Shabbat Parashat Bereishit - 5781

Shabbat Parashat Bereishit - 5781

Rabbi Hal Miller

  And the wind of God was hovering over the waters [Bereishis 1:2]

It is difficult to imagine what our verse means. Two words stand out as in

particular the driving forces for the sentence, ruach and m'rachefet, which

are translated here as wind and hovering. What do they connote here?

Probably the most common usage of ruach would be wind. Other options

include breath, spirit, direction, blow, state of mind, and many similar. Rambam

lists six meanings, and Abarbanel criticizes them, and lists others instead.

Sforno says it refers to the energy by which the planet operates. Radak notes

that grammatically, the word refers to something that is an agent of its Creator,

thus its motion over the waters was to dry them out. In most of these, the word

refers to something in motion.

M'rachefet also has many definitions, but the most common is 'hovering'. The

classic example has to do with an eagle hovering over its nest to care for its

chicks. But this implies something not in motion, which seems in conflict with

the earlier words of our verse. Onkelos and Sforno both say it means 'blowing'

but Ralbag interprets it as 'rest upon'.

Abarbanel asks an interesting question on this subject. If a wind, spirit, breath,

whatever of God was hovering over the waters, that implies that there was a

geographical point that could be defined as above the waters. But at this spot

in the story, the waters had not yet been divided between upper and lower. He

goes through the various examples of both words cited by other commentators

and concludes that both ruach and m'rachefet do not refer to physicality, but to

spirituality. A tangible wind might 'hover', but an intangible one could not. There

is no physical air movement having a physical impact upon water in our verse,

rather God is commanding the beginning of the motion, which he understands

to be what we might call activity or life, of the universe. God is jump-starting

His creation. From this jump-start will evolve physical motion and action. In the

next verse, He creates light, the beginning of all that follows.