Mastery or Care?

 

Parashat Bereishit places us, once again, in the Garden of Eden—a paradise of fullness and ideal balance: “From the ground the Lord caused to grow every tree that was pleasing to the sight and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and bad” (Gen. 2:9). Yet, just a few verses earlier, humans are blessed by their Creator and told, “Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it” (Gen. 1:28). How are we to understand this notion of “mastering” or conquering the earth?

 

Professor Zeev Falk, of blessed memory, who taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, notes that this phrase of “mastering it” does not repeat itself in the blessing given to Noah after the destruction of the world. God repeats the same blessing of Genesis 1:28, but the omission is glaring: “God blessed Noah and his sons saying to them, ‘Be fertile and increase, and fill the earth . . . ’” (Gen. 9:1). Why the abandonment of “mastery”? Professor Falk explains that the notion of mastery was an ideal by which the first humans were blessed in the Garden of Eden. Once they perverted their ways and spoiled the earth, “this uncategorical merit was stripped from them.” Falk goes on to write, “Ecology teaches us today that the freedom of man upon the earth is bounded and therefore this concept of mastery is no longer tenable” (Falk, Divrei Torah Ad Tumam, 4). In a post-Eden world, we must learn to recognize the limits of our power, embracing a healthy dose of humility.

 

Interestingly, Falk also points out that the next time the notion of mastery appears in Torah, it is in the context of the Israelite conquest of the Land of Israel. He sensitively writes that in coming to the Land of Israel, the Israelites return to a special status of Adam HaRishon, the first human. Dwelling in the land entails subjecting oneself to special conditions. Falk enumerates: “Caring for the stranger, accepting a servant who requests refuge, being vigilant not to contaminate the land, not destroying trees, and recognizing the rights of Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites and perhaps others who dwell in the land” (ibid, 4). Clearly, Professor Falk’s reading of mastery encourages us all to vision and to aspire to an ideal of harmony in our relationship with the earth (ecology) and with the Other (seeking peace and pursuing it). 

 

May this coming year be one of constructive mastery as we conquer wasteful drives and indifference on the way toward building a better Israel and a better world.