TORAH: Genesis 1:1-6:8
HAFTARAH: Isaiah 42:5-43:10
GOSPEL: John 1:1-17
Portion Summary
The scroll of the Torah is the oldest and most sacred of all Israel’s Scriptures. It contains five books. The Hebrew name for the first one is B’reisheet. It is also the first word of the book in the Hebrew text, as well as the name for the first parasha (the first week’s reading). B’reisheet means “in the beginning.”
The English name Genesis comes from the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Genesis means “origins.” Therefore, the Greek name for the first book of the Bible means “The Book of Origins.”
Genesis describes the origins of everything. It begins with the origins of the universe, focuses on the origins of man and then explores the origins of the nation of Israel.
As we study the first week’s reading from the book of Genesis, we will learn a great deal about God, but even more about ourselves. After all, this is the story of our origins. When properly understood, the story of our origin helps us find our destination.
Portion Outline:
Torah
Genesis 1:1 | Six Days of Creation and the Sabbath
Genesis 2:4 | Another Account of the Creation
Genesis 3:1 | The First Sin and Its Punishment
Genesis 4:1 | Cain Murders Abel
Genesis 4:17 | Beginnings of Civilization
Genesis 5:1 | Adam’s Descendants to Noah and His Sons
Genesis 6:1 | The Wickedness of Humankind
Genesis 6:9 | Noah Pleases God
Prophets
Isaiah 42:1 | The Servant, a Light to the Nations
Isaiah 42:10 | A Hymn of Praise
Isaiah 42:21 | Israel’s Disobedience
Isaiah 43:1 | Restoration and Protection Promised
Portion Commentary:
The Way of the Tree of Life
Did you know that you are an exile? Much as the Jewish people endure the punishment of exile from the holy land, all humanity suffers in exile—driven from the delights of paradise and the potential of eternal life.
The LORD exiled Adam and Eve from the garden. It was an act of mercy. Had they remained in the garden, they might have eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Life. God did not create them immortal, yet He left immortality hanging within their grasp. They only needed to reach out and eat of the fruit of the Tree of Life, and that fruit was never forbidden them. Should they do so in their fallen state, they would have been consigned to an immortal existence in rebellion against God, not unlike the Devil, unredeemed and unredeemable for all of eternity: an eternal life of endless death.
In His abundant mercy, God exiled them from paradise and banned them from immortality:
Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. (Genesis 3:22-23)
God created our souls and our bodies for the Garden of Delight. In some spiritual memory, every human being can still recall the taste of the fruit of the garden. Human beings have a longing wired into their hearts for the place of God, a desire we cannot quite articulate. We thirst for water we have never tasted. We long for fruit we have never eaten. We hunger and thirst for the presence of God. That’s why you are reading these words. That’s why we are always seeking to fill the empty places of our lives, and it is why we are prone to addictions, sensuality, and self-destructive behaviors. We are longing for Eden.
Read complete commentary at First Fruits of Zion.
