Ilustration Credit: Rivka Tsinman
Midrash מִדְרָשׁ
וְעַתָּה יִשְׂרָאֵל מָה ה' אֱלֹקֶיךָ שֹׁאֵל מֵעִמָּךְ כִּי אִם לְיִרְאָה אֶת ה' אֱלֹקֶיךָ לָלֶכֶת בְּכָל דְּרָכָיו וּלְאַהֲבָה אֹתוֹ וְלַעֲבֹד אֶת ה' אֱלֹקֶיךָ בְּכָל לְבָבְךָ וּבְכָל נַפְשֶׁךָ:
Ve-atah (and now), Israel, what does God your Lord ask of you? Only this: to fear God your Lord, to walk in God’s ways, to love God, and to serve God your Lord with all your heart and soul.
If you look inside the Torah you’ll see that there’s a paragraph break before this pasuk. This space tells us that the Torah is starting a new idea. But how can that be? How can a new idea start with וְעַתָּה (ve-atah, And now)? What is that “and” connecting to?
R. Yehudah ben Abba (in Sifrei Bemidbar 136) connects this pasuk to something we read about a few pesukim earlier, in Devarim 9:22, where Moshe talks about how Benei Yisrael complained to God in Taveirah and Massah.
Ve-atah, according to R. Yehudah, shows us that after Benei Yisrael did something wrong (complaining), God immediately gave them a chance to make it better through תְּשׁוּבָה (teshuvah, repentance). Ve-atah teaches that Benei Yisrael could seize the opportunity and make a change.
Another midrash notices that ve-atah also appears in connection to the very first sin in the Torah.
"וְעַתָּה פֶּן יִשְׁלַח יָדוֹ" (בראשית ג:כב): אָמַר רַבִּי אַבָּא בַּר כַּהֲנָא מְלַמֵּד שֶׁפָּתַח לוֹ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא פֶּתַח שֶׁל תְּשׁוּבָה, וְעַתָּה, אֵין וְעַתָּה אֶלָּא תְּשׁוּבָה, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (דברים י:יב): "וְעַתָּה יִשְׂרָאֵל מָה ה' אֱלֹקֶיךָ…"
“Ve-atah (and now) perhaps he (Adam) will reach out his hand” (Bereishit 3:22):
R. Abba bar Kahana said: This teaches that the Holy Blessed One opened the door for Adam to do teshuvah. The word “ve-atah” always refers to teshuvah, as it is stated, “Ve-atah, Israel, what does God your Lord (ask of you)…” (Devarim 10:12).
The pasuk in Bereishit is describing God removing Adam from גַּן עֵדֶן (Gan Eden, the Garden of Eden) after he sinned by eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. This seems to be a punishment. But the midrash explains that the Torah uses the word ve-atah to teach us that it was actually God giving him a chance to do teshuvah.
- What does teshuvah have to do with “now” and the present? What is this midrash teaching us about the potential of every present moment?
- What is hard about correcting what you have done wrong? Why does it sometimes take so long? Does it take a lot of time to be ready to fix your mistakes, or can it sometimes be done more quickly?
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