Masters of the World Through the Torah

1“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”¹ The holy sefarim have dwelt on how the end of the Torah is joined to its beginning, “before the eyes of all Israel. In the beginning,”² and there is another way to explain it. Let us first cite Rashi's comment: “R' Yitzchak said: The Torah should have begun only with ‘This month shall be for you,’ which is the first mitzvah that Israel was commanded. Why, then, did it open with Bereishis? Because ‘He declared the power of His works to His people, to give them the inheritance of the nations.’ If the nations of the world say to Israel, ‘You are robbers, for you conquered the lands of the seven nations,’ Israel can answer them, ‘The whole earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He. He created it and gave it to whoever is upright in His eyes.’”³ The commentators raise a question, as we find in the Torah commentary of R' Chaim Paltiel, one of the Rishonim. Sanctifying the new month, the mitzvah of “This month shall be for you,” is not the first mitzvah in the Torah. Three mitzvos came before it: being fruitful and multiplying, circumcision, and the prohibition of the sciatic nerve. So why did Rashi call it the first mitzvah? It follows, too, that the Torah should have begun not with “This month shall be for you” but with the mitzvah of being fruitful and multiplying.

2It seems we can explain this through something I heard from my holy father and teacher, zt"l. To connect the end of the Torah with its beginning, he drew on the Noam Elimelech, who writes that a special remedy for sweetening harsh judgments, that is, softening them, is to bring forth new insights in Torah.⁴ For new Torah insights create new worlds, as the Zohar teaches, and there the judgments have not yet taken hold.⁵ Those are the holy words of the Noam Elimelech. My holy father explained that this is hinted at in the Torah's last verse, “and all the mighty hand … before the eyes of all Israel.”⁶ The mighty hand stands for harsh judgments, and their remedy is Bereishis, meaning the Torah, as Chazal said: “For the sake of the Torah, which is called reishis.”⁷ Those are his holy words.

3We can explain the matter further as follows. As is well known, Chazal said: “The Holy One, blessed be He, made a condition with the work of creation and said to them: If Israel accepts the Torah, you will endure; and if not, I will return you to emptiness and void.”⁸ In other words, the world was created on a condition set in advance, before the act itself: that Israel would accept the Torah. We may say that this is the meaning of the Zohar's words, “He looked into the Torah and created the world.”⁹ Hashem saw the merit of Israel's accepting the Torah, and by the power of that merit He created the world. So it is the people of Israel, because they accepted the Torah, who cause the world to be created and to exist. Since the world was created in their merit, they have a share in its creation, and so, as it were, they own the world.

4This is the meaning of a teaching of Chazal: “When the ministering angels gather before the Holy One, blessed be He, and ask, ‘When is Rosh Hashanah, and when is Yom Kippur?’ He says to them, ‘You are asking Me? Let you and Me go to the court below.’”¹⁰ At first glance this is very puzzling. Why must Hashem, as it were, ask the court below? It seems that the Midrash can be explained by what we have said. By accepting the Torah, Israel became the owner of the world. So Hashem handed over to it, as owner of the world, the power to fix when each month begins and to add a leap month to the year. We find even more than this. Chazal expound: “‘You,’ even if you err unintentionally; ‘you,’ even if you act deliberately.”¹¹ Here we see all the more how great Israel's power over the world is, and all of it comes from its accepting the Torah.

5[With this we can resolve the difficulty in Rashi's words. Rashi wrote that the Torah should have begun with “This month shall be for you,” the first mitzvah that Israel was commanded, yet it is not the first mitzvah. We may say that Rashi means this: in this mitzvah we see that Israel was appointed to own and rule the world, for it carries the idea of “Let you and Me go to the court below,” as we have seen. So it is precisely from this mitzvah that we can answer the nations' claim, “You are robbers.” We answer them that the whole earth is ours because we own the world, as we explained. Even so, R' Yitzchak asks, why did the Torah in fact open with Bereishis? Because of “the power of His works …” In other words, the Torah wished to tell first how the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world, and afterward that He gave it to whoever is upright in His eyes.]

6aOn this basis we can explain a ruling of the Gemara: if an ox belonging to a Jew gores an ox belonging to a gentile, the owner is exempt. The Gemara learns this from the verse “He appeared from Mount Paran”: from Paran He made their property available to Israel.¹² Rashi explains: “He exposed their property and permitted it, when He went around and offered the Torah to all the nations and they did not accept it.” Several of the Rishonim, the early authorities, wrote that on this basis even robbing a gentile is permitted. Among them are the Tosafos of a disciple of Rabbeinu Tam, glosses on the Gemara; the Sefer Yere'im; the Chiddushei HaRan; and the Piskei of Rabbeinu Avigdor Tzarfati, one of the Baalei HaTosafos, the authors of such glosses.¹³ [Some hold that robbing a gentile is forbidden by Torah law. Even according to them, the Acharonim, the later authorities, among them the Korban Chagigah, the Melech Shalem and the Avnei Nezer, write that the nations' refusal of the Torah is the reason for a later ruling of the Gemara.¹⁴ “When a Jew and a Canaanite come to judgment, if you can find in the Jew's favor under Jewish law, do so and tell the other, ‘This is our law’; if under Canaanite law, find in the Jew's favor and tell the other, ‘This is your law.’”¹⁵]

6bAt first glance, though, this is hard to understand. What does the one have to do with the other? Just because Israel accepted the Torah and the nations did not, should the nations' property become ownerless for Israel? But in light of what we have said, it makes sense. By accepting the Torah, Israel owns the world, since the world exists only in its merit. So taking the nations' property is not considered taking what belongs to others, because it belongs to Israel. This is what the Gemara means: because only Israel accepted the Torah, Hashem released the nations' property to Israel. The Ohr HaChaim explains something similar briefly.¹⁶

7We can also understand now why the Holy One, blessed be He, did not give Bnei Yisrael Eretz Yisrael as soon as they left Egypt. Their whole right to the Land, and their ownership of it, comes only in the merit of accepting the Torah, as we have seen. So the verse says: “He gave them the lands of nations … so that they might keep His statutes and guard His teachings.”¹⁷ Bnei Yisrael therefore had to accept the Torah first. Only through it did they become ready and fit to enter the Land and inherit it from the nations.

8This lets us explain how the close of the Torah is joined to its beginning: “all the signs and the wonders … before the eyes of all Israel,”¹⁸ followed at once by “In the beginning.” The verses mean this. How can one be privileged to work wonders on the earth and to be master of this world? In the merit of Bereishis: the Torah, which is called reishis.

9In the same light we can explain the teaching of R' Elimelech of Lizhensk, zt"l, that we cited: a special remedy for sweetening the judgments is to bring forth new insights in Torah, since new Torah insights create a new world. We may say that his words include the following. Through the power of the Torah we are partners in the world's existence, so we have the power to break the force of a harsh judgment, in the spirit of “The Holy One, blessed be He, decrees, and the tzaddik annuls.”¹⁹ This can be read into his holy words that new Torah insights make a new world. When we bring forth new insights in Torah, the power of the Torah makes us partners in the world's existence, and it is as if the world were renewed through us. That is the “new world” he speaks of.

10[This also explains why the Torah's power to sweeten the judgments is hinted at in its very beginning, in the account of creation. For this power of Torah study rests on the merit by which creation exists, the merit of Israel, as we saw in the condition Hashem set at creation.]

11From all that we have said, let us see and learn how powerful and how precious Torah study is, especially now, as a new season draws near with long nights in which one can learn and take in a great deal of Torah. May Hashem grant that we be privileged to do this, and that through it we bring down abundant blessing and all good forever, and bring near the end of days. Amen, may it be His will.