Beraishis

The Gemara states that the Torah starts with chesed and ends with chesed. It starts with the chesed of Hashem clothing Adam and Chavah with כתנות עור and ends with the chesed of Hashem burying Moshe Rabeinu. We know that Hashem’s creating the world was a very great chesed as it states, “עולם חסד יבנה.” If so, why doesn’t the Gemara bring the actual creation of the world as the first act of chesed in the Torah?

One answer is that we should not think Hashem created the world, left it, and went back up into the Shamayim, chas v’shalom! Hashem is constantly and always doing chesed with us by keeping us alive and tending our needs.

Another answer is that the chesed after the briyah was a specific type of chesed, a chesed of “luxuries.” The clothing of כתנות עור were not necessary, Adam and Chavah could have made their own clothes to wear. Hashem, however, performed extra chesed with them and made for them special כתנות עור. Avi U’Mori offered an example of this in the name of the Chida who asks: why do we only have a zeicher celebrating Yom Tov to the annanei hakavod and not to the מן and be’er? The Chida writes because the מן and be’er were basic necessities, food and drink, whereas the annanim were something extra – protection from the heat during the day and the cold during the night.

Rav Pinchas Sheinberg answered with a mashal. One invites a guest and then serves him delicious foods. The guest takes the food he receives and throws it around, dirtying people, the table cloth, the chairs, and breaks some dishes. If the host were to pat him on the back with a smile and invite him back this would be a very great chesed. So too, is with the chesed of the כתנות עור. Although Adam and Chavah sinned and, in some way, ruined the beautiful creation of Hashem, Hashem still gave them clothes and performed chesed with them.

May we be zoche to recognize Hashem’s constant chasadim every second of our lives, the extra chasadim, and even those which we don’t seem to deserve!