Parshat Bereshit - Bereshit (Genesis) 1:1- 6:8
In the Beginning G-d - A Tale of Two Creations
by: Shmuel ben Shlomi
Parshas Bereshit opens with the creation of the universe and planet Earth.
“Bereshit bara Elohim et ha’Shamaim v’et ha’Aretz.”
“בראשית ברא אלוהים את השמים ואת הארץ”
“In the beginning Elohim created the Heavens and the Earth.”
I have often pondered a question concerning how Genesis began with this word Bereshit. Since, after years of study I had become aware of just how meticulous the Hebrew language is and the lengths to which the writer(s) and redactors of the Torah were at the time of its creation when given to Moshe on Sinai and all the many times Jewish scribes poured over it to ensure not one dot or tittle was out of place. How, or better, why, did the very first word in the very first sentence of HaShem’s greatest gift to His children not begin with the very first letter of the Hebrew language instead of the second letter?
After all that time of wondering and studying and not seeing the same question queried by those scholars and sages of Hebrew and the Torah a lot more engaged into its understanding than myself, at least not in any of their writings I ever came across; I began to think that perhaps I was the only person out there who thought about this. That is until most recently when I was reading a book by renowned economist and researcher into ancient languages such as Sumerian, Assyrian and Hebrew, author Zecharia Sitchin within the pages of his book “Divine Encounters - A Guide to Visions, Angels, and other Emissaries.” It was here that I met a kindred soul who had also wondered the same thing and he did more than ponder, being a linguist he researched it and realized what that first verse would have read like had the Aleph been used in that opening verse of the very first book of the Torah.
It would have rendered the verse as:
Ab’ereshit bara Elohim et Ha’Shamaim v’et Ha’Aretz.”
“The Father-of-Beginning created the Elohim, the Heavens, and the Earth.”
Wow! This was a mind blowing revelation. This made the first verse of Torah incredibly concise, clear and fully understandable as it relates to the true beginnings of all things — things spirit, things universal and things Earthly. It also made clear that The Father of Beginning creates nothing a void or chaotic.
“The Father of Beginning created all that is.” — PERIOD!
Then we are left with one other important question. When did this creation take place and what happened between HaShem’s perfectly created everything to the chaotic void and mess of darkness we find from the perspective of planet Earth?
We now know from astrophysics that the observable universe began approximately 13.8 billion years ago and planet Earth came into existence around 4.5 billion years ago. However, in HaShem’s order of creation with the use of the Aleph we now know that sometime before the creation of the universe and the Earth the Elohim — spirit beings - you and me in our true higher states, the messengers (always mistranslated as angels) and perhaps other spirit beings throughout the creation were formed. At some point in the distant historical past sometime after the Earth was created 4.5 billion years ago some kind of cataclysmic event took place that caused the Earth to lie in turmoil and chaos. What that event was we may never know on this side of eternity but the Torah makes clear from its language that whatever it was a reformation or better, a reclamation project was needed. What we find in Chapter 1 verses 2 through 31 is the reemergence of that Earth. How long that process took is anybody’s guess. However, in Chapter 2 verse 1 we learn that whatever HaShem did to recover his Earth creation and however long it actually took it was completed on the Earth and the immediate space around it and all was good, culminating with His pinnacle of creation once the Earth was fit for habitation of said creature — the human being now ready to be infused with those spirits created by HaShem in antiquity past before all else came into existence.
“…all at once Science and Religion, Physics and Metaphysics, converge into one single answer that conforms to the credo of Jewish monotheism: ‘I AM YHVH, there is none beside Me!’ It is a credo that carried the prophets and us with them, from the arena of gods to the G-d who embraces the universe.” (Zecharia Sitchin)
Shabbat Shalom!