Parasha Bereshit

The Light of Torah Messianic Congregation
Parasha Bereshit
Prepared by P. R. Reid, a bond servant of Yeshua HaMashiach
October 21, 2024

The Torah
As we begin a new Torah cycle, there are probably some definitions that will be pertinent to our discussion.

The Torah is generally considered to be the first five books of Scripture; namely, Genesis (Bereshit), Exodus (Sh’mot), Leviticus (V’Yikra), Numbers (Bamidbar) and Deuteronomy (D’varim).

The Hebrew word for Torah, תּוֹרָה , which basically means laws, His law. Torah stems from the root word Yara, יָרָה which means “to hit the mark.” Those who study Torah are either going to “hit the mark” or not. Our goal it to aim for the bullseye on an archery target.

I will be using the word Parasha, which may be new to you as well. This word simply means a segment of study, this is my own definition. The Rabbis took the first five books and divided it into annual portions of study. When the cycle has been completed, the process begins anew.

There is also a Haftarah. This word looks like it would mean a “half a Torah,” that is not the case. The Haftarah portions will be found among various prophets. Within the teachings of the prophets, we will find connections to the Torah portion for that week. The Haftarahs were devised when, while in captivity, Israel was forbidden to study their own Torah. When they studied the corresponding Haftarah, they would be reminded of the instruction contained in the Parasha.

As believers in Messiah Yeshua, we find connections to our Parasha also in the Brit Chadasha, the New Testament.

In my opinion, Scripture is broken down for us as follows:

The Torah, the first five books, contain The Fathers instructions, His “Rules of the Kingdom.”
The Prophets deliver either praise or judgment against Israel for their obedience or disobedience to The Fathers instructions.
The Brit Chadasha, the New Testament, are a series of letters to the “bride” of Messiah on how she is to prepare herself for Yeshuas’ second advent.

As we come to faith, i.e. “The Faith of Our Fathers” our question is often, where do we begin? The Apostle Paul answers this question for us as well as John, the beloved. “The Faith of Our Father” is the belief in the supreme being, that is YaHaVah and His Son, Yeshua, the Mashiach or the anointed one.

In Acts 15:20-21 the Apostle Paul provides the answer. The backdrop of the Book of Acts is the Jerusalem council. The main question for this council was what do we do with the new converts? This is the answer.

Acts 15:20-21: “…but that we write to them (new converts) to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood. For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath.”

In the Hebrew culture, everyone knew i.e. the native born and the gentile convert, that the words of Moses, The Torah, was being taught every single week, on the Sabbath day.

This instruction is very clear. When we come to faith we are to go every week to hear the words of Moses which are, of course, the words spoken to him by YaHaVah. This is how we learn to express our love for Him, by walking in obedience to Him.

The idea of going back to the beginning was also found in John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” **What is required of us, the believer, is found in the beginning of Scripture, The Torah.

Parasha Bereshit Ge. 1:1 – 6:8
Parasha Highlights:

1.) The week of creation
2.) The seventh day Sabbath
3.) The formed man of Ge. 2:7 ( the eighth day)
4.) The Garden of Eden, Gan Eden
5.) The “seed war” prophecy

We are going to begin our study with day three of creation.

Ge. 1:11 – 13: “Then God said, ‘let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is In itself, on the earth;’ and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day.”

Immediately, we see two things happening, seed and the third day.

Seed
The Hebrew word for seed is זֶרַע. This word is defined as seed, sowing, or offspring.

In its ancient form, “zerah” would read: “He will be cut off who was from the beginning, the one we will see and watch for.”

The numerical value of “zerah” is 277; 2 + 7 + 7 = 16. The sixteenth day of the first month is the appointed time of “firstfruit.” Firstfruit speaks to the first seed, or the pure seed. The pure seed is Yeshua.

Day three of creation gives us another level of understanding. The third letter of the Hebrew Aleph Bet is the Gimel. The ancient picture of the Gimel is a foot or a camel and means to lift up, walk or carry.

When we follow Messiah Yeshua, we are “walking” after Him, following in His footsteps. We then become His “seed,” His offspring.

Recall there are only two trees in Gan Eden. These diverse trees bears their own “seed.” The Tree of Life, which represents the Torah (good seed) and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which representing the mixing of good and evil (mixed seed). If we follow this tree, we are eating “hybrid” seed. Scripture refers to this “seed” as ritual or spiritual impurity.

The Seed War

Ge. 3:15: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”

The “your seed” speaks to the serpent seed. Those who eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil are eating from the serpent seed. These are those who “mix” their worship by following manmade dogma instead of following His instruction, The Torah.

In order to track the “pure seed,” or the “seed of the woman,” we must determine his origin.

The genealogy of Yeshua is clearly stated for us in Mt. 1:1, beginning with the patriarch Abraham. An additional genealogical narrative for Yeshua is recorded for us in Lk. 3:23, which takes us back in history to Adam, i.e. the Ge. 2:7 account.

There is a point to be made at this juncture. Yeshua does not descend from the male and female made on day six of creation. The male, female and their descendants perished in the great flood.

Let me explain. There are two creations, the spirit realm and the physical realm. This concept is noted in the first line of Scripture.

בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ

The first six days of creation represent the physical realm. The physical realm, everything Yah created and made were finished. It is important, However, to remember that our creator is a Spirit.

God is a Spirit, those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth. ** His desire then, for His physical human creation is just that, to worship Him in spirit and truth.

The eighth day will mark the separation of the physical realm and the spirit realm.

Lets take a minute or two and discuss the eighth letter of the Hebrew Aleph Bet. This is the letter Chet and is a picture of a fence or wall.

Gan Eden, or the Garden of Eden, means just that. It is a “walled” garden. A wall of separation between the physical human creation of day six and the man He will form for service in His garden. A perfect example of the eighth letter.

Ge. 2:1 – 7: “Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created ( בָּרָא ) and made ( עָשָׂה ). This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground (there was no righteous man available to till the soil); but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.

And the LORD God formed (יָצַר ) man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”

The male “made” on day six rejected The Fathers covenant thereby aligning himself with the serpent seed. As I said, He and his descendants perished in the great flood. The male and female from day six would have no righteous descendants needed to tend Yahs garden.

The man formed on day eight would be given a new mandate, that being to “guard and keep” Gan Eden, the walled garden. FYI The name Adam is related to the word “adamah” which means “from the earth.”

The formed man chose to align himself with The Father, thereby becoming an ancestor of the pure seed, Yeshua. The righteous seed of Adam, from the earth, will pass on to his descendants, a righteous state of being, this is referred to as spiritual purity.

I would suggest to you that the genealogies mentioned in the Brit Chadasha contain the names of all the righteous seed from the beginning of recorded time.

Adam, the man formed Ge. 2:7, fathers twin sons, Cain and Abel. Cain kills his brother Abel.

Seed
The Pure Seed
Abel
Seth
Enosh
Kenan
Mahalalel
Jared
Enoch ( the “good” Enoch)
Methuselah
Lamech
Noach
Shem
The Serpent Seed
Cain
Enoch (called the “bad” Enoch)
Irad
Mehujael
Methushael
Lamech (see Ge. 4:19 for further descendants)
Ham and Japheth

The Hebrew spelling of Cain is קַיִן . The Hebrew language has two letters that are pronounced with a “hard K” sound, the Kaph and the Quph. Each letter has a different ancient meaning and a different numerical value.

The question before us is, why is his name spelled with the Quph instead of the Kaph? The answer becomes very clear when we examine the letters.

The Quph is a picture of the back of the mans head. We immediately see that the head of Cain is facing a certain way while the back of his head is facing the opposite direction. He is facing away from YaHaVah and toward the world. He is not interested in living a righteous existence.

He is merely giving “lip service” to The “Rules of the Kingdom.” This is why his offering came “at the end of the appointed time.”

On the other hand, his twin brother Abel, brought the “firstling” of his flock for an offering. Abel was the righteous son taking to heart The Fathers rules. Abel was a foreshadow of his righteous distant ancestor, Yeshua.

Both would shed their own blood and both would be associated with a lamb.

The letter Kaph is a picture of an open hand and means to open, allow or cover. This letter doesn’t apply to the context of Cainis behavior.

In my opinion, the mentioned sons are those who live out “The Rules of the Kingdom.” They are the “Tsadiq” of their generation.

They would be part of the Melchizedek priesthood.

We will continue to track the “pure seed” as we study each subsequent Parasha.

Haftarah Is. 42:5 – 43:10

Is. 42:5 – 8: “Thus says God the LORD, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it, and spirit to those who walk on it. I, the LORD, have called You in righteousness, and will hold Your hand; I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles, to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the prison, those who sit in darkness from the prison house.

I am the LORD, that is My name; and My glory I will not give to another, nor My praise to carved images.”

The connection to our Torah portion, Bereshit, would be a reference to His creation. Recall the word Bereshit can be understood to mean a “covenant with fire in the center.”

He has called us, his human creation, to be formed by Him, through a covenant relationship, into righteousness.

Brit Chadasha Jn. 1:1 – 5

Our Brit Chadasha connection is found in Jn 1:1 – 5: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”

This Scripture is directing the reader back to the beginning and is providing a connection to our Parasha in the majesty and sovereignty of Yah as the creator.

There is one other block of Scripture that speaks to His seed. That is found in Mark 4:1 – 20. It is the parable of the sower.

Mk. 4:1 – 9: “And again He began to teach by the sea. And a great multitude was gathered to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat in it on the sea; and the whole multitude was on the land facing the sea. Then He taught them many things by parables, and said to them in His teaching: Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. And it happened, as he sowed, that some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds of the air came and devoured it.

Some fell on stony ground, where it did not have much earth; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up it was scorched, and because it had no root it withered away. And some seed fell among thorns; and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.” And He said to them, ‘he who has ears to hear, let him hear!’”

The Explanation

Mk. 4:14 - 20:  “The sower sows the word.

And these are the ones by the wayside where the word is sown. When they hear, Satan comes immediately and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts. These likewise are the ones sown on stony ground who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with gladness; and they have no root in themselves, and so endure only for a time. Afterward, when tribulation or persecution arises for the word’s sake, immediately they stumble. Now these are the ones sown among thorns; they are the ones who hear the word, and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. But these are the ones sown on good ground, those who hear the word, accept it, and bear fruit: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.”

We can now see that there is more to the third day of creation than all herb yielding seed.

Day three is a prophetic picture of Yeshua as the “pure seed” and the “word of YaHaVah which is also “seed.”

The story of righteous “seed” is just beginning for us. We will see this concept continue as we make our way through each Parasha.

In our day and hour, tracking the “pure seed” and the “serpent seed” is vital. We are watching this war take place on the evening news.

Scripture tells us that Israel, the people and land are the inheritance of YaHaVah. The Arab nations that surround her are still trying to diminish her existence.

Israel and those grafted into her are still the apple of Yahs eye. This fact will never change.

We will either be aligned with Yeshua and The Father as the “seed” of Abraham or, by default, we be aligned with the “serpent seed.”

A Little Something Extra
In this teaching, we discussed the eighth day of creation, i.e. the man formed to serve in the presence of YaHaVah. This man would need to be ritually pure in order to fulfil his mandate.

As it happens, today is the eighth day of the seventh appointed time, Sukkot. Today is a “high Shabbat,” which, In my opinion is a prophetic picture of the eighth day following the millennial kingdom. This would be the day the New Jerusalem would descend from the heavenly realm. All those who will enter will be, like the man formed on the eighth day, ritually pure. The eighth day pertains then, to eternity.