BEFORE THE FIRST MITZVAH — Why the Torah Begins with People - BERESHIT
BEFORE THE FIRST MITZVAH — Why the Torah Begins with People
If the Torah is our book of mitzvot, why does it begin with stories? The first
Rashi explains why we need the account of creation—but why not then jump
straight to “Haḥodesh hazeh lakhem,” the first commandment given to the Jewish people as a nation? In Wednesday morning’s Breakfast & Class, we explore a beautiful question and insight shared by Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky in our conversation Tuesday night: perhaps understanding Who created the world is only the beginning. We also need to learn how to live in it.
Through the lives of Avraham, Yitzḥak, and Yaakov, we discover why Bereshit is called Sefer HaYashar—the Book of the Upright. Avraham pleads for Sedom, Yitzḥak makes room for peace, and Yaakov works honestly for a dishonest employer. Their stories bring the lesson into our own homes, businesses, and relationships: devotion to Hashem must shape how we treat people, especially when honesty, compassion, and restraint are difficult.
6 Oct 2026
WHO IS HOLDING THE STRING? Three Years After October 7 — Providence, Free Will, and the 50/50 World
In our Tuesday morning Safra Class, three years after October 7, we step
back from the individual headlines and ask a larger question: What happens
when we stop looking at each event separately and begin looking at the pattern?
From the extraordinary turns in Israel’s war to Rav Yosef Zvi Rimon’s idea of
the “Divine puzzle,” we explore a world in which every individual event may
have a perfectly reasonable natural explanation—and yet, when the pieces are
placed beside one another, we are left asking: Who is holding the string?
But Bereishit reminds us that Hashem created man be-tzelem Elokim,
with genuine beḥirah,
and therefore history can never be a simple story of puppets and miracles.
Drawing on the Rambam, the story of Kayin, Rabbi Asher Abittan’s unforgettable
teaching of the “50/50 world,” and the contrasting responses of Yitro
and Amalek, we ask how Divine Providence and human freedom can exist
together—and why two people can witness the same events and see completely
different realities. Ultimately, the question is not only whether we can
recognize Hashem in the story, but whether, after everything we have lived
through, we can recognize one another again.
6 Oct 2026
BERESHIT — THE LIGHT HIDDEN IN THE DARKNESS
This morning at
Breakfast & Class, we went back to the very beginning—to the first two
verses of the Torah. God creates heaven and earth, and yet almost immediately
we encounter tohu vavohu:
chaos and emptiness, darkness and an unfathomable abyss. Why would a perfect
Creator begin His world this way? Our Sages reveal something remarkable: hidden
within these words is not only the story of Creation, but the entire story of
Jewish history—our exiles, our darkness, and ultimately our redemption.
BERESHIT — THE LIGHT HIDDEN IN THE
DARKNESS explores the
sparks of holiness concealed within a broken world, the astonishing secret
hidden in the word meraḥefet,
and the Midrash’s teaching that even while darkness covers the abyss, the
spirit of Mashiaḥ is already hovering above it. Perhaps Bereshit is teaching us
one of life’s most important lessons: darkness does not mean that God has
disappeared. Sometimes the light is already there, waiting for us to uncover
it—one mitzvah, one act of ḥesed, one page of Torah, and one spark at a time.
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