Everybody knows that the bible begins with the story of creation. Well, actually, according to western thinking, the bible begins with 2 creation stories. The first describes the 7 days of creation, and what happens each day. The second story tells us about Adam and Chava (Eve in English) and how they came to be sent from the garden of Eden. The bible critics use these two stories as the first proof that the Torah was written by more than one person. And until a couple of hours ago, I believed there were two creation stories too. Until today, I thought that the Torah was trying to teach us that these two stories represented two points of viewing the creation: one viewing point was from the inside of creation, and the other viewing point was from outside of the creation.
Now I believe differently. So what changed? The simple phrase: vayehey chen, which is commonly translated as, “And it was so.” Now, I am not going to say that this is an incorrect translation. Tonight, while studying with Ester, I saw a new translation: “And it was prepared.”
The word chen (or ken) in hebrew means “yes.” It can also mean “thus” or “so.” And this is the second word in the phrase found at the end of verse 24 of chapter 1 of Breisheit (Genesis in English). And this was the verse we were studying. Now, the words also appear at the end of verses 7,9,11, and 15. After we had read and discussed our verse (24), I looked at what I had written in the margin of my book a couple of years ago. In reference to the “vayehey chen” at the end of the verse, I had commented, “and now back to the vayehey chen.” Why did I write that? Because we saw it 4 times in 8 verses, and then it took 9 more verses till we saw it again. And this got us thinking about the words, specifically the last word, chen, which as I said above, is commonly translated as “so.”
Only this time I thought of a new translation. I was thinking of the Hebrew word moochan which means, “to prepare.” Moochan comes from the same root as chen: the letters chof and noon. Is it possible that vayehey chen could be translated as “and it was prepared” instead of “and it was so?”
It seemed to fit our verse quite nicely: “God told the earth to take out the animals according to there types, and it prepared (to do so),” meaning that the earth did not actually do so, it just prepared and was ready to do it when god gave it the word. It fits! we were excited. The question is would this translation also make sense in the other verses, and in the overall story. And how would it relate to the other classic ending, “and god saw that it was good?”
We tried it with each of the other 4 verses and they all made sense. Not only that, but it opened up a new way of understanding the phrase, “and god saw that it was good.” What god saw that was good, was not the actual implementation of creation, but that everything was well prepared to create the creation. We kind of likened it to the FDA testing a new drug. The drug is prepared and ready to go to market and help people, but it hasn’t yet. First it has to get approval from the FDA. When the FDA approves it, they tell the drug maker that the drug was good; just like god is doing with the earth and the water and the firmament. Now we did have a little problem with verse 12 which says that the earth did in fact “make” grasses and trees, but we now understood that to be a trial run to make sure it worked correctly.
We started to get even more excited as we remembered a couple of teaching of the rabbis and realized that there was in fact only one creation story going on here – that the 2 stories are really 2 parts linked together and in fit together perfectly like a puzzle. The first of the teachings is that god is not the sole creator of creation; we, as humans, are co-creators, with god of creation. The second teaching is what the chapter 2, verse 2 really says: god blessed the 7th day and sanctified it because in it, god stopped from all the creative-work that god created to do. What does the end of this verse mean? It means that god did not stop in the middle of the work; rather, that god completely finished the work that god had created for itself to do. The rabbis then go on to say that this does not mean that all the work was done. Only, that god was handing it off to someone else to finish. And that someone else? You guessed it, it is us.
In other words, god’s task was to prepare creation to happen, but not for creation to happen. That is our task, the starting of creation. And this is what the “second” story of creation is about: how we, as Adam and Chava, start creation in motion. Together, they name the animals, thereby describing each animals essence and way of being. And Chava is called Chava because she is the mother of all life. In other words, life, creation, could not be without her. She/they are the key.
The example we came up with was the old game where you build this thing that when the key is put in and turned, it starts a ball rolling down some stairs until it hits a spinning device the kicks a lever that releases something else that eventually wakes up the sleeper who jumps out of bed. The “first” creation story is god putting all the pieces of this game together. And god finishes this by the 7th day, and so he stops working. The story continues with god giving Adam and Chava the key, and their use of the key setting in motion all that god prepared. This is the so called second story. Not really a second story, just a continuation of the first. And something that is continuing to play out this very day. Enjoy!
And the following morning, along with a beautiful inch of snow on the ground, I was gifted with the following conclusion to the creation story…
What is the creation story trying to teach us? At first glance, it seems to be saying that god set things up once upon a time and now things are running on their own like clockwork and with no more intervention, either from god or us.
I do not think this is the case. What became clear to me as these revelations bubbled around in my brain is that god is continuously preparing situations for us to make something happen, to actualize something, to turn the key if you will. Each and every day, each and every moment, god is hoping that we will actualize the project that god has prepared. However, god leaves it to us to decide if we are going to actualize the potential that god created, or not. And if this is true, then I also see that god cannot be setting things up strictly according to god’s desire because we could easily veto it by not following through. What I see coming from this ability that god has given us to choose what we will finish/accomplish and what we won’t is true partnership: god not only has to take into account godly desire, but also human desire; for this is the only way to ensure that we will complete the task god starts. In other words, I see the story of creation now as a story that teaches us that we are truly partners in creation with god and that creation is constantly happening. And therefore, we need to exercise a little bit of care in what we ask for/desire, for god will create the circumstances for us to fulfill those desires.
Thanks for reading and I look forward to any and all comments.
About the Author
Shmuel Shalom Cohen spent 10 years studying Torah in Jerusalem. Six years ago, he started Conscious Torah to help Jews connect to their tradition in ways they didn’t think possible. Shmuel also started, and is the executive directory of Jewish Events Willamette-valley, a non-profit whose mission is to build Jewish community, pride, and learning. In his free time, Shmuel likes walks in nature, playing music, writing poetry, and time with good friends.