Parasha Bereshit (בראשית) — Bereshit 1:1 – 6:8. Read on Shabbat, October 10, 2026.
Summary of Parasha Bereshit
The Torah opens with the creation of the world in six days. G-d creates light, separates the waters, brings forth dry land and vegetation, sets the luminaries in the sky, and then forms the fish, the birds and the land animals. On the sixth day, G-d creates man in His image, male and female, and entrusts the earth to him. On the seventh day, G-d completes His work, rests, blesses that day and sanctifies it: this is Shabbat. The account then returns to the formation of Adam from the dust of the ground, and afterward of Chava. Placed in the Garden of Eden, they are forbidden to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Enticed by the serpent, Chava eats from it and gives some to Adam; both are driven out of the garden, and the human condition is henceforth marked by toil, pain and mortality. Kayin and Hevel are born; Kayin kills his brother and becomes a wanderer. The parasha traces the genealogy of Kayin’s descendants, then that of Shet, from Adam down to Noach, by way of Chanokh and Metushelach. It ends with the growing corruption of humanity: G-d regrets having made man and resolves to blot out all beings from the earth, but Noach finds favor in His eyes.
The Themes
- Creation in six days
- Shabbat, the sanctified day
- The sin in the Garden of Eden
Rav Raphaël Benizri’s Lectures on Bereshit
- Bereshit: The Beginning of Creation
- Bereshit — The Foundations of the Human Being
- Bereshit: The First Murder in History
Study booklets for each lecture: questions for the Shabbat table
A Question for the Shabbat Table
If man was created last, is that a sign of his greatness or a call to humility?
All the parashiot · Parasha Noach →
Summary by the Pensées Juives editorial team. The Rav’s teachings are found in his lectures, linked above.