Biblical scholars note that one of the reasons for the precision of the Genesis chapter one story of creation is to differentiate Jewish culture, and its foundational stories, from the surrounding cultures. In the Mesopotamian creation story, the goddess Tiamat (like the Hebrew word tahom - the deep mentioned in Torah) is killed by the god Marduk, who creates the earth from her remains. Human beings sprout up as the body deteriorates. Our Biblical story is not only more focussed on the intentionality of the world’s creation, by a single divinity, but also puts forth a story of order, to counter the chaos that came before. Each day has its specific category of creation, and the second three days echo the first three - light on day one; sun and moon on day four; heaven and seas on day two, and fish and birds on day five; land and grasses on day three, and animals and humans on day six. That one day builds on the next is evidence of order. Order is evidence of planning and intention.
On the third day, plants are created - each according to their kind, and with their own seed included. Each plant is created with the ability to reproduce itself. There is no concept of evolution - necessary things come to be and then will always be, as planned at the beginning. For people living in a chaotic world, order and intention are a comfort. It is harrowing to imagine that planting a peach pit might yield an apple tree or a banana bush. We want to know the end result, before we start off at the beginning.
We are so desirous of knowing the end of things, because life so often throws us twists and turns. We may enjoy surprises - but really only good surprises. We are much happier knowing there is a prize in the CrackerJack box, then imagining the fictional Harry Potter’s Bertie Bott’s jellybeans that may be delicious, or may be disgusting. In a discussion the other day, an agnostic said that they were quite comfortable with not knowing the answers, and that trying to imagine God really existed was difficult. I responded that God is the concept that we put in as the answer, for whatever question it is that plagues us. We wish that, like our childhood math books, the answer is at the back, so that eventually we can just figure out if we are right or wrong. The most annoying thing in math class was that our teachers always insisted that we show the work, when we just wanted to get to the end.
Perhaps Genesis teaches us a lesson - that God is not the answer, not the one missing piece which causes everything to make sense, but God is really in the messy scribbles that we make on the side of the page. We would love for God to be the answer - let alone an easily accessible and understandable one, but we are closest to the Divine when we are doing the work of living, not trying to skip to the end.
It would be lovely if we knew that each thing we planted would reproduce the ideal that we had when we planted it; even that the recipes of our grandparents would turn out just like we remembered them. Sometimes they do, sometimes they do not. Sometimes, they even turn out better. But, the love and memory is not found in that fleeting moment of consuming, but in the process of remembering and reconstructing. When we imagine engaging in the same acts as those we have loved, they (and their memories) inhabit us, so much more so than at the end.
The Torah gives us the story of creation - not just a list of what has been created. Our job is not to be impressed by the order, but to be inspired to do the work on our own.
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