By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
The Torah begins by telling us the story of creation, Bereishis. The Torah introduces us to the creation of the universe, the formation of the world in which we live, and the emergence of mankind, the one creation entrusted with the ability to recognize its Creator and choose how to live.
Yet, as Rashi reminds us at the beginning of the parsha, the Torah is not a history book. It is not intended merely to tell us how the world came into existence or to provide us with an account of the earliest generations of mankind. The Torah is our guide to life, teaching us how to conduct ourselves, how to relate to Hashem and to one another, and how to fulfill the purpose for which we were created. Why, asks Rashi, does the Torah begin with the story of creation and devote the entire first parsha to creation and the lives of Adam and Chava, Kayin and Hevel, and the generations that preceded Avrohom Avinu? Why not begin with the mitzvos, with the commandments that define our obligations as Jews?
Rashi explains that the Torah begins with Bereishis to establish that the entire world belongs to Hashem. He created it, and He determines who will inhabit its lands. When the nations of the world accuse Klal Yisroel of stealing Eretz Yisroel, we can respond that the One Who created the world gave the land to us.
This is a fundamental lesson in our understanding of the world and our place in it. Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world and placed us in it, entrusting us with the responsibility to live in accordance with His will. The land we inhabit, the resources we enjoy, the talents with which we were endowed, and the very lives we lead are gifts from Hashem. Everything we possess comes with an obligation to use it properly.
Before the Torah tells us what to do, it tells us why we are here. Before it presents the mitzvos that shape our lives, it establishes that the world was created deliberately, with purpose and with direction. The universe is not a random collection of events, and human life is not an accident without meaning. Everything begins with Hashem, and everything we do must be understood in the context of His creation and His will.
The Torah tells us that man was created b’tzelem Elokim, in the image of Hashem. This is perhaps the most profound statement about the human condition. Man is not simply another creature inhabiting the earth. The posuk tells us that Hashem created man from adomah and blew into him the spirit of life, nishmas chaim. He endowed us with a neshomah, the ability to speak, the capacity to think and understand, the ability to distinguish between right and wrong, to exercise bechirah, and to make choices that have eternal significance.
The greatness of a person does not lie in his physical strength, his wealth, intelligence, or accomplishments in the eyes of the world. His greatness lies in his ability to transcend the adomah from which he was created, from which flow his physical instincts and desires, and to give sustenance to his neshomah, as our lives are meant to be dedicated to fulfilling the spiritual purposes for which we were placed in this world.
That is the challenge of tzelem Elokim. We are given extraordinary abilities, but those abilities carry extraordinary responsibility. We can build and destroy, encourage and discourage, bring happiness and cause pain. We can use our intelligence to discover new ways to improve the world or to devise ways to harm others. We can use our words to comfort a person who is suffering or to inflict wounds that may never heal.
We are not passive observers in the world. We are active participants. The first human beings were placed in Gan Eden, a world of extraordinary beauty and abundance. They were given everything they needed, with one clear restriction.
Adam and Chava’s failure to heed that command introduced a fundamental reality of human existence. Having free will means that a person can choose incorrectly, even when the right path is clear. The challenge of life is not merely to know what Hashem wants from us, but to overcome the inclinations and temptations that lead us away from it.
And when Adam sinned, Hashem asked him, “Ayeka? Where are you?”
Hashem certainly knew where Adam was. The question was not about his physical location. It was an invitation to confront what had happened, to recognize his responsibility, and to consider where his choices had brought him.
That question echoes throughout the generations. Where are we? What are we doing with the lives Hashem has given us? Are we using our abilities to fulfill our purpose, or are we allowing ourselves to be distracted by pursuits that have little lasting value? Are we moving closer to Hashem, or are we allowing the pressures and attractions of the world to draw us away?
It is a question that each of us must ask ourselves, not only during the introspective days of Elul and the Yomim Noraim, but throughout the year. A person can be busy from morning until night, accomplishing one task after another, and still lose sight of where he is going. He can accumulate wealth and achieve recognition and relevance without addressing the most important question of whether he is living the life Hashem wants him to live.
On Shemini Atzeres, in the diaspora we lained Koheles. Various reasons are given for this minhag, but perhaps one of its messages is that Koheles helps seal in the gains we made during Elul and Tishrei. After spending these weeks examining our lives, our priorities, and our relationship with Hashem, we are reminded that so much of what occupies people in this world is ultimately hevel, fleeting and without lasting significance. The challenge is not to withdraw from the world, but to learn to distinguish between what is hevel and what is important, between what demands our attention and what deserves our attention, between what fills our days and what gives those days meaning.
Along with that comes the responsibility to recognize Hashem and see His hand in all aspects of our lives.
We are required to do hishtadlus. We work and seek to earn a living, but we recognize that whatever we have is because Hashem gave it to us. The work is a means, but the income comes from Hashem.
We build armies, establish security services, create sophisticated intelligence systems, check credentials, erect fences, and take every reasonable precaution to protect ourselves. But we must never confuse the means with the source. The systems are tools. The protection comes from Hashem.
This week, Israel and Jews throughout the world marked the third anniversary of the October 7th massacre, a day on which we were reminded of that truth in a most painful way.
Israel possesses one of the world’s most powerful armies and most sophisticated security establishments. It has intelligence agencies considered among the finest anywhere, advanced surveillance systems, layers of fences and barriers, and countless people whose responsibility is to identify threats and protect the country’s citizens.
And yet, on that morning, those systems failed simultaneously. Warnings were missed. Signals were ignored. Assumptions were wrong. The people whose job it was to prevent such an attack were unable to do so. It was a fulfillment of the posuk, “Einayim lohem velo yiru oznayim lohem velo yishma’u.” The eyes of the nation’s security apparatus were simply closed.
We were reminded that, ultimately, it is not the army that protects us, not the intelligence agencies, not the fences, and not the technology.
Hashem Hu Ha’Elokim.
The One Who created the world is the One Who runs it.
And just last week, we received another extraordinary reminder of that truth, this time in the skies.
The attempted terrorist attack aboard a flight bound for Tel Aviv could easily have ended with the deaths of everyone aboard and potentially many on the ground. The co-pilot, who had previously been identified by his former employer as a security risk, attacked the captain in the cockpit and attempted to take control of the aircraft. The plane plunged thousands of feet in a matter of seconds. Passengers were thrown from their seats. The cockpit became a scene of violence and chaos.
And yet, the plane did not crash. The passengers did not die.
The subsequent investigation revealed serious questions about the security procedures governing foreign airlines and their crews. Israel had systems in place, protocols, departments, and databases, but it emerged that foreign pilots were not being independently vetted in the manner one might have assumed. The responsibility was divided among different agencies, but the crucial information was not being acted upon. Had they been doing their jobs, the Jew-hating co-pilot never would have been allowed to board the plane and be seated in the cockpit.
If the flying public’s safety depended on human beings, people would have every reason to be terrified every time they get on a plane.
Instead, we are reminded that our safety rests with Hashem.
And the miracle of the FlyDubai flight went far beyond the failures of the security system.
The heroism of people aboard the plane is credited with saving the plane from crashing to the ground and killing everyone on board, but it was a series of miraculous occurrences that allowed that heroism to occur. The passengers have rightly been hailed as heroes. They saw what was happening and acted with extraordinary courage.
A woman who happened to be standing near the cockpit heard the commotion and began screaming. Several passengers rushed toward the cockpit, overpowered the attacker, and restrained him. Others cared for the wounded captain. They guarded the cockpit and helped ensure that the plane could be landed safely.
But even their heroism was possible only because of a remarkable chain of events that unfolded at precisely the right moments.
The captain, gravely wounded, losing much blood and under continued attack, miraculously retained the strength and presence of mind to open the cockpit door. Had that door remained closed, the passengers would have had no way to reach him or the attacker.
A plumber who happened to be sitting relatively close to the cockpit heard what was happening and rushed forward. He pulled the attacker away from the captain, and as others dealt with him, the plumber, with no previous flying experience, found himself in a cockpit with a plunging aircraft. He had once seen how a plane’s control stick raises and lowers the plane, and he lifted the controls with all his might to get the plane to fly upward.
He had no training that should have qualified him to fly a Boeing 737. Yet, at that moment, when 170 lives were in jeopardy, Hashem put the idea into his head of how to save them.
There were other seemingly unlikely occurrences as well.
Additional pilots happened to be aboard the flight as passengers. A dentist who happened to be on board was able to provide critical medical assistance to the wounded captain. Passengers found charging cables and other materials that could be improvised to restrain the attacker. Men and women who had been strangers only minutes earlier suddenly worked together as a team, each one doing whatever he or she could to save the lives of everyone aboard.
The world calls such things coincidence. It calls them luck. It speaks of fortunate circumstances and improbable happenstance.
We know better.
We know that there is no happenstance. There is only the Ribono Shel Olam, Who runs the world and Who can arrange a thousand details, many of them invisible to us, so that they converge at precisely the moment they are needed.
It is interesting that both of these events occurred during the days of Sukkos and Shemini Atzeres, when we celebrate how Hashem protected us from the elements in the midbar and as we were about to begin studying Bereishis.
We left our homes, the places that provide us with walls, roofs, locks, alarm systems, and the illusion of permanence, and we entered the sukkah. We sat beneath a roof that does not really protect us from the elements, as we experienced when it rained over Yom Tov. We left behind the physical structures in which we invest so much of our energy and reminded ourselves that our true protection does not come from them.
We sat in the sukkah, in the tzila demehemnusa, the shade of the Shechinah, and proclaimed that the walls around us are not what guarantee our safety. The roof over our heads is not what determines whether we will be protected. We have to take reasonable precautions. But after all the hishtadlus has been made, we recognize that the One above is the One Who protects us.
And then we return to Bereishis.
Why does the Torah begin by telling us that Hashem created the world?
Because we need to know that the world is not governed by chance, that history is not a series of random events, and that our lives are not determined solely by the decisions of men and the systems they construct.
The same Hashem Who created the heavens and the earth can cause the most powerful security establishment to overlook a threat. He can cause a warning to be missed. He can allow a plane to descend thousands of feet and then, through a series of seemingly random events, provide the precise people and abilities needed to save it.
He can place a plumber in a particular seat and turn him into a pilot. He can place a dentist on a particular flight and turn him into an emergency doctor. He can place additional pilots on a plane and give a dying captain the strength to open a door. And He can bring all of those seemingly unrelated details together at exactly the moment when they are needed.
That is not merely the lesson of last week’s FlyDubai flight, nor is it only the lesson of October 7th, when the army couldn’t prevent the rampage and was powerless to stop it.
It is the lesson of our daily lives, when every day is filled with miracles we take for granted.
Bereishis bara Elokim — Hashem created it all. He runs it. He guides it. He determines its course.
We do our hishtadlus. We are not permitted to sit back and rely on miracles. But after we have done what we can, we recognize the truth with which the Torah begins and upon which everything else rests — namely, that Hashem runs the world.
His ways are mysterious and not always understood. We cannot always see why one person is saved and another is not, why one warning is heard and another is missed, or why one seemingly insignificant event becomes the link that saves hundreds of lives.
We don’t know why one person becomes ill and another remains healthy, why one person becomes wealthy while another struggles financially, or why one person’s life seems to contain far more suffering and challenges than another’s. We cannot understand the ways of Hashem or the reasons for the individual tests He sends to each of us. But we know that nothing happens by itself and nothing happens without purpose. Hashem sends us the challenges we need to help us grow, to strengthen our emunah, and to bring us closer to Him.
We must never give up. We must never convince ourselves that our challenges are insurmountable or that we cannot overcome them. Those who recognize the Yad Hashem, place their trust in Him, and believe that He is with them through every challenge can face life with confidence, knowing that Hashem will give them the strength to persevere and overcome.
Bereishis bara Elokim. Chazal teach that the world was created for reishis, for Klal Yisroel and for Torah. Hashem created the world for us. He created it with the expectation that we would be able to accomplish our mission in it. The world was not created to defeat us. It was created to provide us with opportunities, challenges, and circumstances through which we can fulfill the purpose for which we were placed here.
We should therefore never allow anything or anyone to break our spirit, and we should never allow anyone to convince us that we cannot succeed. No matter what happens, no matter what challenges confront us, we must remember that we are living in Hashem’s world and that the One Who created the world is with us every step of the way. With emunah, bitachon, and the determination to continue moving forward, we can overcome the obstacles placed before us and accomplish what Hashem expects of us.
This week, as we return to the rhythm of life after Yom Tov, and as we begin studying Parshas Bereishis, we need to carry these lessons with us. The warmth and inspiration of Elul, the Yomim Noraim, Sukkos, Shemini Atzeres, and Simchas Torah should not remain behind with the Yom Tov.
The days ahead may be colder and darker, and the long winter may sometimes seem bleak. But we enter it with the light of Bereishis bara Elokim. Hashem created the world, He guides its every detail, and He placed us here because He knows that we are capable of fulfilling the purpose for which we were created.
We have every reason to move forward with emunah, with bitachon, and with confidence that, with Hashem’s help, we can succeed.
May we all be zoche to a gezunteh vinter and the geulah sheleimah bekarov.
