Speaker 1The Torah begins with what might be the most famous sentence ever written, "B'reishet bara elokim," "In the beginning God created." But what exactly does "bara," "created," mean? Does it mean creating something from nothing, yesh me'ayin? Does it mean forming something from pre-existing matter? Does it mean bringing order out of chaos? Does it mean separating and distinguishing? And is creation something that happened once, at the beginning of time? Or is the world being created at every moment? And finally, is creation limited to God? These may sound like questions for medieval philosophers, the Jewish version of asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. But as we're going to discover, the way you answer them changes not only how you understand the first verse of the Torah, it changes how you understand God, the world, and what God is. So, let's start with the first verse. Let's start with the first verse. And we'll understand God, the world, and what it means for any of us to create. My name is Jeffrey Stern, and at Madlik, we light a spark, or shed some light, on a Jewish text or tradition. Along with Rabbi Adam Mintz, we host Madlik Disruptive Torah on your favorite podcast platform, and now on YouTube and Substack. We also publish a source sheet on Safari, and a link is included in the show notes. This week, we read Parshat Bereshit, the very first Parshat Bereshit, the very first Parshat Bereshit, the very first Parshat Bereshit, the very first Parshat Bereshit, the very first Parshat Bereshit, the very first Parshat Bereshit, of the Torah. Join us as we travel from Genesis to Plato and Aristotle, from Plotinus to Maimonides, Al-Farabi and Crescas from the Kabbalah and the Tanya, all the way to that great Jewish heretic and God-intoxicated man, Baruch Spinoza. And so, what does it mean to create? Well, that's a mouthful. We're going to have to talk like New Yorkers really quickly today. Okay. I mean, the word Barah is interesting. Good. Let's go. Let's start. So, you know, last week we focused on where was God, but this week we're going to focus on the Earl, the Worth, the creation itself. And if you recall last week, Rashi and Ibn Ezra both favored a translation which was when God was creating, which kind of took the focus over where this all started. But we're going to follow a bunch of commentators and philosophers who say, no, the way you heard it the first time, in the beginning, was the right way. And therefore, it begs the question, what was the beginning? What happened? And to start that, we're going to start with Ramban Nachmanides, who says as follows, in the beginning, God created. It was indeed very necessary to begin the Torah with the chapter of in the beginning, God created, for this is the root of faith. And he who does not believe in this, and thinks the world was eternal, denies the essential principle of the Judaic religion, and has no Torah of all. He says, now listen to the correct and clear explanation of the verse in its simplicity. The Holy One, blessed be He, created all things from absolute non-existence. Now we have no expression in the sacred language in Lush and Kodesh for bringing forth something from nothing other than the word Barak created. Anything that exists under the sun or above was not made from non-existence at the outset. Instead, He brought forth from total and absolute nothing a very thin substance, devoid of corporality, but having a power of potency, fit to assume form and to protect, proceed from the potentiality into reality. This was the primary matter created by God. It is called by the Greeks, Hylai matter. After the Hylai, He did not create anything, but He formed and made things with it. So it's an interesting thing. First of all, we learn from the Ramban, and I think this is how I kind of grew up, that Yesh Me'ayin creation, ex Nilo, was almost a major tenant of our religion. Correct. You have to believe in this miracle that God created something from nothing.
Speaker 2Now, but what's interesting is he adds an additional piece, and that's what the word Barak means. You started by saying the word Barak, significant. Barak means Yesh Me'ayin creation, ex Nilo.
Speaker 1And what he also does is he adds a step. So he says, what did God create, ex Nilo? We don't have a word for this in Hebrew, only in Greek. He created this kind of thin substance, devoid of corporality, but having the potential for all of matter. And then he says, Barak, possibly. Also can mean formed and made things with it. So you create the Play-Doh, and then from the Play-Doh, you create everything that follows. So it does seem that there is a sensitivity, Rabbi, to kind of breaching this gulf between nothing and something. And he does it in a way that we'll see that Play-Doh might have done, at least according to the rabbinic understanding, was that he created this intermediary substance. And yes, correct that Barak then becomes creating something from nothing, but he also forms into it, making things with it. So the Ibn Ezra says as follows. He says, He says, most of the commentaries say that it means ex Nilo. He uses this word Yesh Me'ayin, which is kind of also very interesting. It's a very simple way of saying this. Yesh means Yesh-li-bayit, Yesh-li-kadur. I have something, Yesh, and Me'ayin. Ayin means nothing. So creating something from nothing. But the Ibn Ezra says the meaning of Barak is to cut or to set a boundary. If you recall, again, we did an episode three, two years ago about splitting the atom, where we focused on this concept of Ma'avdil. He divides between light and darkness, between the water and the earth. So even in Barak, there are those commentaries like the Ibn Ezra, who says it is to create a boundary. Now, the Ibn Ezra actually comes off and says, Barak does not mean something from nothing, because he brings a bunch of different verses where the word Barak is used, and it was not something from nothing. So he brings, for instance, Genesis 121, that God created the sea monsters, and three times the word is used in one verse, where God created man in his own image. In the image of God created Baraki, male and female. He created him. So there, clearly, God was taking from the biological building blocks of the universe and creating man. He had created the animals. So Ibn Ezra is making a case that, no, it doesn't have to be something from nothing. But really, the only reason we quote this, and I would say even modern scholars also believe that the original meaning has more to do with shaping things, with dividing things. They quote areas like in Psalms, where it says, So the word create can mean pretty much like you and I use it in the nomenclature. You know, we create something. Do we have to create it out of nothing, this radical leap? Not so much. But we are going to spend much of our time creating something. And we are going to spend much of our time today trying to determine, number one, where this idea came from, and then to see how Jewish, non-Jewish, and Jewish thinkers who were influenced by the non-Jewish world kind of navigated what it means, how it affects us, how we can, I would say, square the circle in terms of philosophy and what we read in the Bible. But this is, so we are going less in terms of trying to understand the exact text, because I think the consensus is before many that the text doesn't even talk or care about. And that was the purpose of, yes, last week's discussion. It's not interested in these issues of cosmology. Here we are now going, diving deep into medieval Jewish and general philosophy, where we ask all of these questions that could cross a rabbi's eye, tittle-dee, tittle-doe.
Speaker 2So I think the way I would say it, in Gemara language, you would say there are two issues. One is what the word bara means. That's a disagreement between Ramban and Ibn Ezra. Ramban says bara means creation ex nihilo. Ibn Ezra says the word bara doesn't necessarily mean creation yesh me'ayid, because there are many examples where the word Barah means yesh meyesh, means something from something. Then what you're pointing out is there's a second issue, and that is what you say the medieval issue, and that is what did creation look like? What actually happened?
Speaker 1And I would even add to that, the other issue is why does it matter? Why does Ramban say that this is a major tenant of our faith? Why is it so important? And that is also going to come up in our discussion. And now, a word from our sponsor. If there's one thing we value at Matlik Podcast, it's reading texts and talking about them. That's why I'm excited to share something I created called Voice Gift Play. It fits in the palm of your hand like a remote control and clips onto any book. It's inspired by those old, school museum audio guides. But this is personal. Voice Gift Play stores up to 10 hours of audio across 999 numbered recordings. You simply enter a number to record a comment, memory, or explanation, and enter the same number to play it back. It's perfect for b'nai mitzvah practicing their leining, capturing grandpa's favorite tune, or recording chad gad ya in a voice that matters. Go to voice.gift. That's www.voice.gift. And use code Matlik for 15% off. Thanks. And now, back to our podcast. So, if we go to the sources, believe it or not, I have not successfully found in any early sources in the Mishnah, in the Talmud, any reference to the Mishnah. So, if you go to the sources in the Mishnah, in the Talmud, any reference to the Mishnah, in the Talmud, any reference to this so-called tenet of faith that the world was created from nothing, the earliest seems to be in the book of Maccabees, which isn't even included in our canon. And I don't actually believe we have it in Hebrew. We probably have it only in Greek. But in any case, in the book of Maccabees 2, 733, it says, and it's a mother talking to her children, I ask you, child, to look at heaven and earth, see everything that is in them. And know that God made these things from nothing and created humankind in the same way. So, it's striking that this is the first reference. It's also striking that it is written probably in Greek first. And so, what it does is it raises a flag, Rabbi. It says that probably this whole issue came up when the Jews were confronted with Hellenism. And all of a sudden, they had to start thinking about these issues. A hundred years later, the Jews were confronted with Hellenism. And all of a sudden, after the book of Maccabees, we have Philo of Alexandria, the great Philo. And he says, Moses, who had early reached the very summits of philosophy. So, now we're already dipped in the pond. Now we're saying that Moses not only was a Chacham, not only was he a Torah scholar, not only was he a Navi, but he was a philosopher. And now, once he's a philosopher, we have to start squaring the circle. And we have to start squaring the circle. And he says that he was well aware that it is indispensable that in all existing things there must be an active cause and a passive subject, and that the active cause is the intellect of the universe. So, now we have Philo kind of feeding us the thought of the day, which is that this active cause, therefore, became molded and molded onto our God. And the passive subject is the universe. It is interesting. It's called the intellect of the universe. That's going to be of interest when we get all the way to the end of the story at Spinoza. The passive subject is sometimes inanimate and incapable of motion by any intrinsic power of its own, but having been set in motion and fashioned and endowed with the life by the intellect, became transformed into that most perfect work, this world. So, what he sees is a creator, a God, who is able to move the world. And he says that he is able to move the world. Who gives inanimate objects motion, dynamism, life, if you will. And then, as I said before, the other part of the question is why. Why is this so important? So, Nachmanides already said it's a tenant of our faith. What does Philo do? He says, because this is important, because these qualities tend to produce piety, namely providence. The reason proves that the Father, and Creator, has care for that which he has created. If you don't have a universe and a world that is created by God, you don't have a caring God. For a father is anxious for the life of his children, and the workman aims at the duration of his works, and he employs every device imaginable to ward off everything that is pernicious or injurious. This is clay in the hands of the potter. It's not only paternal, it's when you create something, you kind of own it. It's when you have an association with it. And he says the same thing is with the created worth. So, Philo not only says, I want to put this on strong philosophical ground, but he also says it's important to have a God who creates, because without that there's no providence. And we're going to hear that from a few of our thinkers. Maimonides, in the guide, lays out what he believes to be through the creation of God. He says, I want to put this on strong philosophical ground. Maimonides, in the guide, lays out read it into the verse. It could be while God was creating and not bing-bang from the creation of the beginning. He says it's a fundamental principle. The second theory, and this is going to echo a little bit of what Ramban said, is the theory of Plato. And there he created from a pre-existing substance. If you recall, Nachmanides actually used a Greek word, and he said that this is a theory of all philosophers whose opinion and works are known to us, and this, it is impossible to assume that God produced anything from nothing or that he reduces anything to nothing. That is to say, it is impossible that an object consisting of matter and form should be produced when that matter is absolutely absent. So I don't know, Rabbi, to me, the whole issue is they're trying to make the leap, and a lot of them say, let's take small steps. And if you slice it and dice it, somehow it becomes more palpable. And what he is saying is, on the one hand, while it's impossible to say something from nothing, you can do something that has the potential for something, but isn't quite yet something. And so you kind of have a solution. He says the people, to say that God can produce a thing from nothing. So here's an interesting. Interesting argument. He says the reason why they argue you can't have God produce something from nothing, it's like saying two plus two equals five. And it's like saying a triangle has four sides. It just doesn't fit into it. Nothing by definition means no thing. But again, at least Maimonides says this is an acceptable position. And Aristotle, who normally is Maimonides' go-to guy, in this case believes that the earth is eternal, that everything is eternal, that matter doesn't change. And therefore, there is stasis. And so he says, this is a position that the universe is in totality, never been different, nor will it ever be. And that's the three positions. He goes on to say that the foundation of our religion has to be that there is a God who cares, who is involved. He said we should necessarily be in opposition to the foundations of our religion to believe in the eternity of the universe, because it would reject all hope and fears derived from scripture. In other words, you can't punish somebody. God cannot have any control over us if everything is eternal. Accepting the creation, we find that miracles are possible, that revelation is possible, and that everything is eternal. And so he says, that every difficulty in this question is removed. We might be asked, why has God inspired a certain person and not another? Why he revealed the law to one another. Once you predicate that God can create the world, he can do anything. And he or she can have desires and wishes and commands over us. And that's again why Maimonides feels that believing in this is so important. And what he says is fascinating. He says, "Owing to the absence of all proof, we reject the theory of the eternity of the universe." So what he says is, "You can't prove any of these." So as long as we can't prove any of these, it's best to have a theory that guides us and makes the world meaningful and makes our Torah meaningful and makes revelation and miracles meaningful. In a sense, it's kind of interesting because it's saying that maybe there are different parallel paths between belief and science. But what he's definitely saying is, "Unquenchable." Until science can prove something, we have the option of picking the theory that fits our mold best.
Speaker 2Let me just say, I mean, what you're saying, of course, is fascinating. Let me just take a step back to say, you know, it's interesting that Maimonides in the guide quotes Plato and Aristotle. We've got to take that for granted now. But today, if the greatest rabbi in the world quoted Plato and Aristotle, you'd wonder, right, about whether they really were the greatest rabbi of all time. And Maimonides quotes Plato and Aristotle, and it's totally that part of his understanding of what creation is all about. So even that is interesting that Maimonides tries to understand, and he appreciates the fact that the understanding about what the world is and how it came about, that sometimes the non-Jews have insight that the Jews never had.
Speaker 1I couldn't agree more. I mean, in a sense, he was not quoting other religious thinkers. He's quoting what he believes to be the best practices of the day in terms of cosmology, understanding the world. But I think what you're saying is an amazing segue to where I want to go, because I want to introduce our listeners to a scholar who has made a great impression on me. His name is Harry Wolfson. And he basically, as you say, rabbi, you look at the modern rabbis, he came out of the Slavutka yeshiva. And then he became the head of the first Judaic studies program in the United States at Harvard. And the person who followed him was Isidore Tversky, who I took a course from. And he says that Wolfson heard the last shiur v'yivah. Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer, who was a Muslim who studied under Rabbi Yisroel Salanter. And then he went on to talk about books and listening and learning and dissecting the works of the non-Jew. Basically what Wolfson did is he took Philo as the beginning of medieval philosophy, and he took Spinoza as the end of medieval philosophy. And he studied in between the church fathers and the Jewish fathers. The Kalam, which was the Islamic school of philosophy. And he did it all as a Talmud Chacham. He learned all of the languages necessary, Greek and Arabic. And what he basically argued was that the medieval philosophy began with the premise that philosophy which knew not scripture. So if you look at Aristotle and Plato, they didn't know anything about Judaism or Revelation. So it starts with Philo introducing Aristotle and Plato and us to Plato and Aristotle. And it ends with a philosophy which tries to free us from scripture. So it starts with trying to bring the Torah into the world of Greek philosophy. And it ends with Spinoza, according to Wolfson, where we try to leave the world of scripture and Revelation and philosophy. And the most exciting thing that he tracks is the introduction of somebody called Plotinus. And Plotinus, if you know anything about Plato, Plato believed in forms. So there was a form of a table up in the Himal, in the heavens, just like we have a Shemayim, a Beis Medrashom, a Mikdash Shalmala. And then down below was a physical parallel of that. Plotinus did something amazing. He said that not only are there pure images and forms of everything that ends up being physical in the theoretical world, but there's a correlation and relationship between them. And he said that there's a correlation and relationship between them. And he said that if you will, that if there is a theory or an ideal of sun, there is a correspondence not only to a real sun, but that idea of the sun actually maintains and powers and emanates power to the sun. So what he does is it is now conceived as being eternally generated or emanated from the essence of God. And this was an amazingly exciting and evocative idea that now we can have something in the heaven, something in the world of theoretics that could actually have an impact, an ongoing impact on the world, the created world. And so creation almost becomes something that happens on an eternal level. And he says this through all of the medieval philosophers. And yes, Rabbi, he goes to the church fathers. He finds someone called John Scotus or Jenna, who maintains that when we say creation from nothing, when we say creatio ex nilo, nothing is God. And he says it beautifully. The nothing from which the world was created means God to whom alone may be applied the negation of all that can be spoken or thought of. So since God is the one that has no physical attribute, he is nothing, and the world emanates from him. Then we go to Al-Farabi, who was a Muslim philosopher. By the way, when Maimonides talked to Ibn Tibon to translate the book, he said, "If you want somebody who you can use as a guide, go to Al-Farabi." He really looked up to this Al-Farabi. He regarded him, and many of the philosophers regarded him, as the second teacher, second to Aristotle. So we're living in a world where Christian and Jewish and Muslim philosophers are talking one to the other, whether physically or through their writings. And Al-Farabi was the first one to say that this idea of Plotinus did not contradict creation ex nilo, creation yesh me'ayin. Because if God actually can emanate the world, on the one hand, you can say that it was created from nothing, from God or from these emanations. But on the other hand, it can jive with Greek philosophy. So this was an amazing bridge between the two of them. And I think that's the bridge that they came up with. And later, a thinker named Hasdei Crescas picked up on the Al-Farabi and was able to say, actually, he gave it like a heresia. He says, "You can now believe in emanation." So what is emanation? Emanation, to make it very simple, is like, if you have a candle of light, and it gives me light, the light that I get does not detract from the candle. The sun can give light, and we can get light from the sun without it detracting. So in that sense, you can have the power of God and God's essence emanating on the world without it detracting or impugning God himself or herself with physicality. It was the perfect kind of highway. But what I want to do in the time that remains is talk about what the ramifications of these medieval scholars discussing this stuff were. And one of them is something that we know from the Kabbalah. We know in the Kabbalah there was a school of Isaac Luria where he talked about God emanating himself in a unique way. In the Sefer Eitz Chaim, which is Chaim Vital giving the notes, the transcript of the discussions of Isaac Luria, he says, "Know that before the emanation were created and the creation were created, there was a supernatural light that filled all of existence." And he goes, "And then what happened is, behold, God contracted himself, may he be blessed, in the middle point, precisely at the point where his light was in its most absolute stage. So getting back to this concept of nothing, instead of emanating out, God was able to contract in and give space for something. But what does that do to us in terms of creativity? Think of the pedagogic lesson there, that you can give, you can create the next generation by pulling back. The Tanya and the Hasidim looked at our prayer book and says, we say in the prayer book every year, "Ha'machad esh betuvoh b'chol yel tomid ma'aseh v'reishit," that every day we continuously, the work of creation is renewed. In the Tanya, he uses our philosophical language of efes mamish, of nothing, to say that God on a regular, daily basis, is responsible for the world staying alive. There is no disconnect between the world and God. We are constantly emanated from God.
Speaker 2God recreates means we get a new start every morning. That's, by the way, the reason we watch Nagelwasser, right? It's a new start every morning.
Speaker 1And to take it to the farthest extreme, which is where Wolfson goes, is then Spinoza comes about. And I had never realized Spinoza was excommunicated by the Amsterdam community at age, I think it was 23. It's absolutely crazy. But this is what Spinoza said. Spinoza said, you know, this emanation thing, you're just kicking the can down the road. There is no difference between God and that which is created. Whatever is, is in God, and nothing can be or be conceived without God. God is the imminent, not the transitive cause of all things. So he understands there are things, but God is all of those things. The human mind is a part of the infinite intellect of God. There is also in God an idea of the human mind. So all of a sudden, you can understand why a great German romantic poet, Spinoza, said that Spinoza was a trunk in their mensch. Spinoza is a God-intoxicated man, because he saw everything as God. He said, you're making a mistake. Don't make the distinction. If you go to the extreme of emanation or Tzimtzum, it is ultimately that God is the mind of everything. We are living in God's mind, and God's mind is in us. And this, according to Wolfson, was the beginning of modern philosophy. And so it's a wonderful trip, but it all started because they decided they had to reconcile Greek philosophy with Judaism, with creation. Some people call that approach as making philosophy the handmaiden of religion, but I look at it in terms of, look at all this creative thinking that it created that gives us new modalities for thinking about creation itself. How we create, and who we are. I think it's wonderful.
Speaker 2Amazing. This is really, really good. What a good way to start this year of the Torah. Welcome to Parshat B'reishith, everybody.
Speaker 1Shabbat Shalom. Welcome to Parshat B'reishith. And next week, we'll start with Noach. See you all then. So here's my question for you. Were we just counting angels on the head of a pin today? Or is there something valuable about what we're doing today? I'm watching great minds wrestle with difficult questions, even when those questions may be problems of their own making. I'd love to hear from you. Look forward to your comments. Thanks.
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