By the Grace of G-d
Dear Friend,
A new beginning.
After the High Holidays, followed by Sukkot and Simchat Torah, we begin to read the Torah from BERESHIT – In the Beginning…
We all like to start things off on the right foot.
Thinking back to my school years, the first pages of my notebooks were far neater and invested then the subsequent pages.
The Torah begins on a fantastically optimistic, bright and positive note.
The first item that Hashem created on day one of creation was LIGHT.
In describing the creation, G-d uses the word ‘TOV’ – good, six times, for the six days of creation.
On day six, just before the informing about the seventh day in which G-d rested, the Torah sums up creation as being TOV M’EOD – VERY good.
There is an email that sticks in my memory. It was many years ago. It was a challenge to an article I had written.
I had written an article describing how man is innately good and positive.
Someone sent me an email hotly contesting what I had written about man’s intrinsic goodness. The person quoted an explicit verse in the portion of Noach, where after the flood Hashem promises not to destroy the world again because man is evil from the get-go. "I will no longer curse the earth because of man, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth, and I will no longer smite all living things as I have done’ .
This year, I was reading a talk from the Rebbe delivered on this Shabbat in 1964 and this very topic jumped out at me from the text on the page.
The Rebbe commented on his own pre-Rosh Hashana letter that year, (click here for full letter) where he had stated:
There were times when the said idea, namely, the ability of a single individual to ‘transform’ the world, met with skepticism, and demanded proof etc.
However, precisely in our generation, unfortunately, we do not have far to seek to be convinced of this. We have seen how one individual had brought the world to the brink of destruction, but for the mercies of the King of the Universe Who ordained that ‘the Earth shall stand firm; shall not fall’.
If such is the case in the realm of evil, surely one’s potential is much greater in the realm of the good. For, in truth, creation is essentially good, and therefore more inclined towards the good than the opposite.
The Rebbe asked a question on his own above premise that ‘creation is essentially good’ quoting the verse from Noach about the heart of man being ‘evil from his youth’. Based on that verse, asked the Rebbe ‘how could I have written that creation is essentially good’?
I was so excited to see the question spelled out. Because it has been mulling in my mind since that person asked me the question.
The Rebbe answered, that based on the verses quoted above about creation being good, the true essence of creation and of man is good.
The Torah says that unequivocally. And even after Adam sinned, Hashem still summed up creation by saying ‘it was very good’.
However, the innate goodness is only the true essence, at its deepest core.
Once you proceed outward, to the less essential and deep levels, there indeed man has negative tendencies from his very youth.
On the surface, the world is not good. There are many aspects that are just downright bad.
But, Hashem calls the creation ‘good’ because at its core, it is GOOD.
‘How does that help?’ further asked the Rebbe. We don’t live at our ‘core’. We live with the reality of what is evident at face value. And the negativity that we encounter around us, flies in the face of the Torah’s description of humankind and the world being essentially good.
The fact that the world is good at its core, is extremely helpful, answered the Rebbe.
There is an intrinsic and gargantuan difference between the task of transforming a bad world into good to the work required in merely uncovering the negative layers of externality and revealing the innate good from within.
To sum it up.
We, you and I, as well the entire world created by G-d, are innately good.
The negativity that we have in ourselves, and in the world is only an outside addition.
We need but to dig deep and shovel away the dirt, to hit GOLD. The gold that is deeply embedded within us and is actually the truest level of ourself.
Let’s get to work and discover our true selves.
This is achieved by studying Torah.
Simchas Torah and Shabbat Breishit is the time to make good resolutions about studying Torah! Sign up to a daily study program at Chabad.org or if you would like something that emanates from Thailand, one of our local community has a ‘weekly nutshell’ or the ‘daily aliyah’ that he sends out weekly and daily respectively. If you would like to be on that list please click
By doing mitzvahs.
Mitzvahs between ourselves and G-d.
Mitzvahs between ourselves and our fellow.
And let us work very hard, to always see that innate good in others.
And may G-d bring our essential good to the fore!
This is what will happen when Mashiach comes. The inside, essential goodness of humanity and the entire creation, will be revealed!
Can’t wait for that day.
Gotta do more deeds of goodness and kindness to hurry it up and hasten his coming NOW.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Yosef Kantor