LET US MAKE MAN: Who Was God Speaking To? – Rabbi Yisroel C. Blumenthal

In describing the creation of man, in Genesis chapter 1 verse 26, we have the following quote from God. Let us make man. Who is God talking to? Let us make man. Our teachers tell us he was consulting with his heavenly host, his heavenly court, or with the angels, or with all of creation. These three interpretations are basically one, because the heavenly host is representative of creation, the angels are representative of God's creation. But what does it mean that God consults with his heavenly court? Yes, we do have this concept in the book of Isaiah chapter 6, in the opening verses in the book of Job, where God consults the heavenly court. In the book of Kings we have such an incident where God consults with the heavenly court. But what does it mean in the context of the creation of man? Did God ask the heavenly court, should he create man? It's obvious that that's not the correct interpretation. What it means is that because now God is creating man, who's the pinnacle of creation, does the purpose of creation, he already created the rest of creation, God is telling creation, I'm now going to take this next step. What he's doing with that is he's acknowledging, he's validating the fact that there are other beings here, who he put here, he created those other beings, and he's validating the fact that what he's now going to do impacts them, is going to have a relevance to these other entities, these other creations, and being that that's the case, that what he's going to do now is going to directly impact the rest of creation, so he's sort of notifying in a humble way that I'm going to be doing this now. And the purpose of this is to teach us humility, and it's a valuable lesson, yes, when a boss of a company, let's say, is about to do something which impacts all of his employees, or a number of his employees, it's the correct thing to do, it's the ethical thing, it's the moral thing to do, to tell them that you're going to be doing this, you're going to be impacted, you don't have to ask them permission, you're boss of the company, it's your company, but if they're going to be impacted, don't surprise them, validate their existence, and the fact that they want one thing or another, validate it and respect it, simply at least by notifying them, by telling them what you're doing. So that's what the Rashi, the great commentator, tells us that God is teaching us humility with this statement, let us make man. Now the question is, fine, it's a beautiful teaching on humility, but why does this teaching have to be put in specifically at the time when God is creating man? So let's consider the following, there's a verse further on the book of Genesis, in chapter 2, verse 5, it describes, earth was created, before man was created, earth was created, and man wasn't present to work the earth, literally to work the earth, to do the work of the earth, and then it follows by describing the process of rain. What does this mean, man wasn't here to work the earth? It wasn't raining before man came, and our sages teach us what this means is, is that in order for rain to come, we needed man to come along, and man would look at the situation, survey the landscape, see what's happening, realize that the earth, the plants, the animals need rain, and internalize that need, and turn to God in prayer for rain, and when man prays for rain, on behalf of creation, it will rain. What this gives us to understand is that man's work in this world, and we understand that man was created in order to work the earth, what that means is, man's job here on earth is to see beyond himself, to see beyond himself, to validate, and to acknowledge, and to feel the needs, and the desires, and the will of other beings, other people. That's what man is here for, and that's why this teaching is in the creation of man, because this is the essence of man. The essence of man is to be a one who takes counsel. Again, not necessarily one who takes advice from everybody, it's foolish to take advice from everybody, but one who acknowledges the existence of everybody, and doesn't disregard anybody. Let's take this one step further. Further on the book of Genesis, we read how man became corrupt. They were stealing, they became immoral, they were filled with lust and greed. So what did God do? He took Noah, Noah was a righteous man, he put him in an ark with all the animals, the kosher animals, the pure animals, pairs of seven, seven pairs of each, and the non-pure animals, the non-kosher animals, pairs of two, and he's in this ark for a quite long period of time, a stretch of time. What was he doing in the ark? We understand that what he was doing in the ark was, he was caring for the animals. He had to take, he had to feed the animals, whatever that means. Again, obviously this is miraculous, there's not something that is possible on a simple level, but on some level he was caring for the animals. What was going on is, is that in the generation of the flood, the generation of sin that preceded the flood, man was losing touch with the image of man, what it means to be created in the image of God. Created in the image of God means that you're not internally focused taking what the world has to offer and taking it into yourself, rather your job is to focus on the needs of the world and see how you could do to help, what you could do to benefit the world, to be a blessing to the world. And what God did to Noah was he put him in an arena, he put him in a situation where he was forced to be a blessing to those around him, in this case the animals. The tradition tells us that Abraham learned from this, he learned from the situation that God put Noah in, that he put him in the ark where he had to care for the animals, he learned the value of kindness, how great kindness is in God's eyes, and how foundational is the quality of kindness is to the plan that God has for humanity. And that was the first step that Abraham took towards God, is opening himself to the needs of others, opening himself to the hearts and the pain of others, and the feelings of others, and that's what kindness is all about. Because that's the essence of man, the essence of man, and that's why in the creation of man we have God sort of acknowledging the will of creation, because that's what he wanted to imbue into man. He wanted to imbue into man the ability to feel for those around him, to acknowledge the existence of those around him, and to disregard Noah.