Ilustration Credit: Elad Lifshitz, Dov Abramson Studio
Midrash מִדְרָשׁ
Have you ever stopped to wonder why God created the world? What’s the point of there being a world at all?
This midrash suggests an answer to this big question based on something unusual in this pasuk:
וַיַּ֤רְא אֱלֹהִים֙ אֶת־כׇּל־אֲשֶׁ֣ר עָשָׂ֔ה וְהִנֵּה־ט֖וֹב מְאֹ֑ד וַֽיְהִי־עֶ֥רֶב וַֽיְהִי־בֹ֖קֶר י֥וֹם הַשִּׁשִּֽׁי׃
And God saw all that had been made, and found it very good.
And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Yom ha-shishi (יוֹם הַשִּׁשִּׁי) means “THE sixth day.” The name of this day is ever-so-slightly different from all the other days of creation, which are just numbered, but without the word, "the."
Why THE sixth day? Can we learn something from this tiny difference of a letter ה (heh, the)?
דְּאָמַר רֵישׁ לָקִישׁ מְלַמֵּד שֶׁהִתְנָה הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא עִם מַעֲשֵׂה בְרֵאשִׁית וְאָמַר לָהֶם:
אִם יִשְׂרָאֵל מְקַבְּלִים הַתּוֹרָה — אַתֶּם מִתְקַיְּימִין,
וְאִם לָאו — אֲנִי מַחֲזִיר אֶתְכֶם לְתוֹהוּ וָבוֹהוּ.
Reish Lakish said:
It teaches that the Holy Blessed One made a condition when creating the world.
God said: If Israel accepts the Torah (on the sixth day of Sivan), then the world will continue to exist;
and if they don’t accept the Torah, I will return the world to tohu vavohu (chaos and disorder).
We usually use the word, “the,” when we’re talking about something very specific - something that person being spoken to already knows about. Reish Lakish explains that yom HA-shishi is not just talking about the sixth day of creation, but another very specific sixth day - the sixth day of Sivan, which is the date the Torah would be given on הַר סִינַי (Har Sinai, Mount Sinai)!
This midrash seems to be suggesting that the whole purpose of creating the world was for the Torah to be observed in it. In fact, if Benei Yisrael had not eventually accepted the Torah at Har Sinai, God would have undone all of creation!
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