How to begin? This is a dilemma that many of us face repeatedly in various situations in our lives. But none of us have had to face it in quite the way that Hashem needed to confront the problem of beginning at the outset of the Torah. It’s not just that it had never been done before, but, rather, how do you begin when you have no beginning? Ein Sof, the One Without End, is also Ein Tachlit, The One Without Beginning. So the question becomes not only HOW to begin, but WHAT IS “beginning” for such a One?
Kabbalah has already extensively dealt with the question of transition from the infinite to the finite, and the entire array and interaction of the sefirot and their various constellations are in part a response to this question. But in addition to the ontological question indicated above, there is an epistemological question of perhaps greater moment: How does Hashem begin the Torah such that people get off on the right foot? How does He avoid embedding the seeds of error in the very beginning?
The Midrash explicates this when it raises the concern that some, upon reading the first words of the Torah, Bereshit bara E-lohim…, might come to the conclusion that some entity called Bereshit created G-d! Presumably, this interpretive problem could have been avoided had the Torah began E-lohim bara bereshit...
But this is also not possible: Hashem wanted to begin the Torah with blessing, berachah, hinted at by the letter Bet, of bereshit, and not with curse, hinted at by the alef of …E-lohim!!! What!! How could the name of G-d ever hint at curse!!??
It can, if by beginning with a name, indicating an entity, the reader will conjure up an image. Any image – there lie the roots of misperception of the divine by assuming perception. Better to let Him “slip”in a few words later, even at the price of problematic syntax and grammatical confusion.
Because that’s certainly what the Torah gives us to begin with. Bereshit, as is already well known, does not me “in the beginning”. The word “Reshit” is a semichut form, always relating to the noun that follows it. (The few places where it seems to stand alone are poetic passages, where unusual forms and usages predominate). Bereshit, then, means “in the beginning of..”, and we have to turn our attention to the second word to uncover WHAT it is the beginning OF.
But when we we, we’re in deeper trouble. We need the second word to be a noun – that’s the rule of semichut, two nouns juxtaposed which impact upon one another. The second word, however, is a VERB! Bara means “He created”. If this verb was a gerund, then perhaps it would have been workable, and that is the way Rashi wants to tweak it. But, as others take him to task for this and other issues connect to these first few words: It won’t fly.
In fact, each one of the classical commentators expends much ink in trying to make sense of the beginning of the Torah, each contributing an original and thought-provoking view. I was most taking this time around by the words of R. Ovadiah Seforno. Here’s what he says:
Bereshit: The beginning of time, an indivisible moment.
Bara: He made “it isn’t” (into) “it is” – an act that cannot take place in tiime.
E-lohim: This name always conveys “eternity”.
Being and Time (only pro forma apologies to the Nazi supporter and pre-eminent 20th century philosopher Martin Heidegger, whose magnum opus of the same name I’ve never read), inseparably related though not identical from our perspective; one and the same from His?
We are those beings who are constantly struggling to make a noun out of a verb, to idolize. He is the One who, despite knowing that we finite ones would ceaselessly attempt to stop the stream, chose to teach us how to stream though the stoppages. The Bet, the second letter - for ultimately, there is no beginning by Him - the letter of blessing, places us “in” time, in a beginning which is always in relation to, so that we can make our own “isness” into an “isn’t” that opens onto the Eternal.
Can we actually do this? Hashem says yes, and we’d be fools to Bet against Him!
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