquered the lands of the seven nations,'" the Jews should know what to answer them), he also gives the introduction that shows the order of Torah study[6]: first one must study the plain meaning of Scripture, which resembles "In the beginning G‑d created…" — the plain reality of the world; and only afterward can one come to the "wondrous matters" and the "wine of the Torah," which resemble "This month shall be for you" — the mitzvos and the holiness within the world (see below, section 13).
2. On Rashi's question, "The Torah should not have begun except from 'This month shall be for you,'" the Ramban asks: "In the beginning G‑d created" is the very root of faith; one who does not believe in it (and thinks that the world is primordial, G‑d forbid) denies a fundamental principle of faith and is thereby cut off from the entire Torah. How, then, can one say that the Torah should have begun from "This month shall be for you," and that it should not mention at all that G‑d created the world?[7][8]
In the same way one can also ask[9] regarding the stories in the part of the Torah before "This month shall be for you": in the later portions of the Torah too, after "This month shall be for you" (when the answer to the nations of the world has already been given), there are, besides mitzvos and laws, a great many stories; and it is self-understood (also in the plain sense[10]) that the stories of the Torah, too, contain many necessary lessons for every Jew. What, then, is Rashi's question, "It should not have been necessary…"[11], and why does he assume that the stories written in the Torah up to "This month shall be for you" are meant to teach Jews what to answer the nations of the world, and not lessons that Jews must learn from them for themselves?
The question becomes even sharper: the book of Bereishis contains commands regarding a number of mitzvos, such as being fruitful and multiplying, circumcision and the sciatic nerve. How then can one say that the Torah should have begun only from "This month shall be for you," when this would remove from it these mitzvos as well[12]?
3. As for why the Torah does contain all the portions up to "This month shall be for you," Rashi says that the reason is: "Because 'He declared to His people the power[13] of His works, in order to give them the inheritance of the nations.' For if the nations of the world will say to Israel, 'You are robbers[14], for you conquered the lands of the seven nations,' they will reply to them: 'The entire earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He; He created it and gave it to whomever He deemed proper. By His will He gave it to them, and by His will He took it from them and gave it to us.'"
This too is difficult to understand:
a) This point of explanation — that "the entire earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He (because) He created it" — is already entirely clear to us from the very beginning of Parshas Bereishis. That being so, why must the Torah also contain all the other portions between the account of Creation and "This month shall be for you"[15]?
b) What exactly is the claim of the nations of the world? We find[16] that originally (when Noach divided the lands among his sons) the Land of Israel was in the portion of Shem, and only afterward did the Canaanites (the descendants of Cham) seize it for themselves. What room, then, is there for the nations' claim against the Jews, "You are robbers, for you conquered the lands of the seven nations," when, on the contrary, the Land of Israel originally belonged to the children of Shem[17], and the Canaanites are the ones who robbed it from them[18]?
c) Robbery is one of the seven mitzvos of the children of Noach[19]. If conquest in war (such as Yehoshua's conquest of the Land of Israel) were robbery, the question arises: why do we nowhere find that a nation[20] is punished for having conquered a land (and people) of another nation? It is evident from this, even in the plain sense[21], that conquest in war does not come under the category of robbery, and so the entire basis of the claim "You are robbers, for you conquered…" falls away.
4. The answer to the claim of the nations — "The entire earth… He gave it…" — also requires explanation:
a) Why does Rashi emphasize in the reply that "the entire earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He," when the nations' claim concerns only "the lands of the seven nations"?
b) For the continuation and conclusion — "and gave it to whomever He deemed proper…" — it would seem that only the words "the entire earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He" are needed (which make clear that since "the entire earth" belongs to G‑d, He has the "right" to give it to whomever He wishes). Rashi's addition, "He created it," would seem to be merely an explanation of "the entire earth…" (it belongs to Him because He created it[22]). But in that case Rashi should have phrased it in the reverse order: "The Holy One, blessed be He, created the earth, and it is His." Why, then, does he place the words "He created it" after "the entire earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He," and next to "and gave it…" — which implies that "He created it" relates (also) to "and gave it…" (especially as he writes "and gave it" with a connecting vav)?
c) With the words "and gave it to whomever He deemed proper," Rashi seemingly means the same as what he says afterward, "By His will He gave it to them, and by His will… gave it to us." Only, first he says it in general terms — that G‑d gave the Land of Israel to whomever He pleased — and then he spells it out in detail: by His will He (first) gave it "to them," and by His will He (afterward) gave it "to us." It is not understood[23]: why must Rashi say the same thing twice (first in general and then in detail)?
d) To answer the claim "You are robbers," it would seemingly be necessary to know only how the Jews came to own "the lands of the seven nations": that it was not because the Jews themselves conquered these lands, but because G‑d (to Whom "the entire earth belongs") gave them to the Jews. What relevance, then, does the detail "By His will He gave it to them," which Rashi states in his commentary, have here?
One could explain simply that Rashi intends by this to negate a claim the nations could make: by what right, after all, was the land that belonged to them taken from them? To this Rashi emphasizes that since the nations' ownership of the Land of Israel was only because G‑d "by His will gave it to them," He therefore also had the "right" to take it from them and give it to the Jews.
But this is difficult to say, for, on the contrary: had Rashi not written "By His will He gave it to them" (but rather that they, as it were, took it on their own) — then, since it had already been established that "the entire earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He," and the nations nevertheless took the Land of Israel for themselves "on their own," not in accordance with G‑d's will, as it were, they would then have had no ownership of the Land of Israel at all, and it would be all the more understandable why it could be taken from them.
e) With the expression "by His will," Rashi means that the Land of Israel's being first in the hands of the seven nations and afterward in the hands of the Jews was not merely an expression of G‑d's individual Divine Providence, like all events that occur in the world, but that there was a special will regarding it[24]. This must be understood: regarding "and gave it to us," the emphasis "and by His will" is understandable, as we find in many places, beginning with the Covenant Between the Parts, that G‑d wanted the Land of Israel to belong to the Jews. But Rashi's saying "by His will" regarding "He gave it to them" is difficult: where do we find[25] that G‑d wanted the descendants of Cham to conquer the Land of Israel from the descendants of Shem?
5. The explanation of all this is as follows:
The Jews' being set apart entirely from all the nations with regard to Torah and mitzvos came about (chiefly) only at the Giving of the Torah, when "you shall be a treasure to Me out of all the peoples"[26] came into being. In a more general manner, the separation took place at the Exodus from Egypt, which is connected with the Giving of the Torah[27], when they were commanded the mitzvah of "This month shall be for you."
And although the mitzvos of circumcision and the sciatic nerve, which were commanded long before the Exodus, were also given only to the descendants of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov[28] — nevertheless, since the command of these mitzvos did not come at a time and on an occasion connected with the Giving of the Torah, it follows that these mitzvos were given to them not as Jews set apart, but as a distinct category among the children of Noach[29] (similar to the instructions (to the Children of Israel) concerning the descendants of Esav, Ammon and Moav[30], by which the descendants of Esav etc. were set apart from among the nations of the world themselves).
Accordingly, Rashi's question — that the Torah should have begun from "This month shall be for you" — is understood: since "Torah" means commands and instructions[31] given to the Children of Israel as Jews, it follows that all the earlier commands and instructions, given while the Jews had not yet emerged from (their distinct category among) the children of Noach, should have been either recorded in a separate book or kept in the oral tradition (like the seven Noahide mitzvos until the Giving of the Torah), but not written in the Torah as an instruction to Jews as Jews.
6. To this Rashi answers that the Torah begins with Bereishis for the reason that by this the Torah gives Jews an instruction for what to answer the nations' claim, "You are robbers, for you conquered the lands of the seven nations."
And although conquest in war is not robbery (as explained above, section 3), nevertheless, were it not for the answer of "the power of His works…," the nations could still, to a certain extent, claim "You are robbers…." For when the Jews took the Land of Israel, its passing from the domain of the nations to the domain of the Jews was — to draw the distinction — of a special kind, in a much deeper way than the passing of other lands from one domain to another through conquest, as will be explained.
7. When an object passes from one person to another, through whatever kind of acquisition (sale, gift, conquest in war and so on), the essential nature of the object itself is not affected or changed by the transfer. The object itself does not express any special connection to the domain of this person or that, nor any change in it; it is no more than its external[31*] ownership that changes when it passes from one person to another.
The conquest of the Land of Israel, however, is different. Once the Jews conquered "the lands of the seven nations," a change took place in the very essence of the land: before, it was a land like all lands[32], which could belong to any nation; but since the Jews' conquest the land itself was transformed into the Land of Israel. It became a Jewish land through and through, and therefore permanently, so that it can no longer belong to another nation[32*]; in truth, it can never in any way be taken away from the Jews. Therefore, even in the time of exile, when "we were exiled from our land and distanced from our soil"[33], it is called "our land"[33*] and "our soil"; and more than that: "They shall not dwell in your land" — a gentile may not settle in the Land of Israel[34].
When the child (of five, for) Scripture learns in Scripture (Chumash) about the connection of the Jews with the lands of the seven nations — "And the fourth generation shall return here…[35] To your descendants I have given this land" — he already knows from before[35*] that it is "to your descendants forever."
And precisely in this lies the reason for the nations' claim, "You are robbers, for you conquered the lands of the seven nations": the nations, too, know that as soon as the Jews conquered "the lands of the seven nations," those lands became the Land of Israel permanently, so that the land can no longer belong to them, to the nations of the world[36]. And for this very reason they claim "You are robbers": since before the Jews conquered it, it was a land like all lands, which can belong to any nation, the Jews had no right to take the Land of Israel in such a way that it would be taken from the nations absolutely — that, they claim, is robbery, theft.
To this comes the answer, "The entire earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He; He created it": since G‑d created it and brought its entire existence into being, it is self-evident that "the entire earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He" — that the whole earth (that is, in terms of its quality[36*] — not only externally, but also its inner being and very essence) is G‑d's. That being so, He has the right to change its very essence from something that can be called "the lands of the nations" into something that is exclusively the Land of Israel[37].
8. But even the explanation "The entire earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He" is still not entirely sufficient to nullify their claim "You are robbers…":
Were the claim "You are robbers, for you conquered the lands of the seven nations" no more than that the Jews took from the "seven nations" a land that had previously belonged to them in actual fact, it would then be understandable that, since their ownership of the land came to them from G‑d, He has the "right" to take it back from them.
But since the nations' claim concerns the Jews' having taken the land from all the nations of the world[38] — that is, that all of them had a certain potential "right" in the land (as in all lands, which can belong to any nation), and this right came to them immediately with the creation of the land, since from the outset it was created as a (vacant) land that can belong to any of the nations — it follows that this right is not something given to them, but something that arises of itself, automatically, from the very essence of land as it is by virtue of creation.
And this gives them room to claim "You are robbers": how could there be a right to take from them the "right" in the land that "belongs" to them by virtue of the very essence of every land?!
To forestall this claim, Rashi adds, "He created it and gave it to whomever He deemed proper": as soon as G‑d created the Land of Israel — "created it and gave it" — He gave it (in thought) "to whomever He deemed proper," that is, to the Jews[38*]. This means that the "right" the nations previously had over the Land of Israel was (not by virtue of the essence of the Land of Israel, but) only because (afterward[39]) "by His will He gave it to them"; and what He gave them, He then has the "right" to take away from them — "He took it from them and gave it to us."
9. But here the question arises from the opposite direction: if from the outset, at the time of creation, G‑d gave the Land of Israel "to whomever He deemed proper" — that is, He created it as the Land of Israel, whose very essence excludes the rights of all the nations — it follows that by afterward "giving it to them," He would, G‑d forbid, have wronged the Jews by taking from them (even if only temporarily) their essential right to the land. And since this cannot be said, it would seemingly follow that at the time of creation the giving was not "to whomever He deemed proper" — and the nations' claim remains.
Therefore Rashi emphasizes: "By His will He gave it to them, and by His will He took it from them and gave it to us" — one and the same will. The first "by His will" means the same as the second "and by His will"; that is, from the outset it was G‑d's will that the temporary giving of the Land of Israel "to them" should lead to the goal of the giving "to us": that it should become the Land of Israel (in actuality and in revealed form) only after it passes through the domain of the nations and is afterward taken from them. The reason for this is that it was G‑d's will ("so it arose in His will") that specifically out of a land of the nations[40] the Jews, through their avodah, should make a Land of Israel, a Holy Land[40*]. It is therefore understood that "He gave it to them" does not contradict "and gave it to whomever He deemed proper"; on the contrary, through the giving "to them" the intent of the giving "to whomever He deemed proper" is actually carried out — that the Jews should transform the lands of the nations into a Land of Israel.
10. Accordingly it will also be answered why the "Torah" includes not only the account of Creation but also all the other portions up to "This month shall be for you": through all these portions it becomes understood that G‑d's giving the Land of Israel "to whomever He deemed proper" took place immediately when "He created it," and that "He gave it to them" was only a means of carrying out the one single will of "He gave it to us":
Just as, regarding creation as a whole, the Torah teaches us in its very first words, "Bereishis bara," that the world was created "for the sake of the Torah, which is called reishis, and for the sake of Israel, who are called reishis"[41] — and nevertheless, until the Giving of the Torah, when the Jewish people came into being, there were so many generations that were not "significant before the Omnipresent," because so it arose in G‑d's will that the "pearl" should be drawn out specifically from the "sand"[41*];
so it is also with regard to the Land of Israel: "He gave it to whomever He deemed proper" was in G‑d's thought immediately at the creation of the land; later, when "the islands of the nations were divided in their lands, each according to his language"[42], the Land of Israel "fell in the portion of Shem"; and afterward, too, the Torah relates "And the Canaanite was then in the land" next to G‑d's promise, "To your descendants I will give this land"[43] — that when the Canaanite was in the midst of conquering[44] the Land of Israel "from the descendants of Shem," G‑d immediately made it clear, through His word to Avraham Avinu, that He was not thereby, G‑d forbid, cancelling the giving to the descendants of Shem, but "I will return it to your children in the future"[45].
However, one could ask: granted that before the giving "to us" the Land of Israel must pass through the giving "to them," for that it would have sufficed for the land to be in their hands for only a short time. Why did the Land of Israel come "to us" only after being with the Canaanites for so many years? To this the Torah brings the Covenant Between the Parts, and gives us to understand that so it arose in G‑d's will: the Supreme Will is that the (actual) giving of the Land of Israel to the Jews should come specifically after "your descendants shall be strangers in a land not theirs, and they shall enslave them and oppress them, four hundred years"[46].
As a continuation of this come the subsequent portions, which relate the details of how the decree was carried out in the Egyptian exile; and afterward the account of the Exodus — how G‑d took the Jews out of Egypt in order to bring them "to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey"[47].
11. After all the above, an explanation is still needed in the inner dimension of the matter[48]. True, because Jews must know (not only how they themselves should conduct themselves, but also) what to answer the nations of the world, the Torah also contains the portions from Bereishis up to "This month shall be for you," which contain the answer to the nations' claim "You are robbers." But it is still difficult to grasp: after all, the Torah is chiefly a teaching for Jews regarding their own conduct. How does this fit with "it opened with Bereishis" — that the Torah opens with matters Jews need to know only in order to answer the nations, and only after more than an entire book teaching Jews what to say "to them" does the portion of "This month shall be for you" begin, with the subsequent mitzvos and instructions that concern Jews themselves?!
We must therefore say that the order in which the Torah was arranged is itself also part of the Torah — an instruction[48*]. This order indicates an instruction regarding the order of Torah study:
The purpose of Torah study is that a Jew should study it as it is above the world — having no connection with the nations of the world[49]; like the mitzvos and instructions from "This month shall be for you" onward, which were given to the Jews when they were already a people that is "a treasure out of all the peoples." But to reach that level, one first needs the study that is suited to the animal soul, "the gentile that is within each and every Jew"[50] — like the portions up to "This month shall be for you," with which Jews can make the truth clear to the nations of the world.
And the reason for this the Torah indicates in the order that applied to the Land of Israel, as will be explained.
12. This will be understood by first citing the saying of our Sages in the Gemara[51] that a Jewish child, while still "in its mother's womb," is "taught the entire Torah," and afterward, when it comes out "into the air of the world," an angel comes and "makes it forget the entire Torah." The question is asked: since in any case it is made to forget everything it learned, why is it taught beforehand?
The explanation is: Torah must come to a Jew through study, engagement and toil, not as "bread of shame." He must therefore forget the "entire Torah" that he learned with ease, so that he should attain it through his own toil —
— similar to the Land of Israel[52], which G‑d wanted to be first a land of the nations — "He gave it to them"[53] — so that the Jews, through their avodah, should merit to make it the Land of Israel —
Yet he is nevertheless first taught "the entire Torah." For if all his Torah study began only with his own study, then, being a created being (and especially as the soul is enclothed in a body and an animal soul), he would grasp the Torah only as a created being does — as it is limited within the bounds of creation, that is, a level of Torah that also relates to "the nations of the world" —
— like the Land of Israel: had its connection to the Jews begun only with its conquest (and not earlier, through "He gave it (in thought) to whomever He deemed proper" at the time of creation), then it is true that through this, too, it would have been acquired by the Jews; but the acquisition would not have entirely excluded all the nations of the world from having any right or connection to the Land of Israel —
Therefore the Torah is taught to the child while still in its mother's womb — that is, to the soul as it is in a state of "gestation" in Malchus of Atzilus[54], before it becomes a created being — when the manner of study is free of the limitations of a created being[55], and the Torah is given to it as it is without limit. Through this a Jew has the potential[56] that afterward, through his study here in this world, there should shine for him also that level of Torah which was studied with him in his mother's womb, which is above the bounds of created beings —
— like the Land of Israel: because its giving to the Jews (in thought) took place earlier, at the very beginning of creation, this giving grants them strength in the avodah of "you conquered the lands of the seven nations," so that through it the land should become the Land of Israel in a manner that entirely excludes the nations from any right to it, even a potential right.
13. The above order — "He gave it to whomever He deemed proper," then "He gave it to them," and then "He took it from them and gave it to us" — shows not only the manner of Torah study [that at the outset "he is taught the entire Torah" from Above; afterward comes study through the person's own toil (to the extent that G‑d established[57] that study begins "not for its own sake"[58]); and only afterward does "the light of the Torah" shine for him, like the Torah that is taught to him from Above], but also the order of descent of the Torah itself:
Torah in itself is "the wisdom and will of the Holy One, blessed be He"[59] — this resembles "He gave it to whomever He deemed proper," which as yet has no connection to anything but the "proper" and the good of holiness;
afterward the Torah "traveled and descended"[60] and lowered itself into the worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah: the parts of the Torah called drush and remez into the worlds of Beriah and Yetzirah[61], and the part called pshat into the world of Asiyah[62]. This resembles "He gave it to them," for in the worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah there is already evil as well[63], and especially the (physical) world of Asiyah, which is "mostly evil"[64] — it has a connection "to them";
nevertheless, "their end is wedged in their beginning"[65]: specifically through the study of pshat in the world of Asiyah the essence of the Torah is revealed (which is higher[66] even than the part of sod, which did not descend into Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah and remained in Atzilus[67]). This is like "He gave it to us," which comes through "He took it from them": specifically by taking out of "them," in the world of Asiyah, the inwardness and essence of the Torah is given to us.
This is what Rashi alludes to right at the beginning of his commentary on the Torah, in his first comment, which also serves as an introduction (as mentioned at the beginning of the sichah) to all his commentary on Chumash: first one must understand "the plain meaning of Scripture" (which is also the aim and method of Rashi's commentary), and specifically through this one then comes to "the wine of the Torah," to "the secrets of the Torah" and "the secrets of the secrets" (which are also found in his commentary), until, very soon indeed, we will come to the reasons of the Torah that will be revealed in the future[68] through our righteous Moshiach.
And then there will also be the completion of "He took it from them and gave it to us" with regard to the Land of Israel in its literal sense: the Jews will receive the entire Land of Israel — including the lands of the Keini, the Kenizi and the Kadmoni[69]; and more than that: the Land of Israel will spread out over all the lands[70], in the true and complete Redemption, through our righteous Moshiach — may he come and redeem us very soon indeed.
(From a talk of Shabbos Parshas Bereishis, 5726)