A Different Blessing

God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”  Genesis 1:28 NASB

To them – This is the first time God directed a blessing to His creation.  You will remember Genesis 1:22: “God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.’”  The first blessing over animate life is directed toward the creatures of the sea and the air.  As we have discovered many times before, the Torah doesn’t waste words.  So why is the second blessing not a replica of the first?  Why add “and God said to them”?  Perhaps you think that this added phrase is simply because the man and the woman have a different kind of communicative relationship with God.  They can reply.  But, of course, from the biblical perspective even inanimate nature replies.  The hills shout, the mountains clap, and certainly the animals “speak” to God.  Something else is happening here.  Soloveitchik offers a suggestion.

“The term va-yevarekh [He blessed] alone denotes the embedding into the organic frame of existence specific tensions and insistencies, under whose impact both animal and man are driven to act in a certain way.  Va-yevarekh does not constitute by itself any norm or law.  It exhausts itself completely in the natural dynamic system.  The phrase ‘va-yevarekh otam Elokim lemor’ means ‘God blessed them as follows’ or, as the medieval grammarians interpret, ‘God blessed them and said.’  Yet this lemor denotes only an act of will; God willed the animal to be fruitful.  The term va-yomer is used in the Bible to indicate the creative act of God which is identical with His will. ‘Va-yomer Elokim yehi or,’ and God said ‘Let there be light’ (Gen. 1:3).  Va-yomer does not refer to speech; God could not have spoken to the void of nihility (nothingness).  The same is true of the lemor when He created the animal; the va-yevarekh symbolized inner tropism, automatism and motivation followed by movement.

“However, in the blessing conferred on man the Pentateuch employs a new term ‘va-yomer lahem, and He told them’; the grammatical dative appears for the first time in the story of creation.  This term sheds a new light upon man’s position in the universe.  While va-yevarekh denotes the implanting of an inner tropism in man’s tensions and insistences under whose impact he is driven to do something, the va-yevarekh and va-yomer lehem implies already both biological pressure translatable into motion, by virtue of which accumulated energies are being discharged, and the awakening of personality, of an I-awareness with natural man.  Through the dialogue, God addresses Himself to man; God confronts man and speaks with him, and through this conversation it begins suddenly to dawn upon man who he is.  Man is spoken to, and through speech he becomes a person.”[1]

Soloveitchik’s insight reminds us of the introduction to the ArtScroll Siddur.  “The Torah tells us that God breathed life into Adam and man became לְנֶפֶשׁ חַיָה a living being (Genesis 2:7).  Onkelos renders: man became  רוּחַ  מֽמַלֽלָא, a speaking spirit.  Onkelos seems to equate speech with life.”[2]   We should clarify: man became a human speaking spirit.  What distinguishes Man from all the rest of creation is not his biological difference, but rather his ability to speak with God, to converse with the Divine.  It is dialogue that defines him, and, of course, dialogue presupposes relationship.  Once more we affirm: to be human is to be in relationship with another, whether divine or human.  Man does not exist alone.

God’s statement that it is not good for man to be alone isn’t about companionship or social networking.  It is about the essential element that makes us, any of us, human.  There is no biblical Robinson Crusoe.

Topical Index: man, human, speaking, relationship, lemor, Onkelos, Genesis 2:7, Genesis 1:28

[1] Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Family Redeemed: Essays on Family Relationships (KTAV Publishing House, 2000) p. 99.

[2] Rabbi Nosson Scherman, “Introduction” in The Complete ArtScroll Siddur (Mesorah Publications, Ltd., 1985), p. xiv.