Shalom, friends. It's Wednesday at Judeo Talk and that means it's time for our weekly Hebrew lesson. Every week we will be discussing a different Hebrew letter, word or phrase and its importance to Jewish faith and culture.
This being our first installment of Wednesday Hebrew, we're already on the subject of beginnings. So, I thought I'd take the opportunity to give a quick lesson about one of the most famous phrases in the Torah.
The word Bereishit (Beh-ray-sheet), which means "In the beginning".
This is the first word in the Hebrew bible, known colloquially as The Old Testament. Hebrew is a very deep, complex language that is often used in the Torah in such a way that single words, even individual letters have multiple layers of meaning. The fact that Bereishit is the first word in the Torah, and more precisely that the letter Bet is the first letter in the Torah, is itself a lesson and an object of focus for the rest of the Hebrew bible.
The Hebrew letter Bet makes the same sound as the English letter B. In the word "Bereishit" the Bet acts as the common suffix "Bih" meaning "In". The word "Reishit" meaning "Beginning" comes from the term "Rishon" which means "First". In fact, the word "Rishon" plays an important part in the Book of Genesis. "Rishon" is visually and phonetically very distinct from the more common root for the number 1, which is "Echad". Linguistic focus points like this appear throughout the Torah and are meant to give us pause and to indicate something special. Using the term "Rishon" and its derivatives makes this portion of the Torah focus on beginnings, on firsts and most importantly on uniqueness.
There is also a Midrash associated with Bet and the importance of its placement at the very beginning of the Torah. Young Jews are asked to imagine themselves as the dot in the middle of Bet. Notice how the only clear path is directly forward (Hebrew is read from right to left). If the Torah begins with Bet and we live our lives by the Torah, then we must remember to keep our minds on the present and on the potential of the future. We must not dwell on the past, which is irretrievably behind us. We must not gaze at our feet in inaction or preoccupy ourselves with the grave above which we walk. And however pious we may be we must not look upward to Heaven, either for guidance or in aspirations toward paradise, while there is so much for us to do here in life.
So, from the very beginning (literally), the Torah establishes itself as document concerned with life. As we continue with our lessons, we will see this sentiment reiterated time and again. This is the true depth and power of Torah study. In every letter there is a lesson. The stories themselves are important, but how they are told can have just as much, or sometimes more, meaning.