I need answers...B'reisheet edition

[rosends]

I wrote up three questions that developed in my head this past Shabbat and would love some answers from anyone who can answer. I posted them on my blog so I'm just linking to that. I hope that that is ok.

Dan Rosen's other Blog: Beginning Parsha Questions

 

[dybmh]

Why did the creation process take 7 days (yes, I count the establishing of rest on Shabbat as part of the creation cycle)? God could have created the entirety of the world in an instant but did not. I have seen that discussed. But why specifically 7 days? Is there something independently important or sacred about the number seven that it fits the process? If we look at the events on each day, some could have been combined, or split apart so the process could have taken ANY number of days.

My vote? There isn't anything independently sacred about the number 7 that fits the process. If creation needed to be 7 for some reason that would limit God. However there is benefit to the consistent honor afforded to 7. The consistency across Torah communicates a single creative force with consistent preferences. Consistent preference in favor of a specific number also supports the idea that God looked to the Torah as a blueprint for creating the world. If Torah is the blueprint, then every detail has value. And this is beneficial to inspire regular study and adherence. ... But it could have been any number.

Each week, in Kiddush for the Shabbat morning, we are told that the Children of Israel observed the Shabbat as a sign and bond between God and the Jews because it is a weekly reminder of the first Shabbat, when God rested.

But why do we mark this weekly?

just my best guess...

It needed to be weekly to be a sign between God and the Jewish people as opposed to the other nations. The other nations had yearly festivals, and seasonal festivals, and new moon / monthly festivals. But as far as I know, no other nation commemorates weekly. This makes it a unique sign for the Jewish people. ( reflecting back to your previous question, I suppose by this logic, it could still have been every 5 days or 9 days or 11 days, or any unclaimed interval, to be sign. I can't imagine why it would be locked to 7 days. )

3. In this Parsha, Adam and Chava make a mistake and have to cover themselves up with leaves. God chastises them but then also decides to make for them better clothing out of skins of some sort. God acts as tailor. There is nothing miraculous about making clothing but God does it for them after they have already started a similar process. Then, throughout the Torah, God does miraculous things -- he confuses human languages, brings plagues, sends down the mon, allows the Children of Israel to pass through the Reed Sea...we have lists of the miraculous things God does and those things are inherently outside the skill set of man.

Jump to the last Parsha, and Moshe's death. In the telling of that event many commentators explain that God, himself, buried Moshe. God was a grave digger. Again, this is not a miracle, but instead a mundane and usually human activity. It just so happened that God was the only one around and so He stepped up and said "fine...I'll do it."

Are there other situations in which God does something that man can and generally does do? (I thought about the circumcision of Avraham, but it seems that the understanding is that Avraham did it himself even though God steadied him - I get this from the Rashi commentary on Bereisheet 17:24 included in brackets in the Artscroll chumash; the Rashi text on Sefaria and on Chabad do NOT have this section of Rashi and I can't find the medrashic source, so if you know it...)

By the way, I do not see "being a warrior" as the same thing because I see no place in the 5 books in which Hashem battles the way a human would or could have. I just see the description of Hashem as warrior.

It is (until I learn better) interesting to me that the 5 books of Moses are bookended by Hashem's doing the

Interesting observations. If you're looking for another example, the best I can think of is naming. When God names people it's "something that man can and generally does do" nor is it especially miraculous. maybe?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Have you seen TheTorah : Seven, the Biblical Number?
Wikipedia : 7 is also interesting.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Parenthetically, there is a journal article titled The Number Seven in Ugaritic Texts by Arvid S, Kapelrud which you might be able to access.

Bottom line: the number seven was seen as special throughout the Ancient Near East. It would be surprising if Genesis did not use the same lens.

 

[rosends]

My brother in law called from Israel with some interesting ideas:

1. 7 is a significant number and distinct from 1-6 so the week had to be in seven because of the importance of seven (he brought in proofs for how seven has a universal value that is unlike anything else)

2. He pointed out that the 6th of the mizmorim on Friday evening is associated with the 6th day of creation and has 18 mentions of God to be like the 18 brachot in the Amida because man's job is to pray, so while this isn't something that celebrates Fridays per se, it highlights the importance of each Friday

3. He said that God closed the Ark door for Noah and I mentioned that God is mevaker cholim for Avraham so those 2 might count. Also, we got into a discussion of Aharon's death and who buried him.

 

[Harel13]

Didn't Hashem bury Moshe so that no one would know where he was buried?

 

[rosends]

Didn't Hashem bury Moshe so that no one would know where he was buried?

That is definitely one approach with which I am familiar. But the same verb (if I was getting from my bro-in-law the exact wording) is used for Aharon -- not a first person account even in the section of Devarim that uses the first person from Moshe.

 

[dybmh]

7 is a significant number and distinct from 1-6 so the week had to be in seven because of the importance of seven (he brought in proofs for how seven has a universal value that is unlike anything else)

Anything universal and unique about 7 could have been adjusted by God to any other value? This is similar to what you said:

"One idea I heard attached it to the name sheva for seven as sh-v-ayin is related to satiety. But that name is not inherently "seven" and could have been applied to any number that was at the end of the creation process. Had God decided to do the entire thing in 5 days, then he could have called the 6th day "sheva". And the 8th day, shmoneh, which I have, elsewhere, connected to "shamen", fat because it is "over satisfied", could have been used to name the day after those 6!"
​

Isn't the whole point that God could create the world such that 5 or 6 would be "universal" numbers?

 

[rosends]

Anything universal and unique about 7 could have been adjusted by God to any other value? This is similar to what you said:

"One idea I heard attached it to the name sheva for seven as sh-v-ayin is related to satiety. But that name is not inherently "seven" and could have been applied to any number that was at the end of the creation process. Had God decided to do the entire thing in 5 days, then he could have called the 6th day "sheva". And the 8th day, shmoneh, which I have, elsewhere, connected to "shamen", fat because it is "over satisfied", could have been used to name the day after those 6!"
​

Isn't the whole point that God could create the world such that 5 or 6 would be "universal" numbers?

The idea is that each number beforehand has a unique place in the numbering process (I could sort of sum them up as unity, choice/awareness, exclusion/inclusion, perfection, human completion, combination) but seven provides nothing different so its role is "rest". That's not exactly what he said, but that's the idea. So seven is what HAS to be the day of rest not because the rest makes 7 significant, but because primordially (wrong word, but w/e) 7 already has a purpose.