Rabbi’s Reflections – Saturday, October 26, 2019 

Shabbat Shalom,

Aaaaah Shabbat!  Take a deep breath.  Then take a moment to thank God for His creation.  On Shabbat we honor the Creator Who rested on the seventh day.

A common mistake is to honor the creation.  Anyone or anything created that is honored involves the honoror (the one doing the honoring) in the horror (not a typo) of idol worship.  I don’t know of anything on which the Bible is clearer than the avoidance of idol worship.

I’m probably going to keep this short today.  It’s almost Shabbat and I’m running short on energy this week.  Two things from this week’s Torah portion and we’re done.  This week we have the first reading of the year that starts with Genesis 1:1.

First, consider Genesis 3:8 And they heard the sound of Adonai Elohim going to and fro in the garden in the wind of the day. So the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Adonai Elohim in the midst of the Tree of the garden. 9 Then Adonai Elohim called to the man and He said to him, “Where are you?”

It’s been almost 6,000 years since Adam and Eve rebelled against God and tried to hide from Him.  God called out then, “Where are you?”  God is still calling out those same words, “Where are you?”  Only now He’s speaking them to you and me.

Rabbi Trail:  Once God does something, He is so powerful it never stops being done.  Rather than thinking of God as “doing,” maybe it would be helpful if we think of God as “setting things in motion.”  And once He sets things in motion, He is so powerful, they stay in motion.  End RT.

What are we doing?  Trying to hide our sin from God.  What is God doing?  He’s calling us to Himself.  He sent His Son to change everything.  Yeshua is speaking, Matthew 11:28 Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and ‘you will find rest for your souls.’ 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

The second thing I want to write about is found in Genesis 4:1 Now the man had relations with Eve his wife and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, “I produced a man with Adonai.”

Nice story.  One issue… the original Hebrew text doesn’t say that.  The man knew his wife (in the biblical sense the translation there is not really wrong).  What she said at the end of the verse is not reported correctly.  The Hebrew says, “I have acquired a man who IS the Lord.”

Eve was a first time mom, not just for herself, but for all humanity.  Only recently she had heard God speak these words to Satan… Genesis 3:15 I will put animosity between you and the woman— between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will crush his heel. 

Eve knew her “seed” would have to be divine (since women don’t have seed).  It would take God coming in the form of a man to crush the head of the serpent.  Humanity had just then been victimized by the adversary for the first time.  (It wouldn’t be the last.). Eve knew there was no way humanity could fix this problem; a problem humanity created.  

Rabbi Trail:   You cannot take a problem, add more of the problem to the problem and expect to solve the problem.  This is deductive reasoning.

She believed her new born son, Cain, was the quick answer to the problem of defeating the serpent.  Her words say so.  Sadly, Cain couldn’t even deliver himself into God’s blessing.  Cain needed a Savior.  That Savior would come, but 4,000 years later.

To quote Paul Harvey, “And now you know the rest of the story.  Good day.”