The World Recreated to Allow Second Chances

 The World Recreated to Allow Second Chances: Yom Kippur 2023

Hebrew

On Rosh Hashanah 5784 years ago, the world was created for a second time. How could that be?

According to a Midrashic tradition, the physical creation, in which God says, “Let there be light,” (Genesis 1:3) began on 25 Elul. Therefore, the sixth day – when “every living soul,” including Adam, was created – was the first day of Tishrei. In this creation, which we read about in Genesis chapter 1, everything was created through speech, so it was clean and orderly. Every day the results were graded and declared “good.” I understand that to mean, not only was creation was clean and orderly, but also that it met expectations. On the sixth day, the process ends with the creation of humanity, male and female, and everything that God had done was declared “very good.” If the good components of creation were clean, orderly, and met expectations, it is reasonable to understand that the overall creation, which was declared “very good,” was very clean, very orderly, and met all expectations. But, no.

In Bereishit Rabbah (9), a series of rabbis give the word “very” varied meanings that are not necessarily good. Among other things, they suggest that the word is intended to include Gehinom, the angel of death, Roman rule, and the evil inclination in creation. Each understands it differently but together they mean that the created world was “good but complex.”

If we continue reading in the spirit of Midrash, the following chapters in Genesis detail events that happened on the sixth day, when humans were created, but did not live up to expectations. The creation of humanity introduced complexity. As soon as Eve and Adam ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, contrary to God’s instructions, the second creation began, according to the teachings of Rav Yitzchak Hutner (Warsaw, 1906 – Jerusalem, 1980).

Exodus 34 in the Leningrad Codex (Sefaria)

Where does this concept come from? Not from a direct interpretation of Genesis, but from the 13 Attributes [Middot] of Mercy: “The Eternal (Y-H-V-H), the Eternal, God merciful and gracious...” (Exodus 34:6). A widely-accepted exegetical rule states that there are no superfluous words in the Torah, so the second occurrence of the Ineffable Name, Y-H-V-H, requires explanation. Immediately after the statement in the Talmud that establishes the 13 Attributes as a component of prayer, the Gemara explains: “The Eternal, the Eternal – I am God before a person sins and I am God after a person sins” (Rosh Hashanah 17b). This explanation is well-known and accepted – it appears in our Yom Kippur Machzor twice – but I find it puzzling. If the Ineffable Name represents the Deity who is “past, present and future” God was surely Godself before a person sins and also afterward. That’s how I always understood it, and therefore, I asked why it needed to be said.

Then I studied Rabbi Hutner’s sermon in a lesson with Rabbi Tali Adler of the Hadar Institute. First, Rabbi Hutner understands that the “person” here is Primordial Adam and not just any person. Further, he understands God’s name not as representing God’s eternity but rather as expression of the force that called the world into being. The first appearance of the Name refers to the first creation in Genesis 1, when everything was indeed perfect. But in perfection there is fragility.  Rabbi Hutner explains (based on Rabbi Adler’s translation): “The first instantiation of creation: its power only lasted up until the moment of Adam’s sin. The moment of sin was the endpoint of that existence [created by] the first ineffable name in the 13 Middot, ‘God before the sin.’ But here a new world is created with repentance which is represented by the second ineffable name comes.” At that moment, the power of creation came into play again and the world was recreated, in a second and improved edition that includes the option of repentance. Rabbi Hutner goes on to compare teshuva to the splitting of the Red Sea, a primordial miracle. Primordial and difficult.

I hope I’ve managed to convey some of the homiletical beauty of this teaching. If not, at least I hope that the message is clear. The second edition of the world, after Eden, was created to allow for second chances. Moreover, the renewed creation exemplifies them. Although humans were created in the image of God, their behavior does not meet divine expectations. In the transition to physical matter, disorder entered the Divine image. But the Creator did not give up, but rather tried to fix things.

The possibility of repentance came into the world, but there is no sign that Adam and Eve grasp this possibility. When God asks, “Did you eat of the tree from which I had forbidden you to eat?” (Genesis 2:17) each one passes the responsibility on. They neither apologize nor ask for forgiveness. The power of repentance remained potential.

Their son Cain commits a major sin and repents just a little. At first, he too shirks responsibility, but when punished, he does grasp what is happening, and pleads, “My punishment is too great to bear!” (Genesis 4:13). Although this is not an admission of guilt but rather a complaint about the severity of his punishment, the very fact that Cain responds is a first step. God complies and gives him a sign for protection. This is an initial spark and “bearing punishment” becomes an Attribute of Mercy.

Bereishit Rabbah (22) describes this development through a conversation between father and son. When Adam asks Cain about his sentence, “‘He [Cain] said to him, ‘I have repented and there was a compromise.’ Adam hit himself on the face, saying, ‘Thus is the power of repentance and I had no idea.’”

Cain learned whatever he learned, but the general situation continued to deteriorate, until the Creator could no longer stand the mess and brought a flood to clean the earth. At the end of the process, God begins to understand the complexity of humanity and declares, “Never again will I doom the earth because of humankind, since the devisings of the human mind are evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living being, as I have done” (Gen. 8:21). Slowly, God and humans learn to live and work together.

People sin not only towards God, but also against each other. On the social level, too, time is required to develop the possibility of repentance, reconciliation, and forgiveness. Esau and Jacob reconcile without apology or explicit words of forgiveness. The first to show actual processes of learning and teshuva are Judah facing Tamar, and all the brothers facing Joseph. Their repentance took decades, and they paid heavy prices, the death of Judah’s two sons, famine, detention, and exile.

Skipping ahead to the generation of the Exodus. Adam received one mitzvah. At Mount Sinai, the Israelites accepted the Ten Commandments, which included an absolute prohibition: “You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image, or any likeness… You shall not bow down to them or serve them…” (Exodus 20:4-5). This time, they held out for forty days until Moses was late returning to the camp. Desperate, the people demand a physical representation instead of an abstract deity. Aaron succumbed to public pressure and very shortly the people are dancing around the Golden Calf. After what was commanded at Sinai, God’s immense wrath is not surprising. Moses’ daring mediation saves us and the punishment stops short of total annihilation, but is not completely canceled (Exodus 32). The 13 Attributes are declared only after the price is exacted (Exod. 34:6-7).

When Kings Saul and David sin, they do confess guilt after a prophet rebukes them, but confessing “I have sinned” does not eliminate their punishments.

Jonah, the recalcitrant prophet, about whom we will read about at Minha, was the one chosen to introduce teshuva that preempts punishment to the world, according to the eye-opening reading of Mira Bernstein (a mathematician). The Book of Jonah itself is not dated, but a prophet named Jonah ben Amitai appears in the Second Book of Kings, at the time of Jeroboam ben Nevat, and he may have been the first of the latter prophets.

His prophecy, “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overturned,” does indeed turn things upside down. The people of the city and their king express sorrow and return from their evil ways. Therefore, “God renounced the punishment that had been planned for them and did not carry it out” (Jonah 3). The threat of punishment was not fulfilled. This is the first time that repentance cancels the evil decree altogether. Jonah is angry when he realizes what is happening, but God remains firm, sparing the city and all its inhabitants, men, women, children, and beasts (Jonah 4). Once again, God Godself demonstrates the improved edition of the world and teshuva. Davka abroad. Repentance is not part of the covenant between the people of Israel and their God, but the inheritance of all humanity.

Let me add: The possibility – which is not a promise – that repentance will nullify punishment does not make repentance easy. It’s still hard to confess and say, “I sinned.” It is even harder to change patterns of behavior. As difficult as the splitting of the Red Sea. Therefore, God is willing to accept even the initial steps of the people of Nineveh despite their wrongdoing. Presumably, God could judge human's sincerity at any given moment. Therefore, God is willing to take a risk and prefer mercy to judgment, so as not to waste the potential inherent in a moment of repentance.

It is also important to note: the people of Nineveh did not repent individually, but as a group. Similarly, we are here together today even though the real work of teshuva is internal, personal. Individual prayer and communal singing alternate, so we can feel the support of the togetherness while doing our individual work, in the hope that saying “we have sinned” will pave the way to the “I have sinned” necessary for true repentance.

Allow me to conclude with a sentence Lea Tal used to include in the additional readings for the High Holidays: “As long as the candle is lit, repair is possible.”

Shoshana Michael Zucker
Kehillat Hod VeHadar, Kfar Saba