בראשית - (א)Unit 1 חלק א: מהו בריאת שמים וארץ?

(1) When God began to create heaven and earth— (2) the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water— (3) God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. (4) God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. (5) God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, a first day.

בראשית ברא IN THE BEGINNING GOD CREATED — This verse calls aloud for explanation in the manner that our Rabbis explained it: God created the world for the sake of the Torah which is called (Proverbs 8:22) “The beginning (ראשית) of His (God’s) way”, and for the sake of Israel who are called (Jeremiah 2:3) “The beginning (ראשית) of His (God’s) increase’’. If, however, you wish to explain it in its plain sense, explain it thus: At the beginning of the Creation of heaven and earth when the earth was without form and void and there was darkness, God said, “Let there be light”. The text does not intend to point out the order of the acts of Creation — to state that these (heaven and earth) were created first; for if it intended to point this out, it should have written 'בראשונה ברא את השמים וגו “At first God created etc.” And for this reason: Because, wherever the word ראשית occurs in Scripture, it is in the construct state. E. g., (Jeremiah 26:1) “In the beginning of (בראשית) the reign of Jehoiakim”; (Genesis 10:10) “The beginning of (ראשית) his kingdom”; (Deuteronomy 18:4) “The first fruit of (ראשית) thy corn.” Similarly here you must translate בראשית ברא אלהים as though it read בראשית ברוא, at the beginning of God’s creating. A similar grammatical construction (of a noun in construct followed by a verb) is: (Hosea 1:2) תחלת דבר ה' בהושע, which is as much as to say, “At the beginning of God’s speaking through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea.” Should you, however, insist that it does actually intend to point out that these (heaven and earth) were created first, and that the meaning is, “At the beginning of everything He created these, admitting therefore that the word בראשית is in the construct state and explaining the omission of a word signifying “everything” by saying that you have texts which are elliptical, omitting a word, as for example (Job 3:10) “Because it shut not up the doors of my mother’s womb” where it does not explicitly explain who it was that closed the womb; and (Isaiah 8:4) “He shall take away the spoil of Samaria” without explaining who shall take it away; and (Amos 6:12) “Doth he plough with oxen," and it does not explicitly state, “Doth a man plough with oxen”; (Isaiah 46:10) “Declaring from the beginning the end,” and it does not explicitly state, “Declaring from the beginning of a thing the end of a thing’ — if it is so (that you assert that this verse intends to point out that heaven and earth were created first), you should be astonished at yourself, because as a matter of fact the waters were created before heaven and earth, for, lo, it is written, (v. 2) “The Spirit of God was hovering on the face of the waters,” and Scripture had not yet disclosed when the creation of the waters took place — consequently you must learn from this that the creation of the waters preceded that of the earth. And a further proof that the heavens and earth were not the first thing created is that the heavens were created from fire (אש) and water (מים), from which it follows that fire and water were in existence before the heavens. Therefore you must needs admit that the text teaches nothing about the earlier or later sequence of the acts of Creation.

בראשית, at the beginning of time; this is the first moment which is indivisible into shorter periods.. There had not been a concept “time” previous to this, i.e. there had only been unbroken continuity. (The author perceives “time” as one of the creations. Ed.]

ברא, He had converted “nothing” into “something.” There had been no need to invoke “time” in order to accomplish this.

In the beginning: Rashi wrote, "If you are coming to explain it according to its simple meaning, explain it thus: At the beginning of the creation of the heavens and the earth and the earth was chaos and void and darkness, God said, 'let there be light'" If so, everything follows the creation of the light. And Rabbi Avraham (Ibn Ezra) himself [also] explained it in this way; except he [added] that the letter, vav, in the word, vehaarets (and the earth) does not come to serve [what it introduces, as it generally does to indicate a sequence] and there are many [examples] of this in Scripture. And [its explanation according to Ibn Ezra] is that at the beginning of the creation of the firmament and the dry land, there was no habitation on the earth, but [rather] there was chaos and void covered in water, and God said, 'let there be light.' And according to his opinion, nothing [else] was created on the first day, only the light. And the difficulty for our teacher, Shlomo (Rashi), in this explanation is that he said, that if [the verse] is coming to teach the order of the creation with [the heavens and the earth], to tell us that they came first, it should have written, barishona (at first); as there is no [usage of the word,] reishit (beginning of) in the Bible except as a relational [term, and so it is indication that light was created at the beginning of God's creating the heavens and the earth]. And behold, "He will tell the beginning (reishit) from the end" (Isaiah 46:10) [is not relational to anything explicit]. And if he can make that relational to 'the word' (so that the verse would read, "the beginning of the word from the end of the word"), [which does not appear] (something which Rashi actually does), then he can make this relational [to a word which does not appear as well, in which case, the verse would read, "In the beginning of everything, God created the heavens and the earth]. And also [the same applies to (Deuteronomy 33:21), "and he saw a beginning (reishit ) for himself." And our teacher made more claims about this. And now, listen to a correct and clear explanation of the text according to its simple understanding (peshuto). The Holy One, blessed be He, created all of the creations from absolute nothingness. And we have no other expression in the Holy Tongue for bringing out something from nothing than "bara" (which is found almost exclusively in this verse). And none of all that which was made - 'under the sun' or above - existed [directly] from nothing. Rather, He brought out a very fine element from complete nothingness; it has no substance, but it is the energy that can create, that is able to accept a form and to go from the potential to the actual. And this is the first material [and] is called hyle by the Greeks. And after hyle, He didn't create anything, but [rather] formed and made [the creations]; since it is from it that He brought everything forth and clothed the forms and refined them. And know that the heavens and all that is in them are one material, and the earth and all that is within it is [another] material; and the Holy One, blessed be He, created both of them from nothing - and the two of them alone were created, and everything was made from them. And this material that they called hyle is called tohu (chaos) in the Holy Tongue. And the word['s definition is understood by looking at] the language of [the Sages] (Kiddushin 40b), "with one that is toha (wonders) about the earlier ones." Since were a person to define a name for it, he would wonder and deliberate to give it another name, since it has not taken a form, such that a name would fit it at all. And the form that fashions this material is called bohu (void) in the Holy Tongue. And this word is [a] compound [that is made up of two words, bo (within it) and hu (it)], meaning within it, is it. [And even though it is missing the letter vav in the first part of the compound,] it is like the word, [osehu (to do it), in the phrase] (Exodus 18:18) "you are not able to do it," which is missing a vav and an alef, [and fully spelled out would be the two words,] oseh (to do) and hu (it). And this is what the verse is stating (Isaiah 34:11), "and He shall stretch upon it the line of tohu and the stones of bohu;" since [this] is the line (kav) with which the craftsman will seal the plans of his building and that which he hopes (yikveh) to do - [and that word's] definition [is understood] from [the phrase], (Psalms 27:14) "Hope (kaveh) to the Lord." And the stones are the forms of the building. And so it is written (Isaiah 40:17), "less than nothing and tohu are they considered to Him;" [such] that tohu is after nothing and [is also] not a thing. And this is what they stated in Sefer Yetzirah, "He created substance from tohu and made 'it is not' [into] 'it is.'" And they also said in the midrash of Rabbi Nechunia ben Hakaneh (Sefer HaBahir), "Rabbi Berachia said, 'that which is written, "and the earth was tohu and bohu," what is meant [by] "was?" That it already was tohu. And [if so,] what is bohu? Rather, it was tohu - and what is tohu? Something that makes people wonder - and it went back to being bohu - and what is bohu? Something that has substance to it, as it is written, "in it is it (bo hu)."'"

בראשית, According to the plain meaning of the text, i.e. what is known as the פשט the meaning of the word בראשית is: "at the beginning." If, nonetheless, the Torah did not write the word בראשונה “at the beginning,” an unmistakable expression, this is because the expression בראשיתincludes so many more and exalted meanings than does the word .בראשונה

The fact is however, that the word is not a possessive form at all but an independent word and it is equivalent to the Torah having written בראשונה. Proof of this is found in the tone-sign tipcha on the word which separates it from the word which follows it.
The paragraph tells us that heaven and earth with all their derivatives were created on the first day, all of them without there having preceded them any physical matter at all. This fact is attested to by the word ברא which describes the creation of "something out of nothing." This, at any rate, is the opinion of Rabbi Nechemyah who is quoted to this effect in Midrash Tanchuma at the beginning of our portion. On the other hand, Rabbi Yehudah, who disagrees with him, claims that the universe was created during six days. He bases himself on the repeated directives of the Torah that something new should emerge and the Torah's reporting that indeed it did, using the words ויהי כן to inform us that G'd's instructions had been carried out. Rabbi Nechemyah claims that the proof that the whole universe was created already on the first day are the words (1,24) תוצא הארץ “let the earth bring forth." The wording "bring forth" indicates that G'd referred to matters which had already been in existence ready to emerge but had not yet seen the light of day until commanded to do so by G'd. The matter can be compared to a farmer who sows six grains of corn at the same time only to find that they take root at different times instead of all sprouting forth simultaneously. The six days of creation described by the Torah report the sequence in which G'd's creative activity became manifest. This is what the Psalmist had in mind (Psalms 33,9) כי הוא אמר ויהי i.e. “for He had given a directive and then it materialised." David taught us that G'd's directive and its execution as visible fact occurs simultaneously. Afterwards, (the creation of heaven and earth) He gave these various directives introduced by the Torah with the words ויאמר אלוקים and G'd's work became manifest, was converted from being a potential to becoming actual.

Looked at from an homiletical point of view, the extra words את in the phrase "heaven and earth," include the sun, moon, stars in the case of the word שמים and the entire range of vegetation in the case of the word ארץ.

Looking at the words בראשית ברא אלקים את השמים ואת הארץ from a rationalistic, investigative point of view, it is a well known fact that the universe is divided into three basic spheres. One sphere comprises the world of angels, i.e. celestial regions; the second sphere is what we call "outer space," the sphere of the planetary system; the third sphere is our own terrestrial world. All three parts of the universe were created by the same invisible force. The word בראשית is an allusion to this mysterious force which is the origin of everything in creation, a force which itself knew no beginning. First, this force created the celestial regions and the angels therein. These are called אלקים in the Scriptures. The world of planets is called שמים; our own terrestrial world is known as הארץ. It is due to these considerations that the Torah could not commence by writing אלקים ברא בראשית, but had to write בראשית ברא אלקים in order for the word ברא to refer back to the word בראשית. This enabled us to appreciate that a mysterious force called בראשית created the region of the angels known as אלקים. The term "earth" includes such phenomena as the moon and anything closer to earth than the moon. The next verse explains this in greater detail when the Torah writes: והארץ היתה תהו ובהו, that the part of the universe known as the terrestrial region had been in a chaotic state at the time when the Torah had described the commencement of creation, i.e. ברא. The subject that is referred to as having been in a state of chaos are the four basic elements the existence of which had been hinted at in the previous verse as we explained earlier.

Let us now turn to the mystical aspects of Torah, קבלה, revealed in our verses thus far. The words בראשית ברא אלוקים את השמים ואת הארץ contain within them an allusion to the ten sefirot, "emanations." The "Heaven and Earth" referred to here are the celestial counterparts of our terrestrial universe. These are not part of the planetary system. They are referred to in Psalms 68,34 as שמי קדם וארץ החיים, "the ancient heavens." The term ארץ החיים, refers to what is known in Psalms 142,6 , "the land of (eternal) life." The word בראשית, on the other hand, is an allusion to the true wisdom, similar to what the Psalmist describes asיראת ה' ראשית חכמה, "the beginning of true wisdom is reverence for the Lord." The letter ב in בראשית refers to the "second" of the emanations, i.e. חכמה, counting from אין, the highest emanation downwards. You will observe therefore that both the word ראשית and its first letter ב, are testimony to the Supreme wisdom which was at work when the universe was created. Seeing that everything is derived from this wisdom, the letter is written in larger script to alert the reader to this thought. Although this is the second letter in the alphabet it is the first one when it comes to what we can comprehend. [seeing that it is beyond us to comprehend the essence of the One represented by the letter א Ed.] The meaning of the phrase then is: "the wisdom with which the universe was created is known as אין." Anything preceding that act of creation is out of bounds for us to investigate. This is why the emanation above that of חכמה is known as אין, nothing. [In our days this emanation is known as כתר. Ed.]. The reason that the tenth emanation was named אין is based on Psalms 111,10 ,והחכמה מאין תמצא "How could you find the (type) of wisdom which is beyond (physical) existence?" The line in Psalms would have to be understood as an announcement rather than as a question when accepting this interpretation.
At any rate, even this ultimate aspect of wisdom is somehow alluded to in the shape of the protruding bottom of the letter ב. This is what the Kabbalists had in mind when they said: "if they ask the letter ב 'who has created you?' it will point its protrusion in the direction of where the letter א should have preceded it (Bereshit Rabbah 1,14)." This letter is the true כתר, "the crown of the universe."