At its very core, the Torah is not a history text or a science book. We don’t need the Torah for those purposes: we can use the world around us to learn about the physical laws of nature.
The Torah is, instead, Hashem’s way of telling us how to live, how to relate to each other and to the world around us. It tells us The Meaning of Life.
So when Hashem tells us how Adam was made, “And the L-rd Hashem formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul,”[3] it is not a description of reality, but a description of what we need to know about the essential nature of man, in order to come to understand ourselves: what makes us tick.
The Torah is telling us that we are formed of two, opposite forces. We are made from dust, and the breath of life –from Hashem’s spiritual energy.
This very idea can help explain the purpose of life. By accepting, at the same time, that we are mortal, and that we are capable of touching immortality, then we can understand why we are here. In our limited life-spans, we can harness our souls to achieve great things.
The Torah is not interested in reality, because reality is already in front of us; we can take it for granted without needing it spelled out by Hashem. Hashem is interested in people growing, becoming better, creating new realities. And so it is consistent that the Torah does not tell us that people come from animals, because that statement, true or not, does not help us decide what to do next. And so, for the purposes of the Torah and our lives, people are not animals.
Scientists tell us otherwise. After all, we share 75% of our DNA with dogs, 80% with mice, and 97%+ with chimpanzees. We have internal organs, and can be cut apart and examined like any animal. The physical reality is that people are animals, nothing more or less.
Animals are not good or evil. They follow their instincts, and they live their entire lives without any self-awareness or guilt. Animals simply act.
This, of course, is the most common explanation for immoral behavior. We have all been told that, biologically speaking, men are not meant to be monogamous. And so, when men follow hedonistic desires, they are only doing “what comes naturally.” We are doing what animals would do in the same situation: seek self-gratification at every turn with no thought for morality or consequences.
That is how animals behave. We already, instinctively, want to act that way. But the Torah tells us that our origins are different: “And the L-rd Hashem formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”[4]
The Torah is a forward-looking document, so it is not interested in objective reality. In plain English: people are not meant to act like animals, so any resemblance we may have to animals is a misunderstanding of why we are here.