Orach Chayim Way of Life - Jewish Life - Torah Insights - Current Events

 וַיְכַל אֱלֹהִים בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי מְלַאכְתּוֹ אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה וַיִּשְׁבֹּת בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי מִכָּל-מְלַאכְתּוֹ אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה
Vayechal Elokim bayom hashvi'i melachto asher asah vayishbot bayom hashvi'i mikol-melachto asher asah.
2:2 And on the seventh day, G-d finished all His work which He made. He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He made.

The world was established in its beauty and perfection, but an essential ingredient was lacking - Shabbat, rest! Only when Shabbat came to the world, did rest come to the world. It was the Rest which Hashem created on the seventh day! (Bereishit Rabbah)

Each day, when G-d commanded that something be created, the creative process would continue. Thus, for example, when G-d said, "Let there be a firmament," it came into being; until Friday evening, it continued to increase and spread out. (Bereishit Rabbah) It is for this reason that one of G-d's Names is Shakkai, coming from the word Dai, meaning "enough." If G-d had not said, "Enough," to the universe, commanding that the firmament stop, it would still be expanding. The same is true of the earth, since it did not know its destined size.

It therefore appears that the world continued to work all through the week. Although translated as "He rested on the seventh day," it can also be translated, "It rested on the seventh day," where "it" refers to the universe. This indicates that the universe itself had rest and repose on the Shabbat.

In Hebrew this verse is וַיִּשְׁבֹּת בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי where the subject is implied, but not actually designated.  The verse does not say, "G-d rested on the seventh day," in the same manner as it says, "and G-d finished," or "G-d blessed." The subject of this phrase is creation as a whole, which rested on the Shabbat. (Ibid.)


"And G-d blessed the seventh day..." (2:3)

Shabbat was blessed above all the other days of the week in various ways:

1. In the Wilderness, the Benei Yisrael received a double portion of mann on every Erev Shabbat, providing food for Shabbat. The blessing of extra mann is but one example of the Divine guarantee that whatever a person spends in honor of the Shabbat is refunded to him by Hashem. (Shabbat 1:1 [2a])
2. Not only is a person recompensed for any financial loss he might seem to incur for the sake of Shabbat observance, but, in fact, one who honors this day is rewarded also with a good life and with wealth. (Bereishit Rabbah)
3. Hashem also blessed the Shabbat with tasty food.
4. Another blessing of Shabbat is that the wicked in Gehinnom are granted respite from their punishment and torture every seventh day. 
5. The primeval Light created by G-d was so intense that it shone from one end of the universe to the other, but because of the wicked, G-d stored it away for the righteous in the Olam Haba. This Light, however, was not put away immediately. Chazal taught that this light functioned for thirty-six hours, consisting of twelve hours on the sixth day, and twenty-four hours on the first Shabbat. As soon as Adam sinned, G-d wished to remove this remarkable Light, but He put aside doing so because of the merit of the Shabbat. This is the Extra Soul (Neshamah Yeterah) that every Jew has on this holy day, one more spiritual and holy than that of the weekdays. Because of this extra soul, we say each Shabbat in the morning service, the prayer Nishmat: "The soul of all life shall bless Your Name." (Levush 281)

Before the Beginning, There Was Nothing But Light, Infinite Light - Ohr Ain Sof

“When the King first desired a world, He engraved its forms in the pure Supernal Light.” (Zohar 1:15a)

The hollow engraved in the Supernal Light was the vacated space, in which all creation subsequently occurred.

This Constriction (tzimtzum) or hollowing of the Divine Essence did not occur in physical spakce, but rather, in conceptual space. It is "hollow" insofar as it contains the possibility for information, but not actual information. As such, it is the "Tohu and Bohu" (chaos and void) mentioned in the account of Creation, where the Scripture states, "the earth was chaos and void" (Bereishit 1:2). Chaos is a state where information can exist, but where it does not exist.

The hollow was made through 32 paths, since letters and digits are the basic bits of information. While random letters and numbers do not actually convey information, as long as they exist, it is also possible for information to exist. The Vacated Space is therefore the state where it is possible for information to exist, but where this possibility has not yet been realized.

These letters were subsequently combined into words, forming the Ten Utterances/Sayings of Creation. Each of these sayings brought information into the Vacated Space, through which creation could take place there.

The order was therefore first "engraving," and then "creation." The Sefer Yetzirah therefore states that the Creator "engraved...and created His universe." (Sefer Yetzirah; Bahir 2; Ramban on Bereishit 1:2)

Physical creation, as reported in the Torah, is not the beginning of the story, but the end of a process that began much earlier and which was totally spiritual at first. It is the essence of what true Kabbalah discusses at length. Kabbalah describes Creation as existing inside a Challal (hollow), a ball like structure in the "center" of the Infinite Light of Ain Sof, surrounded by Ohr Ain Sof on all sides.  The creation of the Challal was the first stage in making physical creation possible since it held back the powerful Ohr Ain Sof, which is far too spiritual to allow anything physical to exist. The next stage allowed a stream of Ohr Ain Sof, Kav Ain Sof, to enter the Challal in Divinely measured amounts, creating levels of existence on its way in. By moving towards the center of the Challal the Kav Ain Sof, in effect, was moving away from its Source, the Ohr Ain Sof beyond the Challal, allowing Creation to become increasingly more physical. Ohr Ain Sof resulted first in the Challal, then in the Kav Ain Sof, and eventually in the countless sefirot and partzufim, all just to make a world in which man could exist, exercise free will, and earn his portion in the Olam Haba (World to Come). (Rabbi Pinchas Winston, The Physics of Kabbalah, p. 3, note #10 quoting from Otzrot Chaim, p.5; and p. 17 of The Physics of Kabbalah)

In the beginning, a simple divine light filled the entirety of existence.  When there arose in His simple will the desire to create the worlds, He contracted His light, withdrawing it to the sides and leaving a void and an empty space in its center, to allow for the existence of the worlds. (However, this was not an absolute void, for there remained a residue of the divine light within the void.) He then drew a single line of His infinite light into the void to illuminate the worlds. In the teachings of Kabbalah, the act of creation is described as an act of tzimtzum—an act of contraction, concealment and withdrawal. In the beginning, the “light” of G‑d (i.e., the manifest expression of His omnipresence and omnipotence) filled the entirety of existence. A world such as ours—finite, self-defined and independent, with the capacity to turn away from and even deny its Creator—could not exist, for it would have been utterly nullified within the divine light. In order to allow for the existence of the world, G‑d “contracted” His light, creating a “void” and “empty space” within which His infinite being and power is not manifest. Into this void G‑d then allowed a single “line” (kav) of light to penetrate, through which flows a divine energy that is meted out to every level of reality in accordance with its capacity to receive it. (Chabad, Tzimtzum) 

There is a time at sunset when it is neither day or night. This twilight period of the sixth day therefore pertained neither to the six days of creation, nor to the ensuing Shabbat. Chazal teach that the following ten things were created during this twilight period preceding the Shabbat (Avot 5:4)

1. The "mouth of the earth" which swallowed Korach and his followers. (Bamidbar 16:32)
2. The "mouth" of Miriam's well. This followed the Benei Yisrael throughout their wanderings in the desert.
3. The mouth of Balaam's donkey, which was destined to speak to him at the appointed time. (Ibid. 22:28)
4. The rainbow which was seen by Noach. (Bereishit 9:13)
5. The grave of Moshe. (Devarim 34:6)
6. The Shamir. This is a worm the size of a barleycorn, which has the power to split the largest mountains. King Shlomo made use of it to cut the stones of the Holy Temple.
7. The writing [of the Ten Commandments] on the two Tablets. This writing was miraculous, since it could be read from all four sides.
8. The Tablets themselves. These were two blocks made from the substance of the sun. Their length and breadth was six handbreadths (approx. 20 inches), while their thickness was three handbreadths (approx. ten inches).
9. The staff of Moshe
10. The ram that Avraham sacrificed in place of Yitzchak.