Bereishit: the real Big Bang

Whenever I think of Bereishit, I am reminded of my grandfather of blessed memory, Rabbi Israel Orenstein Z"L. 

It was a little with awe and trepidation that I read the first words, knowing that the Torah was God's only "hand-written" instructions for how to live a better life, and truth be told, for me - like many - this year has been rife with confusion. This world, my grandfather taught me, was a laboratory of sorts. God wanted to see what would happen when man, in the proverbial sense, had free will. What would he do with it? Would he embrace love, or murder; would people live in His image and respect their brothers and sisters, or heaven-forbid, denigrate the very source of life from which they had come. 

It was a dangerous call this "Let us make man" business; perhaps the plural voice - "Let us" - comes to show that even in God's own mind, there were two competing voices, that were not so clear cut. 

Who could have imagined how man would ravage each other? That babies of one sex would be drowned in favor of another? That people would be enslaved, mass-murdered, gunned-down, tortured, all because of that primordial command, and deliberation, "Let us make man"?

It would seem that the same way Man was placed in the Garden of Eden to "till it, and protect us," the command, "Let us make man," is one that reverberates until this very day. What will we as a mankind, make of our humanity? How will we shape it? The world is really, in a certain respect, busting at its seams, with 8.2 billion people. What can each of us, God is asking us, do to make man, to make this world better in the smallest of ways? This experiment with free will, has at times been more like pottasium hitting water, sparks, and flames - and a brilliant violent hue. It's required pain, heartache, friction, rigor - and it most certainly hasn't been smooth. 

What small deed can we do so our voice is heard, so we can show God that it was worth his while to continue to partner with us and make man, and as such, the world a place we, and He, wants to inhabit?

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