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And Rabbi Mintz, as I said that, I realize that you are Adam Mintz. We are Splitting the Adam

Adam Mintz (01:23.406)

So, that’s why I was especially excited about this one, because I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m getting nervous.

Geoffrey Stern (01:29.749)

Well, first of all, as I said in the intro, this is our first broadcast on YouTube. So, it’ll be on all the other platforms, but also, on video on YouTube. And I was setting it up and looking at putting down our bios and stuff. And I had the most amazing experience. I stumbled upon your new, www.rabbimintz.com your new website.

I think it’s new because I’ve never seen it before and it says the premier Orthodox conversion rabbi and that is So, So, Exciting and hopefully during the course of the year. We will talk a little bit more about that I’ll definitely put a link rabbimitz.com in the show notes So, that is So, So, exciting but meanwhile, we have a new Torah to start reading all from the

Adam Mintz (02:01.143)

It is new. It is new.

Geoffrey Stern (02:29.753)

the start again. It’s truly amazing that we’re here. So, I have to tell you, I was in my shul and I was davening. Because we go visual now, I’m holding up the machzur that I was reading. And on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, I came across the following prayer that is made at the end of the Amidah where traditionally you’re supposed to add a personal supplication.

You can ad-lib a little bit. And I have put it in the Sefaria show notes that I am also, going to share. And it says,

It’s an absolutely beautiful prayer. It was translated by the Jules Harlow. It’s a little bit of a synopsis of the longer prayer which I do show.

from Rabbi Nathan Ben Moshe Hanover, who wrote an amazing collection of prayers. It’s called Sha’arei tzion. It was written in 1662. This is not a new book. And Gershon Sholom, in his great book, on the Kabbalah, really says this was an extremely influential

book and it was infused with the Lurianic doctrines of man’s mission on earth, his connections with power of the upper worlds, the transmigrations of his soul, and his striving to achieve tikkun were woven into prayers. So, Rabbi, certainly when you look at this beautiful prayer, and I must have used this machzor So, many times before, but I never really noticed it, it talks about this

Geoffrey Stern (04:59.065)

of the different species. And certainly, my first inclination was God created the world out of Tohu and Vohu, out of chaos, and therefore this man saw the unity in it. But he clearly is looking at it from a perspective which we might consider kind of modern. This tikkun, this being able to fix the fragments, to bring everything together. So, Rabbi, have you seen this prayer before? Just reading it

Now, what are your thoughts? I just found it was charming and of course because Russia Shun is the birth of the world and we are discussing in our pasha the birth of the world, it’s also very relevant.

Adam Mintz (05:43.023)

So, the answer is, thank you, Geoffrey. I am not familiar with this prayer, but it is a wonderful prayer. You’re right, it’s a beautiful prayer. And the idea of uniting fragments into a universe or uniting fragments to create the human being, right? It says uniting fragments into a universe, uniting fragments to create the human being.

I think that’s a great idea because as we know, and this is what we’re gonna talk about, the story of creation has five days of creation. Everything is created. Then the human being, and it turns out to be man and woman, are created on the sixth day. So, the creation of humans is the culmination of the creation process. So, this prayer sees that as

taking the first five days of creation and uniting them all together and then creating the human. And that that’s uniting fragments into a universe. means that you unify everything in the world. take everything and we as humans represent a unified world. That’s really a beautiful idea.

Geoffrey Stern (07:09.961)

It is, and I love that you bring it all the way to Adam and Eve, because of course, I think at the end of the posture when we talk about the Garden of Eden, there’s a book called Return to Eden. This whole concept of how the world began and where it ends up is So, critical to Judaism, to any religion who has its Genesis myth. So, as I said in the intro, I’m going to take, I’m gonna disrupt this prayer today.

into an absolutely opposite direction. Because when I thought about it for a second, it seems to me that there is a totally different read that you could read of all of creation, which has less to do with unity and more to do with division. And we are, because we are a disruptive toa, going to actually kind of follow that thread of what happens if you read the Pasha not from the basis of a tikkun.

or love and of course what I didn’t say is this prayer seems So, modern. It was written in the 1600s and 1700s but it is So, apropos of the way people think of religion as a unifying force. But I think that there is a second just as critical message that is as powerful if not more powerful in terms of a force of division and creation through division. So, let’s

begin. are in Genesis 1, 1, when God began to create the universe. The world was just full of unformed and void. And of course, the interesting thing here is the correct translation is not So, much when God began to create

or in the beginning kind of like God there is nothing there ex nihilo yesh meh ayin. If you look at the text itself it’s God’s creating to move around the pieces. He’s beginning to deal with Tohu and Vohu. And So, what does he do? There was darkness on the face of the deep and a wind was blowing and in verse three it says God said let there be light and there was light and God saw

Geoffrey Stern (09:39.405)

that the light was good and God separated the light from the darkness. So, here up until now we only have one verb, Barak, that God was creating. The second verb that we get is Vayavdel, that God separated. And what did he do by way of separating? He separated light from darkness. God called the light day, called the darkness night,

there was evening, there was a morning, a first day. So, Rabbi, you cannot but ignore the fact that Havdalah, something that we do once a week at the end of Shabbat, becomes a star player here. God has really not So, much created as divided between night and day. As we… Yep.

Adam Mintz (10:31.849)

So, let me, So, you ask. So, my question is, why is it so important that God separated between night and day? Why couldn’t we have lived for the past 5,785 years with 24 hours of twilight? Why would that have been So, terrible? Means there seems to be this idea of separation. Now actually in the next day,

God separated the water, the water on top and the water on bottom, and you get to that afterwards. So, this idea of separation isn’t just night and day. It seems to be that creation is partially about separation.

Geoffrey Stern (11:19.271)

separation or putting objects into order. In other words, if we don’t project, and this is what I was trying to say before, that God somehow created matter out of nothing. If we don’t project onto the text, it seems that the most creative thing that God is doing, and you’ve gone ahead already to the second day, is separating things. And that is where he, she shows his creativity. And that’s

Adam Mintz (11:25.021)

Yeah.

Geoffrey Stern (11:49.167)

where the value add is. So, as you say in verse 6 it says, said let there be an expanse in the midst of the water that it may separate water from water. I think it as much as anything else it is showing something about the creative process. And first and foremost, in the creative process if we forget about the Big Bang for a second and say no matter

what was before. Once creation starts, God is putting things into order. He is separating one thing from another. He’s creating clarity, if you will, but that clarity is mostly created by dividing stuff. You have a messy desk, you start making order. So, if we go on and we go into verse 14, God said,

the sky to separate day from night, they shall serve as signs for the set times, the days and the years, and they shall serve as lights in the expanse of the sky to shine upon the earth.” And it was so. And then it goes on to say, God made the two great lights, the greater light to dominate the day and the lesser light to dominate the night and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the sky to shine unto the earth, to dominate the day

day and the night and to separate light from darkness and God saw that it was a good.” So, here too, and this of course is a continuation of what he did on day one, but now he’s not only separating, he is not separating equally. He’s making value judgments. He’s assigning tasks and utilities in terms of serve as signs for set times for days and years.

It’s really he is getting very creative in terms of what he’s putting into different place. He’s giving jobs. He’s giving Characteristics to these things if you look at Rashi on 116 great luminaries, they were created of equal size but that of the moon was diminished because she complained and says it is Impossible for two kings to make use of one craft

Geoffrey Stern (14:18.377)

This is such a precious and beautiful and kind of poignant commentary that I am going to go to the So,urces because now already we’re starting to get into how do you orchestrate,

How do you work with different beings that have different functions and maybe those functions aren’t equal? Crisis control all of a sudden, interpersonal relationships. We are personalizing these things but all we are is we are what? 16 verses into Genesis and we already have crisis management. We already have the

The problem with making havdalah, which is jealousy, which is competition, isn’t that fascinating?

Adam Mintz (15:26.505)

Well, that’s fascinating. So, I just want to say before we look at the Gemara, which tells us a tale, a legend, know, God creates two, the sun and the moon, and he creates them unequal.

It’s almost as if within creation, God wants to teach us exactly like what you said, is that not everything can be equal. We need to figure out how to manage with things that are unequal. Now, the Gemara and the Rashi are concerned with it’s not fair. And that’s one of the problems of being unequal.

But you made the most important point of all is, that is, life is not fair. Life is unequal. So, therefore, right there in the fourth day of creation, we have this issue as if we’re already dealing not only with creation, but with how to deal with the different pieces of creation. Like we deal with different people. Not everything can be equal, which is remarkable.

Geoffrey Stern (16:32.951)

I mean it’s conflict resolution and we cannot look at human beings and put the blame there. This is part of God’s plan. So, first he goes ahead and divides and then he starts creating inequity and divisions and even attributing to these inanimate objects jealousy and competition. It is truly amazing because I think you have to make the argument that it’s part of his or her plan. It’s not

And So, when we start from the perspective of that beautiful meditation where everything is about unity and sholeimmut and this sense of nirvana, here we have a creator who’s creating differences from the get-go in a very profound way. So, yes, you have the Gomorrah in Hulun that talks about the moon said before the Holy One, blessed master of the universe.

possible for two kings to serve with one crown? I mean, God could have answered yes, but he clearly, as you say, recognizes that that is going to be a problem. And of course, here it almost rings up much later on with Haven, where he says, came up with the question, you should now go ahead and diminish yourself. You were the one who brought this up. Then we get to Bereshit-Rabab, and again,

it goes into the same thing but here it starts to say that

one of the payoffs, one of the dividends that the moon gets is because the moon will have an ally with the Jewish people. And So, all of a sudden, as again, as I said in verse 16, we’re talking not only about inanimate objects, we’re talking about God’s chosen people, or should I say differentiated people, the people that were segmented out, and they have an ally with this diminished moon.

Geoffrey Stern (18:40.185)

So, he’s almost already saying that he might even have a preference for the minority, for the diminished. It’s pretty amazing if you think about it here in verse 16, we’re getting into all of this stuff.

Adam Mintz (18:55.607)

Well, you know, it always reflects back to the Jewish people. And in the Book of Devarim, now it seems very far away, but in the Book of Devarim, Moses tells the people that God loves you, because you are the smallest of all the nations. So, clearly there’s a preference. Now in Bereshit, we’re gonna have every story where the younger son,

is the one who’s the favored son. So, that this idea that being the moon is actually maybe to the benefit of the moon. That means the moon is going to be favored. And of course, in Jewish history, we’re about to start the holiday of Simchat Torah, which is a lunar holiday, which means that it’s based on the…

on the month of the moon rather than the month of the sun. The whole world goes on the month of the sun, but we follow the month of the moon. So, actually there’s a benefit by being in second place.

Geoffrey Stern (20:05.175)

I love what you said and of course if you look and I really recommend that everybody look at the source sheet in Bereshit Rabah 6-4 after talking about the moon it talks about Menashe and Ephraim that Joseph or Jacob puts his hands he switches his hands and he favors the small So, it truly is the Midrash is not missing the point here it understands that God creates not only

by differentiating, not only in assigning different tasks, different characteristics to things, but then starts to show a little bit of his affection for the underdog, for the smaller. And then we go to Genesis 2.

that God had done. The Chaveh Rav really rang true to me. The seventh day is, didn’t have a mate, didn’t have a pair. It’s an uneven number. God again started to divide between days of the week and he had this odd, day. This odd man out called

called Shabbat, and he separated it from the rest of the week. So, this concept of separating doesn’t stop with the six days of creation. It even enters into creating what could be considered the Jewish greatest contribution to the world, which is the seventh day. So, that then we can start

to think of the Midrashim. I mentioned earlier Rabbi that we’re using a word Havdalah that most Jews knows because of the Havdalah ceremony. It is the ceremony that we do at the end of Shabbat. But normally I dare to say we don’t combine it with this concept of Havdalah that happens throughout creation. But I’m gonna try to do that. I think the Midrash do it very well in terms of the

Geoffrey Stern (22:34.505)

There’s a direct connection between the creativity that God effected using this Havdalah, making Shabbat which was different and lehavdil ben all of the other work days and how it married this into the narrative. What thinks you?

Adam Mintz (22:54.822)

Yes, I mean, that you see that the difference between Shabbat and the week is a very interesting thing. Let’s talk about this week. I know we’re now going on video. So, it’s not only right now that people are listening, but we can refer to what this week is. This week is Simchat Torah. And we in the diaspora,

have celebrated, observed over the past month, three long weekends that go from Chag to Shabbat, right? Thursday, Friday, and then Shabbat. Now, when we go from Friday to Shabbat, we do something interesting. And that is we just make regular kiddish for Shabbat. It’s like a straight line from the Chag to Shabbat. But if the Chag…

were to fall out on Saturday night, we actually would recite Havdalah on Saturday night going into the chag, because Shabbat is considered to be special. So, I’m just pointing that out because that’s, see, when you talk about separation Havdalah, Shabbat from the rest of the week, that has come to identify what separation means, what Havdalah means.

And the fact that even when we go from Shabbat to a Chag, we still say separation. Separation is something that is really, you know, is something that’s So, fundamental. And I’ll just tell you this last thing. And that is if you make Havdalah from Shabbat to a Chag, and those people who want to look forward to the next Chag, the next Chag is Pesach. And Pesach is going to fall out on Saturday night this year. So, we’re going to recite this Havdalah. And the Havdalah that you make is Baruch Atah Hashem,

HaMavdiel b’in kodesh le kodesh. Exactly what you have right here. Now that’s remarkable, Geoffrey, because usually we say HaMavdiel b’in kodesh lechol, God who separates from holy to mundane to everyday. That’s a distinction. But in our tradition, we understand even the subtlest of separations.

Adam Mintz (25:15.751)

And that is Hamavdil Benkodesh Lekodesh. I’ll just tell you a funny story by Joseph Soloveitchik, who was probably the greatest Orthodox mind in the second half of the 20th century, said that when he was a little boy, five years old, and for the first time he heard this Havdalah of Hamavdil Benkodesh Lekodesh, he said he couldn’t sleep the whole night because he couldn’t understand what it meant to make havdalah Benkodesh Lekodesh.

Geoffrey Stern (25:42.283)

You know, it’s kind of like they say about the Eskimos that they have 50 words for snow. We Jews at least have two different types, two different madregot; levels of Kiddusha. But I love that you brought that up because it appeared to me in that special Kiddush that you mentioned, at a certain point it says, And it seems to me that the word Kiddusha

Adam Mintz (25:52.242)

That’s very good.

Geoffrey Stern (26:12.497)

can mean almost Havdalah. In other words, when the verse says, kadochim tihi you, that you should be holy, the rabbis, the Pharisees who are called in Hebrew the perushim, says kadochim tihi you, perushim tihi you. So, if you want to talk about the power of separation, perush means to divide, to separate, because holiness at the end of the day is to take something

and divide between Chulin and Kedushin. And so, when I am saying that we are reading this lens today of the beginning of Bereshit from a whole new lens, not one of homogeny, not one of Nirvana where all of the sharp edges are sanded down and everything becomes unified. If anything, we’re finding a very strong

element of the power of differences, of the power of separation. And that, in fact, is the source of Kiddushah. So, getting back to that first Shabbat, yes, by making it separate from the rest of the week, by making one last havdalah between when he worked and when he stopped working, God was continuing the process of creation and created this amazing Shabbat.

If you look at the source sheet, you’ll see Bereshit Rabot. There are Midrashim that believe that Adam and Eve, and we’re going to get to that hopefully in a few seconds, when they sinned was the afternoon of Friday. So, the first, there was 12 hours in the afternoon of that day where they sinned. Then there was Shabbat, and then they were kicked out of the Garden of Eden. They were expelled.

known rabbi as Havdalah. They were separated out of Eden and the tradition is that God gave them Shabbat So, that they could experience the hidden light of creation. But more importantly or as importantly, he gave Adam the first invention. He gave him fire and he taught him how to make fire after he cast

Geoffrey Stern (28:41.761)

him out of the garden in Eden and that is why we say, Bo-reh, Ma-o-reh Ha-esh at the Havdalah ceremony. So, now already we have invention as well as creation. And so, what I want to finish up with Rabbi is the story of in chapter 2 of the creation of Eve. Because here too there is this sense

that Adam was unified, was one person, and he is the only element of creation who was Lo tov. Lo tov, lehiyot ha’adam levad. And So, he had to go through that division as well. And So, in Genesis 221, God cast a deep sleep upon the human, and while he slept, God took one of his sides.

Again, another verb that has to do with separating. And he made Eve. Normally we think of this as a unifying element, that it was flesh of my flesh, but I emphasize on the me’atsmi. It was flesh taken from, kind of like when you take challah.

Rabbi. And then what is he called? then it says, and therefore a man should what? Separate from his parents. And I would argue not only from his parents on earth, who Adam actually did not have, but also, maybe his parents. I think if you look at the story of the sin of, we call it a

Adam Mintz (30:22.368)

Separate.

Geoffrey Stern (30:41.233)

sin, but if you look at the story of the eating of the tree, the apple of the tree of the knowledge, and then the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, it again, it is this necessary separation. And it puts into a whole new guise, I believe, what is necessary, the necessary elements in this creation myth. And when I say creation now, we’re talking about humanity as hell.

As well, we’re talking about splitting the atom. Bye-bye, Mints.

Adam Mintz (31:14.667)

That’s great. So, I’ll just finish up by saying everything you said is fantastic. The best thing you said was that Adam was the one thing that was not tov, lo tov heyot ha’adam livadoh, and therefore he needed to go through separation. Adam himself, and there he’s only a man, himself needed to be divided because division is the process of creation. That’s a fantastic idea.

Creation means division. You can only create by separating. And that’s what the Torah comes to tell us. And it’s separation for the sake of ultimate unity. think that’s…

Make your point even stronger. It’s the separation for the sake of ultimate unity. Because that’s what we try to do. We try to take opposites. We try to take separated things and we try to make them work together. They’re not equals, but we try to make them work together. This is a fantastic way to begin. I can’t wait for the rest of the Torah.

Geoffrey Stern (32:17.201)

I love it. Give me one last word though, because as you know, and we love this, it says, that he built Eve from this rib, we know from there that according to the Talmud and other sources, that women have bina. And what is bina? It’s a type of wisdom. If you think, Rabbi, in terms of science, how do scientists

Adam Mintz (32:20.013)

Yes.

Geoffrey Stern (32:47.337)

things. They separate phenomenon So, that they can analyze one phenomenon not mixed up with another. Without that separation you have nothing. So, we really have this true source of Bina, of understanding. And to your point, I love this further Midrash which says when in Genesis 3 6 and when the woman saw that the tree was good and it was a delight to the eyes…

She took of its fruit and did eat and gave also to her husband with her and he did eat and So, Rashi says that she was afraid if she ate it and he did not that she would die and he would go get married to somebody else it almost is a story of Romeo and Juliet and It’s a story of Romeo and Juliet and this Emma rabbi is Exactly what you were saying

It’s this cleaving of two different people together who can survive the rejection of their parents on earth, their parents in heaven, create their new life together. And I think that becomes then an amazing narrative of creation that starts with the heavens and ends with a couple, two human beings that are “imo”, that are together with each other. Fascinating read.

Adam Mintz (34:14.233)

Amazing. Yasher Koach to you. Shabbat shalom to everybody. Chag sameach. And can’t wait for next week. Chag sameach, Geoffrey. Enjoy. Bye bye.

Geoffrey Stern (34:21.185)

Chag sameach, all the best, bye bye.