The Serpent’s Oldest Question—and Why the World Gets to Start Over

Shabbat Shalom, beloved, and welcome to another installment of the Messianic Torah Observer. In this teaching, we stand at a sobering and deeply meaningful intersection: the third anniversary of the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led terrorist attack and the restarting of the traditional annual Torah-reading cycle with Parashat Beresheit.

At first glance, these two moments may appear to be cognitively counterintuitive. One brings us face-to-face with violence, murder, abduction, grief, and three years of unanswered questions. The other rolls the Torah scroll back to its opening declaration: “Beresheit bara Elohim”—“In the beginning, Elohim created.” Yet, beloved, these moments do not cancel one another out. They belong together. Their convergence places our Messianic Faith precisely where it must stand: firmly on the Word of Yehovah, honestly in the middle of grief, and confidently beneath the Light that darkness has not overcome.

In This Episode

This teaching unfolds in two movements. The first examines the oldest recorded question in Torah: “Did Elohim really say?” The second returns us to the first words of Torah and asks what it means for Yah’s Covenant people to proclaim, amid a broken and violent world, that Yehovah created—and that He is still in the business of beginnings.

• Why the serpent’s question in Genesis 3:1 was strategic rather than informational
• How the word “really” is used to introduce doubt about the clarity and authority of Yah’s Word
• Why destabilized faith ultimately becomes uprooted faith
• How the ancient pattern of calling evil good and good evil continues in our world
• Why October 7 must be understood spiritually as well as historically
• What “Beresheit bara Elohim” declares about creation, goodness, violence, and the sovereignty of Yehovah
• How John 1 reopens the Beresheit scroll and reveals creation’s Light in Yehoshua HaMashiyach
• Why biblical hope does not deny grief but discovers Yehovah in the middle of it
• What it means to begin the Torah cycle again with conviction, covenant confidence, and hope

Movement One: The Serpent’s Oldest Question

Most readers come to Parashat Beresheit focused on creation, the Garden, the first Sabbath rest, and the naming of the animals. Each of these subjects deserves a lifetime of study. But in this installment, we slow down at Genesis 3:1, where the serpent asks Isha: “Has Elohim really said, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the Garden?’”

This is not an honest search for truth. The serpent does not deny Elohim’s existence, nor does he deny that Elohim has spoken. Instead, he questions whether Yah’s Word is as clear, binding, and trustworthy as it appears. The strategy is subtle: introduce uncertainty, make the command feel open to reinterpretation, and allow doubt to begin its destructive work.

That same question continues to echo in 2026. Did Elohim really say the seventh day is set apart? Did He really say His appointed times are to be kept by His people throughout their generations? Did He really say Yisra’el remains His Covenant people? Did He really say Yehoshua is Yisra’el’s Messiah and the fulfillment of what Moshe and the prophets foretold?

Beloved, the serpent does not always need to say no. He simply needs to make Yah’s Word feel uncertain. But the answer of the Nazarene Yisra’elite must remain firm: “YHVH indeed said it. He said it clearly. And I stand on what He said.” Proverbs 30:5 reminds us that every Word of Elohim is flawless and that He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. This is Beresheit faith in a nutshell: Yah said it, and we establish it.

Calling Evil Good

On the anniversary of the October 7 murders and abductions, Hamas characterized that day as glorious. Such language is more than a military or political statement. It is a spiritual declaration—a global-scale replay of Genesis 3 that attempts to redefine murder, violence, and the destruction of human beings who bear the image of Elohim.

Isaiah 5:20 issues a covenant warning against calling evil good and good evil, putting darkness for light and light for darkness. Whenever atrocity is renamed as glory, the serpent’s question has been answered in the wrong direction. Yet this warning is not only about Hamas, Iran, or the surrounding culture. It reaches into our own Faith community whenever we loosen our grip on Torah, the bodily resurrection of Yehoshua, or Yah’s enduring covenant purposes for Yisra’el.

Movement Two: Beresheit on October 7

Following Simchat Torah, the scroll is rolled from the death of Moshe at the end of Deuteronomy back to the opening words of Genesis: “Beresheit bara Elohim et hashamayim ve’et ha’aretz.” The cycle begins again. This year, that renewed beginning comes during the week of the third anniversary of October 7.

“Beresheit bara Elohim” is not merely an objective statement about origins. It is an ecclesiastical declaration against every competing account that treats chaos, violence, and death as the foundation of reality. Torah declares that Yehovah created by His Word, with intention and goodness. The repeated verdict is tov—good—and, with humanity’s creation, tov me’od—very good.

October 7 was a violent lie against that declaration, an attempt to write death into Yah’s Beresheit reality as though violence were creation’s true foundation. But Torah answers: the world did not begin in bloodshed. It began with Yehovah speaking, ordering, blessing, and calling His work good. The creation still belongs to Him, and His creative intention remains in play.

The Light Shines in the Darkness

Yochanan opens his Gospel account with the language of Genesis: “In the beginning.” He is not borrowing casually. He is reopening the Beresheit scroll and revealing that the goodness, intentionality, and life spoken into creation by Yehovah are embodied in Yehoshua. John 1:5 does not deny the darkness. It declares that the Light shines in it and that the darkness has not overcome it.

That is our October 7 reality. The darkness came, and its wounds remain real. Biblical hope does not tell the grieving not to cry. Nor does it offer smug, canned answers. Instead, Lamentations 3:22–25 finds the steadfast love, compassion, and faithfulness of Yehovah in the middle of devastation—not after every question is resolved. Our Messianic Faith must likewise enter the grief with Lamentations in one hand and Genesis in the other.

Yehovah Has Not Abandoned His Purposes

Psalm 121:4 declares that He who keeps Yisra’el neither slumbers nor sleeps. This is not always a comfortable truth, and it raises questions that deserve honest wrestling. Yet if Yah could be ambushed, absent, or defeated by darkness, He could not be our answer to it. Isaiah 45:18 declares that Yehovah fashioned the earth to be inhabited. He did not create Yisra’el to be destroyed by the scions of the Kingdom of Darkness, nor has He carried His people through Egypt, Sinai, exile, the Holocaust, 1948, 1967, 1973, and October 7 only to abandon them now.

The world Yah called good remains in His hands. Master Yehoshua stands at the right hand of His Father, interceding on behalf of His people. Yehovah is still speaking life into the void, still calling things that are not as though they are, and still accomplishing His covenant purposes.

Our Covenant Response

So, what do we do? We do what Torah invites us to do when the reading cycle begins again. We start over. We open to Beresheit. We read, “In the beginning, Elohim created.” And we confess that we still believe Him.

• I believe what Ahlohim accomplished in the earth was good.
• I believe the darkness has not overcome the Light of His glorious Son.
• I believe He who keeps Yisra’el neither slumbers nor sleeps.
• I believe the steadfast love of Yehovah never ceases and His mercies are new every morning.
• I believe Yah is still creating, still speaking life into the void, and still calling His Covenant people to stand firm.

Beloved, this is not a platitude. It is a radical, counter-cultural, grief-anchored, hope-drenched declaration. Yah is not finished creating. He is not finished with Yisra’el. And He is not finished with this world.

Key Takeaways

·        The serpent’s oldest tactic is not outright denial but the strategic introduction of doubt.

·        Every Word of Elohim is flawless; Yah’s Covenant people must know it, trust it, and stand on it.

·        Calling evil good is not merely cultural confusion—it is a covenant-level rebellion against the moral order of Yehovah.

·        Creation begins in Yah’s spoken goodness, not in chaos, violence, or death.

·        Yehoshua is the Light who shines in darkness, and the darkness has not overcome Him.

·        Biblical hope does not erase grief; it anchors the grieving soul in Yah’s steadfast love.

·        The restarting of Torah is an invitation to begin again in faith, obedience, and covenant confidence.

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Scripture References

Genesis 1:1–5; Genesis 2:1–3; Genesis 3:1–7; Genesis 6:8; Isaiah 5:20; Isaiah 45:18; Isaiah 46:9–10; John 1:1–5, 14; Romans 8:28; Lamentations 3:22–25; Psalm 121:4; Psalm 139:7–12; Proverbs 30:5; 2 Corinthians 4:6.

A Closing Invitation

If you are not in a covenant relationship with the Creator of the Universe—the very One who spoke creation into existence—and you feel the tug to enter that relationship, I humbly encourage you to turn to Yeshua today. Repent, ask Yah to forgive your sins, and commit the rest of your life to Him and His service. Commit to Yeshua-focused Torah living. Be water immersed, receive the Ruach HaKodesh, and seek first Yah’s Kingdom and His righteousness. Today is the day of salvation, beloved.

If this teaching has edified, informed, and blessed you, please share it with your family, your fellowship, and the saints in training in your life. And if you have not committed your tithes and offerings to another fellowship or ministry, prayerfully consider supporting this ministry as we work to deliver the true Gospel to the nations in these dark and evil days.

Thank you for your fellowship and presence. Until next time, may you be most blessed, fellow saints in training. Shabbat Shalom. Shavu’atov. Take care.