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Copyright 2013 © Avraham Apatow

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For My wife, My Love, Hagit

Bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh




To the Chief Musician

A Psalm with instrumental music, a song.

May God favor us and bless us,

May he cause His countenance to shine among us, Selah;

So that Your way become known on earth,

and Your deliverance among all nations.

Peoples will thank You, God,

All the peoples will thank You.

Nations will rejoice and sing

When You judge the peoples justly,

And lead the nations upon the earth Selah. Peoples will thank You, God,

All the peoples will thank You.

The earth will have yielded its produce;

God our God, will have blessed us.

God will bless us,

And they will fear Him –

All those from the ends of the earth.

– King David, Psalm 67




Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

Translation of Genesis

I. Creation

Unit 1

The Seven Days of Creation

II. Adam

Unit 2

The Planting of the Garden

The Drama

Cain and Abel

Seth

III. Noah

Unit 3

Generations of Man [Adam]

The Generations of Noah

The Building of the Ark and the Great Flood

Returning to Land: Offerings and Covenant

The Sons of Noah

Noah’s Blessings and Curse

IIIa. Tower of Babel

Unit 4

Generations of Noah

Tower of Babel




IV. Abraham

Unit 5

Generations of Shem

Generations of Terah

Go for Yourself (The Journey to the Land of Canaan)

Descent to Egypt

Unit 6

Separation of Abraham and Lot

God’s Blessing to Abraham

War of the Kings

The Rescue of Lot

Unit 7

The Covenant

Hagar and Ishmael

AbraHam, the Father of a Multitude of Nations

SaraH, Mother of Nations

Unit 8

The Angels Visit to Abraham and Sarah

Abraham’s Dialogue with God

The Angels Visit to Lot

The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

Unit 9

Abimelech takes Sarah Sarah gives Birth to Issac

Covenant with Abimelech

The Binding of Issac

Unit 10




Birth of Rebekah

Passing of Sarah and Purchas of Burial Cave

Eliezer’s Journey to find Rebekah

Eliezer’s Retelling

Rebekah’s Decision

Rebekah’s Departure

Abraham Remarries

Abraham’s Passing

V. Issac

Unit 11

Generations of Ishmael

Generations of Isaac

(Birth of Esau and Jacob)

Unit 12

Sojourn in Philistine

Return home (Covenant with Abimelech)

Unit 13

Esau Marries Canaanite

Issac Calls to Bless Esau

Rebekah tells Jacob to Pretend to be Esau

Jacob Takes the Blessing

Esau Returns

Esau’s Plan to Kill Jacob

Issac Blesses Jacob and Sends Jacob Away to Find a Wife Esau Marries an Ishmaelite

VI. Jacob

Unit 14

Jacob’s Dream




Jacob’s Vow

Jacob’s Marriages

Jacob’s Children

Jacob’s Wages

Jacob’s Flocks

Jacob’s Return

Laban’s Pursuit

Jacob and Laban’s Covenant

The Camp of God

Unit 15

Jacob Sends Messengers to Esau

Esau’s Approach and Preparation

Struggle with the Angel

Confrontation with Esau

Unit 16

Jacob in Shechem

The Rape of Dina

Hamor’s Visit

Shimon and Levi’s Revenge

Command to Visit Beth-El

God Appears to Jacob’s in Beth-El

Birth of Binyamin and Passing of Rachel

Reuvein

The Twelve Sons of Jacob

Jacob’s Returns and Passing of Issac

VIa. The Generations of Esau

Unit 17

The Generations of Esau in Canaan

The Generations of Esau in Seir




Kings of Edom

The Chiefs from Esau

VII. Joseph

Unit 18

Joseph’s Descent

Yehudah’s Descent

Joseph, the Servant of Potiphar

Joseph and Pharaoh

Brothers’ Visit to Egypt

House of Jacob’s Descent to Egypt Jacob’s Blessings

The Passing of Jacob and Joseph

Commentary

Chapter 1 Creation

Unit 1 Chart

Chapter 2 Adam and Eve Unit 2 Chart

Chapter 3 Noah

Unit 3 Chart

Chapter 3a Tower of Babel

Unit 4 Chart

Chapter 4 Abraham

Unit 5 Chart

Unit 6 Chart

Unit 7 Chart

Unit 8 Chart

Unit 9 Chart




Chapter 5 Issac

Unit 10 Chart

Unit 11 Chart

Unit 12 Chart

Unit 13 Chart

Chapter 6 Jacob

Unit 14 Chart

Unit 15 Chart

Chapter 6a Esau

Unit 16 Chart

Chapter 7 Joseph

Unit 17 Chart

Unit 18 Chart




Preface

Today is the anniversary of the day that Moses Our Teacher, (Moshe Rabbeinu) both was

born and passed away. The Torah bears the name The Five Books of Moses, for it is

through our greatest prophet, whom God Almighty calls the humblest man, that the Holy

Law came into the world. It is only fitting that today I write the preface to this new

edition of the first book of the Torah, Genesis, in honour of Moses and this holy and

special day.

It has been a long and challenging journey to write this book and I am most grateful for

all the help I have received from the Holy One Blessed Be He and all the people who

assisted me. I started my study of Torah from nothing and there are so many people whohave taught me over the past fifteen years who have brought me into the great chain of

teacher and students of the Torah, an unbroken chain that goes back to Moses himself,

and I thank you all. I would also like to thank my friend Rabbi Yehoshua Gerzi for

sharing with me several very helpful comments that helped me clarify and complete some

essential issues.

I would like to express my special gratitude to Moshe Hazen and the Hazan Foundation

for the generous support at the beginning of the writing of this book, without which this

could not have been accomplished. May he and his family be blessed for their gracious

contribution.

Today is also the birthday of my wife Hagit, for whom I owe the most special thanks for

all her love and faith in me that gave me the strength and will to complete this book. May

she and our entire family know continued blessings for all their love and support.

Avraham Apatow

7th Adar 5773

February 17, 2013

In the light of the Tzaddik and Teacher of Israel, the Eternal Soul of our people,

Moshe Rabbeinu




How many are your works, Lord,

You have made them all with wisdom

King David, Psalm 104

Introduction

The Bible is filled with so many wonderful and inspiring stories, but have you ever

wondered how all those stories fit together? Is The Bible just telling us history and

lessons from the past, or are all those stories part of a greater lesson that we are supposed

to understand?

I have spent the last fifteen years seeking out the answer to this question. During this

time, I moved from California to Jerusalem, studied with many great rabbis, and throughmuch study and prayer was blessed to learn an ancient tradition that reveals the inner

logic of The Bible that unfolds its messages with simplicity and clarity. However, for

much of history, this special logic or structure of the presentation of The Bible has been

hidden.

When I first read The Bible (The Five Books of Moses), it seemed to me a very ancient

and obscure book. Religions teach that it was given by God as a path to life. When I read

Genesis, I did not see how Genesis could explain to me the point of creation, why we are

here, and what we are supposed to do. I saw an assorted collection of people and families

and nations playing out a historical drama that I did not understand, nor did I understandhow that related to me and my life thousands of years later.

I was born to Jewish parents, but raised in a completely secular way. I never studied in

Hebrew school or practiced any religious ritual. But I was given a soul that longed for

Truth. So when I went to college it is no surprise that I fell in love with philosophy, and

especially the philosophy of Plato. Here was a way to search for Truth without the need

for religion. Instead I followed reason and logic as my path in life, not in a cold, scientific

way, but like an ancient Greek, as the expression of the mystery and beauty of the

cosmos.

Therefore, when I first began to read The Bible at age nineteen, I was expecting to find philosophy, and a sign of reason and order. However, what I found in The Bible is that

some of the stories came out of order. There did not seem to be a real beginning and end.

Genesis does finish with the amazing story of Joseph and his brothers. This was a great

drama. No one can deny that. But what does that have to do with the beginning, with

creation, the Garden of Eden, and Noah and the ark?




I suppose if the stories are just a history of a people, it doesn’t have to fit together, and it

doesn’t have to be complete with beginning and end. There was Adam, then Noah, then

Abraham and then his children went down to Egypt. This is how it happened, and this

prepares the way for the next book – the story of Moses and the Exodus.

But somehow I was looking for more. After all, this is The Bible and it was given by

God. God created the cosmos with an awesome order and perfection in nature, why

wouldn’t there be the same structure in His other work, The Bible?

Of course, this is the criticism that scholars have. They ask why are there different names

of God? Why do stories repeat themselves? Why do they sometimes come out of order?

Their answer is the simple one, that The Bible is just a history, a collection of stories of

an historical people at different times.

Western society has reached a point where it is natural to assume that religion is not

reasonable. We live in a world that makes a sharp division between reason and faith.

However, this is not the way of the Jewish tradition. King David said, How many are

your works, Lord, You have made them all with wisdom ( Psalm 104). Rebbe Nachman,

the great Hasidic master whose wisdom has guided me in my life teaches that our very

connection with God depends on our ability to recognize His wisdom and intelligence in

all things (L.M. I,1). Consequently, the disconnection between reason and faith is a

disconnection from God.

The prevalent scholarly approach to The Bible is one of the primary symptoms of thisdisconnection. It is not my aim to make an argument against these views. Rather, the

purpose of this work is to share with you the results of my amazing journey in seeking

out the wisdom of The Bible and to reveal what I have discovered.

As I mentioned earlier, when I was nineteen I was in love with the works of Plato. I was

fortunate to meet a master of Greek philosophy named Dr. Pierre Grimes, who devoted

his life to reviving the ancient spiritual wisdom tradition of Platonism. Pierre invited me

to his class and told me to prepare for the class by reading Genesis. I remember arriving

and him asking me if I had prepared. I did not tell him this, but I did not prepare because

Genesis was a big book and anyway I was interested in philosophy not religion.

Pierre started the class by discussing the six days of Creation. He wrote on the board the

following words:

A pattern is a sign of order. In seeing order we discover meaning, and where there is

meaning there is intelligence and wisdom.




Pierre then went on to question the students and through these questions reveal that the

ideas expressed in each of the days one, two, and three of Creation were parallel to the

ideas expressed in four, five, and six.

It was interesting, but we never continued the discussion of the design of Genesis but

instead I spent over ten years with Pierre learning the principles of Platonic philosophy.

Afterwards, my life took a significant change and I returned to the path of the Torah of

my people. The Torah I studied did not appear to have the order and design of Classical

philosophy, but it illuminated my heart with the love of the Creator and the path of faith

and prayer.

I developed in my Torah studies and moved to Jerusalem. I had the great fortune to meet

and study with Moshe Kline, an independent scholar, who is part of this unbroken chain

of Torah observance and study from the time of Moses.

Remarkably, Moshe Kline was a student from Saint John’s University, where my teacher

Pierre Grimes began his academic study of Plato. Moshe Kline literally began teaching

me the Torah in almost the exact same manner that I had learned Platonic philosophy

from Pierre.

As we often say, my life came full circle. I had started with Plato; I had left it, and now

was discovering that all I had first learned was a foundation for the next part of my life’s

journey. I had left Greek philosophy for the Torah, but to my great surprise, God led me

on a path to discover that all that I loved in philosophy was also contained in the Torah,

and more.




Moshe Kline’s research is based on a most remarkable discovery. Ordinarily we read

books in a linear fashion, one point, or sentence, or paragraph after the other: A, B, C, D,

etc. For example, consider the opening of Genesis and the first six days of creation. We

read days one, two, three…etc., one after another. If we were to organize this informationwe would put it into a simple list in a straight line down the page:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

However, Moshe Kline discovered that this was not the way the ancient Hebrews

organized information. Although in a Torah scroll the text is written in a linear fashion,

Moshe discovered that the study of the text is done in a much more dynamic way. The

Ancient Israelites organized the text in columns on tablets in the following manner, as we

can see in the example of the six days of creation, just as Pierre had taught me.

We see in this chart that each creation in column A corresponds to a creation in column

B. The things created in column A are the necessary condition that allows the creation in

column B to come into existence.

Moshe went on to teach me that not only the beginning of Genesis is structured in such a

way, but the entire Five Books of Moses has a similar structure and logic. Each story or

law is presented not only for itself, but in relationship to another story or law. Moshe also




taught me that the Rabbis also presented the entire oral law of the Torah in the work

called the Mishna according to similar principles.

Let me share a very simple example of what this means. Imagine you are making a listfor the supermarket. The normal way we make such a list would be one item after

another. For example,

Apples

Bananas

Tomatoes

Cucumbers

Moreover, we would probably group the fruit together and the vegetables together as in

this list above.

Moshe Kline discovered that Hebrew texts are not presented this way. Instead, using our

example the list would be organized as follows:

Apples

Tomatoes

Cucumbers

Bananas

To us that is strange. What connection is there between apples and tomatoes or

cucumbers and bananas? Apples go with bananas and cucumbers go with tomatoes.

So if we read a book that organized its information like the shopping list we would think

that the person was a little confused, to say the least. However, this is because we look at

the list in a linear format. We think that we should understand the arrangement according

to a list.

The ancient reader does something a little different. He reads the list in this order, but

then organizes it in his imagination in the following picture:




Although the list is written in a linear form, in his imagination he organizes apples and

tomatoes on the left and cucumbers and bananas on the right.

In this picture the natural relationship between apples and bananas is represented in adiagonal relationship and cucumbers and tomatoes in the opposite diagonal.

This structure for presenting ideas is called a chiasm. The Greek letter Chi is an X, so a

chiasm is a structure like an X. In a chiasm the first idea is related to the last in the list

and the second to the second to the last.

But why organize ideas in this structure? The reason is that this is a way of organizing

complex ideas for a mnemonic system. Also, it allows for the representation of another

level of relationships.

In our example the separation of fruits and vegetables is one relationship. But the chiasm

reveals another relationship. Apples can be connected to tomatoes in the left column, for

these are both round (and also red); and cucumbers can be connected in a relationship

with bananas in the right column because these are both cylindrical.

Therefore, in our example with the shopping list we see how the chiasm allows us to

organize in a picture form two sets or relationships (or more) very simply:




Moshe Kline revealed to me that the first section of Genesis is presented in this chiastic

structure. We can summarize the first section of Genesis into three main parts:

And now let us show this model with the addition of the parallel columns in the form of a

chiasm.




I have highlighted the key contrasts in bold. In the next chapter we shall describe this in

more detail. In the meantime, even with a cursory look at this diagram, one can see how

the chapter is structured in this chiastic form. Above we saw how the six days of Creation

form a neat parallel structure. Now we see how the days of Creation are sandwiched in

the middle of a beautiful chiasm.

I concluded that if there is such a clear logical structure in the beginning of the work, then

this must be the key to the whole book. Moshe revealed that the entire Bible is filled with

parallel ideas that reveal amazing contrasts. These contrasts help organize the information

in The Bible, and Moshe used these contrasts to show interesting themes in the

development of the Torah. However, I was very interested to see if the Five Books of

Moses was organized according to chiasms as in opening chapter of Genesis.

I spent two years analyzing and studying and praying, and eventually God opened my

eyes to discover that indeed this structure is present in every section of Genesis, and most

of the rest of The Bible. This is the key for understanding the natural structure of The Bible, its inner logic.

But so what? So there is a structure to the book, how does that help us understand The

Bible? This chiastic structure adds another layer of meaning and communication in The

Bible. We can ask why the stories are presented in contrast one to another; and we can

see the flow of the presentation from one story to the next and the development from one

chapter to the next chapter.




This structure revealed to me that the stories in the Torah are not random. They are all

pieces in a puzzle with a very clear message. This message is very consistent with the

tradition preserved by the Rabbis over thousands of years.

I did not grow up in a religious home and did not receive a religious education.

Therefore, when I began to become religious I was seeking to understand what the basic

message of the Torah is. As a Truth-seeker and scholar, I longed to discover a

fundamental meaning communicated by the Torah that was the basis for all the stories

that made sense of the book as a whole.

Moshe Kline’s approach to reading the Torah gave me the key to what I was looking for

and after several years of work, the pieces began to fall into place. What emerged is a

very simple and clear understanding of the entire Five Books of Moses. This reading is

consistent with the main stream of rabbinical commentary, and also reveals the main

messages and interconnections between the many different stories and laws in the Torah.

No matter what your particular religion or belief system is, I hope that this book provides

a way for you to discover with greater clarity the primary messages of the Five Books of

Moses.

Origin of Moshe Kline’s Structured Approach to Torah

The first thing that the reader must understand is that the organization of the Torah into

chapters and verses in current versions is not of Jewish origin. Instead, this comes from

medieval Christian clergy and was later adapted by the rabbis who were forced to debate

scripture in medieval Spain, and so a common way of noting scriptural sources wasrequired. (Although the verses are not numbered in traditional Jewish texts, there are

cantillation marks for the chanting of the Torah that preserve the division into verses.)

In the translation of Genesis, we have preserved this numbering system because it is the

accepted means of noting verses. However, the organization of the Book of Genesis

follows a different structure. It is a structure based on Units of information organized

according to the chiastic structure we have explained above.

The discovery of the Structured Study of Torah was made by my teacher Moshe Kline.

Moshe Kline is an independent scholar living in Israel and was the student of a wellknown rabbi named Yeudah Leon Ashkenazi. Rabbi Ashkenazi traced his lineage back to

the great Kabbalistic master Yitzhak Luria Ashkenazi, better known as the “Arizal.”

Rabbi Yehudah Ashkenazi shared with Moshe Kline that his family possessed a tradition

that the Mishna was studied in a specific way that revealed its deep secrets. However,

that tradition was lost. He did know that there were hints to this tradition in the Maharal

of Prague’s commentary on Mishna Avot , (the Sayings of the Fathers). Moshe began his




studies with his teacher, and Rabbi Ashkenazi gave him the task of uncovering these lost

keys to the Mishna.

From the time Moses and the Israelites received the Torah until the period of the Greeks,the detailed explanation of the Torah’s laws was not formally written down. It was only

because of the turmoil of the Hellenic period that the rabbis ruled to permit the redaction

of the oral law. This was done by Rabbi Yeudah the Prince in around 200 C.E. in the

work that is called the Mishna, the first written formulation of the Oral Tradition.

Moshe Kline spent twenty years completing an edition of the Mishna which reveals the

inherent structure within the entire text. He has also made a version of the Five Books of

Moses. His approach to the Torah is very much influenced by his work on the Mishna

and reveals in great detail the relationships between the many laws presented. My work

has many significant differences and aims at revealing a broader picture of the primary

messages of the Torah and a more consistent logical structure. All of Moshe Kline’s

work, including several scholarly articles can be found at his website chaver.com.

Moshe Kline’s great discovery was the ancient method Israelites used to study the Oral

Torah. The work was structured in two or three parallel columns in each chapter in order

to express the dynamic relationships between the ideas. What is most remarkable is that

when the Torah is read this way, it forms a natural mnemonic system of organizing its

very complex system of ideas into a simple structure.

It is well documented that ancient peoples through the time of the Renaissance had very

sophisticated systems for memorizing information. The key to this was a format for organizing the information into a structure. When ideas are presented randomly, they are

hard to remember. However, when they are put into a structure, it becomes much more

manageable. Each Unit of ideas because a kind of logical picture, and as the common

expression says, a picture contains a thousand words.

The presentation of ideas in parallel columns reveals more complex relationships. The

Torah is a divine work, a book given to the Jewish people to guide the nation through

history. This approach to organizing and communicating information allows for the

communication of more knowledge in less space. Today we have the power of memory

chips. The work of technologists today is to try to get more information stored in lessspace at a faster speed. In the ancient world this was done through dynamic structures.

The communication of knowledge in dynamic, parallel columns is a much more

sophisticated and powerful means for holding information. Knowledge is stored not only

be means of each word in a verse. Knowledge and meaning is communicated by seeing

the relationships between the various parts of each unit and the units in relationship to




one another. This communication is accomplished without having to add any additional

words or content to the written word.

The additional advantage to this method is that it forms the foundation of a method of education. Education not only includes understanding the meaning of each verse, students

must come to understand how to analyze these relationships that we have described. The

understanding of relationships is the key to the advanced development of the intellect.

This was essential to a people commanded to bring justice into the world and to cultivate

judges of the highest caliber, and also those who could strengthen and purify the highest

capacity of man in order to enter into an intimate relationship with the Creator through

prophecy.

Understanding the Oral Traditi on of Torah Study

As you will see in the pages of this commentary, we will refer continuously to the

commentary of the Sages and later rabbinical commentators. The Sages are called in the

Jewish tradition Chazal , which stands for the Hebrew term meaning “the wise men of

blessed memory.” These Sages are the great rabbis of the Mishna and Talmud . The

second source we will refer to is called midrash, which is the tradition of stories that

provide the background for the narrative of the Five Books of Moses, as well as other

books of the Torah. The midrash are collections of expositions of the Torah from the

Sages and other rabbis, many of which were received in a chain of tradition back to

Moses.

A few introductory remarks must be made to explain the importance of the Oral

Tradition. It is commonly said that the Jews are “the people of the Book.” This is not

perfectly accurate. The Jewish tradition is a combination of the Written and Oral

Tradition. Neither is separate from the other. The reason is because as the Sages teach us,

Moses received both at the same time, and let us explain why this is essential.

The Five Books of Moses is written without any vowels or punctuation. In Hebrew, the

reader adds the vowels to the pronunciation of each word. Let us take an example in

English. Imagine the word “God” written without vowels. It would be “Gd”. If the reader

has to add the vowels, then there are many choices for how to pronounce the word, and

therefore to identify what word is being intended. The reader could choose to pronounce

that word “gd” as “God,” or “good” or even “guide”. It all depends on the context. In

addition, without punctuation, we don’t know where phrases and sentences begin or end.

The Oral tradition handed down all this essential information for reading the Torah.

There is another important issue to consider. The Torah is principally a book of law.

There are 613 commandments given to the Israelite people. Let us consider the first law




in the entire Torah, the commandment to be fruitful and multiply. One of the foundations

of the Torah is that there is reward and punishment for fulfilling or disobeying a

commandment. If so, then the law must be clear. God is a God of justice.

But the law written in the Torah leaves many issues unclear. Who does the law apply to?

Men or women or both? And at what age does it apply? And what does it mean to fulfill

the law? Does it mean one child, two children or more? If one has one child, does he

satisfy the law? Does it matter if that child is a boy or girl?

The law as handed down through tradition is that it means that a Jewish man is

commanded to have one boy and one girl. This is the minimal fulfillment of the law. This

is a relatively simple law. There are laws, such as the laws of writing Torah scrolls or

laws of business that take up entire volumes of books to understand properly.

The Torah has been the guiding book of law for the Jewish people as a nation in the

ancient world and in exile, governing every aspect of social and individual life. Even

today, the State of Israel, is partially ruled by the laws of the Torah. For example, its

army abides by the laws of the Sabbath and the laws of kosher food, as well as many

other laws. Every public door in the government of Israel has a written scroll called a

mezuzah, which is also commanded in the Torah. There is even a separate rabbinical

court system for those who wish to settle legal disputes according to the Torah. In other

words, the Torah is a practical book of law that guides peoples’ lives. This is only

possible when the Written Torah is combined with the Oral Torah.

Another dimension of the Oral Torah is the interpretation of stories relating to thenarrative of the Torah. Just as the laws of the Torah are incomplete on their own, so also

are the stories. The Torah begins stories of many different people without explaining the

background context of the story. In many cases those stories are impossible to truly

understand without some context.

The curious thing about the Oral Tradition is that it gives many different interpretations

of every law and every story. This can be very confusing. But there is an important

reason that the rabbis do this. They include rival interpretations of law, for example, to

show how they answer questions or challenges from those with different opinions. These

discussions also provide examples of how the rabbis deal with Torah issues. The uniqueaspect of the Jewish tradition of wisdom is that the tradition respects streams of

interpretation and perspectives from different schools and Sages, and has a system and

principles for preserving and discerning the law from among rival perspectives.

When we read an issue from different perspectives it also helps us get a better

understanding of the issue. This same is true in respect to the stories. In the realm of the

narrative of the Torah, it is not considered essential to know or believe in a certain




interpretation. The essence of the Jewish religion is to accept the Law of Torah. (See the

13 Principles of Jewish Faith by the Rambam)

In the realm of the stories of the Torah there are various interpretative streams of thought.This also can be very confusing. However, the main point of Torah study is not

necessarily to get the right answer of what really happened. The main point is to come

closer to God and to learn valuable pieces of wisdom that will help us grow as

individuals. Thus, the wealth and variety of interpretations is a primary way that rabbis

use to communicate about life and spirituality.

It is our aim in this commentary to present a coherent narrative of the Book of Genesis

that presents a stream of interpretation that is coherent and consistent both in itself and

with many of the traditional teachings of the Sages. The foundation of this approach is to

ask the key questions that each story raises and to look at the structure of the unit in order

to gain clues for an insightful understanding.

We live in an age of written texts and have very little understanding of oral traditions,

and it is understandable why a reader would be skeptical. Just consider the game

“telephone.” A message is written down and then read to one person. That person then

tells the message orally to the next person, and the oral communication is continued

around the room. After the last person gets the message, the message at the end of the

chain is compared to the written message and we laugh as we see how completely

different it is. If in five minutes a simple message is confused and changed, how could an

entire culture be preserved over thousands of years? This is hard for us to understand.

But I would like to give you a better analogy than the “telephone” example. I was once

lamenting my lack of memory compared to people in classical times to my old friend Rod

Walbank and he said to me, “How many Beatles’ songs do you know by heart?” Well, I

was a great Beatles fan when I was a kid and so I told him, “I happen to know them all by

heart.” This is one example of the power of memory that we possess even today.

Perhaps this is a better example. My brother Judd is a famous Hollywood comedy writer

and director. When we were kids we loved comedy shows and stand-up comedians. My

brother had a remarkable skill. We would go to see stand-up comedians and he would

come out of the show and repeat the entire act by heart (and often would do it better thanthe original version). Not only that, he maintained this memory, and knew most of the

active comedians’ material by heart.

A few years later he became a stand-up comedian and when he would get together with

other comedians they would each recite their favorite joke of some comedian and they all

knew the famous ones by heart. In fact, this is a big issue among comedians because one

has to know who said which joke in order to guar d one’s material from being stolen by




another comedian. Therefore, the comedians served as a kind of ad hoc board of watch-

dogs for one another and they knew who had a bad reputation for stealing material.

This is a great example because it is a living oral tradition. Material is memorized wordfor word. It is known who is the author, when the joke began to be used, who might have

stolen it, and what are the earlier sources for the kind of joke or references made.

So we see, even today there are living oral traditions that preserve massive amounts of

information with great accuracy.

Still, one might ask, these are jokes people remember for a few years. Ok, some people

can remember every joke, movie and TV show for a lifetime, but we are speaking about a

tradition preserved over thousands of years. Isn’t that a little different?

Here the important difference is that the Torah is the subject of conscious learning,something which people dedicated their lives to preserving and passing down to their

children and students. Comedians don’t train their children or students to memorize

jokes. Jokes get old. Wisdom is timeless.

Most importantly, in the Jewish tradition we have a faith in our Sages and their teachings

that they are from God and preserved by a power of holy intuition and communication

called ruach ha kodesh in Hebrew.

The Method of Analysis

The Torah is traditionally divided into weekly readings. There were several historical

versions of these divisions. The current system divides the Five Books of Moses into

weekly readings for an annual reading of the Torah. These weekly readings do not aim to

divide the text into clean divisions based on content and themes alone. The weekly

readings sometimes end as one story begins, and take up the story or theme in the

following week.

Our presentation of Genesis aims to provide the reader a more logical approach to

understanding the text. But let us make one point very clear, logical does not mean better.

The division of the text according to the weekly readings that we use today possesses aholiness and reveals a special providence. The purpose of our presentation is for a clearer

human understanding, as has been taught in the Talmud :

For R. Yochanan said: From where in the Torah do we learn that juxtaposed scriptural

passages may be expounded? For it is stated regarding scriptural passages: They are

joined forever and for eternity; the joined passages are fashioned in truth and

uprightness.”




The Art Scroll comments: This teaches that the joining of various passages is not

random, but is an expression of eternal truth. Every such joining, then, may be

expounded. (Brachot 10a)

Thus we see that a basic approach to understanding the Torah is to consider why passages

are presented in the order that they come.

How to Read this Book

We have divided Genesis into seven primary parts. These parts follow the main topics of

the Book as a whole:

I. Creation

II. AdamIII. Noah

IIIa. Tower of Babel

IV. Abraham

V. Issac

VI. Jacob

VIa. Esau

VII. Joseph

The chapters of the commentary correspond to the seven primary sections of the

translation of Genesis. Within these seven sections the Book of Genesis is organized into

seventeen distinct units that organize the story into chiasms, as we have described above.

In each chapter of the commentary we raise some of the main questions that most readers

ask. We then present a simple analysis of the structure of the units in each part according

to the chiastic structure and charts. Each chart breaks the text into a unit . Moshe Kline

coined this term unit in order to distinguish our divisions from the traditional Biblical

chapters.) We also provide some background information from the Sages and rabbis, and

show how this presentation presents a logical and simple answer to the questions raised.

The commentary will present the development of the story of Genesis from one part to

the next so it is helpful to read the entire work in order; however, the reader can also

benefit by looking at parts separately if he or she desires. The chapters of the commentary

correspond to the seven primary sections of the translation of Genesis.




Important Note: In Genesis Revealed there are many charts that present the analysis of

the Genesis narrative. While studying the charts and commentary it is also helpful to

review the translation of Genesis. Therefore, we have provided a thematic list of the

contents of Genesis according to the presentation in the commentary and charts to helpyou quickly find the section for review. This list can be found in the Contents page at the

beginning of the book. In the electronic version of this book you can click on the

Contents and move back and forth between the charts and corresponding translation of

the unit being studied.

About the Author

Avraham Chaim Apatow is a former professor of Greek Philosophy who at the age of

32 began the discovery of his Jewish heritage and the study of Torah Law and Wisdom.

He is the author of several books, including The Spiritual Art of Dialogue, The Secret to

Achieving Personal Goals, and The Knowledge of God . To read his blog and the story of

how he became religious please visit avrahamapatow.com.

The Torah Revealed Project

Genesis Revealed is helping to share and communicate the Wisdom of the Blessed

Creator with peoples of all religions and faiths. We are helping to heal the great rift

between faith and reason that has turned so many people from the path of religion, and

we are seeking to fulfill the obligation of spreading God's Light to the Nations of the

World.

Our goal is to complete the analysis of the Five Books of Moses according to the

approach you have read about in Genesis Revealed . The basic structure of the work has

been outlined and may beautiful insights into the Torah are waiting to be shared.

We welcome your contributions for this very large project. You can help us by

Purchasing a copy of Genesis Revealed

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