boreh meorey haesh is to commemorate Hash-m giving Adam 2 flints to make fire - How do we deal with this in light of archeological evidence of fire for thousands of years by previously living humans?
Max, Southaven, United States
There are a number of ways to solve this issue. One is to state that Hash-m created previous worlds and destroyed them as the Midrash says (Koheles Rabba 3:14) The present world may have been created on the ruins of previous ones and this is why we find evidence of previous civilizations in archaeological digs including fire. Thus when Hash-m gave Adam flints it was the first meaningful fire for him.
Another way of looking at this is the Zohar which states that there were lots of different types of people created before Adam Harishon (possibly in the first days of creation- whose length is not known because they were before the sun and the moon). These people may have used fire for various primitive purposes such as light, warmth and cooking but after Adam was created, fire could now be used for sacred purposes as he was the first human who recognized and served Hash-m and therefore we bless Hash-m for fire, since this fire was from Hash-m and was recognized by man as such.
Yoel Domb