Repentance as an Engine of Creation
*
Rabbi Dr. Zvi Aviner
2025
הרב צבי אבינר
Repentance appears in the Book of Genesis at the beginning of the Book – in the story of Eden, And at the end of the Book in the story of Selling Joseph.
We like to see today if there is a connection between them.
But first let me say some words of introduction.
We feel today that humanity is on the verge of a new development. The new Man will be a combination of an organic creature and a machine, including artificial intelligence and Quantum computing, so different from current Man that his name will be changed from “Homo Sapiens” to “Homo Deus”, as a popular speaker on the internet suggests.
We need to welcome the change. The new Man will live longer, happier, and will be free of the old physical and spiritual restrains. Including religion.
Thus, most people will live in large, ultra – modern cities that have everything a person may need or desire.
Saudi Arabia for instance is currently building on a budget of trillions of dollars, a huge city called Naom on the shores of the Red Sea not far from the State of Israel. In this huge city, millions of people will live under one roof. It will display beautiful gardens, fancy shopping malls and boutiques, modern hospitals equipped with the best technology. It will far surpass everything we see developing in China today.
Again, the new human-machine integration will be freed from the moral constraints of the past. People will spend their time on developing science and improving the world’s economy rather than wasting time on imaginary myth such as the story of CREATION in the Bible.
.
What does the Torah say about this vision?
First, the story told in Genesis chapter one is not baseless.
In fact, it describes so accurately the history of our planet,
that we trad it with awe.
How could Moses write 3500 y ago such a credible report
That we can validate by our Science?
Chapter One is a living miracle in our hands,
perhaps the only living miracle we may see in our lifetime.
Hence, we must trust Chapter One when it tells us also
about Mankind.
Chapter 1 says that Man is born to ascend and advance,
not necessarily in science and technology to become a Homo Deus,
but rather to merit moving from our sixth Day to the Sabbath.
In other words, Adam is expected to rise from the level of an animal,
a mere product of the evolution,
which is good in the eyes of ELKM the creator of nature,
into a new level of Adam who is very good.
And that new level is attainable by Man itself with the guidance of ELKM.
What constitute the level of very good?
When Man’s heart has changed from its animalistic being to a heart filled with Hashem’s values, that is, of Compassion and Mercy, it is deemed very good – in the eyes of ELKM and YHVH. When Mankind has transformed itself to be Very Good, Mankind become eligible to stay alive and enter the next Day, which is the Eternal Shabbat.
In other words, Hashem does not care much whether Mankind has elevated itself with machines.
What Hashem cares about us is whether we have ascended from just Good, like all animals, to become Very Good.
Such a Very Good Man is the ideal Adam that ELKM had on His mind when He said, “Let us make man in our image and likeness.”
Rashi explains: What does it mean Our Image ad Form?
It means that ELKM had on his Mind the image and form of an ideal Adam,
who is no more a mere animal, a product of the Evolution,
But rather a new creature that unites the features of both ELKM and YHVH.
Hence Chapter One says that indeed, Adam was created to elevate himself
But not necessarily by coupling itself to machines and AI
But rather to be righteous in BOTH –
ELKM eyes, and also find face in YHVH eyes, at the same time,
Something that is difficult to achieve and is not seen any place in Nature.
Since that transition from Good to Very Good is difficult and unnatural,
Adam might need a help.
ELKM therefore says, “Let us make Adam,”
implying that ELKM will participate with Man in this journey towards the Shabbat.
HOW THAT HALP WIL TAKE PLACE?
For that we have two stories of CREATION.
Chapter 1 presents the master plan of CREATIOPN, the direction where the Six Days are moving along with Adam,
Chapter 2 with the story of the Garden of Eden , shows how Hashem has planned to help Adam fulfilling his historical journey of Chapter One.
Thus,
Already in the Garden of Eden, even before the expulsion,
Hashem gave Adam the six Commandments that would help his journey on earth.
The Garden itself was formed by Hashem in his Kindness,
as an option for Adam and his wife to arrive at the Shabbat Day of Chapter One
directly from the Garden of Eden, without ever encountering the Angel of Death on real Earth.
As long they lived in the Garden of Eden,
Adam and his wife were required to observe only two Commandments of the Six,
Namely IDOLATRY and ADULTERY.
The other Four – bloodshed, theft, social justice, and desecration of God’s name
Would have a meaning and a relevance only on Earth.
Then, even after the Sin,
Hashem offered them the possibility of repentance and atonement.
While they were hiding in the bush with shame, Hashem called Adam saying
“Aicha?” where are you? – come to me, confess and ask forgiveness.
Had Adam and his wife ceased the opportunity and repented,
they could remain in Eden forever and continue to travel
to the Sabbath as described in Chapter One.
But since Adam and his wife failed do so – he blamed her and she the serpent –
they were driven out from the Garden of Eden to live on earth.
But Hashem did not throw Adam and his wife out into the world
without offering them His help. After all, He had said in Chapter One let Us Make an Ideal Adam. The Journey would be of Both – ELKM and Adam.
Hence, He gave Adam and his wife the six commandments to be fulfill on the Earth,
since these commandments address Man’s major spiritual faults – that would be farther activated on Earth –
Thus
Each of the six Comm is directed at a specific inclination in the human soul.
Thus,
Idolatry is directed at the wisdom in man and his enormous ego.
Adultery is directed at sexual desire and domination
Bloodshed is directed at the anger and destructive instinct in man
Theft is aimed at the ownership instinct
Civil Laws are aimed at the instinct for power and domination
The desecration of God’s name is directed at the inclination to rebel against the kingdom of God
THESE SIX INCLINATIONS COVWERS ALL POSSIBLE BAD INCLINATIONS IN THE HUMAN SOUL
The rest of the Book of Genesis is showing us
That Hashem also promised Adam and his wife
that they would not be left alone in the historic journey towards the Shabbat.
“I am with you,” says Hashem,
“when you abide by my Six Comm, you will find me standing next to you.”
Hence the idea of the six sefirot of Hahsem Kingship
that awaken according to the specific Comm we have observed.
In other words
He is not staying up there and count our merits from above
But He is here with us, intervening personally in our history
According to our actions.
Thus, from the story of Eden onwards,
the book of Genesis describes the six patriarchs
Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph
each fulfilling avidly a Comm, while Hashem is answering with the appropriate sefira.
Thus, by abiding with the Six Commandments on Earth
We would purify ourselves to the status of Adam and Eve in Eden
Then pursue to farther elevate ourselves to be Very Good
And enter the Sabbath, as described in Genesis Chapter One.
Thus, without the Six Comm and the Torah,
Mankind would fall prey to our desires and bad inclinations,
regardless our technological and scientific advance.
The transition from Homo sapiens to Homo deus
will not change the basic struggle with his instincts.
Mankind will forever need the book of Genesis by his side.
Even when flying towards a Black Hole.
Imagine, for example, a highly sophisticated spaceship,
traveling into a black hole to investigate the other side.
There are a thousand people on the ship who lack nothing physically and scientifically.
They are all talented, wonderful, the best humanity can produce.
So much money has been invested in them, that they must be the best.
They are perfect fitted physically and psychologically to the harsh trip
And they are all versed in science and technology.
There is a very high chance that their mission succeed and
That humanity’s dream will come true and the ship will pass
through the black hole and discover new, alternative worlds
and new technologies that Mankind could use for our own advance.
.
As the headquarter from earth follow them, the ship suddenly explodes and vanish.
Investigation reveals that this happened not because of sudden meteoric bombardment or a bad mathematical error, but rather because the captain’s wife had a forbidden romantic relationship with his lieutenant, which aroused enormous jealousy between them.
This led to dysfunction and the ship exploded.
This story of the spacecraft is not imaginary at all.
A few years ago, a delegation of astronauts returned from a space trip, and among the crew was a a lady astronaut. She was the best, like you expect. She looked gorgeous she was the best of her class, ,and she passed well all the fierce tests of NASA .
A week later, the police arrested her speeding on the highway towards Florida. The examination revealed that the driver was the famous astronaut, and that next to her in the car was a loaded gun. It also turned out that she was going after another astronaut on whom she had a romantic crush. Since he turned her down, she was going to kill him.
This amazing true story shows that despite her being an elite and perfectly suited for space travel, one thing she missed – reading about the Six Commandments of Adam in the Book of Genesis.
But we can now ask, suppose a person has read Genesis , is aware of the Comm, and yet he or she has failed and stumbled?
Is there a new chance for him to start all over again?
For that, the last chapters of Genesis were written.
They deal I with the sin of selling Joseph and the following Teshuva, Repentance
.
We have already seen in our shiurim how
Josep story revolves around Sin and Repentance.
As if to encounter the Story of Eden that starts the book.
Like in Eden,
Yosef’s story begins with a grave sin – the brothers slandering each other, their hatred towards each other increases, so much that they throw Yosef into a pit full of snakes and scorpions, then sell him to slavery in Egypt. A sheer desecration of Hashem’s name .
But from thereon, all the story changes to deal with repentance.
We see the brothers repenting as they go down to Egypt during the famine, apparently to fetch bread yet in their hearts they go there to look for Joseph.
Hence their name in the verse changes from the “Jacob’s Sons” to “Joseph Brothers.”
And as they join the sea of hungry nameless people who stream to Egypt for bread, their heart search for Joseph, so that their name continues to ascend to be the “The Children of Israel”.
Showing that whenever we engage in repentance, our name is elevated. Science and technology may change our name to Homo Deus, but repentance would change our name to be Very Good.
The brothers, as you recall, then disperse among slave markets, looking for Joseph.
From here Yosef could later accuse them of espionage.
And when Yosef places them under duress,
they say to each other – Isn’t that happening to us
because we’ve not heard our brothers’ crying
when we threw him into the pit?
And when Joseph tests them and imprisons Shimon then Binyamin,
the brothers stand up for them to save them.
Hence they meet all the requirements of true repentance,
The way the Rambam summarizes:
Regret for the past
Confession in the mouth
Promise for the future
Standing the test
In the Story of Eden, Adam and his wife were to abide by only two Commandments, out of the Six. (the other four were not relevant to life in Eden.)
By transgressing those two, Adam and his wife exhausted all the Commandments they had, hence they had to be thrown out. Hashem, however, offered them a chance to repent and stay in Eden, which they declined.
Now at the end of Genesis, it is as if Hashem is telling us that if you’ve transgressed all the Six Commandments mentioned above in the Book, you still have a chance to repent.
By this, the Torah completes the story of Eden, in Genesis Chapter 2,
As well as the story of Creation in Genesis Ch 1.
For when you repent – you’ve become as pure as Adam was in Eden,
Ready to go on the pursue your journey to the Sabbath as stated in Chapter One.
The story also tells us how Hashem responds to our repentance.
Since the story of Josef invokes the Sefira of Malchut, Kingship,
It comes out that Repentance awakens Hashem’s Kingship
Oof intervening in history.
For instance –
Hashem’s Kingship will awaken the Messiah to come.
Either the Son of Joseph, or the Son of Judah – David.
That is why the sages of the Talmud say that the Messiah will comes only through repentance.