Rabbi's Derasha

We begin to learn Bereisheet again immediately after finishing V’Zot HaBeracha.  The eagerness to learn is not because we’re eager to memorize.  It’s because we’re confident that we have not yet exhausted the text.  We know it will still surprise us with things we have never noticed no matter how many times we go through it.  

We read in Haazinu a few weeks ago, Ki Lo Devar Reik Michem -- it is not an empty thing for you.  The Midrash says on this verse -- if a piece of Torah appears to be empty, that comes from you.  You have simply not inquired enough, have not drilled down deeply enough.  

I was reminded of this several months ago when I saw a short essay from a friend which raised a question in this week’s portion which was so simple, so obvious, that it shocked me.  How could I not notice this?  

It involves the first Mitzva of the Torah, to multiply.  This is the commandment to attempt to have children.  Not everyone is successful, but we are commanded to try.   It is not an accident that this is the first commandment.  It is indeed the underlying theme of the entire first book of the Torah.  More than 10 times, the Torah will use the phrase “V’Eleh Toledot,” in this book.  It will introduce the lineage of someone, emphasizing the chain of generations in one direction or another.  

Almost everyone of consequence gets such a section. Noach will get one to open next week’s Parasha, and Yishmael will get one -- Esav will get two.  Parenthetically, there is one glaring exception.  There is no verse that begins V’Eleh Toledot Avraham.  The father of fathers does not seem to get what would seem to be the most deserving recounting of the chain of generations.  Yitzchok gets one, as does Yaakov, but not Avraham.  There is something in this too, but that’s another Derasha.

The “begot” sections of Bereisheet, in this week’s Parasha and in the following Parashiot in Bereisheet, make up a big theme of the book.  So much so that R’ Elchanan Samet, writing in Ivrit, makes a point about Greek.  We call this book “Genesis” in Greek, which captures beginnings but the word also captures the language of “generativity,” which is also the major theme of the book.  

So the first commandment fits the book well.  But the language of the commandment is strange, as my friend’s essay made me realize.  We understand that Hashem wants us to try to multiply.  But the commandment is not phrased that way.  It doesn’t just say, “multiply,” but rather “be fruitful and multiply.”  What does “fruit” have to do with it?  We know the Torah does not play with mere metaphor, so what is the commandment to be “fruitful” add to the command “and multiply”?  The same language was used in Hashem’s blessing to the fish and the fowl.  Some say that that blessing included a protection for the progeny of fish and birds because their eggs are relatively vulnerable.

But for mankind, there is a blessing and a command.  What does one need to do to be “fruitful”?  Fruit first appears on day three of Creation as the product of the trees.  It is considered the fulfillment of a tree’s Tachlis, of its reason to be.  A fruit is the fully-realized goal, the self-actualization of the tree.  It can do other things, such as give shade.  But it cannot do anything greater than multiply.  This perpetuates, as it contains not just an edible fruit but also its seeds.  

To be fruitful means to self-actualize.  It means there is a commandment to become worthy of multiplying.  This does not refer to full maturity as in reaching middle age.  But it does mean self-actualization as an adult.  

As I said, I had never noticed this obvious extra word before a few months ago.  The Torah keeps on generating, as we are supposed to keep on generating.