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by Rav David Silverberg

Parashat Bereishit tells of the creation of man, to whom the Torah refers as "adam," from the word, "adama," earth. At first glance, this title seems to suggest a rather negative and pessimistic view of man. The human being was created with a body and soul, and his life mission is to empower his spiritual being over his physical. These two forces constantly wrestle with one another, throughout the individual's life, each striving for domination over the person. Why, then, would the Torah choose to call man by his physical element - "earth" - rather than by the image of God with which he was created? Is man doomed to a life of subjugation of the spiritual to the forces of the physical?

The answer perhaps emerges from a famous Midrash that identifies the earth from which Adam was created as earth taken from the future site of the Beit Ha-mikdash. The Mikdash marks the junction connecting heaven and earth; we face that site when praying, since from there our prayers reach the heavens and through there God bestows His goodness to all mankind. Indeed, Yaakov Avinu beholds a dream while sleeping on that very spot in which he sees the angels "ascending and descending." Man's entreaties to God ascend the heavens at that location, and the divine response descends down the same ladder. Yaakov thus exclaims upon awakening, "This is only but the house of God - and this is the gate to the heavens!" When this gate opens, heaven meets earth, man encounters God, and the spiritual blends with the physical.

For good reason, then, the Torah crowns man with the title "adam," appointing him bearer of the "earth" of the Beit Ha-mikdash. By his very essence, man represents the fusion between heaven and earth, between the physical and spiritual. He is the only of God's creatures - including the angels and the like - capable of bringing together these two opposing forces of the universe. He is truly an "adam" - a walking Beit Ha-mikdash, the gateway between the sacred and the mundane. This fusion is not only one characteristic of the human being, but rather the definition of his very essence, his defining feature. Indeed, after Adam commits his sin, he cannot even respond to God's question, "Where are you?" Adam had lost his identity. By allowing his physical wants to overpower his spiritual being - his loyalty to God's command, he has lost part of his self.

The role of an "adam" is thus to bring the worldly and the sublime into a harmonious coexistence, by functioning as a Beit Ha-mikdash in human form.

(Based in part on an article by Rav Ratzon Arusi, rav of Kiryat Ono, Israel)

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The Gemara in Masekhet Rosh Hashana (31a) discusses the institution of "shir shel yom," the various chapters from Psalms sung by the Levi'im each day in the Beit Ha-mikdash. Specifically, the Gemara searches for the basis for associating each Psalm with the day on which it was sung. In so doing, the Gemara identifies an aspect of each day of creation, as described in Parashat Bereishit, and associates it to that day's Psalm.

On the second day, the Psalm recited is "Gadol Hashem u-mehulal me'od," describing God's majesty specifically as manifest in the city of Jerusalem. The Gemara asks, how does this Psalm relate to the second day of creation, on which the Almighty divided heaven from earth? The Gemara explains, "He divided His creation and ruled over them." Rashi comments, "He divided the airspace between the upper and lower domains, and [then] He ascended and sat in the heavens, similar to His Shekhina in His city and sacred mountain [described in that chapter of Tehillim]."

The Gemara's explanation of this association is ambiguous. Why does God's ascent to His throne depend on His having divided heaven and earth? How did this stage of creation facilitate His kingship?

The answer perhaps lies in a fundamental distinction between human and divine royalty. A human king possesses the same basic qualities and characteristics as his subjects; he merely enjoys and asserts authority over them. The Almighty's kingship, however, evolves from the total division between "heaven and earth," between the human and divine, the physical and the metaphysical. God rules by virtue of the qualitative difference between Him and His creatures over whom He asserts His authority.

On the second day of creation, God drew a definite line between heaven and earth, between the corporeal and the divine. Although, as we saw yesterday, man embodies the potential of fusion between heaven and earth, his earthly qualities render him essentially distinct from God. Man can strive to be Godly, but not God. Therefore, the second day of creation, the fission of heaven from earth, defines God's majesty: He rules by virtue of His essential singularity, His being qualitatively more powerful and greater than anything on earth.

On Mondays, therefore, the Levi'im would sing - and we nowadays recite - Psalm 48, the description of the divine glory as embodied by the city of Yerushalayim. Rabbeinu Chananel writes in his commentary to this Gemara that just as God divided between heaven and earth, "so did the Almighty set apart and choose Jerusalem; it is called 'the city of God,' and His Shekhina is in it." The sacred city of Jerusalem, the seat of God's kingship in our world, brings a glimpse of heaven into earth (as we saw yesterday). The special sanctity ascribed to the city represents God's separateness from man, which reflects itself in the special distinction afforded to His "capital city." This chapter thus accurately reflects the theme of the second day of creation - the absolute distinction between heaven and earth, which defines the Almighty's singular kingship over us.

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Parashat Bereishit tells the stories of two men who committed grave sins: Adam ate from the forbidden tree, and Kayin murdered his brother, Hevel. The Yalkut Shimoni on Sefer Tehillim (92:1) relates a seemingly peculiar encounter between the two. After Kayin achieved forgiveness for his sin, Adam met him and inquired as to what happened as a result of his crime. His son replied that he performed teshuva and earned expiation. Adam immediately lamented, "So great is the power of teshuva - and I didn't know!" The Midrash continues that at that point Adam composed the chapter of Tehillim 92, which praises the day of Shabbat - "Mizmor shir le-yom ha-Shabbat."

Wherein lies the connection between Shabbat and repentance?

The Beit Ha-levi suggested that on Shabbat we express our awareness of the fact that the entire universe operates by God's will. By bringing our creative activity to a halt, we proclaim that the world runs because of God, not because of us. This belief entails the notion that every moment of existence is propelled solely by God. Accordingly, time can be severed; since God renews the world, as it were, at each moment, every second has the potential to exist independently of the past. This concept gives rise to teshuva. Given the Almighty's control over every moment of existence, an individual can request a new beginning, whereby all past deeds are forgotten. Thus, Shabbat and repentance express the same general theme.

Others have explained along similar lines only with a slight difference. Shabbat does, indeed, represent the divisibility of time, only not through our testimony of God's power over every moment of existence. Rather, on Shabbat itself the world experiences a renewal of sorts. Like God, we "create" throughout the six weekdays. We complete our work on the sixth day and then celebrate this completion on Shabbat. The next day, we begin anew; Shabbat marks the end of our week-long creation, such that we must begin creating our world once again on Sunday. (Can this explain the dreariness of Monday mornings [or, in countries where people work on Sundays, of Sunday morning]?) In this manner, Shabbat signifies tdivision of time into independent units, which, as we , forms the basis of the institution of teshuva.

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