Bresheet (Genesis 1:1 - 6:8) Part 2   back to Part 1    to Lesson List     or Home

If we recall our above example of the builder of his house, and that the beginning lies within the end, we will be able to apply it here. It was Hashem’s first desire to create a world where He could reside.  Hence, His light, which is parallel with His Glory. Therefore, His first utterance was “let there be light.” For that is His true desire, His will. He wishes to be seen and experienced in a revealed way. He condensed His greatness, that which lies above and beyond comprehension, and He constricted it into a form which would be able to exist, almost as if, separate from Him. It would allow for a creation to take place, and a creation to exist. A creation which is nothing other than His existence. The Light. Since light, or Himself revealed, is thus the purpose of creation, and the creation itself, and the purpose is the first thing decided upon within the order of work, light was created on the first day. Each additional creation was captured in that opening phrase; “let there be light…” within it the first intention, the first desire. Just as our builder’s bricks, as they are accumulating to build his house, they are motivated and filled by the energy which lies within his intellect, his will, his first desire. This is alluded to in the phrase; “God saw the light was good” Each following day of creation ends with the phrase, “and it was good.” The light filled each and every day, pushing creation through each step. Shaping it to meet the Divine Will of the Creator, in a hidden form. We can now understand why the Zohar was alluding to the equivalency of the two words, light and secret. When our builder sets out to build his house, his final intentions are not at all apparent to the observer. They are only visible within the mind of the builder. When the work is complete, it will become apparent to all bystanders. Such is the case with our world. When it reaches it’s prescribed perfection, 6000 years, it’s purpose (light) will become revealed. This may merit some explanation for those who are not familiar with the term of 6000 years. The 6000 years correspond to the six days of creation, and then there will be 1000 years of Shabbat (Moshiach). These are the seven days of which our reading corresponds to. We are now in the year 5762 since the creation of Adam HaRishon (Adam the first). Therefore, we have completed 5000 years, corresponding to Thursday, and we are within Friday, the 6th day, the day before Shabbat. Many may say; “Okay, but it’s only Friday, Shabbat is not until Saturday.” That is not the case at all for those who understand the mysteries and observances of Shabbat, will surely confirm that Shabbat does not start on Saturday, but rather on Friday evening. One may start Shabbat any time after the greater part of the day has passed. Even within the Shabbat Kiddush (a prayer with which to bless the day) which we make, we do not start it out by speaking of the Seventh day, but rather it starts with the “last part of the verse in Torah which belongs to the sixth day. It comes from this chapter, Beresheet; "The sixth day, the heavens and the earth and all their hosts were completed. God finished by the Seventh day His work which He had done…” At the very end of the sixth day, the very beginning of our Shabbat Kiddush, the divine, merciful name, “Hashem” appears (hidden). Phonetically the above verse reads; “Yom Hashishi Vayechulo Hashemayim…” The first letters of each word spell YHVH, the divine name.

We work for six days, and that which we labored for six days, we enjoy on Shabbat. It is the mundane which we pull into the Holy. The six days is what we pull into the seventh. Just as Hashem did within the creation. He created it with his Name Elokim, however, it is that very name of order, justice, and construction which leads to the ultimate influx of His hidden Glory, divine Name, and hidden Light. The ultimate revealed purpose of the Creator. Where is the Light hidden? In the Torah. Just as an architect’s drawings guide the builder’s hands, so too, Torah guides us, through learning and the performance of the commandments, in shaping the world to its fulfillment.

Many times the phrase “the chosen people” comes up, but this phrase is commonly misunderstood. Many comprehend this phrase as meaning superior, but that is not the case.  If someone in the secular world tells you that you have been chosen, your first response would be, “for what?” This is exactly the issue here. Hashem chose the Jewish people for our service, not to lay idle and scratch our bellies. A king of flesh and blood has a kingdom, and within that kingdom he has subjects. This is what makes him the active king. His subjects know little about the ways of the king, they only know that he is the king, he protects them, and they must do a certain number of things in order to live within his kingdom. However, within the kingdom he also has a palace where he resides, and within this palace he has his “chosen” servants. These servants differ from the subjects because their list of service to the king is much more intricate than that of the subjects who dwell outside of the palace walls within the secure kingdom. The servants of his palace are trained in all the necessary protocols of the king. They know how he likes his bed, his food, his chair, his garden, etc. Is their value more important than that of the subjects which reside within the kingdom, outside of the palace walls, or  just different.

A Jew is a servant of the King. A subject will always be a subject, however, a servant who does not wish to serve his king, will never be an equal to his subjects outside of the palace, he will be placed below the subjects. Mocked by even the subjects. They will not comprehend his refusal to serve a just king. “Light” is the purpose of every Jew. He must emulate the creation by extracting the light from within the darkness. The Holy from within the mundane. All of the mundane was created by Hashem, and Hashem is Good, hence, all mundane is good, even though it may appear as “bad” (darkness), as explained above. There is good within it, because the light was formed from the essence of the darkness. This is what the Talmud means when it says that when Hashem says “very good” in the Torah, it refers to the angel of death. Why? Because we cannot comprehend the goodness which lies within the darkness. Our vessels cannot sustain it. It has not been condensed yet to form a revealed light, a revealed goodness. Therefore, it is a hidden goodness, and when it is thrust upon us, violently, without the proper, delicate constrictions, it overwhelms us, and it enters into our vessels (our comprehension, our intellect) as “bad.” Or, as the Talmud puts it, the angel of death. It is not a good which can be perceived by all who see it, but it is a “very good.” It goes beyond a comprehensible good. [More will discussed about this Talmudic observation in Chapter Bo].

If light is the purpose of every created thing, it follows that it must also be the purpose of darkness itself. For darkness has a purpose, not merely that it should exist to be avoided, but that it should be transformed into light. A perceivable goodness. If man should sometimes despair, in the oppressive darkness of a wayward world, of making light prevail, let alone of turning the bad itself into good, he is told at the very first; “In the beginning God created…”  The Hebrew word for “beginning,” actually means, for the sake of the beginning. For the sake of Israel, who are also called the beginning of God’s produce and for the sake of Torah, which is also called the beginning of God’s way. The world was made so that Israel, through Torah, should turn it into the everlasting light of God’s revealed presence, in the Messianic fulfillment of Isaiah’s words,  “The sun shall no more be your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give you light, but the Lord shall be for you a light everlasting.”

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