The New Year has begun

Now the new year has begun, a new Torah reading schedule begins.

From now until the end of Shabbat on 6th October, the readings are...

the reading is entitled "B'reisheet" - "in the beginning"


Genesis 1v1 - 6v8

Isaiah 42v5 - 43v10


feel free to read and to contribute and we can all learn together.

i will not do for myself a study of every verse here just the things that really catch my eye.


in the beginning .... God.... the first verse of the bible, presumes the existance of God. It does not attempt to argue about whether or not he exists. Just that he is. The eternal, before all things, before heaven and earth, time and space. God is!

It is God who alone stretches out the heavens and meausres the oceans in his hands. It is God who establishes the rules of nature and the physical laws. God the great mathematician. At the outset we see the spirit of God, hovering over the waters as an eagle hovers over her nest. To protect and to maintain safety for her offspring (creation).

Let there be light, said the creator. Immediately God created. At the outset, things are broken apart. Light from darkness, evening from morning. The first day. It is interesting that God's day runs from evening until morning, unlike our days.

In the beginning was the word, the logos. The new testament scriptures affirm that the word was there before the world began, before the angels came into existence. Through the word who is messiah, all things were created, things which are seen and not seen. The natural and the supernatural. He is the firstborn over all creation. Messiah has the place of pre-eminance from the outset.

v 3-4; 14-16

“Now notice something strange: on the first day, God said He created light. Yet, it was on the fourth day that God created the Sun…..or as the Bible puts it, “the larger light to rule the day”.”

“This gets interesting: in verses 3 and 4, the Hebrew word for “light” is “owr”. This word does NOT mean an object that emits light…..like the sun or the moon or the stars, or a lamp. Rather it means illumination, enlightenment. When the Bible says God is light, it says Elohim is “owr”. This word is closely associated with life and joy and good. In fact, when we read about the 1st day, notice something that the Hebrew sages have hung their hats on for millennia: it says God created the light, AND SAW THAT IT WAS GOOD. Then this light was divided from the darkness. Only the light is called “good”.”

“Now, lets move down to verse 14, when it starts to talk about there being lights in the sky to divide day and night, and in 16 when God says he created the larger light (the sun) to rule the day and the smaller light (the moon) to rule the night. We see an entirely different word is used for “light” here, than what is used in earlier verses. Here, the Hebrew word is “meotor”. Sound familiar? It’s the word from which we get the modern word
Meteor. Meotor means an object that emits light……if I may use a poetic
word, the luminaries…..things that illuminate….the sun, the moon, the stars,
and lamps, and of course meteors.”

“So, when God created “light”, “owr” (singular), He created illumination and enlightenment, a basic requirement for life. When God created “the lights”, “meotor”(plural) He created objects that emit light waves. Light waves of a certain type that allow humans and animals to use their light sensors…..their eyes, and for plants to engage in their method of living,
photosynthesis.”

From a torah class by Ted Bradford.

looking again at verse 14, the lights in the sky (not ufo's) are for signs... Heb. 'moed', the same word from were were derive 'moedim' - that is appointed times. The feasts, the festivals of the L-rd as outlined in Leviticus 23.

So we can see right there at the start of creation, our creator had the foresight to give us a method of dating and tracking the festivals which would come. By establishing the timetable for these feasts at the outset, we see that sin did not enter the world and surprise G-d. But rather he had made preparations for it by way of atonements and sacrifice, both of animals and of his firstborn son, the pre-eminient one.