In the words of Semisonic, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” How fortunate we are to enter another year, another cycle of Torah!
This parsha is jam-packed with something called “etiological mythology.” We typically think of myth as a “dirty word” when it comes to Torah, but within these myths, we discover the truths of our ancestors and the questions they found most pressing. Questions like: Why does the snake have no legs? Why does childbirth hurt? Why are humans destined to toil and work all the days of our lives?
Perhaps the most important question of B’reishit is: Why do we have this seemingly inherent need to determine what is right and what is wrong? Many people over the millennia have tried to make the assertion that morality, the difference between right and wrong, is determined by religion or by these ancient texts. But I think our ancestors were trying to teach us a far more universal truth: humanity is endowed with the urge to determine what is right and wrong, anachronistically, by virtue of our own evolution.
Morality is objective, within us, and, it is through Torah that we hone in on a more perfect morality.