ספר בראשית

Going back to Rashi’s first commentary on the first word in the Torah, where he quoted ‎Rabbi Yitzchok saying that the reason that the Torah does not commence with the first verse in ‎Exodus chapter12, is that the Torah wanted to allude from the beginning by teaching the concept ‎כח מעשיו הגיד לעמו לתת להם נחלת גויים‎, “He revealed to His people His powerful works by giving ‎them the heritage of (other) nations.” (Psalms 111,6) This is important to know in the event that ‎the nations will dispute the Jewish people’s claim to the Land of Israel as being their heritage. As ‎the Creator and hence, owner, of the entire universe, G’d has the right to allocate parts of it to ‎whoever He chooses.Expressed differently, since in the words of the introduction to the Zohar, page 5, (based ‎on Proverbs 8,30 (Torah speaking) “then I was with Him (G’d) as an artisan,” i.e. G’d ‎used the Torah and its letters as the tool with which to create the universe; it follows that every ‎part of the universe is imbued with some letter of the Torah.Just as man is charged to perform the Torah’s commandments with the various limbs of his body, ‎‎(248), so earth is also charged with the task of performing “commandments” appropriate to its ‎composition. The expressions ‎פי הארץ‎, ”the earth’s mouth,” or ‎עין הארץ‎, “the earth’s eye,” are ‎more than just figures of speech. Each of our limbs exudes the living essence of the letter of the ‎Torah that corresponds to a specific commandment that limb is supposed to perform. Joshua was ‎able to conquer seven lands (of the Canaanites) because he understood what it was that enabled ‎each specific land to remain “alive.” Similarly, every city in those countries had been charged since ‎creation with performing certain duties vis a vis its Creator. Joshua’s knowledge of ‎these duties enabled him to “conquer” these towns and countries with a minimum of Jewish blood ‎being shed in the process.‎According to the introduction of the Zohar page 5, there is no part of the physical ‎universe that does not in some way reflect the meaning of one of the letters in the Torah. If any of ‎these cities were to confront the invading Jewish armies by calling them “robbers,” Joshua was ‎able to remind them that the previous residents in these towns had only leased the land, but had ‎never owned it, as it is G’d’s property. What could be more natural than that the Jewish people, ‎who by definition serve their Creator by observing the commandments of the Torah, should now ‎make their home on this part of the earth. This is what the psalmist meant when he quoted G’d as ‎having revealed to His people the inherent strength of all His works, ‎כח מעשיו הגיד לעמו‎. Wish that ‎G’d were to grant each one of us the wisdom and the purity of heart to be conversant with the ‎specific commandment that is incumbent upon each limb in our body to perform.‎