{"id":885,"date":"2014-12-24T18:01:25","date_gmt":"2014-12-24T18:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marcmangel.net\/?page_id=885"},"modified":"2014-12-24T18:01:25","modified_gmt":"2014-12-24T18:01:25","slug":"bereishis-5771","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/?page_id=885","title":{"rendered":"Bereishis (5771)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Drash Cards for Bereishis (5771)<\/strong><\/p>\n

by Marc Mangel<\/p>\n

\u2022 Today: \u00a0what happened before the beginning, in the beginning and then two practical lessons<\/p>\n

\u2022From Midrash Rabbah (12:15): At first, God thought to create the world with the attribute of Judgement (Gevurah). \u00a0But God\u00a0saw that the would would not endure, so God combined the attribute of Mercy (Chesed) with it…Said the Holy One Blessed be God “If I create the world with the attribute of Mercy, sins (and sinners) will abound. But if I create the world with the attribute of Judgement, how will it endure? \u00a0Rather, I will create it with both the attribute of Judgment and the attribute of Mercy, and may it endure”<\/p>\n

\u2022 If only Gevurah –> one strike and you’re out. There is no chance of Tesuvah<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a0If only Chesed –> no limit to the number of strikes and you are still not out. There is no need for Tesuvah. \u00a0For the Shekinah to settle here, there is the requirement of essential harmony between Tesuvah and Gevurah<\/p>\n

\u2022 Here’s the practical application: \u00a0you are the principal of a school and a kid is brought to your office for misbehaving. \u00a0How should you treat this student? With Gevurah only? \u00a0With Chesed only? Or with a balance? \u00a0What do you want from the student?<\/p>\n

\u2022 At the creation, the Kabbalists tell us that God — who is infinite — had to contract (Timtzum) for our universe to exist.<\/p>\n

\u2022 A visual: imagine a uniform region of grey. Now let a sphere emerge at some point, ‘pushing’ the grey away and becoming temporarily more dense. \u00a0After the sphere settles to its size, the grey expands to its uniform structure of before. \u00a0Thus as the expansion is occuring — our universe — there is a contraction of God (in this case, metaphorically the grey).<\/p>\n

\u2022 The practical lesson: \u00a0we need to be more careful when discussing conflicts between science and religion. \u00a0The existence of the universe — an expansion at the Big Bang — is completely consistent with the contraction of God at the instant of creation<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Drash Cards for Bereishis (5771) by Marc Mangel \u2022 Today: \u00a0what happened before the beginning, in the beginning and then two practical lessons \u2022From Midrash Rabbah (12:15): At first, God thought to create the world with the attribute of Judgement (Gevurah). \u00a0But God\u00a0saw that the would would not endure, so God combined the attribute of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":51,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"full-width-page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-885","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=885"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":886,"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/885\/revisions\/886"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/51"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}