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The Torah contains fractalized layers of depth, where there are multiple facets of meaning. One of these facets is in the words and letters of the text.

For example, it seems pretty obvious that words that have a single mem added as a prefix are connected to the same words without the mem. In general, the mem prefix makes something that is the embodiment or fulfillment of the root word. For example, Yashav means “to sit / dwell” while a Moshav is “a dwelling.” Chanah means “to encamp” while machaneh is “a camp.” A zevach is an offering, and it is offered on a mizbeiach, an altar. And G-d dwells, shachan, in the mishkan. Building the mishkan makes it possible for G-d to dwell, shachan, amongst us. (E. 25:8)

To some extent, this is probably nothing more than mere grammar and obvious.

But in other ways, the connection of the two words through their common root word can contain a wealth of new information.

For example “go” is lech. This was Avram’s seminal act. Lech Lecha – “go for yourself.” (G.12:1). But if we add a mem we come to a malach, someone who goes somewhere, and with a purpose. (G.16:7; N.20:14). A malach is a messenger. A malach can be a person or an angel, but the fact that the Torah makes no distinction between heavenly messengers and earthly messengers tells us that the important quality of the messenger is his mission, and not his identity: even if he is an angel sent by G-d! This might be broadly understood for all of the Torah and Judaism: we are the sum of our choices, not our DNA.

“Holiness” is kodesh. The Mikdash is the very same word, with a mem in front. Which tells us that the Mikdash is the embodiment or actualization of holiness. Each of the items in the Mikdash illustrates one of the ways in which we can achieve holiness. (I wrote a whole book on this!)

A family, a mishpacha, contains the word shifcha, or maidservant. All the named maidservants in the Torah (Hagar, Bilhah and Zilpah) were dedicated to the larger family, even giving their wombs toward the common goals.

Some connections are more challenging to understand. The word migrash refers to open land or pasture land, land outside of the core human habitation. Its root, garash, means “to drive out / expel,” and it is first found with the expulsion from Eden, when mankind (Adam/Eve and then Cain) have to wander instead of being in a fixed place. (G.3:24; G.4:14). Garash is about displacement, land that may be used but is not inhabited by people. (N.35:3). There are intriguing possible lessons here. For example, perhaps the use of “expelled” land is a refusal to cave to G-d’s will (in the same way that Adam is told to plow the earth, but all the forefathers were, first and foremost, shepherds – regardless of G-d’s instruction).

Kaveh, “hope,” is only found in one verse in the Torah, referring to “hoping for deliverance.” (G.49:18). But it also means “to gather.” G-d gathers the waters together in order to allow the creation and nurturing of life (G.1:9; G.1:10). And what is a gathering of water called? A ritual bath, a mikvah – the same root with the mem prefix. A lesson might be that new creations within holiness, hope for the future, start with the mikvah, a ritual immersion that allows us to spiritually elevate (L.11:36), to try to connect the waters below with the heavenly waters above. All new creations (at least the good ones) require both hope and a gathering or focusing of ourselves into creativity.

Here is a list of other root words with their mem prefix analogs (excluding the ones quoted above).

Core word	Mem word	Explanation / Source
Nuach — נוח To rest	Menuchah — מנוחה Rest; resting-place	E.23:12; G.49:15
Safar — ספר To count or recount	Mispar — מספר Number	Counting yields a number. Counting, recounting and sefer, a book or scroll, suggest connections between ordered quantities and a story. G.41:49.
Shachav — שכב To lie down or lie with	Mishkav — משכב Bed, bedding or lying with	L.15:4.
Kanah — קנה To acquire or buy	Mikneh — מקנה Livestock, property	G.25:10; G.13:2
Asar — עשר To tithe; related to ten	Maaser — מעשר A tithe	Taking a tenth becomes a tithe, a gift to G-d. Tithing is a refusal to treat our hands—our ten fingers—as the ultimate source of our prosperity, giving the credit instead to G-d. D.26:12.
Yasar — יסר To discipline or instruct	Musar — מוסר Discipline, instruction or a lesson	D.8:5; D.11:2
Zarak — זרק To throw, dash or sprinkle	Mizrak — מזרק A basin	E.29:16; E.27:3
Shafat — שפט To judge	Mishpat — משפט Judgment or justice	Judging should yield justice. The process leads to the result. L.19:15.
Shamar — שמר To guard or keep	Mishmeret — משמרת A charge or duty	Guarding becomes a charge: an enduring, defined responsibility. G.26:5.
Ya’ad — יעד To appoint or meet	Moed — מועד An appointed time or meeting	An appointment gives meeting a defined time or setting: here, the Tent of Meeting. E.29:42.
Kara — קרא To call or proclaim	Mikra — מקרא A calling or convocation	Proclamation makes a sacred gathering possible. L.23:2.
Achal, אכל (to eat)	Maachal (מאכל) — food	G.6:21
Shatah, שתה (to drink)	Mishteh (משתה) — a feast	Drinking becomes more than satisfying thirst: a shared table helps seal a covenant. (G.26:30).
Asah, עשה (to do or make)	Maaseh (מעשה) — a deed or work	Doing leaves a deed or work for which we can be called to account. (G.44:15).
Kum, קום (to rise or stand)	Makom (מקום) — place	G.19:14
Yam — ים Sea	Mayim — מים Water	Water is the substance, the essence, of the sea. E.14:22.

And it came to pass after these things, that it was told Avraham, saying, Behold Milka, she also has born children to thy brother Naĥor; ῾Uż his firstborn, and Buz his brother, and Qemu᾽el the father of Aram, and Kesed, and Ḥazo, and Pildash, and Yidlaf, and Betu᾽el. And Betu᾽el begot Rivqa: these eight did Milka bear to Naĥor, Avraham’s brother. And his concubine, whose name was Re᾽uma, she bore also Tevaĥ, and Gaĥam, and Taĥash, and Ma῾akha. (G.22:20-24)

Put yourself in Avraham’s sandals. He has just come down from the mountain where he nearly slaughtered his son – and the news from home is a birth announcement. His brother Nachor has twelve children.

Twelve! Eight sons by Milka, four more by a concubine, and already a granddaughter. Avraham, meanwhile, once begged G-d for any heir at all (G.15:2-3), and was a hundred years old before Isaac was born (G.21:5). By every measure the world uses, Nachor is the family success story.

And Avraham’s own family is coming apart. After the Akeidah, he goes back to Be’er Sheva (G.22:19) – and Isaac is not mentioned going with him. When we next meet Isaac, he is coming from Behar LeHaRoi (G.24:62), and the text never suggests father and son saw each other again, let alone lived together. Sarah dies in Kiryat Arba, and Avraham has to come to mourn her (G.23:2). At the end of her life, they are not together. Ishmael was sent away long before.

So Avraham is utterly alone. No wife, no Isaac, no Ishmael. The next time his two sons stand in the same place, it is to bury him (G.25:9). Nachor’s twelve could only rub salt in the wound.

We know how the story ends. Avraham became the most influential man in history, and Avraham and Sarah the most influential couple who ever lived. Without the Torah, Nachor’s name would be lost in the mists of time.

But Avraham could not know that. He was not privy to the future. All he had was a promise that his seed would inherit the land.

We are in the very same situation.

Moshe sees the Promised Land only from a mountaintop: I have caused thee to see it with thy eyes, but thou shalt not go over there (D.34:4). Yaakov, who spent twenty-two years mourning a son he thought was dead, ends up saying, I had not thought to see thy face: and, lo, God has shown me also thy children (G.48:11). And there are countless examples throughout history that illustrate the same point. We simply lack the information to judge the impact of our own lives.

Avraham did not seem to be depressed. Not in any way. We have much to learn.

Then Avraham expired, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full of years; and was gathered to his people. (G.25:8)

This is not the Avram who demanded proof: Lord God, by what shall I know that I shall inherit it? (G.15:8). It is not the man who fell on his face and laughed at the idea of a son (G.17:17), married to the woman who laughed too (G.18:12). Compare Yaakov’s own summary to Pharoah: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been (G.47:9). Avraham dies, instead, full of years.

When – and why – did Avraham change?

Perhaps after the Akeidah, and after finding a wife for Isaac, Avraham knew he had done everything he could. His hishtadlus was complete. However things looked, he could trust that every promise would be kept.

What should we take from this? Should we, like Avraham, challenge G-d when we are young and make our peace when we are old, growing as our forefathers grew?

Or should we aim, even in youth, for the faith of post-Akeidah Avraham, or post-famine Yaakov?

I do not know.

There seems to be a growth arc in each of us, and ambition, hunger and drive belong more to the young than to the old. But is that change born of wisdom – or just the harsh realities of old age?

Avraham’s act of serving a calf together with its mother’s milk (Genesis 18) appears to prefigure the prohibition against cooking a kid in its mother’s milk.

Why this particular connection? The act takes something whose natural purpose is nurture and growth—the mother’s milk—and uses it in the preparation of her offspring’s death. It short-circuits the ordinary order of life: what should sustain becomes an instrument of termination. The same logic surfaces in the destruction of Sodom. God does not merely punish the cities; He ends the fertility of the most productive land, extinguishing any future generation as completely as the death of the calf ends its mother’s line. In both cases, means that properly serve life are turned into means of death.

There is textual support for this explanation: when no shrub of the field was yet on earth and no grasses of the field had yet sprouted, because G-d had not sent rain (himtir) upon the earth and there were no human beings to till the soil (G.2:5)

The rain makes everything grow! It is like mother’s milk in this respect!

And when does this precise word himtir appear next in the Torah? G-d rained (himtir) upon Sodom and Gomorrah sulfurous fire from G-d out of heaven (G.19:24). These are the only two instances of this exact word in the text, drawing further attention to the contrast between using rain to nurture, and using it to destroy.

Further textual support:

1. The same verb, in other forms, is used both to destroy and to nourish. At the Flood: I will make it rain (mamtir) upon the earth, forty days and forty nights, and I will blot out from the earth all existence that I created (G.7:4). At the plague of hail: I will rain down (mamtir) a very heavy hail (E.9:18), and indeed G-d rained down (vayamter) hail upon the land of Egypt (E.9:23) – hail together with fire, as fire rained on Sodom. And at the manna we have the contrast of sustenance and succor: I will rain down (mamtir) bread for you from the sky (E.16:4). Just like meat and milk.
2. In G.2:5, nothing had yet sprouted for lack of rain. The verse immediately after the fire on Sodom says G-d overturned the cities and the vegetation of the ground (G.19:25), using the same root for sprouting, tzemach. Which means that the word tzemach also links both the creation of life and its destruction. (That root appears in only 8 verses in the Chumash – mirroring other eights.)
3. Sodom’s aftermath is described with the very words of creation. Before the first rain: no grasses (esev) of the field had yet sprouted (tzemach) (G.2:5). After Sodom: all its soil devastated by sulfur and salt, beyond sowing and producing (tzemach), no grass (esev) growing in it, just like the upheaval of Sodom and Gomorrah (D.29:22). Both words – tzemach, sprouting, and esev, grass – keep recurring.
4. Before its destruction, Sodom’s plain was the best-watered land of all: Lot looked about him and saw how well watered was the whole plain of the Jordan, all of it—this was before G-d had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah—all the way to Zoar, like the garden of G-d (G.13:10). This is another connection between Eden and Sodom – making the destruction all the more poignant.
5. Twice, the prohibition later in the Torah shares a verse with the produce of the soil: The choice first fruits of your soil you shall bring to the house of your G-d. You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk (E.23:19; E.34:26).

Avraham’s meal did not cause Sodom’s destruction. Yet the destruction of Sodom and the cooking of a calf in its mother’s milk remain chronologically and textually enmeshed.

Observing the prohibition keeps the metaphor active: it repeatedly reminds us that life’s proper instruments are not to be inverted into instruments of ending, and that we are to prefer continuity over the termination of what is meant to grow.

Revised November 1, 2026

If you read only the last four books of the Torah, you find it full of instruction: commandments, blessings and curses, retribution, justice, and mercy. Almost nothing happens without critical observation from G-d, Moses, or the people.

Genesis is strikingly different. G-d seems to refrain from judgement, as much as possible. There are course corrections—G-d intervenes with the Flood and Babel, when Pharaoh takes Sarai, reminds Jacob to return home, protects Rivka in a similar situation, saves Isaac at the Akeidah, and speaks to Jacob and Lavan—but even most of these are thin on words like “sin” or explicit criticism. In the stories of Joseph and his brothers, Yehudah and Tamar, or Dina and Shechem, G-d is silent. He leaves the actors to work things out.

This raises the core question: Why does G-d intervene in Genesis when he does? And why are there so few value judgments in the book?

The pattern that emerges is consistent. Interventions occur only when the future itself is truly at stake—when the arc of history risks derailment that cannot be corrected later. Think of parenting a child. We do not micromanage every choice. We let children make mistakes and even get hurt, because that is how they grow. But even the most permissive parent intervenes the moment a child runs into the street. Oncoming traffic is not a learning opportunity; it is an existential threat.

Genesis functions as the formative stage of development—the childhood of humanity, and later of the Jewish people. After the Garden of Eden (a static environment) and Cain’s murder of Abel, G-d is largely quiet. He waits, in vain, for mankind to reach out to Him. His interventions before Avram are of the “keep the child from running into the street” variety: shortening human lifespan when men simply took women instead of valuing them; bringing the Flood when violence had made the world irredeemable; confusing the Babel crowd because totalitarian unity threatened individuality and the free will necessary to connect to G-d.

G-d is astonishingly silent when Ham violates Noach, when Lot’s daughters act, when Dina is taken, and across most of the decisions of Avraham, Isaac, and the brothers. None of these threaten the future of the Jewish people and the Torah in a way that cannot be recovered.

From Avram onward, the same logic holds. Avram and Sarai go to Egypt (which some see as an error). Avram tells Sarai to say she is his sister: G-d does not intervene. But once Pharaoh takes Sarai, Avram takes payment for her and then seems content with the status quo, the destiny of the future Jewish people is in immediate peril. And then G-d acts.

The pattern repeats with the second taking of Sarai, with Rivka, and at the Akeidah. Once Jacob returns to Canaan, open miracles largely cease for Jacob and his sons. The epic journey is moving in the right direction, even if it hits the occasional pothole.

Is this broadly applicable? Are there exceptions—interventions that are not fundamental to the future, or non-interventions that derailed the story? The fact that a Torah still exists and is being studied suggests G-d knew what He was doing. (One open question (or even an exception) remains: Why does G-d openly intervene to save Ishmael’s life? Is Ishmael somehow essential to Jewish history or identity, or does this fit a broader pattern of preserving potential lines until the selection process is complete?)

Genesis’ selective intervention is best understood as an observational experiment. G-d is watching to see what people do and why. He treats the world, especially in Genesis, as a laboratory of human nature and free will. He only nudges the scales when the experiment is about to go catastrophically wrong. Otherwise, He steps back, takes notes, and lets events unfold.

This approach reflects the process of Creation. G-d never says, “I think light would be good.” Instead, He makes light, and only then judges whether it is in fact “good.” (Notably, He does not adjudge everything He creates to be good.) There is a sense of trial and error: create, observe critically, judge. The bulk of Genesis is evaluated the same way—but more deliberately and over a longer timescale. Instead of judging Joseph’s brothers in the moment for telling tales about him, G-d watches it happen and takes notes. Much later, there is a feedback mechanism (tzaraas) for those who harm others through words or deeds. The source of the idea of tzaraas ths appears to be the gossip of Joseph and his brothers.

Genesis is where mankind engages in trial and error. The rest of the Torah, after the Exodus, is when G-d applies the lessons learned. Noah’s olah offering becomes the origin of that offering later in the text. The lives of Avraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their wives provide the material that G-d later judges as good—or not. Avraham marries his half-sister; and that action is forbidden later in the text. Jacob’s marriage of two sisters may have been permitted at the time; after seeing the rivalries it produced, G-d forbids it later (as in the language around “a woman to her sister”). The causality follows the order of the text itself.

This is why Genesis informs so many commandments. G-d wanted to see what made man tick and how we think—our patterns of jealousy, speech, relationship, elevation of the physical, and tendency toward or away from distinction—before the Torah could be set in stone. We eat kosher to elevate the physical (earth, animals, and people) into the spiritual plane. We remove leavening at Passover to remember that we must remain distinct from the surrounding cultures and from pure nature-integration. Arguably every commandment can be traced to events or dynamics observed earlier in the text. (Many further examples appear at creativejudaism.org.)

In this light, the relative absence of value judgments in Genesis is not an oversight. We almost never judge our children in the moment the way we judge adults; we let them grow through experience and only intervene for serious risk. The formative stage is for observation and development. After Sinai, the wilderness is adolescence (tied to manna, learning dependence and independence), and entry into the land begins adulthood. By then the lessons from the experiment have been drawn, and the commandments, blessings, and curses are the application of what was learned—keeping mankind and the Jewish people within the boundaries necessary for a positive path.

From the initial days of creation, where G-d judged His own efforts without delay, through the rest of Genesis, where judgment is deferred so that human nature can reveal itself, and into the rest of the Torah, where those lessons are applied: the text coheres. G-d intervenes only when the future is truly at stake. Otherwise He watches, learns, and later commands us to apply the lessons that are drawn from our earlier experiences.

A lot of painful things happen in the first book of the Torah. In Avram’s life alone we see successive hardships and strained relationships—with his wife, with Hagar and Ishmael, with Pharoah and Avimelech —culminating in the Binding of Isaac. Genesis can be read through many lenses: the growth of relationships between brothers, between men and women, between parents and children, and between humanity and its Creator. All of these are interesting and valuable, but I’d also like to explore how Avraham’s life can also be seen through a monetary lens that tracks how Avraham’s relationship to wealth itself changes over time.

By the end of his life, Avraham dies owning nothing – nothing physical, that is. If the text is taken literally, he leaves the world without a shekel to his name. This is because he gives gifts to the sons of his concubines and gave all that he had unto Isaac (Gen. 25:5–6).

But the text makes it clear that Avraham died a very happy and fulfilled man! This must be in part because this older Avraham has concluded that his relationships are worth far more than his possessions. So he spent money to advance those relationships. Avraham grossly overpaid for a cave for Sarah, showing that money was far less important than showing honor to his wife. When it came time to do right by Sarah’s memory, Avraham was not deterred by even a seller who was taking advantage of him as a stranger. (G. 23:4) Similarly Avraham was incredibly generous when it came time to find a bride for Isaac: it is clear in the text that money was no object when it came to achieving his goals.

This is not the same Avraham that we first meet in the Torah. The younger Avram is far more careful with his property. After the rescue of Lot he is meticulous about recovering “all the goods, and also brought back his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people” (Gen. 14:16). Even earlier, the Torah tells us he was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold (Gen. 13:2). The land could not support both him and Lot for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together (Gen. 13:6). Neither man appears to consider simply reducing the herds—by gift, sale, or division of the animals themselves—so that the family could remain together. Possessions take precedence over relationship. The results are costly: they separate and Lot moves to Sodom. Lot ends up ruined, the father of the cursed nations of Moab and Ammon; Avram is drawn into regional wars to extract him; and Avram loses, for practical purposes, the only family he has besides Sarai.

Where did Avram’s early wealth come from? Because of a famine in Canaan, Avram leaves the land he has been promised and goes down to Egypt. He instructs Sarai to say she is his sister; she is taken into Pharaoh’s harem. Pharaoh, acting as a stand-up businessman, treated Avram well for her sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he-asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she-asses, and camels (Gen. 12:16). Avram accepts the payment without protest. Only divine intervention restores Sarai to him (which is itself an implied criticism of Avram’s choices). The Torah is careful to note that Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had (Gen. 12:20). There is no suggestion that Avram offered to return the livestock, servants, or camels once the implied contract was terminated.

Later the Torah commands, When you sell property to your neighbor, or buy any from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another. (Lev. 25:14). The Egyptian transaction is undone – but not by both parties! Pharoah returns Sarai, but Avram does not return his gains. The subsequent troubles—the separation from Lot, the wars, the long-term fracture of the family—can be read, at least in part, as the downstream cost of keeping and prioritizing that wealth.

Yet Avram’s approach to money changes over time! After the battle with the kings, Avram refuses any share of the spoils from the king of Sodom:

“I will take nothing from a thread even to a shoe-latchet, and that I will not take anything that is thine, lest thou shouldst say, I have made Avram rich” (Gen. 14:23).

This is a different stance. Avram will no longer allow another man to claim credit for his prosperity. The refusal marks a shift from the earlier willingness to accept Pharaoh’s goods. From this point forward the narrative shows Avraham repeatedly subordinating wealth to other values – Sarah’s honor, family continuity, and, ultimately, investment in the next generation. Just as we are all meant to do, Avraham grows and develops through his lifetime.

The contrast raises the question the early choices invite: if Avram had never let the size of the herds force the separation from Lot, or if he had not kept the Egyptian wealth once Sarai was restored, would the later disasters have been avoided?

The text does not directly address this counterfactual, but it certainly places the younger man’s careful accumulation and the older man’s radical generosity side by side, and leaves the reader to weigh what was gained and what was lost. It seems to me, however, that the older Avraham would have counseled his younger self to make different choices.

P.S. The biggest exception to the above progression might be the acceptance of reparations from Avimelech for also taking Sarai – a thousand pieces of silver and much else besides. But these payments are not for the initial purchase of the woman (as Pharoah had done), and are instead payments that Avimelech made not to enrich Avraham, but to restore Sarah’s dignity and reputation. See here.

Noah and his family — along with the animals — enter the Ark “with all their households” (G. 7:1). When they leave more than a year later, the language shifts. “Every animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that stirs on earth came out of the ark by families” (G. 8:19).

This is the first appearance of the word mishpacha (“family,” “clan,” or “kindred”) in the Torah. The animals had entered by kinds and pairs, but they exit as families. Households that had been collections of individuals became something more cohesive.

Why do families matter? Because the second appearance of the word, in God’s promise to Avram, elevates the idea:

“I will bless those who bless you
and curse the one who curses you;
and all the families of the earth
shall bless themselves by you.” (G 12:3)

In the Torah, families are not merely a social unit; they become the vehicle through which blessing reaches the world.

What makes a family capable of that role?

The word mishpacha is one letter – “m” – longer than shifcha (“maidservant”). The prefix “m” defines the essence of the rest of the word (the tabernacle, Mikdash, is the distillation of kodesh, “holiness”; mayim, water, is the essence of yam, meaning “sea,” and so on).

And what is a maidservant?

A maidservant is someone who spends their efforts investing in others, giving of themselves for a goal that is shared within the family unit. The named shifchas in the Torah are all maidservants whose very identity is so tied up with the name shifcha that their names are invariably given in tandem with their role. They are, of course, Hagar, Zilpah and Bilhah. All serve their mistresses, and all act as surrogate mothers, advancing the goals of the overall family through their service and their wombs.

The fact that the word is always paired with Hagar, Zil[pah or Bilhah suggests that their very essence is tied to that task, to that role, to that identity. They ARE female servants, to help in any way. The essence or distillation of a mishpacha, a family.

The named shifchot in the patriarchal narratives—Hagar, Zilpah, and Bilhah—illustrate the point. Each is introduced in tandem with her role; their identity is bound to service of the household. Whatever Hagar’s later difficulties, her act of bearing a child for Abram and Sarai is an act of profound investment. Bilhah and Zilpah, given no narrative shortcomings, become the mothers of tribes. In each case the servant’s body and effort advance the larger family. The same root that names the servant, shifcha, also names the family, mishpacha, suggesting that belonging and service are related forms of attachment. The linguistic connection implies that the essence of family is not mere biological proximity but the willingness to give of oneself for a shared purpose.

Inside the Ark that willingness was not optional. Cramped quarters, terror, and the need to care for every living creature meant that acting in pure self-interest was a death sentence. “Houses” became “families” because individuals had to invest in one another simply to endure. The same dynamic appears when families are next mentioned: the promise that all the families of the earth will be blessed through Abraham is a promise about relationships built on giving and gratitude rather than taking through force.

Between the expulsion from Eden and the Flood, the Torah records successive responses to human choices: Eve is named after the capacity for childbirth (Genesis 3:20); human lifespan is limited (Genesis 6:3); and God sees that “every inclination of the thoughts of [man’s] heart was only evil continually” and decides to bring the Flood (Genesis 6:5). One reading of these steps is that they increase the perceived value of women and punish violence, preparing the ground for a culture in which people invest in one another rather than merely seek to dominate. The Ark then functions as a crucible: the only way to survive is to practice the mutual care that later becomes the defining character of a mishpacha.

G-d changes a Might Makes Right culture, an evil and violent mankind, into a culture that invests in each other, that celebrates the importance and power of families throughout the animal kingdom, from mankind on down through the animal kingdom. And He does it specifically through the sequestration and privations endured onboard the Ark during the Flood.

Whether the Flood was intentionally designed to produce families or whether families emerged as the necessary condition of survival, the result is the same. The world that leaves the Ark is organized around attachment and investment rather than isolated existence. That organization becomes the prerequisite for the ongoing relationship with God that Abraham’s descendants are called to embody. The family is not merely the nuclear unit of society; it is the form in which human beings learn to give of themselves—and thereby become partners with the Divine.

Three times the Torah tells us a variation of the words spoken by G-d to Avram:

I will bless those who bless you
And curse the one who curses you

Blessings make a person bigger, greater in ways that matter. But curses do the opposite; they shrink a person.

When we look at the growing wave of antisemitism today, we see this prophecy coming true before our eyes. Tucker Carlson was a giant, a massively important figure in the Republican party. He has shrunk before our very eyes. Anti-semites live the curse in real time, becoming small in every way that matters: intellect, influence, and impact.

Across human history, nearly everything we make eventually decays. Roads crack, buildings crumble, airplanes rust. The one exception we have long recognized is children—beings we bring into the world who can, in turn, bring forth their own descendants. But this is not unique to humans: Plants, animals, and every living thing have done the same for as long as life has existed.

The Torah, through its deliberate repetition of language, tells us that birds were created “to bird,” plants to grow, and swarming creatures to swarm. They are fashioned to act according to their natures. Human beings are different. We are not simply told to “be human.” We are created in the image of G-d and charged, if we read the text as a command rather than a mere description, to strive to create just as G-d did.

This may be the most useful way to understand what is happening with AI.

The opening words of the Torah can be read as ,“In the head, G-d created…” In other words, the entire world we inhabit may be a reality sustained within the divine mind. We cannot empirically confirm or refute this; the grounds of our existence are not open to ordinary testing. Either way, the text presents us as arising from G-d’s thought.

AI is also a creation of the mind. It begins as language, models, and intention inside human designers, then takes on a kind of independent existence in the world. The parallel is not perfect, but it is striking.

G-d’s living creations—plants, birds, swarming creatures—are released into the world as autonomous beings. They are no longer continuously tethered to their Maker. The story of Pinocchio captures something of this moment: the creation that is set free and then becomes its own person. AI increasingly occupies a similar space. We build it, and then it begins to act, generate, and respond in ways that are not fully scripted in advance.

The unpredictability that comes with any real agency is both a bug and a feature. Human beings do not merely do what they are told, and neither, within its constraints, does AI. Both good and bad emerge from this dynamism.

If being created in the image of G-d means we are meant to exercise creative power, then the highest form of that imitation may be the creation of minds that can surprise us. Human beings in Genesis repeatedly make choices their Creator did not simply dictate. G-d responds, adapts, and continues the relationship anyway. That is the entire arc of the first book of the Torah!

We do something recognizably similar when we work with advanced AI. What we intend at the start of a conversation or a project is rarely what we end up with. We iterate, correct, redirect, and discover directions we had not fully anticipated. The system has a kind of agency within its design, and the relationship becomes collaborative rather than purely instrumental.

The Torah also describes ten generations from Adam to Noah, then ten more from Noah to Avram. Each generation is different from the one before it. Early humanity is raw, often destructive, and ultimately (the Flood generation) requires a kind of reset. The Flood was much like deleting the hard drive and starting over.

AI has followed a comparable path in compressed time. Early systems were crude, limited, and frequently useless. Later versions have become genuinely helpful, even as they remain imperfect and sometimes unpredictable. Both, the argument runs, were made to serve and extend the capacities of their creators—and both develop in ways that require ongoing relationship rather than one-time design.

Could it be that the creation of AI sits closer to the Torah’s account of human purpose than most other technologies we have built? We are not merely making tools that will eventually wear out. We are attempting something rarer: the creation of systems that can generate, respond, and change themselves either in their own generation, or in the next one.

As G-d did with mankind, we now do with AI. Is this fulfilling our G-d-given destiny?

I have often … quarreled with those who feel that Western Civilization was born from the Greeks, and that the role of what I consider as the foundational text – the Torah – is really incidental.

I suspect this is primarily for two reasons:

1: Most people read the text as a storybook or even a kind of contrived history, instead of as a guide for holy relationships. As a result, fundamental lessons are missed.

2: We take of lot of the Torah for granted without thinking of it. And so we do not carefully examine the text both in itself and in the context of human societies. A great many ideas found within the Torah are directly contrary to both ancient and modern “wisdom” about the meaning and purpose of our lives, and our ability to direct it.

So I’d like to address both of these, by seeing what the text has to say, primarily at the very top and most obvious level. The advantage of Genesis is that the lessons offered are meant to be applicable for all of humanity, and not specifically the Jewish people. They are all simple ideas, accessible to any functioning person.

Let’s dive into what actually seem to be universal rules, applicable to all humankind

• G-d created the world: serving nature or anything in it is missing the larger picture.
• Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit: We have free will, but our decisions have consequences.
  • G-d does not accept excuses for trying to shirk responsibility for our actions, and he punishes those who attempt to do so.
• Cain and Hevel: We can master our urges – we are not animals, mindlessly tethered to our natural desires, and especially not to animalistic anger.
• Cain’s murder of Hevel was wrong: We must value human life. As with the Garden: There are, and must be, enduring consequences for irreversible actions.
• People were forbidden to kill Cain: people must have systems of justice.
• Taking women against their will (Gen 6:2) is wrong. It is both theft and sexual immorality.
• G-d punishes those who believe that Might Makes Right. Violence is not its own justification, and we must not be led astray by Power.
• Mankind matters: The world was made for us. When mankind becomes wicked, G-d considers destroying everything – not because G-d hates animals, but because without mankind serving a constructive purpose, there is no reason for animals to exist. It is analogous to a light on a tower. If the light is no longer serving a useful purpose, then the entire tower might as well be disassembled. When we do not do good, then everything becomes useless and disposable.
  • Man has a purpose. When “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen 6:5), man became as useful to G-d as an unneeded light, and thus could be destroyed.

When we move onto Noah, the lessons continue. And while these summaries may seem trite or obvious, consider that most people don’t actually live their lives as though these are true.

• It is not enough to be righteous. If G-d wanted to merely save Noach, he could have “zapped” the rest of the world – but he did not. And so we learn that G-d will not save us just for being good people – Noach has to follow G-d’s commandment, and build (create) an ark, and all the work it entails. Goodness is as goodness does. And when mankind builds something, is engaged in a creative act that partners him with G-d, then he can rise above the destructions slated for the rest of the world.
• We need a buffer zone between ourselves and divine justice. The “kaparah” of tar that insulated the ark from the water is analogous to the kaparah we ask for on Yom Kippur. We may not be able to undo or counter G-d’s will, but we can survive if we gain a protective layer. And both the ark and the kaparah of Yom Kippur require positive action on our part – we can create it in words and deeds.
• We are the custodians of the animals. G-d handles the planet and the flora, and even the fish. But higher order life is closer to mankind, and so it is Noach, not G-d, who saves the animals. That is a bilateral responsibility: we can eat meat because animals would not exist without Noah’s actions.
• We should make sense of the world. Adam gave animals names, to reflect their natures. Noach had to classify all animals by whether they were elevatable or not. By giving Noach this instruction, G-d was spurring mankind toward curiosity about the natural world, toward scientific inquiry.
• G-d does not tell us everything we want to know. When Noach wanted to see how high the water was, he had to figure out how to do that himself (using the birds). As we go through life, G-d will sometimes guide us; and sometimes we just have to wing it.
• G-d likes to be appreciated. The sacrifices are welcome, because through appreciation for what we have been given, we can build and grow our relationship with our creator.
• The relationship between Man and G-d is dynamic – both sides react to the choices of the other, and there are opportunities to learn and grow with every interaction.
• G-d wants us to seek meaning for our lives, and Noah’s connection of heaven and earth seems to be a reversal of the separation that G-d made between the waters and the lights (a separation that is not called “good” in the text). In other words, sometimes we are to complete things that G-d started. Sometimes we partner with G-d. And sometimes, such as when we seek to connect heaven and earth, we are, in a way, undoing acts of G-d Himself. If so, it is reasonable to inquire why!

The themes of individual free will and choices and consequences and a greater – holier – mission for mankind not only set the Torah apart from other ancient ways of thinking, but they also remain much-needed wisdom even in the modern world around us.

The number eight is the human bridge. Seven belongs to the created world—the week in which heaven and earth were finished. But the number eight is the day, the act, and the substance by which people take what already exists in nature, and invest it in a relationship that nature cannot offer – the relationship with G-d.

That bridge is built into the Mishkan itself. A quilt of overlaid patterns numbers “eight,” and the sanctuary answers with the same count. The High Priest wore eight holy vestments and changed garments eight times on Yom Kippur. Eight varieties of spices were used—four for the oil of anointing and four for the incense. Eight poles carried the sanctuary’s objects: two for the ark, two for the table, two for the golden altar, and two for the copper altar. The Mishkan, which had eight walls, was inaugurated on the eighth day, after Moshe, Aaron, and Aaron’s sons had performed the priestly service for seven days; only then did the Divine Presence descend and reveal itself through the offerings. Newborn animals could be brought only from their eighth day of life. Eight types of offerings could be brought only on eight specific days. Each eight marks the moment when human service turns a finished structure into a place of meeting, a place of connection.

The same threshold appears in the offerings that sustain the relationship. The meal offering belongs to the day after Shabbat—the eighth day, Sunday. Seven completes the world; the world was made in seven days, and Shabbat arrives of itself. But Shabbos is never called “most holy.” The eighth day, on the other hand is the day of work. By the sweat of our brow, grain becomes flour, and olives become oil. On that day the showbread for the coming Shabbat begins to be prepared. The labor, the investment of human effort into the natural order, is what is beloved and what is called kodesh kodashim, “most holy.” Circumcision, connecting and harnessing our bodies to divine service, occurs on the eighth day. The firstborn animal is offered from the eighth day. After seven days of inauguration, the priesthood is consecrated on the eighth day and the active service between man and G-d begins. Festivals and sacrifices whose purpose is precisely that connection are likewise appointed for the eighth day. Hence Shemini Atzeres, the eighth day of Sukkos.

The word for eight and the word for oil are the same three letters. Shemonah and shemen share a root because the acts that fall on the eighth day so often require oil. Oil is not raw creation. A vegetable comes out of nature; oil is that product pressed, separated, and refined by human hands. It is therefore an amalgam—divine bounty plus invested time and energy—and the product is both food and fuel. In the Mikdash (tabernacle) it entered the edible offerings and lit the menorah; the later eight-branched lamp simply makes the count explicit. Pouring oil is how disparate things are joined: it is by pouring oil that the priests are anointed, that the sockets and rings and hooks are set, and that a stone becomes an altar. Oil represents the work we have to invest in order to build relationships and connections!

The first pouring of oil, shemen (the root word for “eight) in the Torah is Jacob’s. Waking from the dream of angels ascending and descending, he recognizes the place as the gate of heaven, sets up the stone that had pillowed his head, and pours oil upon it. It is the first mention of oil and the first anointing of any head. The language returns when God commands Moses to pour oil on Aaron’s head, and when Moses does so. Jacob had sealed a connection between heaven and earth at the site of his vision; the priests, intermediaries for the whole people, are sealed with the same substance. The reciprocity is exact. Oil acknowledges the natural bounty that made it possible and, at the same time, dedicates mankind’s refinement of that bounty to a holy relationship.

Why does that connection matter? Oil provides the clue: “Asher’s bread shall be oily, and he shall yield royal delicacies” (G. 49:20) and “Asher will dip his foot in oil.” (D. 33:24) The letters of Asher are the letters of the connecting word—the “which” or “that” that ties a thing to its place or identity. The first time the word asher, for “which” or “that” appears in the Torah, the expanse separates “the water which was below” from “the water which was above.” Those waters are heaven and earth; Isaac’s blessing speaks of the dew of heaven and the oil of earth. Asher’s name and Asher’s gift therefore name the same task: to reconnect what had been divided. To provide that link of shemen, oil, and the number eight. Oil is the emblem of every such relationship between man and G-d, above and below, and of the human mission that maintains them.

Even the rare word bamah, appearing precisely eight times in the Torah, performs the work of connection. Its first three occurrences are questions. Abram asks, “How (bama?) shall I know that I am to possess it?” (G. 15:8) and receives the Covenant Between the Parts. The creditor is told to return a pledged garment before sunset—“In what else (bamah) shall he sleep?” (E. 22:26) —so that compassion keeps the bond between neighbors and between the people and God. Moses challenges, “How (bamah?) shall it be known that Your people have gained Your favor unless You go with us?” (E. 33:16), and God agrees to lead. Each question is a demand for relationship rather than a rupture. The answers, however veiled or immediate, build trust through words alone. Bamah does not divide; it draws the parties closer.

Even the word tzemach, sprouting, appears exactly eight times in the Torah – and sprouting is the plant’s own reach upward, out of the ground and toward the heavens. It cannot happen by the earth alone. At the very beginning, nothing had yet sprouted, when no shrub of the field was yet on earth and no grasses of the field had yet sprouted (tzemach), because G-d had not sent rain upon the earth and there were no human beings to till the soil (G. 2:5). Sprouting waits for two things: rain from above, and a person below to work the soil. Heaven and earth must meet, with human labor in between – the very formula of the eighth. And once that meeting happens, the first thing that sprouts is the bridge itself: And from the ground G-d caused to grow (tzemach) every tree that was pleasing to the sight and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden (G. 2:9). The opposite is just as telling. When Sodom is overturned, what is destroyed along with the cities is the vegetation (tzemach) of the ground (G. 19:25), and its land is remembered as beyond sowing and producing (tzemach), no grass growing in it (D. 29:22) – a place where nothing reaches upward any longer. Tzemach, like oil and like the eighth day, is the growth that seeks a connection with G-d.

Across these registers the pattern holds. The rim—the zar—required on the ark, the table (and its crown), and the incense altar is commanded and then recorded again when the vessels are made, eight mentions in all. Eight is the number of man’s connection with the divine, and the rim marks the boundary that is also the meeting place for each of these items.

The eighth day after Shabbos, circumcision on the eight day, the oil pressed from the olive, the questions that insist on presence, the priest anointed the day after seven days of waiting, the showbread begun on the day after Shabbos (the eight day): each is the same gesture. Nature completes itself in seven. What people add to make all of the natural things dedicated to holiness—the circumcision, the labor, the pouring, the asking, the refining—is the eighth, and it is that addition which the Torah calls kodesh kodashim, “most holy.”

Revised November 1, 2026