Is the creation process over? Bereshit 5785. Rabbi Arias.

We celebrate Shabbat every week as a commemoration of the world’s creation. God created the world in six days, and on the seventh day, he rested. But can we point to a specific point where the creation process stopped? Are we still creating the world?

Yes, we are. The world Hashem created asks for human beings to complete it. God gave us the gift of life so we can decide how to improve the world. And no matter how difficult things are, we are making the world better with all the challenges.

We should be partners of God in the creation process. The following three short verses from the first Parasha of the Torah prove this idea:

And God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth.”

And God created humankind in the divine image,
creating it in the image of God — creating them male and female.

God blessed them and God said to them, “Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on earth.”

God said, “See, I give you every seed-bearing plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours for food. And to all the animals on land, to all the birds of the sky, and to everything that creeps on earth, in which there is the breath of life, [I give] all the green plants for food.” And it was so”.

(Bereshit / Genesis 1:26-30)

Immediately after creating humankind, God asks his newest creation to keep performing his task: “Be fertile and increase, fill the earth.” This is just the beginning of the Torah, the beginning of history, and surprisingly, he asks his creation to keep creating. This is God’s first address to man in history, asking us to become his partners in creation, and that appeal is strong proof of that idea.

Moreover, during the first stages of the world’s creation, the Torah states that at the end of each day, God saw with good eyes what he did: וירא אלהים כי טוב״”  “And God saw that this was good.”

That’s the source of the Hebrew famous phrase: יום שלישי פעמיים כי טוב. Tuesday is twice as good. The wording “Ki Tov” is quoted twice during the third stage of creation. But after creating human beings, the Torah doesn’t tell us that God said “Ki Tov,” but the following:

And God saw all that had been made and found it very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day.

(ibid. 31)

Not “Tov,” good, but “Tov Meod,” very good. This expression was said only after human beings were created. All the other animals, plants, lights, stars, the moon, and the sun were under the definition of “good.” We, as humans, were called Very Good, not because we are better, but because we have the ability to create and, consequently, also the ability to destroy.

Bereshit is the Genesis, the beginning of creation, but not the end of it. We have a tremendous power in our hands. Every morning in our Shaḥarit prayer, we say the following blessing: ברוך אתה ה׳, אלהינו מלך העולם, יוצר אור ובורא חושך, עושה שלום ובורא את הכל.

Praised are you, Adonai, our God, who rules the universe, creating light and fashioning darkness, ordaining the order of all creation.

In Hebrew, the blessing uses the present tense: Yotzer יוצר instead of יצר Yatzar. This means that God is still creating light, not created, but created. Genesis is the beginning of creation, an ongoing process rather than a one-time event.

In fact, after that blessing, we also say the following: ובטובו מחדש בכל יום תמיד מעשה בראשית. “In your goodness, day after day, you renew creation.”

How does God renew creation daily?

We do the job. We can keep creating, and of course, it is not only about having children but also about caring for others, helping them, and caring for the environment. How we protect the world and make it better is how God keeps the world updated.

We are starting a new reading cycle of the Torah. For congregations like ours, which read the Triennal reading, we are starting the third year, the last cycle. Right after the High Holidays, when we exalted God, praised him, and prayed to him, Parashat Bereshit brings us back to our power, putting in our hands the responsibility of being partners of Hashem in creation.

Shabbat Shalom!