spirit FOUND torah portion To Serve Is To Follow at Hillel Day School For all current 4 and 5 year olds Storytime ‡ Tinkering ‡ Snack T enjoy an engaging and innovative adventure with a parent, grandparent, nanny or other special caregiver Space is limited - RSVP by October 26 with name(s) of your child(ren) and adult(s) and which session you wish to attend to: Melanie Weber, 248-539-1490 or mweber@hillelday.org jn 248-539-1490 248-539-1490 248-539-1490 248-539-1490 248-539-1490 1958-2018 October 12 • 2017 Parshat Bereshit: Genesis 1:1-6:8; Isaiah 42:5-43:10. Thursday, November 2, 2017 10:00 a.m.-11:00 a.m. or 1:30 p.m.-2:30 p.m. 40 his parshat is the most funda- mental. In it we find: creation, the first man and woman, the first sin, the first repentance, the first murder, the first degeneration of society and much more. But per- haps the most perplexing event in it is the original sin. God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and gave that until today continues them everything they could to challenge us. The truth is possibly need (great weather, that when a person thinks abundant delicious food, like that, he is using his ego no enemies, no sickness, and believing that he knows etc.) God spoke to them, an better than God. God said incredible experience, and you’ll be at your best doing requested only one thing X, but I say I can do better of them: Don’t eat from the by doing Y. That’s wrong Rabbi Leiby fruit of one tree. Yet, before because God does know Burnham their first day was over, they best; He created us, and we disobeyed God. Why? How are at our best when we fol- can we understand this orig- low what He asks of us. inal error, which impacted The challenge of Adam the world more fundamentally than and Eve is still our challenge today. any other single action in history, We try to tell ourselves that God bringing mortality to mankind? didn’t really mean that we should One way to understand Adam and do what he asked of us in the Torah; Eve’s mistake is to realize that they or that if He would see the modern thought they knew a better way to world, He would certainly cancel a serve God, even though God indicat- number of the “outdated” mitzvot ed otherwise. Adam and Eve felt that (as if God couldn’t see the future). We feel like we can decipher what to serve God simply by not eating He really wants of us, even if it is dif- a single species of fruit, in a place ferent from what He told us. where God’s presence was palpable, The truth is that if we want to was no big deal. They were capable of sacrificing so much more for God. serve God and not ourselves, we have to trust that He knows best; They were willing and able to serve and realize that the best way to God in a world shrouded in dark- serve Him is to follow what He asks, ness, where it would be much more not what we think He should have difficult to see God and appreciate asked. If we do that, we will be able the importance of serving Him. to reverse the effects of the primor- Adam and Eve knew that if they dial sin and bring the world back to ate from the fruit, it would be like the utopia it was before sin arrived turning off a celestial light switch, on the scene. • and God’s presence in the world would become much more hid- Leiby Burnham is director of outreach for den through sin’s entrance into the Weiss Family Partners in Torah at the the world. They were certain that Southfield-based Yeshiva Beth Yehudah. they could still serve God in such a difficult world; they would be the CONVERSATIONS knights in shining armor, riding Do you feel that God knows what’s through the darkness holding up the best for you? What are some banner of godliness. Confident that mitzvahs you struggle with? How it would result in a far greater glori- do you typically resolve a dilemma fication of God, Adam and Eve ate where a Jewish tradition diverges the forbidden fruit. from your worldview? But this was a colossal error, one