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The Zoharic Interpretation of Beresheith bara Elohim - “In the Beginning God Created”
It is difficult to say what part of the Bible has had more commentary and interpretation, but Genesis 1:1 certainly has to be included within this orbit of exegetic analysis performed on the Bible through the centuries. Many biblical scholars analyze it with the comparison of the Babylonian creation account The Enuma Elish and Mesopotamian along with Ugaritic texts.[1] Genesis is nothing actually unique, just another run of the mill creation account which are manifest throughout the Ancient Near East by dozens of ancient empires and their own creation myths. This has been the more or less mundane exegetical conclusion to it all.
It wasn’t until later in Christian times when Creation Ex Nihilo was proposed and defended in early Christian cosmology, by the early Christian Church Fathers, based upon the interesting fact that it “is a polemical doctrine invoked to defend the belief in bodily resurrection!”[2] The Jews had never had anything like a systematic theology having to do with much of a resurrection, so they didn’t worry about it since their view was that “God created from pre-existing matter,” even up into the Middle Ages.[3]
The Zohar takes us to a different dimension than even these. The sacred dimension of geometry. And they don’t do so with clarity, but they make us dig, and dig deep. It isn’t easy, it’s downright mystifying because they are mythologizing their sacred narratives giving us a “secondary mythological order” giving greater cosmic meaning to the geometrical constructs based upon the language, essentially an extension of the text, due to its being a “most precisely mathematical model having its own scientific validation.”[4] In essence, “mythology recapitulates geometry. This is not to deny the truth of such mythology but to recognize it as a second order of truth, one based upon the absolute truths of its geometric models and giving to each systematic interpretation the quality of secondary or symbolic truth.
The persuasiveness with which geometric forms can be associated with mythological symbols further suggests that the mythological and geometric levels of the mind lie close together and that it is in terms of such mythology that the mind first interprets its geometric understanding into linguistic symbols…[their] explanations of the Torah is “a fact that serves to validate their mythology as symbolic expressions of absolute truths.”[5] It is precisely the controls involved in the actual construction of geometric models that give to such models a truth value lacking in an arbitrary ‘invented’ theoretical model.” What we have is something quite beautiful. “The association of a particular geometry with biblical and kabbalistic texts, the geometry serving to order and validate concepts of the specifically earlier Jewish tradition and these concepts providing a reciprocal enlargement of the diagram’s power of signification by demonstrating its power to model them.”[6]
We begin our journey with בראשית ברא אלהימ (Beresheith bara Elohim), the first words in the Bible. One of the most famous Jewish commentators, Rashi, noted one Jewish view - “If you would come to explain it according to its simple meaning, explain it as follows: In the beginning of the creation of the heavens and the earth…”[7] Gary Anderson lays out the issue clearly, is the open phrase a prepositional or a temporal clause? In other words is this an absolute beginning, or does a translation such as “When God began to created the heavens and the earth…” work?[8]
“Rabbi Yudai said, ‘What is בראשית ( Be-resheith)? With Wisdom. This is the Wisdom on which the world stands - through which one enters hidden, high mysteries. Here were engraved six vast, supernal dimensions, from which everything emerges, from which issued six springs and streams, flowing into the immense ocean. This is ברא שית (bara sheith), created six.”[9]
Incidentally this has a direct parallel to John 1:1 the Greek being Ἐν ἀρχἡ ἦν ὁ λὁγος (en arche en ho logos), in the beginning was the Word… This is the nature of the beginning mentioned in the Hebrew of Genesis 1:1. Gunther Schwarz noted in 1956 was discovered an exciting Palestinian Targum that read like John 1:1 - “Von Amfang her mit Weisheit brachte hervor (das Wort) Jahwes und vollendete die Himmel und Erde. Und es beendete das Wort Jahwes am siebsten Tage sein Werk, das es hervorbrachte... Erregend sind diese Zeilen deswegen, weil in ihnen, in einer typisch targumischen Paraphrase (inhaltlich vollig aquivalent), ausgesprochen ist, was wir bislang so nur aus dem Johannesprolog kannten.”
(From the beginning with wisdom brought forth (the word) Yahweh and perfected the heavens and earth. And the word of Yahweh ended his work on the seventh day, which it produced ... These lines are exciting because in them, in a typical Targumian paraphrase (completely equivalent in content), what we have so far only found in the prologue of St. John.)[10]
The Zohar idea is fascinating with “the basic geometric progression from point, through line, to circle, and then to the marking of radial arc points is described in relation to the first processes of creation” ;The Most Mysterious struck its void, and caused this point to shine. This beginning then extended, and made for itself a palace for its honor and glory… from this point onward bara sheith, he created six.’”[11]
This then is describing a geometric process. “The six vast, supernal directions would have to be those defined by the six points inscribed on the primal circle in the regular procession of geometric growth… the next stage here being suggested for the creation process, the joining of these six radial arc points in the form of a hexagram, would also seem to be suggested in the Baraita de Ma’aseh Beresheith:
HE EXTENDS THE HEAVENS AS A VEIL.
Why are they called heavens? It is because the Holy One, Blessed be He, had mingled the fire
with the water, spreading out the one with the other in creating the heavens, as it is said: IT IS
MY HAND WHICH HAS FOUNDED THE EARTH AND MY RIGHT HAND WHICH HAS
STRETCHED OUT THE HEAVENS. You shouldn’t read it as ‘heavens’ but as ‘fire and waters.’
He formed seven abodes on high… He Stretched the heavens above.[12]
The idea of the creating of the fire and waters is given in geometric terms as the conjoining of two triangles, an up pointed and down pointed that have joined together in the Star of David, or the Seal of Solomon. This is done by connecting the six primal dots on a circle created with a compass, using the same length of the open arms of the compass which created the circle, to then mark six points along the circumference of the circle. It is from those six points that we connected into a hexagram. The Creation is all about sacred geometric processes.
Endnotes
1. George J. Brook, “Creation in the Biblical Tradition,” Zygon, 22, (June, 1987); Joseph P. Schultz, “Creation: Genesis or Theogony?,” in Sinai and Olympus, University Press of America, 1995; Nicholas Wyatt, “The Darkness of Genesis 1:2,” in Vetus Testamentum, 1993; C. F. Whitley, “The Pattern of Creation in Genesis Chapter 1,” in Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 17, 1958. This is a small sampling representative of many dozens of studies in this area.
2. Jonathan A. Goldstein, “The Origins of the Doctrine of Creation Ex Nihilo,” in Journal of Jewish Studies, XXXV, No. 2 (Autumn 1984): 134.
3. Goldstein, Ibid., p. 127.
4. Leonora Leet, The Universal Kabbalah, Inner Traditions, 2004: 47, 48.
5. Leet, Ibid., p. 48.
6. Leet, Ibid., p. 46.
7. The Torah: With Rashi’s Commentary Translated, Annotated, and Elucidated, by Rabbi Yisrael Isser Zvi Herczeg, Mesorah Publications, 9th impression, 2005: 3.
8. Gary Anderson, “The Interpretation of Genesis 1:1 in the Targums,” in The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 52, (1990): 21f. See also P. Schafer, “Beresit Bara Elohim, Zur Interpretation von Genesis 1,1 in der Rabbinischen Literatur,” in Journal of the Study of Judaism, Vol 1-3, (1972-1974): 162. Who notes the apodosis is Als Gott anfing, die Himmel und die Erde zu erschaffen, “When God started creating the heavens and the earth.”
9. Zohar, translated by Daniel Matt, Pritzker edition, 12 vols., Stanford University Press, (2004), 1: 17. (There are numerous ways of referencing the Zohar. I will simply put the volume and page number in this paper. So 1:17 means vol. 1, p. 17.
10. Gunther Schwarz, “Gen 1 1 2 2a und Joh 1 1a.3a - ein Vergleich,” in Zeitschrift fur Neutestamentliche Wissenschaftlisch, 73 (1982): 136).
11. Leonora Leet, The Secret Doctrine of the Kabbalah, Recovering the Key to Hebraic Sacred Science, Inner Traditions, 1999: 220.
12. Leonora Leet, The Universal Kabbalah, Deciphering the Cosmic Code in the Sacred Geometry of the Sabbath Star Diagram, Inner Traditions, 2004: 12.
It is difficult to say what part of the Bible has had more commentary and interpretation, but Genesis 1:1 certainly has to be included within this orbit of exegetic analysis performed on the Bible through the centuries. Many biblical scholars analyze it with the comparison of the Babylonian creation account The Enuma Elish and Mesopotamian along with Ugaritic texts.[1] Genesis is nothing actually unique, just another run of the mill creation account which are manifest throughout the Ancient Near East by dozens of ancient empires and their own creation myths. This has been the more or less mundane exegetical conclusion to it all.
It wasn’t until later in Christian times when Creation Ex Nihilo was proposed and defended in early Christian cosmology, by the early Christian Church Fathers, based upon the interesting fact that it “is a polemical doctrine invoked to defend the belief in bodily resurrection!”[2] The Jews had never had anything like a systematic theology having to do with much of a resurrection, so they didn’t worry about it since their view was that “God created from pre-existing matter,” even up into the Middle Ages.[3]
The Zohar takes us to a different dimension than even these. The sacred dimension of geometry. And they don’t do so with clarity, but they make us dig, and dig deep. It isn’t easy, it’s downright mystifying because they are mythologizing their sacred narratives giving us a “secondary mythological order” giving greater cosmic meaning to the geometrical constructs based upon the language, essentially an extension of the text, due to its being a “most precisely mathematical model having its own scientific validation.”[4] In essence, “mythology recapitulates geometry. This is not to deny the truth of such mythology but to recognize it as a second order of truth, one based upon the absolute truths of its geometric models and giving to each systematic interpretation the quality of secondary or symbolic truth.
The persuasiveness with which geometric forms can be associated with mythological symbols further suggests that the mythological and geometric levels of the mind lie close together and that it is in terms of such mythology that the mind first interprets its geometric understanding into linguistic symbols…[their] explanations of the Torah is “a fact that serves to validate their mythology as symbolic expressions of absolute truths.”[5] It is precisely the controls involved in the actual construction of geometric models that give to such models a truth value lacking in an arbitrary ‘invented’ theoretical model.” What we have is something quite beautiful. “The association of a particular geometry with biblical and kabbalistic texts, the geometry serving to order and validate concepts of the specifically earlier Jewish tradition and these concepts providing a reciprocal enlargement of the diagram’s power of signification by demonstrating its power to model them.”[6]
We begin our journey with בראשית ברא אלהימ (Beresheith bara Elohim), the first words in the Bible. One of the most famous Jewish commentators, Rashi, noted one Jewish view - “If you would come to explain it according to its simple meaning, explain it as follows: In the beginning of the creation of the heavens and the earth…”[7] Gary Anderson lays out the issue clearly, is the open phrase a prepositional or a temporal clause? In other words is this an absolute beginning, or does a translation such as “When God began to created the heavens and the earth…” work?[8]
“Rabbi Yudai said, ‘What is בראשית ( Be-resheith)? With Wisdom. This is the Wisdom on which the world stands - through which one enters hidden, high mysteries. Here were engraved six vast, supernal dimensions, from which everything emerges, from which issued six springs and streams, flowing into the immense ocean. This is ברא שית (bara sheith), created six.”[9]
Incidentally this has a direct parallel to John 1:1 the Greek being Ἐν ἀρχἡ ἦν ὁ λὁγος (en arche en ho logos), in the beginning was the Word… This is the nature of the beginning mentioned in the Hebrew of Genesis 1:1. Gunther Schwarz noted in 1956 was discovered an exciting Palestinian Targum that read like John 1:1 - “Von Amfang her mit Weisheit brachte hervor (das Wort) Jahwes und vollendete die Himmel und Erde. Und es beendete das Wort Jahwes am siebsten Tage sein Werk, das es hervorbrachte... Erregend sind diese Zeilen deswegen, weil in ihnen, in einer typisch targumischen Paraphrase (inhaltlich vollig aquivalent), ausgesprochen ist, was wir bislang so nur aus dem Johannesprolog kannten.”
(From the beginning with wisdom brought forth (the word) Yahweh and perfected the heavens and earth. And the word of Yahweh ended his work on the seventh day, which it produced ... These lines are exciting because in them, in a typical Targumian paraphrase (completely equivalent in content), what we have so far only found in the prologue of St. John.)[10]
The Zohar idea is fascinating with “the basic geometric progression from point, through line, to circle, and then to the marking of radial arc points is described in relation to the first processes of creation” ;The Most Mysterious struck its void, and caused this point to shine. This beginning then extended, and made for itself a palace for its honor and glory… from this point onward bara sheith, he created six.’”[11]
This then is describing a geometric process. “The six vast, supernal directions would have to be those defined by the six points inscribed on the primal circle in the regular procession of geometric growth… the next stage here being suggested for the creation process, the joining of these six radial arc points in the form of a hexagram, would also seem to be suggested in the Baraita de Ma’aseh Beresheith:
HE EXTENDS THE HEAVENS AS A VEIL.
Why are they called heavens? It is because the Holy One, Blessed be He, had mingled the fire
with the water, spreading out the one with the other in creating the heavens, as it is said: IT IS
MY HAND WHICH HAS FOUNDED THE EARTH AND MY RIGHT HAND WHICH HAS
STRETCHED OUT THE HEAVENS. You shouldn’t read it as ‘heavens’ but as ‘fire and waters.’
He formed seven abodes on high… He Stretched the heavens above.[12]
The idea of the creating of the fire and waters is given in geometric terms as the conjoining of two triangles, an up pointed and down pointed that have joined together in the Star of David, or the Seal of Solomon. This is done by connecting the six primal dots on a circle created with a compass, using the same length of the open arms of the compass which created the circle, to then mark six points along the circumference of the circle. It is from those six points that we connected into a hexagram. The Creation is all about sacred geometric processes.
Endnotes
1. George J. Brook, “Creation in the Biblical Tradition,” Zygon, 22, (June, 1987); Joseph P. Schultz, “Creation: Genesis or Theogony?,” in Sinai and Olympus, University Press of America, 1995; Nicholas Wyatt, “The Darkness of Genesis 1:2,” in Vetus Testamentum, 1993; C. F. Whitley, “The Pattern of Creation in Genesis Chapter 1,” in Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 17, 1958. This is a small sampling representative of many dozens of studies in this area.
2. Jonathan A. Goldstein, “The Origins of the Doctrine of Creation Ex Nihilo,” in Journal of Jewish Studies, XXXV, No. 2 (Autumn 1984): 134.
3. Goldstein, Ibid., p. 127.
4. Leonora Leet, The Universal Kabbalah, Inner Traditions, 2004: 47, 48.
5. Leet, Ibid., p. 48.
6. Leet, Ibid., p. 46.
7. The Torah: With Rashi’s Commentary Translated, Annotated, and Elucidated, by Rabbi Yisrael Isser Zvi Herczeg, Mesorah Publications, 9th impression, 2005: 3.
8. Gary Anderson, “The Interpretation of Genesis 1:1 in the Targums,” in The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 52, (1990): 21f. See also P. Schafer, “Beresit Bara Elohim, Zur Interpretation von Genesis 1,1 in der Rabbinischen Literatur,” in Journal of the Study of Judaism, Vol 1-3, (1972-1974): 162. Who notes the apodosis is Als Gott anfing, die Himmel und die Erde zu erschaffen, “When God started creating the heavens and the earth.”
9. Zohar, translated by Daniel Matt, Pritzker edition, 12 vols., Stanford University Press, (2004), 1: 17. (There are numerous ways of referencing the Zohar. I will simply put the volume and page number in this paper. So 1:17 means vol. 1, p. 17.
10. Gunther Schwarz, “Gen 1 1 2 2a und Joh 1 1a.3a - ein Vergleich,” in Zeitschrift fur Neutestamentliche Wissenschaftlisch, 73 (1982): 136).
11. Leonora Leet, The Secret Doctrine of the Kabbalah, Recovering the Key to Hebraic Sacred Science, Inner Traditions, 1999: 220.
12. Leonora Leet, The Universal Kabbalah, Deciphering the Cosmic Code in the Sacred Geometry of the Sabbath Star Diagram, Inner Traditions, 2004: 12.
