This is a special Bereshit Dvar Torah.
We are starting a new cycle. If you’ve never done so, it’s a great opportunity to start -שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום -{Each week, read all the pesukim of the Parasha twice, followed by the Aramaic translation. Maran brings down that some say you should include Rashi.}
The purpose of this is to review the lessons of the parasha each week. The Parasha is packed. You can listen to a Dvar Torah for a few minutes and get something nice out of it, but reading all the pesukim with Rashi is amazing.
We will focus on one pasuk, (Perek ב pasukה )
וְכֹל שִׂיחַ הַשָּׂדֶה טֶרֶם יִהְיֶה בָאָרֶץ וְכָל עֵשֶׂב הַשָּׂדֶה טֶרֶם יִצְמָח
There was no vegetation.
This was on the sixth day of creation.
Rashi is bothered. Wasn’t the vegetation created earlier in the process, on Tuesday?
Says Rashi, although there was vegetation, It was all waiting,
על פתח הקרקע - just under the surface.
Rain had not come yet. The vegetation didn’t surface,
כִּי לֹא הִמְטִיר יְדֹוָד אֱלֹהִים עַל הָאָרֶץ
Because G-d had yet to bring the rain.
On the Friday of creation, one might have expected to see beautiful land with grass and trees, but it was not there yet. It was waiting for the rain.
The way G-d made the world is that everything needs rain to grow.
The whole world is set up this way. Many months ago, when we spoke of the Chaos Theory, we discussed how G-d’s control of the weather demonstrates that He’s still running the world. The rain is how we see that His constant influence from above keeps everything going. He didn’t just create the world and leave. We see this when Hashem warns us that He’ll stop the rain, in Keriyat Shema. Weather is the missing ingredient in creation.
Why wasn’t there rain? The pasuk continues,
וְאָדָם אַיִן לַעֲבֹד אֶת הָאֲדָמָה:
Simply speaking, there was no man to work the land.
Rashi says there was no man to work the land because G-d wanted man to be there to say, “Whoa!
There’s nothing!”
ואין מכיר בטובתן של גשמים
and then he’d realize he needed the rain and appreciate it.
וכשבא אדם וידע שהם צורך לעולם התפלל עליהם וירדו וצמחו האילנות והדשאים:
When Adam realized the world needed rain,
(it’s not clear whether it rained first or if he realized something was missing) he prayed for it, the rain came down, and with that came the growth.
This is a fascinating concept.
On the Friday of creation there was no rain. G-d made creation in a way, that despite everything being set up, man still needed to pray in order to bring it down. The rabbis teach us an important lesson from this. It’s possible that everything is already set up for us. We just need to pray for it.
This brings to mind a question people sometimes ask. They say, “I prayed great on Rosh Hashana, on Yom Kippur, and on Hoshana Raba, and I danced away on Shemini Aseret. So why do I still need to pray every day?”
And the answer is that all of that created the seeds in the ground. So everything is ready -your parnasa, your shidduch, your house, your health, everything you want, it’s all there waiting, but you have to appreciate it. G-d made that it won’t come down until you pray. Prayer is the missing ingredient. Furthermore, the rabbis tell us that anything that happened in the first six days of creation are part of the nature of the world. This means that built into the world is the concept that if you need something, you pray for it and you get it. This is not something super-natural. It was built into the first week of creation. Maybe that’s why our Rosh Hashana prayers are so powerful; Adam’s first prayer was on Rosh Hashana.
Regardless, this important Rashi is our Emunah/Bitachon lesson for Parashat Bereshit: G-d built into creation that although you have it already, there’s a missing element -prayer. That’s a natural part of creation. We have an abundance of things waiting for us on the other side of the wall. We just need to pray for them. That is the secret key that will open the door to all of the things that we’ve already received on Rosh Hashana.
This was just one beautiful Rashi! Imagine if you did all the Rashis of the Parasha!
Have a Shabbat shalom.