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Thursday, October 1, 2026

Bereshis 3

The sixth day of creation ends with Bereshis 1:24–25, the land animals, and then the Torah turns to the making of man in Bereshis 1:26–27. Here we deal with "Let us make man": why the Torah uses the plural, what the angels had to do with it, and why Hashem left room for people to misread it. Following the Me'am Loez, we then go through the human body part by part, asking what each part was made for. Two ideas keep coming back. A person is a small world that holds something of all creation plus a soul from Hashem Himself. And a person's hands, speech and mind are there for a purpose higher than eating and drinking: to learn Torah, keep the mitzvos and let the intellect lead the instinct.

The pesukim

Bereshis 1:24–25

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֗ים תּוֹצֵ֨א הָאָ֜רֶץ נֶ֤פֶשׁ חַיָּה֙ לְמִינָ֔הּ בְּהֵמָ֥ה וָרֶ֛מֶשׂ וְחַֽיְתוֹ־אֶ֖רֶץ לְמִינָ֑הּ וַֽיְהִי־כֵֽן׃

God said, "The earth shall bring forth particular species of living creatures, particular species of livestock, land animals, and beasts of the earth." It happened.

וַיַּ֣עַשׂ אֱלֹהִים֩ אֶת־חַיַּ֨ת הָאָ֜רֶץ לְמִינָ֗הּ וְאֶת־הַבְּהֵמָה֙ לְמִינָ֔הּ וְאֵ֛ת כׇּל־רֶ֥מֶשׂ הָֽאֲדָמָ֖ה לְמִינֵ֑הוּ וַיַּ֥רְא אֱלֹהִ֖ים כִּי־טֽוֹב׃

God [thus] made particular species of beasts of the earth, particular species of livestock, and particular species of animals that walk the land. God saw that it was good.

On the sixth day Hashem says, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures, each of its kind": cattle, creeping things and wild beasts. The animals come out of the ground, each made as a male and female pair. Then the next verse says it again: Hashem made each kind of beast, each kind of livestock and each kind of creeping thing, and saw that it was good. The Torah repeats "each of its kind" again and again because there are so many species, and it wants us to know that every one of them was designed on purpose by Hashem's word. Nothing came about by random accident. When you go to the zoo and see how different and fascinating each animal is, you are seeing Hashem's deliberate design.
Bereshis 1:26

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֔ים נַֽעֲשֶׂ֥ה אָדָ֛ם בְּצַלְמֵ֖נוּ כִּדְמוּתֵ֑נוּ וְיִרְדּוּ֩ בִדְגַ֨ת הַיָּ֜ם וּבְע֣וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֗יִם וּבַבְּהֵמָה֙ וּבְכׇל־הָאָ֔רֶץ וּבְכׇל־הָרֶ֖מֶשׂ הָֽרֹמֵ֥שׂ עַל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃

God said, "Let us make man with our image and likeness. Let him dominate the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock animals, and all the earth—and every land animal that walks the earth."

Hashem says, "Let us make man in our image and likeness, and let him rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock and every creature that walks the earth." This is one of the most misused verses in the Torah, because "let us" sounds like more than one creator, and other religions have built on it. The first answer is that Hashem was announcing to the angels that He was about to make man, and in a sense asking their opinion. Hashem had no need of the angels, since He had made them himself on the second day. Still, He asked for their advice, and this teaches humility: even someone greater than others should seek their counsel. There is only one Creator, and the plural is a lesson in humility.
Bereshis 1:27

וַיִּבְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים ׀ אֶת־הָֽאָדָם֙ בְּצַלְמ֔וֹ בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹהִ֖ים בָּרָ֣א אֹת֑וֹ זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה בָּרָ֥א אֹתָֽם׃

God [thus] created man with His image. In the image of God, He created him, male and female He created them.

"God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them." Here the Torah gives only an outline of man's creation, and later in the parsha it gives more detail. The Me'am Loez uses this verse to go through the human body and show that every part was made for a reason: eyes and eyelids, mouth and teeth, heart and kidneys, hands and feet. All of these together are built to let a person live, learn Torah and keep the mitzvos. Once you see how carefully you were made, you understand what you were made for.

English from The Living Torah by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, used with the permission of the Kaplan family. Hebrew: Miqra according to the Masorah (CC BY-SA).

Takeaways

  • Ask for advice even from people you outrank, because Hashem asked the angels before He made man.
  • All of creation has a share in you and is rooting for you to do teshuvah and draw close to Hashem.
  • Treat each action as the one that tips the whole world toward merit or guilt.
  • Learn the meaning of Asher Yatzar and say it every time, since a healthy body is a daily gift, not the default.
  • Use Torah learning to train your intellect to lead your instincts, because that choice is what makes you more than an animal.
Going deeper— the stories, Kabbalah and the reasons behind the reasons

Why even harmful creatures are called "good"

  • After the animals, the Torah says "God saw that it was good," because people might ask why destructive creatures like mosquitoes were made at all.
  • Every creature has a benefit. Some are used to punish the wicked, and others provide medicines and other useful substances.
  • No creature is destructive by its nature. Everything Hashem made has a constructive use.

The four elements behind the six days

  • Why weren't the animals made on day five together with the birds and fish? The Zohar explains that creation follows a system built on the four elements: fire, air, water and earth.
  • The six days come in two parallel sets of three. Day one, light, is fire. Day two, the dividing of the waters, is air. Day three, the gathering of the waters and the dry land, is water and earth.
  • Day four, the sun, moon and stars, is fire again. Day five, birds and fish, is air and water. Day six, the land animals, is earth.
  • Each set ends with a creation made of all four elements: the plants at the end of day three, and man at the end of day six.
  • The two sets are not identical, since water moves from day three in the first set to day five in the second. The pattern still holds. Birds and fish got their own day because that day belonged to their element.
  • Another view holds that Hashem commanded the birds and fish on day five, but they actually came into being on day six together with the animals.

Why the sun came after the earth

  • You might expect the sun, which the earth orbits, to be made first.
  • Hashem made it afterwards so no one could claim that the sun's heat dried the land and pushed the waters into their places by natural process.
  • Since the earth was already formed before the sun existed, everyone can see that Hashem alone did it.

The seventy-two elders and "I shall make man"

  • The Talmud (Megillah 9a) tells that King Ptolemy put seventy-two elders in separate rooms and had each translate the Torah into Greek. Every one of them made the same careful changes.
  • One of those changes was here. Instead of "Let us make man" they wrote "I shall make man," so that Greek readers would not think there was more than one God.
  • The question is sharper because the very next verse says, in the singular, "God created man." So why did the Torah leave room for doubt at all?

The angels' debate over creating man

  • When Hashem told the angels He was about to make man, the Midrash in Bereshis Rabbah says they split into four groups.
  • One group said: create him, because he will do good deeds. Another said: don't, because he will be full of strife. A third said: create him, because he will have mercy on the poor and give charity. The fourth said: don't, because he will speak falsely.
  • The Talmud (Sanhedrin 38b) tells it differently. Hashem asked groups of angels one at a time, and the first two groups objected. Hashem burned them up with His little finger; the Me'am Loez says they were consumed in the Nehar Dinur, the river of fire described in the book of Daniel.
  • When Hashem asked a third group, they answered: we saw what happened to the first two. The whole world is Yours, and who can question what You do?

Why Hashem let people misread the verse: free will

  • The Midrash relates that when Moshe came to write "Let us make man," he asked Hashem why He was giving non-believers an opening.
  • Elsewhere the Torah closes that door by saying plainly that Hashem alone made the heavens, the firmament and everything else.
  • Hashem answered: "Write as I tell you, and whoever wants to err, let him err."
  • Hashem deliberately left some places open so that belief in one God stays a person's own free choice.

The Zohar: heaven, earth and water as Hashem's partners

  • Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in the Zohar describes three "artisans" that Hashem gave tasks during creation: the water, the earth and the heavens.
  • For example, the water had to gather into the oceans and later bring forth the fish and birds, and the heavens had to form the firmament that divides the waters.
  • On the sixth day the three came to ask what that day's task was. Hashem said: today I am making the most important creature, so let us make him together. You will give the elements of his body, and I will place the soul inside him.
  • So "let us make man" refers to this partnership. A person is a fusion of every element of the world plus something of Hashem Himself.
  • Rabbi Chaim Vital in Shaarei Kedusha describes three layers in a person. There is the body made of the four physical elements. There is the kelipah ("peel"), a spiritual layer formed from four destructive forces. And there is the neshamah, the soul, rooted in the four letters of Hashem's name.
  • For this reason the Me'am Loez says it should pain us to see someone sin, because a part of Hashem is being used for no good.

The king's precious servant: all creation is rooting for you

  • A parable: a king gave generous gifts to all his servants. Then he told each of them to give part of their gift to his most precious personal servant, and on top of that he gave that servant his own gift.
  • In the same way, Hashem had every part of creation contribute to man, and then He gave man the divine soul Himself.
  • This makes every person a microcosm, a small world containing all of creation.
  • Since every part of creation has a share in you, when you do teshuvah (return to Hashem) and draw close to Him, all of creation, down to the stars and planets, asks Hashem to have mercy on you.
  • The only exception is the shedim, the demons. They have no share in man, which is why they hate people and try to harm them.

What the face and the mouth were made for

  • The eyes were made to see the world, and the eyelids so we can close them against improper sights, such as another man's wife. Sin usually begins with the eyes, and the remedy is to close them. Eyelids also let us sleep and gain strength to keep the Torah.
  • The two ears are for hearing, and the two nostrils are for breathing and enjoying the world's fragrances. The mouth is for eating, drinking and speaking words of Torah.
  • The Talmud Yerushalmi records that Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said that had he stood at Sinai, he would have asked for two mouths, one for Torah and one for everyday talk.
  • He then took it back. If people speak gossip with one mouth, with two it would be far worse.
  • Having one mouth has another advantage: the same mouth that spoke badly can be used to do teshuvah, so what was used for bad becomes a tool for good.

The inner organs, bones and skin

  • The thirty-two teeth chew food so it can be digested without harm. The tongue moves the food and shapes speech. The windpipe brings air to the lungs and holds the voice box.
  • The heart is the king of the organs and the seat of the nefesh, the animal soul. The stomach, liver and gallbladder digest the food, and the intestines get rid of what can't be used.
  • The two kidneys purify the blood and are also said to give advice: the right kidney good advice, the left kidney bad. The spleen produces black bile and is associated with laughter.
  • Hashem fitted the bones, many of them in pairs, into a perfect structure, connected them with joints so a person can bow, stretch and move in every direction, and covered them with flesh and blood vessels.
  • Skin covers it all beautifully, the way a car looks finished only once the hood is on. The skull protects the brain, the seat of the intellect, and the hair protects the head from cold.
  • A man's beard sets him apart and gives his face majesty. The hands are for working, holding a book to learn Torah and earning a living. The feet are the body's pillars.

The baby in the womb

  • Three partners make every person: father, mother and Hashem. The Talmud discusses this in Niddah 30b–31a.
  • In the womb the baby is folded like a book. It eats what its mother eats, its mouth is closed and its navel is open. At birth these switch: the mouth opens and the navel closes.
  • A lamp shines over the baby's head, letting it see from one end of the world to the other, and the Talmud says a person never has better days than these. There the baby is taught the entire Torah.
  • Before birth the child takes an oath: be righteous and not wicked, and even if the whole world tells you that you are righteous, see yourself as wicked. This is not meant as insecurity. Someone who sees himself as perfectly righteous will justify anything he does and can fall far, while someone who always sees room to improve keeps growing.
  • The child is also told: Hashem is pure, His servants are pure, and the soul He gives you is pure. Keep it pure and all is well. Defile it and it will be taken from you.
  • The parents give the body, but by itself the body is lifeless. Hashem gives the soul, and with it the expression of the face, sight, hearing, speech, movement and understanding. At death Hashem takes back His part, and the body returns to its elements.

The fingers and guarding the ears

  • Each of the five fingers has a name and a natural job. The thumb cleans the mouth, the pointer the nose, the long middle finger can reach anywhere on the body, the fourth finger cleans the eye and the little finger the ear.
  • The proof that this comes from Hashem is that everyone naturally uses each finger this way without being taught.
  • The Talmud (Kesubos 5b) teaches that the fingers are pointed so you can put them in your ears when someone speaks lashon hara, harmful talk about others.
  • Most of the ear is hard cartilage, but the earlobe is soft so it can be pressed into the ear like an earplug.
  • The ears need the most guarding, because they are the first part of the body to be burned in Gehinnom (purgatory).

248 limbs, 365 prohibitions: every act tips the world

  • A person has 248 limbs, matching the 248 positive mitzvos in the Torah. The count is the Mishnah's (Oholos 1:8), which counts limbs its own way, from the toes up through the head.
  • On each side: 30 in the foot (6 in each toe), 10 in the ankle, 2 in the lower leg, 5 in the knee, 1 in the thigh, 3 in the hip, 11 ribs, 30 in the hand (6 in each finger), 2 in the forearm, 2 in the elbow, 1 in the upper arm and 4 in the shoulder: 101 a side, 202 in all. Then 18 vertebrae, 9 in the head, 8 in the neck, 6 in the chest and 5 at the body's openings, for 248.
  • The 365 prohibitions match the 365 days of the solar year and the 365 sinews that hold the limbs together.
  • Every day a heavenly voice calls to each person, whether he hears it or not: accept upon yourself not to sin today, so you do not tip the world toward guilt.
  • A person should see the world as perfectly balanced between guilt and merit, so that his next act can tip it either way.
  • A mitzvah done with a limb sustains that limb and the part of the world that matches it. A sin cuts off spiritual nourishment to that limb, like blocked circulation, and lets the kelipah tighten its grip.
  • You can feel this yourself. Living by the Torah brings calm, happiness and connection, and going against it leaves a person feeling unwell, physically and emotionally.

Why man rules over the lion: hands and real intelligence

  • A lion is stronger than a person, and an ox has horns, so how is man the ruler of creation?
  • Each animal's special weapon (claws, teeth, speed, a giraffe's long neck) actually shows that it is lower. It has no hands to prepare its food, so Hashem had to give it one tool to survive.
  • People need no special weapon, because hands guided by a mind can do anything.
  • A spider spins a perfect web and bees make honey and wax, but this is instinct, not human intelligence. A spider will build its web under the king's throne and get crushed.
  • Every animal does one task, and no animal has advanced since creation. Lions have had thousands of years and never thought to build a corral. Only people discover, invent and progress.
  • Greater ability brings greater responsibility. A Jew is here to learn Torah and keep the mitzvos, and a non-Jew to keep the seven Noahide laws. Everything else in creation exists for the person who fulfills that purpose, and someone who spends his life only eating and drinking is no better than an animal.

Asher Yatzar: thanking Hashem for a working body

  • The Rambam (Sefer HaMitzvos) writes that when a person thinks about how carefully he was made, he sees he should serve Hashem out of gratitude, even with no thought of reward.
  • Asher Yatzar is the blessing said every morning and after every use of the bathroom, even for a drop. It thanks Hashem for forming the body with wisdom and calls Him "the healer of all flesh."
  • Why say Hashem heals us when we are not sick? Because health is not the default; the default is death. Without the body's systems that push out waste and toxins, we would not last.
  • The soul is like air in a balloon, where even a pinhole lets the air leak out. The body has many openings, yet Hashem keeps the soul inside.
  • Anyone who studies the body, especially doctors and people in health care, sees how wondrous it is. Learn the translation of Asher Yatzar and say it with meaning, since it is also a segulah (a spiritual safeguard) for staying healthy.

Why man was created last

  • So that he would find the world complete and ready to live in.
  • So that Adam could keep Shabbos right away, which shows that man was created for mitzvos and not just to eat and drink.
  • So that non-believers could never claim that man helped Hashem create the world.
  • The angels were made on the second day, so no one could say they helped create the world. Why not make Adam early too? Because Adam's wisdom was greater even than the angels', and people might have thought so wise a creature was Hashem's partner in creation. So he was made at the very end.
  • To teach humility. If a person grows proud, remind him that even a gnat was created before him. Yet a person's soul was created on the first day, before the angels.
  • So a person who keeps the Torah and avoids sin is greater than the angels, and a person who ignores his soul is lower than the gnat, which was created before him.

Same day as the animals: born complete versus born to grow

  • If man is so important, why didn't he get a day of his own? Because sharing a day with the animals highlights how different we are.
  • An animal is born complete. At the zoo there is a zebra that was walking on its own within twenty minutes of birth.
  • A person is born incomplete and has to learn to walk, eat and do everything else, building himself toward perfection.
  • If a person acts like an animal, he is actually lower than one, because the animal at least is complete. If he recognizes his divine soul and lives by the Torah, he rises above them.
  • Animals walk facing down and angels face up, but a person stands facing straight ahead, halfway between the two and free to choose which way to go.

Intellect over instinct

  • A person is made of body and soul, so there is always a struggle inside him between instinct and intellect.
  • A Jew's job in keeping the Torah and mitzvos is to make decisions with the intellect, not on instinct.
  • Learning Torah is what refines and develops the intellect. It gives a person the strength to put reins on his instincts and use them for what his intellect decides.
Review questions
  1. Why does the Torah keep repeating "each of its kind" about the animals, and why does it call even harmful creatures "good"?
  2. According to the four-element system, why were the birds and fish created on a different day from the land animals?
  3. Give two explanations of the plural in "Let us make man," and explain why Hashem let the verse stay open to misreading.
  4. What did Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai first wish about the human mouth, and why did he take it back?
  5. Why do animals have special weapons like claws and speed while people do not, and what does this say about a person's purpose?
  6. Give three reasons man was created last, and explain why he was created on the same day as the animals.
Sources
  • Me'am Loez — the commentary followed throughout, including the guided tour of the human body
  • Zohar — the four-element pattern of the six days; heaven, earth and water as Hashem's partners in making man
  • Ramban — the birds and fish commanded on the fifth day and created on the sixth
  • Talmud, Megillah 9a — the seventy-two elders who translated "Let us make man" as "I shall make man"
  • Targum Yonasan — Hashem addressing the angels when He said "Let us make man"
  • Bereshis Rabbah 8:5 and 8:8 — the four groups of angels; Moshe's question and "whoever wants to err, let him err"
  • Talmud, Sanhedrin 38b — the groups of angels asked one at a time; the first two burned
  • Book of Daniel 7:10 — the Nehar Dinur, the river of fire
  • Rabbi Chaim Vital, Shaarei Kedusha, Part 1, Gate 1 — the three layers of a person: physical elements, kelipah and neshamah
  • Talmud Yerushalmi, Berachos 1:2 — Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai's wish for two mouths, and why he took it back
  • Talmud, Berachos 61a — the kidneys that give advice and the spleen that laughs
  • Talmud, Niddah 30b–31a and Kiddushin 30b — the baby in the womb and its oath; the three partners in a person
  • Talmud, Kesubos 5b — pointed fingers and the soft earlobe for blocking out lashon hara; the ears burned first
  • Mishnah, Oholos 1:8 — the count of 248 limbs
  • Rambam, Sefer HaMitzvos — serving Hashem out of gratitude, not for reward
  • Asher Yatzar blessing — gratitude for the body's workings and for the soul kept inside it
  • Talmud, Sanhedrin 38a — why man was created last; the gnat created before him