Bresheet (Genesis 1:1 - 6:8) Part 1, Torah Lesson Plan, or YHVH Homepage
Hashem reveals Himself to us in many ways, under many Names. One being the four letter Divine Name of Mercy, refer to it as Hashem, The Name. This Name stands above the apparent creation, and has no bounds of time nor space. It is not limited to an order or sequence, and is a constant Infinite. Many times referred to as “En Sof (Heb. without end). It is to this Name that we focus when we request something which lies outside of the present order, such as mercy from on High.
There is another Name of Hashem, pronounced E-l-o-h-i-m. In a casual way, as not to mention Divine Names in vain, we refer to it as Elokim. This Name has the same numerical value as the Hebrew word for nature. This should explain to you the inner workings of this attribute of Hashem. This Name reflects the order of things, science, nature, the constellations (in Heb. Mazel), etc. It is this Name which appears within the Torah’s explanation of the Creation. However, the Divine Name, “Hashem,” does not appear until Hashem shows mercy, and gives sustenance to His creation; “For Hashem Elokim had not sent rain upon the Earth" (Gen. 2:5) When a person refuses to bow down to the King, in other words, when a person refuses to release his own ego in order to make room for Torah, he will nevertheless fall under the wing of God, but under the Elokim, the natural order and justice of God. His fate will be like our first example of the chess match. Hashem said to Abraham, when Abraham was looking up at the constellations for a sign; “Ein mazel l’Yisroel (There are no constellations for Israel).” What Hashem meant is that there is a way to rise above Elokim, and present yourself to the Glory of the King. Man has the gift, and the ability to reach the Divine Name, “Hashem.” Our second example of the chess match reflects just such a person. From the very start he is humbled to the master. Each move he makes is guided, he becomes a vessel for the master to teach him. He absorbs every word of the master, and in the end, not only does he give purpose to himself, as a vessel, he also gives purpose to the master as being able to fill the vessel. If the vessel has no master to fill him, he can only become filled with himself, and if the master has no vessel to fill, his position as master is without purpose. Therefore, we give great joy to our Creator when we allow our ego to move aside, when we move our “great intellect” over, and allow Him to fill our vessel. He then says, “For this I have created you, to give Me a resting place amongst you.”
Names of God are His attributes, not His being; His relationship with His creation. Hashem’s Will is constricted, so that our vessels can actually sustain His Light, and a creation can actually exist. His very constriction is in fact the creation (for those who can grasp this understanding). Now that we understand this, I hope, it presents to us another thought. When a person wills to bring a thought forth into action, he first sees the thought within his mind in it’s completed state. It is not spatial, and certainly not plausible, but it is complete within his own spiritual intellect. For instance, if a person is ready to build a house, it is because he already knows how this house will look in it’s completed stage, therefore, when he now draws it onto a blue print, each stroke of the pen has within it the initial will of the designer, every brick he lays onto the foundation, is driven by that same will. The very first will, and conception of the house is that which actually guides the builder through every single step of the way, all the way until the completion. This is what Chassidut means when it says; “The end lies in the beginning.” For those familiar with Kabbalah, you know that Israel is the purpose of Creation (for those not familiar with this, the term Israel must not be confused with a Zionist nation in the Middle East, nor with the common understanding of “Jewish.” Israel is simply the relationship between this world and the Worlds Above, to bring Creation into a sustainable Oneness; A singularity for complete awareness of the King, and His Glory). Shabbat is a small taste of the world to come, not Shabbat as a physical day, but rather as a spiritual realm. The Torah says in verse 1:3; “Elokim said, let there be light, and there was light.” This was the first utterance. The first “saying” from God. Keeping in mind what was explained above about the garments of speech, we must now ask ourselves, why was light the first utterance, hence, the first will, hence the ultimate desire. Light is of no value in itself. In order for it to be useful, it must depend on something else. That which light illuminates upon is the beneficiary of the light, and the beneficiary gives light it’s usefulness. Man was not created until the sixth day, and plants on the third, and we cannot say that Hashem needed light in order to see, Heaven forbid. So why was light created while nothing else existed?
One cannot say that light was created in preparation for the things to come, because then light should have been created last, right before man, or even on the third day, for the plants who can distinguish between light and dark. Hashem does not fiddle about, Every action is His perfection and His Will. The answer is given to us In the pashut (simple) form of Rashi’s comment to the next verse. The verse reads; “God saw that the light was good, and God separated between the light and the darkness.” To which Rashi comments; “He saw it, that it does not deserve that the wicked use it, and He set it aside for the righteous to use in the future.” Let’s now look a little deeper into the verse. We are first made aware that the light was formed, and the darkness was not. As the prophet confirms, and as we say in our daily morning prayers; “He forms light and creates darkness…” The act of creating is bringing something from nothing. This cannot be done by man, we can only use that which we have, change the shape, and consistency, and form it into something else. Only Hashem can create through taking nothing and making something. In Hebrew this is referred to as “Yesh Miein,” something from nothing. Rather than “Yesh miyesh,” something from something. If Hashem brought forth the light, from out of His Grand Will, into words (He ‘said’ let there be…) from out of the darkness, where, as Rashi later comments, it was intermingled, we can rightfully assume that the darkness as well is light, and therefore, it is also good. For the verse in Torah informs us; “God saw that the light was good…” He does not say that the dark is bad. Even though we can learn the greater from the lesser or the opposite from the positive. Bad, as seen from the perspective of Hashem, is actually non-existence. We may assume that the darkness is bad, due to the lack of light, but that is only our perception. That is how our vessel absorbs it. The Torah does not actually state that the darkness is “bad.” It only implies that the light was formed, therefore, already existed and was only re- shaped, so to speak, and that the light is “good.” Hence, light received a title. We are left with a small paradox. Since the purpose of light is to illuminate, why does Rashi say that it was hidden for the righteous? How can it illuminate, and still not be present (hidden). If Hashem foresaw it’s power, and it’s need to be hidden, why did He create it first?
The Zohar (Kabbalistic work) comments that the numerical value for the Hebrew word “light,” and the Hebrew word “secret” are numerically equivalent. Numerical equivalence, as also displayed above between the Name Elokim and Nature, is a sign that two things are related to one another (since things were created through the permutations of the letters of the Divine utterances, two things whose names are comprised of letters of the same value share a common essential form. - The Hebrew language is a mathematical language, since numbers do not exists within it, but rather, the letters themselves are numerical symbols. Hence, the Torah does not only display to us a verbal comprehension, but a mathematical formula as well.). At this point, this information may once again present us with the same paradox. How can something which is ‘secret’ also be ‘illuminating’, How can the hidden also be revealed? How can two things which are opposite also prove to be equivalent?
Continued - Part 2, Torah Lesson Plan, or YHVH Homepage
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