I notice though that the text in the "rtl.xhtml" is:
<p class="hebrew" dir="rtl" xml:lang="iw">בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ</p>
and, if I remove the "dir="rtl"" then it appears as:
(the cut and paste of the following has the rest of this post working rtl, so I'll leave it here.)
בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ