Torah Study > Chapter 1: The Call to Action > Text 1
According to this story, what is the stated purpose, the calling, of humanity? That is, what was the human created to do?
Humankind was created to manage, protect and improve the world. The Torah’s opening description of the world relates that “There was no man to work the land” and that humans were created “to work it and to tend it.” The very purpose of human existence, therefore, is to be God’s partner in safeguarding and guiding the affairs of the world. We are not the earth’s owners, but its stewards, responsible for the well-being of nature and civilization alike.
Explore with the participants how this might be different from an American vision of the purpose of humans. Share with them the core-values expressed in each culture’s founding texts. Humankind, according to the Declaration of Independence, is endowed with the following rights: “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Humankind, according to Judaism, is created with the following obligations: “to work the land…to work it and to tend it.”
How was the human made? What is the starting point (genesis) of the first human?
The point here is that we possess a bit of “godliness” in us. We are animmated
from birth with the breath of God. It is that which keeps us going and that which we lose (literally our breath) when we die.
What demands or capabilities do you think that the source of animattion
(God) places upon us or within us?
The idea that human is created by God blowing air into Adam’s nostrils (Gen. 2:7) suggests that within each and every human is a spark of the Divine. As such, the Bible implies that humans have an ability to bring Godliness into the world. Consider the contrast between this account of humanity’s beginning and the “slap on the bottom” that usher most infants into life in American hospitals.
Why would the Torah begin with this story?
This text emphasizes the idea that “tending to the world” is a defining human value inherent in the conception of the world. It is not a punishmment,
or an after-thought. It is the reason we were created in the first place. The text suggests that we would not be here if we weren’t needed; if the world didn’t need human intervention, humans would not have been created.
Do you think this is a “Jewish” story? To whom do you think it is addressed?
This is a particularistic story of a universal calling. Some students may claim that this is a Jewish story because it is drawn from our scriptural tradition and is part of our collective narrative. Others may see its audience as much broader, citing the universality of this passage and the broad claims it makes about all humanity. Essentially it is both: this is a Jewish story, informing the founding identity of the Jewish people; but as Jews, we say such sacred work is the task of everyone. Still and all, it is the Jews who use this story as their founding story.
Christians take a later part of this story, “The Fall,” (Adam and Eve’s disobeddience to God in eating from the Tree of Knowledge) and make that their founding universal text. America takes individual liberty, not communal responsibility, as their founding universal text. This is a quintessentially Jewish text, expressing quintessential Jewish values. Even though it is in our “shared” western scriptual tradition, only the Jewish tradition turns to these verses to ground and guide the purpose of life.
TOP OF PAGE
How are we like the human in the story?
We are the human in the story. Adam is every man, every human.
How does this metaphor, that each and every one of us becomes alive by God’s breathing into us, affect who we are and what we are to do with our lives? What can this metaphor mean to those who do not believe in God? What can such a metaphor do for both believers and non-believers?
How does such an awareness of the Torah’s take on the purpose of humanity affect us? Where do we/should we position the work of social activism in our lives in light of this teaching?
TOP OF PAGE
