When we consider the creation of the world, we often imagine it as creation from nothing. Yet, in Genesis we read that the earth was תוהו ובוהו “tohu va’vohu”- “chaos and void”- before God’s creative process even began. Chaos and void are the raw materials of Creation. God delves into chaos and void and transforms these elements into land, stars, animals and human beings. Within each one of us there exists elements of chaos and void. Just as God transforms the “tohu va’vohu” of the world, during this month of teshuva each of us are invited to work with all that is unresolved, complicated or unclear within ourselves and to transform what we find. - JSP
- Timer
- 1 sheet of paper
- Any kind of drawing, sketching or painting supplies
- Set a timer for 1 minute.
- Close your eyes. Without lifting your marker from the page, move it around chaotically for the full minute
- When the timer goes off, open your eyes and see what’s before you
- Create from what’s there on the page using any material you’d like in any way that feels pleasing to you.
Reflection Questions:
In this exercise you created from chaos.
- What did it feel like to create chaos on the page?
- What was it like to open your eyes and see what you had created? Were you pleased? Overwhelmed? Inspired? Anxious? Something else?
- How did you choose to work with what was there?
- How might the concept of creating from tohu va’vohu be helpful during this month of reflection, renewal and reconciliation? What chaos and void within you, or in the world, might you seek to transform?
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What is your initial reaction to these opening verses of the Torah? What images, questions, sensations do these verses evoke for you?
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How would you describe God’s creative process? What do you see as the steps?
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What do you notice about the specific verbs that are used? What sort of feelings do those bring up for you?
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What insight can you draw from this text about your own creative process?
שבעה דברים נבראו קודם שנברא העולם ואלו הן תורה ותשובה וגן עדן וגיהנם וכסא הכבוד ובית המקדש ושמו של משיח
Wasn’t it taught in a baraita: Seven phenomena were created before the world was created, and they are: Torah, and repentance, and the Garden of Eden, and Gehenna, and the Throne of Glory, and the Temple, and the name of Messiah.
- What does this text reveal about the meaning of Teshuvah?
- What are the implications of saying that Teshuvah was created pior to the world's creation?
- Where do you see Teshuva being created in this pre-creation/chaos and void period?
‘When we forget the essence of our own soul… everything becomes confused and in doubt. The primary teshuva, that which immediately lights the darkness, is when a person returns to himself, to the root of his soul – then he will immediately return to God, to the soul of all souls’.
- How does one forget the essence of their own soul? What does that look like?
- What do you think the text means by "primary teshuvah"?
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Chaos and void is often spoken of together, let’s tease these two words apart. What images, thoughts and sensations do you associate with the word “chaos”? What about “void”? What does each bring up for you?
פִּילוֹסוֹפִי אֶחָד שָׁאַל אֶת רַבָּן גַּמְלִיאֵל, אֲמַר לֵיהּ צַיָּר גָּדוֹל הוּא אֱלֹהֵיכֶם, אֶלָּא שֶׁמָּצָא סַמְּמָנִים טוֹבִים שֶׁסִּיְּעוּ אוֹתוֹ, תֹּהוּ, וָבֹהוּ, וְחשֶׁךְ, וְרוּחַ, וּמַיִם, וּתְהוֹמוֹת. ...
A philosopher once questioned Rabban Gamliel and said to him, ''Your God is only a great artist because God found great materials that helped him: tohu and vohu, darkness, spirit, water, and the depths."...
In the creation of the world, chaos and void are the raw materials of Creation. God digs into chaos and void and transforms these elements into land, stars, animals and human beings. Within each one of us there exists some amount of chaos and void. We may experience these elements as frightening and wish to avoid them when, in fact, they are precious materials awaiting transformation. Just as God transforms the “tohu va’vohu” of the world, so too are each of us invited to delve into the chaos and void within ourselves and to transform what we find through the sacred process of creating.
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Why might the philosopher in this text consider these elements that preexisted creation as useful in God’s process of creating the world?
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Tradition teaches “adam olam katan, olam adam gadol” - the human is a microcosm of the universe, the universe a macrocosm of the human being. If we were to understand “chaos, void, darkness, water, wind and depths” existing within each of us - what might we see these as metaphors for?
- Why is it important to the rabbis to teach that God created and destroyed many worlds before our world?
- What does this teach about God? What does this teach about our world? What might it teach about us?
What does this midrash teach about the act of creation and destruction?
...Viewing the story of Creation as a model from which to learn about the human process of creating, it is interesting to examine whether a cognitive state of "unformed and void" relates to the processes by which human beings are creative. For example, everyone who creates might have to "break" and "disorganize" the familiar picture of the world in order to free himself from it and view reality in another way. Current research dealing with creative thought indeed supports this assertion and points to the need for a sort of tohu va-vohu, or a certain measure of what one might term cognitive chaos, in order to discover and create something new in all walks of human creativity. These findings associate the state of being "unformed and void" that preceded Creation with a universal human state which is a precondition for the ability to create….
(יד) הוּא הָיָה אוֹמֵר, אִם אֵין אֲנִי לִי, מִי לִי. וּכְשֶׁאֲנִי לְעַצְמִי, מָה אֲנִי. וְאִם לֹא עַכְשָׁיו, אֵימָתָי:
(14) He [Rabbi Hillel] used to say: If I am not for me, who will be for me? And when I am for myself alone, what am I? And if not now, then when?
וְאֵין אֶחָד מֵהֶן דּוֹמֶה לַחֲבֵרוֹ. לְפִיכָךְ כָּל אֶחָד וְאֶחָד חַיָּב לוֹמַר, בִּשְׁבִילִי נִבְרָא הָעוֹלָם.
and yet no man is quite like his friend. Therefore, every person must say, “For my sake the world was created.”
On one he wrote: Bishvili nivra ha-olam—“for my sake the world was created.”
On the other he wrote: V’anokhi afar v’efer”—“I am but dust and ashes.”
He would take out each slip of paper as necessary, as a reminder to himself.
-what does it mean to return to yourself?
-where in the Torah do we see this concept?
- The true work of Elul and the High Holy Days is figure out how you will answer the question "Eicha" Where are you?
- What are the other questions you use to help you figure out where you are?
- We began by learning that Teshuvah helps one return to the path of rigtheousness, that's a loaded word. How do you understand righteousness now in light of the commentaries above?
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What is the author saying about chaos and void in this piece? What is your reaction to these ideas?
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We might say we are living at a time of great “chaos” and “void.” How are you experiencing chaos / void in this moment?
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It is from the state of chaos and void that God’s creative process begins and the entire world is born. Are there sparks of beginnings for you in this moment?
To all that is chaotic
in you,
let there come silence.
Let there be
a calming
of the clamoring,
a stilling
of the voices that
have laid their claim
on you,
that have made their
home in you,
that go with you
even to the
holy places
but will not
let you rest,
will not let you
hear your life
with wholeness
or feel the grace
that fashioned you.
Let what distracts you
Cease.
Let what divides you
Cease.
Let there come an end
to what diminishes
and demeans,
and let depart
all that keeps you
in its cage.
Let there be
an opening
into the quiet
that lies beneath
the chaos,
where you find
the peace
you did not think
Possible
and see what shimmers
within the storm.
How does this poem speak to the texts explored in this source sheet?