Rabbi's Column: Humanity's Mission is to Repair the World
Translated & summarized from Kikar HaShabbat by baba
Rabbi Yaakov Galoiberman's column on the Torah portion of Bereshit posits that humanity's mission is to repair the world. He draws lessons from the creation story and early human failings to emphasize individual responsibility for maintaining moral order. The rabbi asserts that people are tasked with preserving and improving the world, not damaging it, and that each person can choose to add good or bad to existence.
The story in 5 lines · by baba
- Rabbi Yaakov Galoiberman's column focuses on humanity's mission to repair the world, drawing from the Bereshit creation story.
- The Torah portion of Bereshit details creation but also early human moral failings, serving as a warning.
- Humanity was entrusted with the world to preserve, build, and repair it, not to spoil it.
- The Seven Laws of Noah are presented as foundational for a moral and just world.
- Every individual has the responsibility to choose between adding good or bad to the world.
Rabbi Yaakov Galoiberman's weekly column, focusing on the Torah portion of Bereshit, emphasizes humanity's role in repairing the world. The creation story in Bereshit, detailing God's six-day creation of the universe, is presented not just as a historical account but as a lesson for present-day life. Galoiberman highlights that despite the perfect creation, early human actions like Adam and Eve's sin, Cain's murder of Abel, and later the generation of the flood and the dispersion, corrupted the world. This corruption affected relationships with both God and fellow humans.
The rabbi stresses that the Torah teaches how to live in the present, with the moral decline described in the first portion serving as a warning. He asserts that humanity was entrusted with the world not to spoil it, but to preserve, build, and repair it. Even before the giving of the Torah, basic moral and humane rules were established, exemplified by the Seven Laws of Noah, which enable a just and moral world.
Galoiberman concludes that the message of Bereshit is clear: every individual bears responsibility. Each person can choose to contribute to division and corruption or to add goodness, justice, kindness, and responsibility to the world. The ultimate mission, he states, is to repair and safeguard the world.