Bereshith: error

The Yiddish lullaby, Oyfen Pripichuk ( more correctly der Aleph Bais) contains a stanza with the words: Yeder Unfang is shver - every beginning is hard. So is the beginning of the world described.

The heaven-and- earth first created is tohu vovohu, a desolate black hole. Light is the first good thing created.

The human ( note that the Latin reflects the intention of the Hebrew: Humus is earth, Human is earthling; analgous to Adama - earth, Adam- earthling) violates his single explicit commandment - not to partake of the Knowledge Tree. The consequence: the earth ( adamah) is punished. It is ironic that the first (weekday) bracha in the Amidah, after the three blessings of acknowledgment, is Atah Chonen Le’adam Daath - Acknowledging Gd as the granter of (this stolen) knowledge.

Cain kills Hevel. He did not know that such an act disrupts that whole earth ( קוֹל דְּמֵי אָחִיךָ, צֹעֲקִים אֵלַי מִן-הָאֲדָמָה ). His error makes him a wanderer and ultimately urban (וַיְהִי, בֹּנֶה עִיר). Cain’s descendents continue in his ways. Yaval becomes a cattle man. Note that eating animals has not yet been permitted. Tubal-cain sharpens metal implements, generations before Noah invents the plow.

All of those begats: demonstrate only one important child per family... until Noah and his three sons. By Noah’s time, it repented the LORD that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart. (Gen 6:6). It was all a big mistake!

And we are the product of that mistake …. and it’s corrections.