Beginning Parsha Questions

 This Shabbat, we read the first portion of the Torah, B'reisheet ("Genesis"). I have questions. These are not designed as riddles or trivia questions; they are sincere and developed questions seeking real and sourced answers, so if you know something, say something. Thanks.

1. Why did the creation process take 7 days (yes, I count the establishing of rest on Shabbat as part of the creation cycle)? God could have created the entirety of the world in an instant but did not. I have seen that discussed. But why specifically 7 days? Is there something independently important or sacred about the number seven that it fits the process? If we look at the events on each day, some could have been combined, or split apart so the process could have taken ANY number of days.

One idea I heard attached it to the name sheva for seven as sh-v-ayin is related to satiety. But that name is not inherently "seven" and could have been applied to any number that was at the end of the creation process. Had God decided to do the entire thing in 5 days, then he could have called the 6th day "sheva". And the 8th day, shmoneh, which I have, elsewhere, connected to "shamen", fat because it is "over satisfied", could have been used to name the day after those 6!

Someone suggested that 7 has value because, hey, look, it comes up in the shmita cycle. But maybe that's just echoic -- a reference to the 7 DAYs cycle as played out on a grander scale. Is the concept of seven a pre-existing religious and theologically important idea which we then make other things fit to, or do we look at the things and say, "hey they stopped on seven so from now on, seven matters"?

2. Each week, in Kiddush for the Shabbat morning, we are told that the Children of Israel observed the Shabbat as a sign and bond between God and the Jews because it is a weekly reminder of the first Shabbat, when God rested.

But why do we mark this weekly? I don't see it as marker of the end of the creation process because we don't do anything on it to sum up the whole cycle, just to memorialize the resting that happened ON THAT DAY after the cycle ended. Man was created on day 6 -- is there anything we do weekly to mark our own creation? We wait for the year anniversary to mark creation on the whole (and though we mention that many things are rememberances of creation or the Exodus each day, we don't do anything to ritualize that memory until, for example, Passover).

So do we mark our own weekly cycle of coming into existence in our prayers or actions on Fridays?

3. In this Parsha, Adam and Chava make a mistake and have to cover themselves up with leaves. God chastises them but then also decides to make for them better clothing out of skins of some sort. God acts as tailor. There is nothing miraculous about making clothing but God does it for them after they have already started a similar process. Then, throughout the Torah, God does miraculous things -- he confuses human languages, brings plagues, sends down the mon, allows the Children of Israel to pass through the Reed Sea...we have lists of the miraculous things God does and those things are inherently outside the skill set of man.

Jump to the last Parsha, and Moshe's death. In the telling of that event many commentators explain that God, himself, buried Moshe. God was a grave digger. Again, this is not a miracle, but instead a mundane and usually human activity. It just so happened that God was the only one around and so He stepped up and said "fine...I'll do it."

Are there other situations in which God does something that man can and generally does do? (I thought about the circumcision of Avraham, but it seems that the understanding is that Avraham did it himself even though God steadied him - I get this from the Rashi commentary on Bereisheet 17:24 included in brackets in the Artscroll chumash; the Rashi text on Sefaria and on Chabad do NOT have this section of Rashi and I can't find the medrashic source, so if you know it...)

By the way, I do not see "being a warrior" as the same thing because I see no place in the 5 books in which Hashem battles the way a human would or could have. I just see the description of Hashem as warrior.

It is (until I learn better) interesting to me that the 5 books of Moses are bookended by Hashem's doing the mundane.

Trick seals

 So last night, after we finished ne'ilah, I stuck around, as did a huge chunk of men, in order to daven Ma'ariv.

The question people often ask is "why daven ma'ariv in which I ask for forgiveness during my Amidah service? Did I just finish asking forgiveness? What sins could I possibly have done in the 3 and a half minutes between the joyous proclamation of "Next year in Jerusalem" and the saying of my silent prayer?

And, I'm sure, many wise and sage people have written a lot answering this question. I won't try.

But I think that the question is wrong. Shouldn't we be asking, "how dare we ask for forgiveness?" I mean, the gates are closed. The verdict is sealed. What standing do we have once the king has left the field? Yes, yes, some understand that the verdict is not sealed until the end of the Sukkot holiday but we ask for forgiveness the day after that also! So why do we even try? While, sure, we should focus on doing mitzvot, so as to build a case for ourselves next year, why ask for forgiveness if it is all about Yom Kippur and the sealing us in the book of life (or otherwise, God forbid)?

I recall as a youth, having an interest in being fancy. My parents indulged me and I got a calligraphy set. I wasn't horrible at it but there lack situations in which that skill is called for in the modern world. Shopping lists and poems about eating someone else's fruit, hastily scribbled on the back of an envelope do not require calligraphic skill. I also got a wax imprinting kit which, while interesting, was also impractical. I tend to use envelopes with adhesive already applied.

The wax kit included a colorful candle and a stamp with my initials. I don't actually remember if it it had my initials but the idea is that I could melt some wax and imprint on the still soft stuff some symbol that represented me. In the olden days, this was used to close messages and ensure that they were not read by the messenger. I cite Hamlet for this. Somewhere in the act 4 or 5 range. 

But the seal did not always mean "closed." It meant "official." And that's the difference.

God seals his verdict and then closes the book and the gates. He withdraws from the field to his courtyard within. And what are we left with? The possibility of sinning and no ability to do anything about it because things are sealed and shut?

No. Things were just decided and stamped by an official at that moment. The seal has been affixed. But if we learn anything from the story of Purim (other than the importance of sending me candy) it is that once a royal proclamation has been given the king's seal, other proclamations can still be issued! Can God undo the royal verdict given last evening? No one is asking him to. We are asking that he issue a new proclamation today, and another tomorrow.

Yes, the gates are closed but in our communal Modim prayer, we ask that (and I'm lifting this from the Sefaria translation)

"so may You always keep us alive and sustain us, and gather our exiles to the Courtyards of Your Sanctuary to observe Your statutes, and to do Your will, and to serve You wholeheartedly,"

We have to knock on the door. We have to be brought in. But nothing is locked -- all we have to do is ask. On Yom Kippur, there is a sense in the talmud that the day effects a forgiveness even if we don't ask but the rest of the year, we have to make a bit more effort. That's OK -- we got this.

So don't be daunted by the "seal." It looks fancy, and it has an important imprint on it. But it isn't the end all and be all and we need to stand at the gate, three times each weekday, and insist on being let in, demanding that we be given a chance to inspire a new verdict that is just as powerful.

In a sense, everyday is Yom Kippur. The gates are never fully closed and the verdict is never shut. Let's take advantage of the king's willingness to sign off on a merciful verdict on each and every day.