The Torah’s depiction of the creation of the human is unique in relation to all other aspects of creation: “And Hashem Elokim created man from the dirt of the ground…” (Genesis 2:7).

When reading the passage in Hebrew, one can’t miss the similarity between the word for man, adam, and the word for ground or soil, adama. What does the etymological similarity of dirt and man teach us about the nature of the human being?

It cannot mean that man is a lowly being, worthy of being trampled upon, inherently unrefined, or filled with sin. Man is the crown jewel of all creation, as we see again and again in the creation story. He is put in charge of all the earth’s creatures; he is also told to work the garden and guard it.

The Maharal of Prague gives an important explanation for the connection between adam and adama. The uniqueness of the human is that he was not created fully actualized. In fact, unlike every other living species, he can never reach absolute completion. The human being exists in a constant state of unearthing potential.

This is why we are called adam, because dirt is that entity that actualizes potential. Without dirt, a redwood seed can never grow into a giant tree. The ground is a symbol for actualizing potential. This is the unique nature of the human; always in process, able to become more whole, but never fully arriving (at least in the physical world).

There are two sides to this; true, we are in our essence lacking, and can never fully reach perfection. But on the other hand, we have unlimited potential. Being truly alive means being connected to the unique nature of the human being: the ability to constantly grow. We cannot rest with our past accomplishments, no matter how great, nor can we deny the possibility of bettering ourselves; we are charged by our Creator to unleash the unlimited potential hidden inside all of us through the path of Torah and mitzvot.

The Midrashic literature can provide a surprising and sometimes shocking new perspective through which to look at God and the Torah. The following is a great example:

“(God says) let it be that they leave me, but my Torah they should observe, since the light that is in it will return them to good” (Midrash Eicha).

At first glance, this is a very difficult statement. What good is observing the Torah if there is no connection to God? Isn’t the entire point to serve God through the Torah?

Rav Moshe Chaim Luzzato, the great eighteenth century thinker and Kabbalist, explains the Midrash. If a Jew is entrenched in an immoral lifestyle, yet maintained a connection to learning Torah, slowly it would start to affect his actions.

This is based on the unique nature of the Torah as the most refined manifestation of God’s presence in the world. The crass person who learns Torah cannot help but be affected by the light contained inside it, and will ultimately return to a relationship with God.

All the more so this holds true for those of us in the process of returning to God. The more we learn Torah with the awareness that we are interacting with our Creator, the more intimate the relationship becomes. This is part of the uniqueness of the mitzvah of learning Torah.

You can learn a lot about books not just from what’s inside them, but in how they are studied. Libraries across the world all share a common picture: massive stacks of books of all topics interspersed with desks where each person sits and reads quietly.

From where did the rule originate that inside such a massive storehouse of knowledge one must maintain absolute silence?

Anyone who walks into a Beit Midrash (House of Study) will see a completely different scene. People are arguing, hands are waving; others are standing, rocking in their chairs in front of a Talmud, or pacing around the room.

Why is the Beit Midrash such a raucous scene?

A fitting insight comes from the Maharal of Prague. He gives an interpretation of the first blessing over the Torah, in which we say la’asok b’divrei Torah, to involve one’s self with the words of Torah. The language of the blessing is unusual; it would have been much more straightforward for our sages to compose the blessing as “to learn the words of Torah.”

The formulation of the blessing teaches us how the Torah should be learned. In almost all cases after a blessing is said, the corresponding mitzvah action follows immediately. So in order to fulfill the mitzvah of learning Torah, there must also be an action. Therefore, simply contemplating the words of Torah may not fulfill the mitzvah—we must speak the words. The act of dialogue is the mitzvah of learning Torah.

Dialogue allows for a deep engagement with the text, as well as with the person with whom we are learning. The Beit Midrash, as opposed to the library, is a place where the texts are tangibly alive, not a book moratorium where texts must rest in peace. The discussions and arguments illustrate the passion that we have for God’s word, and allow for their understanding on the deepest level.

The world is complex; rarely, if at all, are matters strictly black and white. So when we read the stories from the Torah, if they seem black and white, the Torah is inviting us to dig a little deeper.

A simple reading of the flood story could lead to a simple conclusion: Noach was good, and the rest of the world was evil. God decided to destroy the evil and start over with the good. Let’s take this invitation to look at the story from a different perspective.

The Chasidic Master Rav Zadok HaCohen from Lublin quotes a fascinating Zohar: “At the time of the flood they were fitting to receive the Torah.” In other words, just as the Nation of Israel was fitting to receive the Torah at Mt. Sinai, the world at the time of Noach was fitting to receive the Torah.

But the Torah tells us that the world was despicable in the eyes of God, filled with theft and illicit sexual behavior. These were the people fitting to receive the Torah, God’s most precious gift to the world?

Rav Zadok explains that a moment of revelation is a time of tremendous opportunity; there is possibility for glorious triumph, or bitter failure. It’s all a question of how one directs the raw energy.

The generation of the flood lived in a time of revelation. There was raw energy waiting to be harnessed; the direction to which that revelation would unfold was in their hands.

As the rain started to fall, their fate was not sealed. The initial drops could have been the rain of sustenance, not flood waters. The Torah, as symbolized by water, could have provided existence to the world, as we are taught that the Torah sustains existence, and is the purpose for existence.

However, we are also taught that if it were not for the Torah, the heavens and the Earth would cease to exist. The destructive nature of the world was not open to receiving the Torah. So the waters that could have sustained the world instead destroyed it.

Not always do we harness the power of the moment of revelation. But Rav Zadok assures us that the fall is a preparation for the next big moment of potential. The failure of the generation of the flood laid the foundation for Avraham. He brought a different consciousness to the world, which ultimately resulted in the giving of the Torah.

As we again start reading from the beginning of the Torah, the first question that greets us is one that Rashi quotes from the midrash in the name of Rebbi Yitzhak: Why didn’t the Torah begin with the sanctification of the new moon, which is the giving of the first mitzvah?

In other words, Rebbi Yitzhak wants to steer us away from an improper assumption: Don’t think that the Torah is only a book of laws. To put it in terms we can understand today, Hashem did not give us a Shulcan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law) on Mt Sinai. The stories—even those void of halachic content-- in the Book of Genesis are an essential aspect of the Torah. The question is why?

Rebbi Yitzhak gives an important answer, but I’d like to present a different approach, that of Rav Naftali Tvzi Yehuda Berlin, known as the Netziv, the great and last head of the Volozhin Yeshiva.

In his introduction to Genesis, he explains why this first book of the Torah is known as Sefer HaYashar, or the Book of the Upright. Its name comes from the forefathers Avraham, Yitzhak, and Yaakov, who not only were pious and rigorous in their service of God, but were also men of tremendous character.

They lived amongst immoral people and idol worshipers; still they interacted with their neighbors and cared for their well-being. Avraham, known for his trait of loving-kindness, despised the lifestyle in Sodom, yet he repeatedly argued on behalf of the Sodomites before God.

This is a valuable lesson that we learn from the stories of our forefathers. Beyond piety and awe of God, one’s compassionate relationship with the world around him, especially the non-Jewish world, is the type of righteousness that God desires. It is this behavior that maintains the world, consistent with the theme in the creation story that all humanity is made in God’s image.