OCTOBER 24 • 2024 | 35
J
N

our finitude and mortality — will 
be what they choose to be. Which 
means that when God gave humans 
the freedom to act well, He gave 
them the freedom to act badly. There 
is no way of avoiding this dilemma 
even for God Himself. And so it 
was. Adam and Eve sinned. The 
first human child, Cain, murdered 
the second, Abel, and within a short 
space of time the world was filled 
with violence.

FAITH IN US
In one of the most searing passages 
in the whole of Tanach, we read at 
the end of this week’s parshah:
God saw that humanity’s wicked-
ness on earth was increasing. Every 
impulse of his innermost thought was 
only for evil, all day long. God regret-
ted that He had made man on earth, 
and He was pained to His very core.
Gen. 6:5-6
Hence the angels’ question, which 
goes to the ultimate question at the 
heart of faith. Why did God, know-
ing the risks and dangers, make 
a species that could and did rebel 
against Him, devastate the natural 
environment, hunt other species to 
extinction, and oppress and kill his 
fellow man?
The Talmud, imagining a conver-
sation between God and the angels, 
is suggesting a tension within the 
mind of God Himself. The answer 
God gives the angels is extraordi-
nary: “Even to old age I will not 
change, and even to gray hair, I will 
still be patient.”
Meaning: I, God, am prepared to 

wait. If it takes 10 generations for 
a Noah to emerge, and another 10 
for an Abraham, I will be patient. 
However, many times humans disap-
point Me, I will not change. However 
much evil they do in the world, I will 
not despair. I despaired once and 
brought a Flood. But after I saw that 
humans are merely human, I will 
never bring a Flood again.
God created humanity because 
God has faith in humanity. Far more 
than we have faith in God, God has 
faith in us. We may fail many times, 
but each time we fail, God says: 
“Even to old age I will not change, 
and even to gray hair, I will still 
be patient.” I will never give up on 
humanity. I will never lose faith. I 
will wait for as long as it takes for 
humans to learn not to oppress, 
enslave or use violence against other 
humans. 
That, implies the Talmud, is the 
only conceivable explanation for why 
a good, wise, all-seeing and all-pow-
erful God created such fallible, 
destructive creatures as us. God has 
patience. God has forgiveness. God 
has compassion. God has love.
For centuries, theologians and 
philosophers have been looking at 
religion upside-down. The real phe-
nomenon at its heart — the mystery 
and miracle — is not our faith in 
God. It is God’s faith in us. 

The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks served 

as the chief rabbi of the United Hebrew 

Congregations of the Commonwealth, 1991-

2013. His teachings have been made avail-

able to all at rabbisacks.org. 

Questions to Ponder 
Around the Shabbat Table

1. Think about a time when someone believed in you. How did 
that feel?
2. How does the idea of God always believing in us affect how 
you think about your potential? 
3. Can you think of a character in Tanach who God showed 
faith in, even though they continued to make mistakes?

A

nd so, we are back at the 
beginning. We turn to 
the story of creation. It is 
a moment to reaffirm our people’s 
connection with Torah, each and 
every letter.
Just as the letters in the name of 
a beloved, the letters of the Torah 
carry infinite meaning. They stop 
being merely letters and become 
keys to opening a world, one 
which is always fresh, with a 
message of which one never 
tires.
Our rabbis used the letters 
of the Torah to open worlds 
for us. Our teachers studied 
the Torah not just to learn 
law and morals, but they 
allowed the letters to speak 
to them in ways unbounded 
by anything but the limits of 
their own creativity. There 
is a teaching that bereshit is 
an acronym for bi sheesheem 
reba otiyot sheyisrael yikablu Torah, 
with 600,000 letters Israel will receive 
the Torah. Similarly, the word Yisrael 
is said to be an acronym for yesh 
sheesheem ribo otiyot laTorah, 
there 

are 600,000 letters in the Torah.
Don’t bother counting the letters 
in the Torah; you won’t come up 
with 600,000. There are, I’ve read, 
304,805 letters in the Torah. Maybe 
if you count the vowels, you end 
up with 600,000; but the accuracy 
of the numbers is not the point. Six 
hundred thousand was significant 
because it was the number of 
Israelites who left Egypt. Thus, 
600,000 means that each of us has a 
place in the Torah and each letter in 

the Torah is, as it were, a part of us.
We all have a favorite book of the 
Torah (mine is Bamidbar). We all 
have a favorite weekly portion (mine 
is Shelach Lecha). But this year, why 
not try to look for your favorite 
letter; and, by doing so, find your 
place in the Torah.
You might choose the large 
letter bet, which begins the Torah. 
You might choose one that 
significantly alters the meaning 
of a story or more clearly 
defines a mitzvah. You might 
choose the first letter in 
your name and find a word 
beginning with the same 
letter that carries a significant 
personal meaning. You might 
choose the letter of the name of 
an ancestor who taught you the 
meaning of Torah. There are 
many possibilities.
When you think about it, 
it is remarkable that we can 
continue to find meaning in the cycle 
of the Torah readings. We know how 
the story is going to turn out. We 
have almost memorized the dialogue. 
But, like a favorite movie we watch 
again and again, we continue to find 
meaning year after year.
That meaning comes through 
favorite characters, favorite stories, 
favorite words and even, with some 
creative thought, favorite letters.
May we each find our letter, the 
one that speaks loudest to us. 

This article originally appeared in the JN on 

Oct. 23, 2008. Rabbi Dobrusin is now rabbi 

emeritus of Beth Israel Congregation in Ann 

Arbor.

TORAH PORTION

Rabbi Robert 
Dobrusin

Parshat 

Bereshit: 

Genesis 1:1-

6:8; Isaiah 

42:5-43:10.

The Letter of the Law

