A vague interpretation of Section One of the Sefer Ha-Bahir

Transcription

1 A vague interpretation of Section One of the Sefer Ha-Bahir By Timo Schmitz, Philosopher The Book of Illumination (Sefer Ha-Bahir) is a mystical Jewish book which is attibuted to Rabbi Nehunia ben Hakana, though we can be sure nowadays that the text is far too incoherent to be from one author and rather seems to be a collection of vague quotations and notes to these quotes. It consists of small paragraphs and verses in which important questions of Jewish theology are answered and in addition, it is the main source for the Kabbalah teaching. This paper does not take a look into the book under Kabbalistic aspects, but is meant to analyze the chosen section under philosophical issues verse-byverse, showing which sources of the Creation the book gives and how it depicts the Divine from a Western Non-Jewish view who has a little background knowledge. I take the translation of Aryeh Kaplan as base for explanation. The first section is dedicated to the subject of creation, and starts with a quote by Nehunia himself who quotes Job 37:21 in which God is identified with the bright light in the sky (KJV And now men see not the bright light which is in the clouds: but the wind passeth, and cleanseth them. ) while Psalm 18:12 states that God hides in the Darkness and Psalm 97:2 adds that cloud and gloom surrounded God. Nehunia logically sees a problem as light and darkness are a contradiction and both cannot be at the same time (Law of Non-Contradiction). However, he tries to solve it by not seeing a contradiction but just a conflict of statements in it by taking Psalm 139:12 into account (KJV the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee. ) which means that he is found in the dark and light alike as he is everywhere at the same time and sees everything. Psalm 139 is famous for affirming the omnipresence of God and describing the nature of God to establish faith in Him. In this way, God can be found in the light and in the dark at the same time as he can be everywhere and is not subjected to only one place, but surrounds the whole. The second verse in the first section of the Sefer Ha-Bahir is a quote by Rabbi Berachiah and his dedication to Genesis 1:2 and asks at first, why the tohu-wa-bohu is described in the past form here, so why was it? The conclusion is that it is referring to a previous event and that it already happened, so it was. The question now is, what is tohu and what is bohu? Tohu is something that confuses people, and Bohu is something that has a substance as it is made out of bo and hu meaning that it is in it. The third verse of section one asks why the Torah begins with the letter Bet, which is the second letter in the Hebrew alphabet. This is a severe question in Jewish theology as the first letter of the alphabet is alef, and Hebrew letters are even used to count so alef is 1 while bet is 2, etc. so shouldn t

2 the beginning of everything begin with One? And shouldn t be the one and first come first in the revelation of His divine? So why does it start with two? The reply is that it starts with the second letter for that it is a blessing. How do we know that? The reply can be found in Deuteronomy 33:23 in which God s blessing is referred to the sea and the Torah is even wider than a sea (Job 11:9), so everything dedicated to Bet is a blessing, thus the beginning (bereshit) was a blessing, too. The word bereshit consists of bet reshit (reshit means beginning and bet is the first full consonant in the alphabet) which equals wisdom, because in Psalm 111:10 it is stated that the beginning is wisdom. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God. This means, the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and the beginning of wisdom is the beginning in itself, which is a blessing. Logically, though not explicitely stated in the Sefer Ha-Bahir in this passage, the fear of God must be a blessing, too. Then verse 4 asks how do we know that the word blessing (berachah) comes from blessed (baruch)? Actually, the word baruch comes from berech which means knee. Berechah therefore symbolically means the place to which people bend their knee. It is stated that first, someone has to find the King s house before someone can ask for the king. Thus, it might be interpreted as bending down in front of the Blessed equals receiving a blessing. Even the process of bending down is a blessing in itself. Verse Five continues dedicating questions about blessings. It is pointed out that wherever one finds a bet is a blessing and nourishes those who need something. It might be a vague idea, but it might show a circle as those who praise God will receive His blessing. Those who see bending down as a blessing will be blessed when they are in need. Even each day is a blessing as can be seen through Psalm 90:4 as a thousand years seem like yesterday when they are passed. In Isaiah 48:9 this is shown again, in which a praise is given. So what is a praise? A praise means raising God high and see a blessing in His name, then what is a blessing? Verse 6 explains Psalm 111:10 as key for understanding this phenomena which shows again the circle in which the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and wisdom is the beginning of everything, then a blessing is His praise as His praise endures forever. Same than planting a tree, the rain might water the tree, but that is not enough, if one wants to have the best result from its growing then one must care about the tree. So it is no surprise that he picks up Genesis 1:2 at first, because it includes the first letter (alef) which is the very source and the letter 2 which is a blessing (bet), and thus the blessed beginning. And that beginning is the beginning of wisdom, which is also attributed to the fear of God or His devotion (kneeing down). For this, He will bless the people in need as people praise His name and raise Him high. In addition, God is everywhere, in the most luminous and in the darkest place, thus one can always believe that God is with one, and He can always be praised knowing that He sees us praising Him. The word of God is so deep-rooted, it is deeper than the sea and much wider than all the water. The 2

3 beginning was confusing but this fuss is over, and everything started with something substantial (something which has a substance in it) which of course is blessed by God. Then in verse 7 Rabbi Amorai is quoted who asked what is meant in Deuteronomy 33:23 when it is stated that The filling is God's blessing, possessing the Sea and the South? (taken from Kaplan s translation). It is stated that the present world is referred to as the South as can be taken from Joshua 12:19 (KJV, Give me a blessing; for thou hast given me a south land; give me also springs of water. ) and according to the Sefer Ha-Bahir, the Targum states that behold the earth is the south. But what does the reference to the sea mean here? The Sefer Ha-Bahir refers to Job 11:9. This is very interesting if one takes the New Living translation into account It is broader than the earth and wider than the sea. If it is translated as such, then one can refer this to God s blessing. God s blessing is that immeasurable that it is broader than the earth and even wider than the sea. This also shows why a blessing is that worthy and why God chose to start everything with a blessing, cause His blessing is of immeasurable worth. Now verse 8 asks a completely new question. The text moves further as the creational process of the Earth is clear (the creation is a blessing, and if people praise God for His blessings, they will be blessed as well), it moves on to the creation of man. It is asked why God added the letter Heh to Abraham s name. The reply is that the letter was added to indicate that all parts of man s body should be worthy of life as the numerical value of Abraham is 248 which equals the number of parts in man s body. This is actually a very important point in Jewish understanding: Many of us are probably aware that the number 248 has tremendous significance In Torah. First, 248 is the number of positive commandments in the Torah. In total, The Torah contains 613 commandments of which 248 are positive (and 365 are prohibitive). The sages also teach us that the 248 positive commandments correspond to the limbs of the human body. [ ] In the past, [ ] we ourselves thought that the number of elementary particles in The universe should be 248. Why is this? Because, by Divine Providence, in Modern Hebrew the word for an elementary particle is ח ל ק יק (pronounced: chelkeek), whose numerical value is 248. (Harav Yitzchak Ginsburg: 248 IN NATURE AND IN MAN (Part 1), retrieved on 27 April 2018) 3

4 So the Sefer Ha-Bahir as well as early Jewish writings have a strong emphasis on Theomatics. What exactly is theomatics and why is it so important? In our language, we have two basic ways of expressing ideas. If you look at a typewriter or computer keyboard, what do you see? Letters (the alphabet) and numbers. Just about everything we communicate in our language structure as human beings is with words and numbers. The numbers we use (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0) are called Arabic numerals. To us living today, we take the use of these symbols for granted. But here is an interesting fact. For centuries, mankind did not have any numbers or numerical digits in his language structure. Instead, early civilizations used the letters of their alphabets to express numbers. You have undoubtedly heard of Roman Numerals (I, V, X, L, C, D, M). This is the same basic concept. This same idea or principle is especially true for the languages of the Bible ~ the Old Testament was written in ancient Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek. [ ] The Hebrew number code was in use many centuries before Christ. If you were to look into a present-day Hebrew Bible, you would find the chapter and verse numbers given with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The important fact to realize is that this standard has been in effect for thousands of years. Yet what theomatics is going to show us, is that God in His sovereignty, pre-arranged all this ~ long before the world was even created ~ and then "secretly" composed the entire Bible to operate on this numbering system. (Del Washburn: The Numerical Structure, Theomatics Research, retrieved on 27 April 2018) Now it might be asked why this so relevant? In the Bible it is stated that when God created man, he was an Image of God (that s why it is forbidden to draw an image of God, because he has all the images of all human-beings, and this is why all human-beings shall be treated equally and with respect, because mistreating a human means mistreating God). In Kabalistic belief, human-beings are structured like the universe. This means that all things which can be found in the universe can be found in human-beings. This means that man and universe are in constant interaction, or to put it easier: man and nature are inseparable. Nowadays, many people see humans and nature as two different entities, but in fact, humans cannot be put out of their nature. To go back to the verse 8, the letter Heh represents the worthiness, and it is also referred to Genesis 9:6 that man is in the form of God (so he is His image). Verse 9 then goes back to Deuteronomy 33:23 4

5 and the question of inherition. It is stated that It would have been sufficient if the verse said, inherit (RaSh) [the Sea and the South]. (taken form the Kaplan translation), but instead it is stated yirashah. It is replied that The word YiRaShaH thus contains the letters RaSh YH (meaning, inherit God ). (ibid.). When it is written that the Sea and the South, he shall inherit it., we already know that it refers to all lands and waters on the earth which as we just found out inherits God, so everything will be given to you if you only keep My [i.e. God s] ways (taken from the Kaplan translation). However, this means that God is not just everywhere like far away, but He is also everywhere in the world, in every water, on every land, under every stone, the whole creation is God, the whole nature refers to God, including Man who is an inseparable part of nature. To put it in the whole context of Section One, the beginning was a blessing (bet) which according to (alef-bet) started out of a chaos that brought forth a something which had substance. Everything that turned out from the blessing was a blessing again. As the whole nature is a blessing, Man is a blessing too, as he is an exact copy of nature that inherits God, and God is inherited in the whole nature. But still, we have no answer why it does not start with alef. Ariel Bar Tzadok gives a reply as follows: In the first instruction of this book we were introduced into the triad consciousness of the mind paradox. Now, unseen to most academic commentaries to the text, this section continues from the last and proceeds to direct us in the path of spiritual ascent. The Rabbi quoted here may or may not be an historical figure. What is important is his name. Berakhia translates as G[o]d, (specifically the two first letters of YHVH, Yod Hey) is my blessing. The name Berakhia begins with the Hebrew letter Bet, as does the word Berakha (blessing) and the word Bereshit (in the beginning). This is no coincidence [ ]. The Torah begins with revealed creation and thus begins with the first letter of revealed sound, this being the Hebrew letter Bet. The first letter of the Hebrew alphabet Alef has no sound, no pronunciation and thus no representation other than in the eye, and not in the ear. This is significant in that the eyes and ears are symbols for the two worlds of the mind paradox, spoken of in the first teaching and these two correspond to the first two letters of G[o]d's Name YHVH (Yod and Hey), referred to in the name of Rabbi Berakhia. Sight corresponds to the domain of the unconscious and sound to the realm of consciousness. In the unconscious we see images and intuit through psychic insight their meanings. These images are called archetypes. Sound, on the other hand, refers to words and these require structured language in order to be understood. As we shall see these two modes of mind, the visual psyche and the verbal intellect are the rudimentary forms 5

6 that materialize as the micro-cosmic Tohu and Bohu respectively. The letter Alef represents that domain of the mind, which is the root of the unconscious and is the source of all. As such, it is hidden and impenetrable. (Sefer HaBahir - The Book of Brilliance: An Ancient Guide To Experiencing Spiritual Truths, With Commentary by Ariel Bar Tzadok, 2011, retrieved on 27 April 2018) As the word for blessing in Hebrew starts with a bet, and the word for in the beginning stats with a b too (though artificially created as a new word), we can know that the latter is an abbreviation for blessing and the letter itself can identify a blessing. The blessing itself stands right after the beginning, so has an enormous value and immeasurable worth. In verse 10, Rabbi Bun is cited who asked the question what the meaning of me-olam (from eternity) in Proberbs 8:23 says. The answer is found in Ecclesiastes 3:11 where it is identified with the world (haolam). However, I wondered why the word for the world is used as ha-olam here, when I am used to the word ha-aretz, which was already used in Genesis 1:1 a verse which is also taken into account in verse 10 as the text reads The Torah said, I was first, so that I might be the head of the world. It is thus written, I was set up from eternity, from a head. You may think that the earth was before it. It is therefore written, before the earth. It is thus written (Genesis 1:1), In the beginning created God the heaven and the earth. What is the meaning of created? He created everything that was needed for all things. And then God. Only after that is it written the heaven and the earth. (taken from the Kaplan translation) This passage however arises more questions then it answers, so what exactly is haolam in comparision to ha-aretz? means both "the world" and "the universe". Looking at the beginning of העולם Genesis, it is easy to see why the two terms are equivalent. This story also gives us insight into how Judaism sees the nature of the world that God created. In the first creation story, when the world was created in seven days, we are told repeatedly that "God saw what He had created and it was good." In other words, there is nothing in our world that is fundamentally evil. There is even a debate about whether such a word exists in Hebrew at all. It is possible to corrupt what is essentially good through disobedience (the second creation story), but evil itself was not part of the very fabric of creation [ ].Even disobedience itself is permitted within certain boundaries. Every aspect of,,העולם after all, came in to being in response to God's specific commands. Interestingly, though, only the inanimate 6

7 elements obeyed exactly. The verbs for the others differs slightly from the one used by God. Obedience, then, is required by all creatures, but in a way that conforms to their nature. Diversity is also considered good, as long as we continue to conform to the essential path for which we were created. ( retrieved on 17 April 2018) So ה עוֹל ם seems to be more accurately translated as universe. Anyways, Ecclesiastes 3:11 is very interesting, because it is stated that the universe is placed in their hearts. The NIV reads He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. So this again undermines that man and nature are one. Everything in the universe can be found in human-beings. The 248 substantial particles are both, in cosmos and in man. In verse 11, we can also see that the elementary substance (bohu) was in peace, while chaos (tohu) was placed in evil, and of course verse 12 asks how do we know that chaos is evil? since as shown above evil was not even meant to exist. The Sefer Ha-Bahir mentions that It is written (Isaiah 45:7), He makes peace and creates evil. How does this come out? Evil is from Chaos, while Peace is from Desolation. He thus created Chaos and placed it in Evil [ ] (taken from Kaplan s translation). A Christian discourse sees the meaning of Isaiah 45:7 as such: The context of Isaiah 45:7 makes it clear that something other than bringing moral evil into existence is in mind. The context of Isaiah 45:7 is God rewarding Israel for obedience and punishing Israel for disobedience. God pours out salvation and blessings on those whom He favors. God brings judgment on those who continue to rebel against Him. (Why does Isaiah 45:7 say that God created evil?, retrieved on 27 April 2018) Whether evil is created by God through a Jewish account is given by Rabbi Aron Moss: Here's the paradox: Goodness exists because G[o]d desired it; evil exists because G[o]d doesn't want it. If a human wants something, but doesn't actually do anything about it, nothing happens. [ ] But when you're a Divine Being, your desires create reality. With G[o]d, just wanting something makes it exist. After all, He is all-powerful; if He wants it, what can possibly stop it from being? He wanted a world, so it was. He wanted goodness, so it was. Now the same applies to G[o]d not wanting something: it too becomes reality. If G[o]d decides He doesn't want 7

8 something, then that decision itself makes that thing exist. G[o]d's all-powerfulness means that even His not-wanting creates. Evil is what G[o]d doesn't want. So it exists. (Aron Moss: Did G-d create evil?, Create-Evil.htm, retrieved on 27 April 2018) Rabbi Tovia Singer states: When describing God s creation plan, the prophet Isaiah reports that the Almighty created evil in the world: I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I the Lord do all these things. (Isaiah 45:7) I did not invent these verses, nor did I tamper with them. In fact, the Bible I used in the above quotations is the King James Version, a translation that could hardly be construed as friendly to the Jewish faith. These edifying verses underscore the fundamental biblical teaching of the Almighty s divine sovereign plan, which provides that every searching soul must confront evil, as well as good, in order to remain vigilant in one s personal search for perfect spiritual balance. The Almighty s gift of freewill to humanity is what separates us from His other creations. For those committed to attaining a higher spiritual existence, the struggle toward a life of virtue is only possible with the existence of evil, which serves as a spiritual counterweight. In other words, righteousness cannot exist unless man is free to choose or reject evil. Passages in Tanach like Isaiah 45:7 and Deuteronomy 30:15 pose a monumental theological problem for Christians who maintain that God did not create Satan, the angel of evil. According to Christian doctrine, as you state in your question, Satan was the highest-ranking angel who, through his own act of spiritual defiance and outright disobedience, became the chief adversary and slanderer of God, and the embodiment of evil in this world. As you maintained in your question, God never created evil according Christian teachings; He is only the author of righteousness and perfection. Therefore, God could never create something as sinister as the devil himself. Rather, Satan s unyielding wickedness is the result of his own spiritual rebellion. Although this well-known Christian doctrine has much in common with the pagan Zoroastrian Persian dualism from which it spawned, it is completely alien to the teachings of the Jewish Scriptures. In fact, this Christian notion that Satan, in an act of outright defiance, ceased to function as God had intended him to, suggests that God created something imperfect or defective. For the Jewish faith, Satan s 8

9 purpose in seducing man away from God poses no problem because Satan is only an agent of God. As a servant of the Almighty, Satan faithfully carries out the divine will of his Creator as he does in all his tasks.satan is one of the many angels mentioned in the Bible. It is worth noting that the Hebrew word for angel is malach, meaning messenger. The same is true for the English word angel, derived from the Greek word angelos, which also means messenger. (Who is Satan?, Outreach Judaism, retrieved on 27 April 2018) We do not know to which idea the author of this passage refers, whether he sees evil as a given fact, a temptation created by God himself to prove the trueness of His followers or whether it is just a passive result of His creation, but not His intention. However, by just taking the single phrase from Isaiah 45:7 alone, it rather seems that God created both. I cannot say for sure at this point, and I do not want to state anything wrong, so it could be possible that God did not mean to create evil, but had to just to make people follow the good and see the good as good. An important counter-argument to this however that should be kept in mind is given by Ariel Bar Tzadok: The opening teaching reveals to us a profound contradiction. How is it that G[o]d is both the Creator of light and darkness, good and evil. How is it that both serve Him equally? Isaiah 45:7 states, I form light, I create darkness, I make peace and I create evil, I YHVH (G-d) create all these. Here we are introduced to the ultimate paradox. Good and evil are both Divine creations and both serve Heaven's purpose equally. This is a paradox unfathomable to mortal humans, whereas in the Eyes of Heaven, no such paradox exists. This is what this opening teaching comes to reveal to us. G[o]d's ultimate wisdom, His light, is far above human comprehension, as it is written, For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says YHVH (G[o]d). For as the Heavens are higher than the Earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9). G[o]d's reasons and the purposes of His actions are beyond mortal understanding. [ ] We do not see the light. It is too brilliant (bahir) for the mortal human mind to comprehend. This light, this comprehension, is in Heaven, unreachable to those trapped on Earth. [ ] The text, after quoting Job, that the brilliant light is in Heaven, quotes two verses that state that G[o]d (who is in Heaven) is surround by darkness and clouds. The apparent contraction is that how can G[o]d who is basked in the light of Heaven and at the same time be concealed in darkness and clouds? The answer is found in yet a third verse which states that, to G[o]d, light and darkness 9

10 are equal and the same. Herein is our paradox. G[o]d's reality and our human reality are different. (Sefer HaBahir - The Book of Brilliance: An Ancient Guide To Experiencing Spiritual Truths, With Commentary by Ariel Bar Tzadok, 2011, retrieved on 27 April 2018) Especially as verse 13 in the Sefer Ha-Bahir continues with Isaiah 45:7 and the meaning of the phrase: "He forms light and creates darkness". The verse gives an accurate reply: Light has substance. Therefore, the term formation is used with regard to it. Darkness has no substance, and therefore, with regard to it, the term creation is used. It is similarly written (Amos 4:12), He forms mountains and creates the wind. Another explanation is this: Light was actually brought into existence, as it is written (Genesis 1:3), And God said, let there be light. Something cannot be brought into existence unless it is made. The term formation is therefore used. In the case of darkness, however, there was no making, only separation and setting aside. It is for this reason that the term created (Bara) is used. It has the same sense as in the expression, That person became well (hi-bria). (Taken from Kaplan s translation) Chaos and Form are equal to substanclessness and substance which equal dark and light. When there was nothing, everything was dark, but when God started making he made light, before he placed anything on the Earth. Everything that has to be formed out of something is made, and everything which comes into being through setting aside or separating from something else is creating. First he creates through separating in the dark, and then he starts making things in his creation. This is why there was first chaos on the earth and indefinite form and out of this, everything was well-formed. Now verse 14 asks Why is the letter Bet closed on all sides and open in the front? (Kaplan translation). The reply comes immediately, stating that the letter should not be read bet, but bayit which means house. Jewish sources often refer to God as Place (Makom); [ ]. Several Greek writers who preceded Philo, in referring to the God of the Jews, used the term makkif ("containing"), [ ]. Later midrashic texts (e.g., Gen. R. 8:10) state explicitly that God is "the place of the world and His world is not His place." (Space and Time in Jewish Philosophy, retrieved on 28 April 2018) 10

11 The Sefer Ha-Bahir states in verse 14 additionally that Proverbs 24:3 teaches that With wisdom the house is built, with understanding it is established which is a reference to this. Also keep in mind that the letter bet is a blessing. So we can say until now that the beginning was a blessing symbolized through the letter bet which is the first sound in the alphabet as alef has no sound for itself, but is only visible, not hearable. In the beginning was the dark and chaos and God created through separating. Then he starting making light in contrast and used the first substance to make things. Despite being a blessing Bet can be also found in God and in his house (bayit) as God is the place of the world. As the whole nature is a blessing, Man is a blessing, too. However, verse 15 asks What does Bet resemble? (Kaplan translation). The answer is that it is like man who is formed by God with wisdom. He is closed on all sides, but open in front. The Aleph, however, is open from behind. This teaches us that the tail of the Bet is open from behind. If not for this, man could not exist. Likewise, if not for the Bet on the tail of the Aleph, the world could not exist. (Taken from the Kaplan translation) So this verse shows dependent existence. Nothing exists independently but is a part of the big plan of God. Man is exactly built like the universe and is an image of God, and through wisdom which is the beginning (and thus a blessing) of the fear of god, man alone could not exist if God did not form him with wisdom. And as he has wisdom, he can differentiate between the Good and the Bad. In the last verse of Section one verse 16 Rabbi Rahumai is cited who said that Illumination preceded the world and gives Psalm 97:3 as account ("Cloud and gloom surround Him.", Kaplan transl.), which is also given in Genesis 1:3. Then suddenly, a seemingly new story starts which is important since it shows God s wordly order towards His creation: They said to Him, "Before the creation of Israel your son, will you then make him a crown?" He replied yes. What does this resemble? A king yearned for a son. One day he found a beautiful, precious crown, and he said, "This is fitting for my son's head." They said to him, "Are you then certain that your son will be worthy of this crown?" He replied, "Be still. This is what arises in thought." It is thus written (2 Samuel 14:14), He thinks thoughts [that none should be cast away]. (taken from the Kaplan translation) The Sefer Ha-Bahir is a mystical (sometimes claimed esoterical) text whose full understanding needs profound study of the Jewish Texts, both the officially acknowledged ones, as well as commentaries 11

12 and oral transmissions that are not formalized. I do not claim that I have fully understood the whole Section One and its deep meaning, but I think we can learn a lot from a philosophical standpoint. However, at first I want to point out the framework. The book itself is not built on any logical principles. It does not have premises and conclusions though a few passages, like the first verse, clearly show the try to put formalism based on logic inside. However, the work does not need to claim philosophical logic, because all the laws that we are conditioned to in this world (such as the Law of Non- Contradiction) does not apply to God and His realm. God has created the Logic on our Earth, but it does not mean that God is conditioned to it, too. God has His own Logic. As human-beings, we will never be able to fully grasp God s plan. This is why there is so much discussion about whether God created evil or not. People ask, why should God create evil as He just wants the Good?. But we know as a fact that there is evil, and we do not know why it is there, as we cannot understand how such a good God can accept that it happens or even create it. The book shows a lot of important ideas that are important to grasp Early Jewish thought. First, even though the book itself does not follow philosophical logic as we know it, people in the past thought that everything can be formalized. As the numbers equaled the letters, it was thought that every word in fact is a combination of numbers and therefore, like mathematics with numbers, the whole language can be formalized mathematically. Therefore, every word of every sentence is a mathematical code that can be used as in mathematical logics with its respective operators. This opens new possibilities for human-beings, as everything must have a structure and we can see the structure. If speech can be formalized mathematically, then all the objects of reference must be subject of mathematics as well; this means that nothing can stand for itself. Man is not just a man, but man is a sum of particles of the environment. The environment does not exist for itself. The particles in the nature consist of particles from the universe. Therefore, the whole universe is connected. We can learn important things out of it that we often forget in daily life: 1) If we harm nature, we also harm ourselves. 2) When man destroys the universe, man also destroys himself. Ethical behavior how to treat nature (e.g. exploiting the nature when it s good for humanity) suddenly receive a new value. They can even be logically explained: God created the universe, the earth is in the universe, and on the earth is man. If man destroys the earth which is the place where he lives, then man cannot survive. If man intervenes drastically in the universe which affects the earth, again man cannot survive (therefore destroying the universe is not meant literally, since we cannot destroy the universe, but the space projects are often an intervention in the nature of the universe, and this means it will also somehow affect us e.g. satellite waste falling down on the Earth). Second, the Section One follows an internal logic. It starts with explaining that there was no substance and substance and both were separated from each other. This is what creation actually means, the process of separating things out of the one mess. After this process is done, God starts making things 12

13 out of what he just separated. The central image in the whole section is the term blessing. Beginning is a blessing, wisdom is a blessing, etc. If wisdom is the beginning, beginning must be undoubtedly be a blessing. If man is made out of wisdom, he is a blessing, too. The word house starts with bet, thus it must be a blessing, too, even further, the letter represents the house and without it, there would be nothing before (alef could not exist without bet). Without a beginning, there would be no beginning. However, the methodology is very difficult. It is not a recitation of Biblical stories or a comparison of biblical texts, but single sentences or even parts of sentences out of any story are taken and analyzed. Since speech is just a formalization of mathematical ideas, it is believed that the Bible is not to be taken literally in its stories and content, but that each sentence in fact has a deeper connection. This is highly problematic, because there is done a huge speculation into a sentence which is arbitrarily taken out of context. Paradoxically, this method also solves a lot of problems. One has to keep in mind that the early writers knew a lot of symbolism and they also had the idea that things can actually stand for something else. The method of taking out several phrases, comparing them with others and search for the meaning of the symbols actually uncovers the symbols that were once encrypted in the stories. Indeed, people believed that wisdom can be that profound that it is as deep-minded as a sea whose amount and ground people could not grasp back then. This also means that the teaching equals a sea. It is so large and wide and so deep, that its full content cannot be simply grasped by being at the shore and watching at it. The unknown sea indeed was a contrast to the known land. The dualism of known and unknown, of those which is already enlightened to people and what stays still in the dark even though we have our own thoughts of it nowadays, we have to imagine the reader s situations back then when the words were set. The readers in the Middle Ages realized that if one wants to become close to God, it is not enough to recite the stories which are told, but it is important to uncover the symbolism of the stories. In addition, the Bible is full of poetry and songs (such as in the Psalms and the Book of Songs) that they are even more difficult to decipher than just the stories that were told and retold. In addition, in later books, references to earlier books and passages were implemented, so comparing the meaning of a word in the whole Tanakh and deciding its symbolism after comparison of several appearances indeed is a great help. The early writers set each word carefully. It is not a coincidence that the Tanakh begins with bereshit and not reshit. By just reading the text, we won t notice anything, but by seeing what the ancient people possibly saw in it, we can get a better understanding. Actually, this is what Jewish mysticism is about. It is about finding the nature of everything, getting closer to God, by understanding God in the times of the revelation. It is a crossover of present time and past time. And since the Sefer Ha-Bahir was finished in the Middle Ages, it is even a crossover of three dimensions. We have to ask from nowadays, what could a Middle Ages author 13

14 tried to find about the earliest times? Indeed, in my stage of knowledge about Judaism, I am far too premature to dedicate myself to Kabbalah and its content. Instead I hope I could show why we need Kabbalah. We cannot only find a spiritual path in it. The Sefer Ha-Bahir reveals to us, how we shall understand the creation and we can conclude ethical behavior out of it. We can learn how we shall design our life ideally to live in harmony with God. Section One showed why we cannot see the creation independently, but why we have to see a continuous (blessing beginning house wisdom, substance universe man). We can see why it matters to care about the Earth, we can see what the creation stands for, and that everything has a plan and structure, but the full plan is only known to God. We have to try to accept this plan to search for God. Timo Schmitz, 28 April