EARNING “GOOD” BY DOING GOOD

Tishrei 26, 5786 / October 17-18, 2025

Parashat Bereishit

Torah: Genesis 1:1 – 6:8

Haftarah: Isaiah 42:5 - 43:10 (Ashkenazim); Isaiah 42:5-21 (Sephardim)

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Lunch and Learn meets Mondays at 12:30 PM on Zoom and Facebook Live. 

On October 13, we'll be at Ein Ya'akov Yevamot, p. 44 (BT Yevamot 63b) - 

'...אמר רבא אשה רעה מצוה לגרשה'   - 'Raba said: "It is meritorious to divorce a bad wife ..."'

Ein Ya'akov (Glick edition) is available for on-line reading or as a downloadable PDF at:

https://hebrewbooks.org/9630 
A pointed Hebrew text version with different pagination is available at Sefaria: 
https://www.sefaria.org/Ein_Yaakov?tab=contents  

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EARNING “GOOD” BY DOING GOOD

'And God said, "Let us make humanity in our image, after our likeness." ..... And God created humanity in God's own image; in the image of God did God create it; male and female, God created them.' Genesis 1:26-7

After creating plants, "God saw that it was good." (Gen. 1:12) After creating the fish and birds, "God saw that it was good." (1:21) After creating crawling things and land animals, "God saw that it was good." (1:25) At the end of all of this creating, "God saw everything that God had made, and behold, it was very good." (1:31)

In the context of all that had been created, humanity was part of all that was very good. However, even though God created humanity in the image and likeness of God, God did not see that humanity was itself good. How could it be that humanity, which the Torah regards as the acme of creation, with dominion over all the earth, could not be seen by God as good?

It is exactly because humanity differs from all other creation. We alone are created in the image and likeness of God. There is an interesting little comment on this verse offered by "Haderush V'ha'iyun". He says, "Of all God's creatures, only humanity has the ability to do what they consider to be correct, in accordance with their will. In that, humans resemble their Creator. 'And the advantage of humans over the beast is not' (Ecclesiastes 3:19). The advantage that humans have over the beast is 'not' - that they have the ability to say 'no'. That is 'in His image, in the image of God.'"

So, only we have freewill. But let's not fool ourselves. We are not God; we are _only_ an image, _only_ a likeness - not exact duplicates. Our tradition teaches that everything that God wills is good. But as for us, "if one desires to conduct himself along the path of good and to be righteous, he is free to do so; and if one desires the path of wickedness and to be evil, he is free to do so.... The Creator does not decree humanity to be good or bad" (Maimonides) We are not seen by God, or by ourselves, as good unless we choose to be good, unless we choose to say “no” to wrongdoing. Unlike insects and vegetables, we have to _earn_ the title "good".

Shabbat Shalom!

Rabbi Richard A. Flom
Rabbi Emeritus
Temple B’nai Hayim
.אֵיזֶהוּ חָכָם? הַלוֹמֵד מִכָּל אָדָם
Who is wise? The one who learns from every person.
Ben Zoma - Pirkei Avot 4:1
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