4 min read

When God Stoops and When God Rises in Bereshit Rabbah

God crouches beside Adam in the garden, stands over Abraham in the heat of the day, and refuses to rise from the ash heap until the poor cry out.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Garden Was Already a Setup
  2. The World Was Missing a Voice
  3. God Stands Over the Old Man
  4. God Will Not Rise Until the Poor Cry

The Garden Was Already a Setup

Before the fruit, before the serpent, before the argument about who told whom what, God placed Adam in the garden. That verb. Vayasem sham. The rabbis could not leave it sitting quietly.

Rabbi Yehuda heard coronation. The same root appears in Deuteronomy when Israel is told to set a king over themselves. God did not park Adam in Eden. God enthroned him there. Rabbi Nehemya heard something stranger and more troubling. He heard enticement. A monarch who lays out a banquet and then sends a runner to lure the guest inside. The garden was bait. Beautiful bait, placed at exactly the right angle to catch a person's desire.

The World Was Missing a Voice

Then the question the rabbis could not stop asking. Why create Adam at all? The world was complete. The animals were in it. The land was settled and producing. What was missing? The rabbis answered: without Adam, no one would praise. The world was made for the sound of a creature who notices it and speaks. God made Adam and put him in a garden not to give him paradise but to give him something worth praising. The setup was for God's benefit as much as Adam's.

God Stands Over the Old Man

Three visitors arrived at Abraham's tent in the heat of the day, and one of them was not a messenger. The rabbis read the scene in Genesis 18 and argued about the posture. Pharaoh stood over the Nile in his dream because the Egyptians worshipped the Nile and had to watch over it constantly. Their god was beneath them, dependent on their vigilance. But Abraham sat. And the verse says God stood over him.

Rabbi Yohanan read the posture as a theological statement. The righteous do not stand over their God. They sit, or they bow, or they lie on their faces, and their God stands over them. The wicked arrange themselves differently. They plant themselves above their gods and guard them. The arrangement in Abraham's tent, an old man sitting in the shade while the divine presence stood over him, was not hospitality protocol. It was the correct geometry of a relationship that actually worked.

God had come to visit a man recovering from a wound. The visit was not a summons. It was a check-in. The posture was the posture of care.

God Will Not Rise Until the Poor Cry

Jacob was asleep on a stone pillow at Beit El, and the dream was full of traffic. Angels going up and down on a ladder. Then God arrived, and the verse says God stood over him, the same word used for Abraham at the tent. The rabbis connected the two scenes deliberately. The same posture, two generations apart.

But then the rabbis moved the image to a third location. Not a garden, not a tent, not a stone pillow. An ash heap. Psalm 113 says God raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap, and then says God sits enthroned on high. The rabbis read the sequence as a refusal. God will not take the seat on high until the poor have been lifted. The posture of rising is contingent on the poor being raised first. God is not sitting in heaven managing things from above. God is on the ash heap with the poor, and the move upward depends on whether anyone is left in the dust below.

Midrash RabbahAdamAbrahamDivine Presence
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Bereshit Rabbah 15:4Bereshit Rabbah

Bereshit Rabbah turns to What God Intended for Adam Before the Fall.

The book of Bereshit Rabbah, a classic collection of rabbinic interpretations of Genesis, offers a fascinating glimpse. Specifically, Bereshit Rabbah 15 explores the verse "He placed there [vayasem sham] [the man]." It's a seemingly simple phrase, but the Rabbis find layers of meaning within it.

Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Neḥemya offer contrasting interpretations. Rabbi Yehuda suggests that vayasem sham means God "elevated" Adam. He draws a parallel to the verse in (Deuteronomy 17:15), "You shall set [som tasim] a king over you." Just as a king is elevated to a position of power and authority, so too was Adam elevated in the Garden. He was given dominion, placed in a position of honor.

Rabbi Neḥemya sees something different. He interprets vayasem sham to mean that God "enticed" Adam, drawing him in with the Garden’s allure. a paradise of unparalleled beauty, abundance, and comfort. Who wouldn't be enticed?

The midrash (rabbinic story) goes on to compare God’s invitation to Adam to a king who prepares a lavish feast and invites a guest. It’s an image of incredible generosity and hospitality. God invited Adam to partake in the "feast" that had been prepared for him in the Garden.

And here's where it gets really interesting. This invitation, this incredible gift, was given, according to Bereshit Rabbah, due to the merit of Abraham. Wait, Abraham hadn't even been born yet! How could his merit influence Adam’s experience?

Well, the midrash connects this to (Psalm 139:2): "You know my sitting and my rising; You understand my thoughts from afar." Here, the Psalm is applied to Adam. "My sitting" refers to his time in the Garden of Eden, and "my rising" to his expulsion from it. But the crucial part is "You understand my thoughts from afar."

The midrash asks: By what merit did God decide to create Adam in the first place? The answer: it was by the merit of the one who would come from afar – Abraham. As it says in (Isaiah 46:11), "I summon a bird of prey from the east, the man of My counsel from a distant land." This, the Rabbis say, is a reference to Abraham, whom God summoned from the east (Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews).

So, according to this interpretation, Adam’s very creation, his placement in the Garden, was intertwined with the future actions and righteousness of Abraham. It suggests a profound interconnectedness between generations, a divine plan stretching across time.

What does this all mean? It's a interplay of ideas, isn't it? Perhaps it suggests that even in the beginning, God foresaw the need for redemption, for the kind of unwavering faith and commitment that Abraham would embody. Maybe it highlights the idea that our actions, even those seemingly insignificant, can have ripple effects across time, influencing the lives of those who come after us. It's a reminder that we are all part of a larger story, a story that began in a garden and continues to unfold with each generation.

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Bereshit Rabbah 48:1Bereshit Rabbah

Like a flash of light and a booming voice. But maybe, just maybe, it's something a little more… intimate. The source turns to a fascinating passage from Bereshit Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Genesis, specifically section 48.

We begin with the familiar verse: "The Lord appeared to him in the plains of Mamre, and he was sitting at the entrance of the tent in the heat of the day" (Genesis 18:1). Abraham, sitting, minding his own business, in the blazing heat. But Bereshit Rabbah doesn't just accept the verse at face value. It asks: What's really going on here?

The Rabbis, in their infinite wisdom, connect this moment to a verse in Psalms (18:36): "You have given me the shield of Your salvation, and Your right hand has supported me; Your humility has made me great." They see Abraham as the embodiment of this verse. "You have given me the shield of Your salvation" – this, they say, refers directly to Abraham. Remember God's promise to Abram in (Genesis 15:1)? "Fear not, Abram, I am a shield for you." He was promised Divine protection.

"Your right hand has supported me" – well, that's seen as all the times God helped Abraham through tough situations: the fiery furnace (a story from folklore, not explicitly in Genesis, but very much part of Abraham's legend), the famine, and his battles against the kings. Think of it: trials and tribulations, each overcome with divine assistance.

But here's where it gets really interesting. "Your humility has rendered me great." With what humility, the Rabbis ask, did God make Abraham great? And the answer is… He was sitting, and the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence, was standing over him. image for a moment. God, in a sense, humbling Himself before Abraham. Reversing the expected roles of power and reverence.

It’s a powerful idea, isn’t it? The all-powerful, all-knowing God, appearing to a mortal man in such a way that emphasizes God's own… humility. That’s what is written: “The Lord appeared to him.” The appearance wasn’t just a visual manifestation, but an act of Divine grace, a demonstration of a relationship built on mutual respect and, yes, even humility.

What does this tell us? Perhaps that true greatness isn't about power or domination, but about the willingness to meet others, even those "below" us, on their level. Maybe that’s what it means for God to “appear” – not a thunderbolt, but a quiet act of profound humility. A lesson for us all, really.

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Bereshit Rabbah 75:1Bereshit Rabbah

King David certainly did. In Psalms, he repeatedly begs God to rise up and intervene. But what does it really mean for God to "arise"? And when will that moment finally come?

Our story begins with Jacob. Remember him? He’s about to meet his brother, Esau, after a long separation, and things are… complicated, to say the least. (Genesis 32:4) tells us, "Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother, to the land of Se’ir, the field of Edom.”

That seemingly simple act of sending messengers? It sparks a fascinating discussion in Bereshit Rabbah, a classical collection of Rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Genesis. Specifically, Bereshit Rabbah 75 dives deep into the verse and connects it to a powerful plea from King David in (Psalm 17:13): “Arise, Lord, confront him and subdue him. Rescue me from the wicked with Your sword.”

Rabbi Pinḥas, quoting Rabbi Reuven, uses this verse to launch into a broader reflection on when God actually answers our calls to "arise." Rabbi Pinḥas points out that David uses this phrase – "Arise, Lord!" – no fewer than five times in the Book of Psalms. He cries out: “Arise, Lord; save me, my God” (Psalms 3:8); “Arise, Lord, in Your anger” (Psalms 7:7); “Arise, Lord God, raise Your hand. Do not forget” (Psalms 10:12); “Arise, Lord; let man not be arrogant” (Psalms 9:20); and finally, the one we started with, “Arise, Lord, confront him” (Psalms 17:13).

So, why the silence sometimes? According to this midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) – this interpretive story – God basically tells David, "David, my son, even if you call for Me to rise many times, I will not rise. When will I rise? It is when the poor are robbed and the indigent are groaning.” That’s a pretty powerful statement, isn't it? It’s not just about our personal struggles; it's about systemic injustice. The verse that follows, (Psalm 12:6), reinforces this: “Because of the robbery of the poor and the groans of the indigent, [now I will arise].”

Rabbi Yona takes this idea even further. He suggests that God, in a sense, is also "wallowing in the ashes" until the day comes when Jerusalem can "shake the dust from you, arise and sit" (Isaiah 52:2). Then, (Zechariah 2:17) tells us, "Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord, for He is roused from His abode of sanctity.” Rabbi Aḥa compares it to a rooster shaking itself free from the ashes.

But what about the specific plea to "confront" the wicked? Rabbi Aḥa interprets "kadma panav" – "confront him" – as a call to give the wicked their reward early, in this world, before they have a chance to repent. It’s like saying, "Deal with them now, before they can sweet-talk their way out of it!" He wants God to "tip the scales to condemn him [hakhri’ehu] and break him," just like in (Psalms 20:9), where it says, “They dropped to their knees [kare’u] and fell…”

And who is this "wicked" that David – and by extension, Jacob – is so worried about? Well, the Rabbis offer a couple of possibilities. It could be Esau himself, who, as (Genesis 27:40) says, "By your sword you shall live." Or, alternatively, it could be Rome, seen as descendants of Esau and a force of oppression in the world. Rabbi Yehoshua of Sikhnin, quoting Rabbi Levi, says this wicked one is destined to fall by God’s sword, as prophesied in (Isaiah 34:5): “For My sword is sated in Heaven; behold, it will descend upon Edom.”

Here’s the kicker, though. The midrash ends with a surprising twist. God essentially says to Jacob, "He was going on his way, and then you are sending to him and saying: ‘So said your servant, Jacob’ (Genesis 32:5)." The implication? Had Jacob not reached out to Esau, Esau might have just continued on his way, minding his own business!

So, what does all this mean? It’s a reminder that our actions have consequences. Sometimes, our very attempts to protect ourselves can inadvertently provoke the very conflict we’re trying to avoid. It also reminds us that the call for divine intervention isn't just about personal salvation. It’s deeply intertwined with the plight of the vulnerable and the pursuit of justice. And maybe, just maybe, sometimes the answer to our prayers lies not in waiting for God to "arise," but in our own willingness to get up and do something ourselves.

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