Shabbat Parashat Bereishit - 5785

Shabbat Parashat Bereishit - 5785

Rabbi Hal Miller

   God said, let there be light, and there was light. [Bereishit 1:3]

The story of Creation comes throughout the first chapter of this book. But the wording

differs as we proceed through the story. Our usual understanding is that God created

everything all at once on the first day with what became known as the Big Bang. So did

God also create other things during the week?

Our verse reads in Hebrew: vayomer elohim yehi or vayehi or. The next verse says that

"God saw that the light was good and God separated between the light and the darkness"

which indicates that He did something with what He created. In 1:6, "God said, let there

be a firmament between the waters and let it separate, etc.," in Hebrew, vayomer elohim

yehi rekiya b'toch hamayim vayehi mavdil, etc. This contains correspondences to both

parts of 1:3 with yehi and vayehi. Then in 1:7, "God made the firmament and He

separated" which corresponds to both 1:3 and 1:4. In 1:9, 11, 16 and 20 the verbs are

other than yehi, but in 1:14 we see it again, "God said, let there be lights in the

firmament" vayomer elohim yehi m'orot barekiya. All the verses that use yehi seem to be

creating something, where all the others using other verbs are manipulating or finishing

off what was already created. The same verb in the form vayehi seems to fit with the

latter category as well, so it is just yehi, let there be, that we need to look at.

Assuming that the actual Creation was all at once on the first day, what does yehi teach

us here? If God created light with yehi, which may be seen as the initial Creation of

everything, did He also later create the firmament in 1:6 and lights in it with yehi in 1:14?

How does 1:21 fit where "God created the sea giants" with vayivra (created) or in 1:7

where "God made the firmament" with vaya'as (made)?

Ibn Ezra says that nothing was created on the first day except light, thus all these other

verbs are in fact relating to additional creative activity. But most commentators disagree

and say that some of our words here are not used in their usual sense.

For example, Rashi is solid in his understanding that everything was created on the first

day with our verse. He explains verse 6 as "let the firmament be strengthened", that when

God created, it was unfinished material, which He now pulls together and molds into what

He wants. In verse 7, 'made' means "fixed in its position" and in 14, the lights were now

suspended in the sky. Ramban concurs, saying that on the first day it was creation of

something from nothing, and on the subsequent days, something from something. Or

HaChayim explains that everying was created on the first day, and then God began

applying order to the created material.

For 14, Radak says that the light was created on the first day, but since there was no

atmosphere to channel it to earth, God needed to rekindle, as it were, once the atmosphere

was in place. Rashbam agrees to this, saying the verse means God started a process that

resulted in the light falling upon the earth. Radak also says that where the Torah says "God

made" it means that He completed making whatever it was.

Ramban and Rav Soloveitchik both look at the words vayomer elohim, "and God said". Who

was He speaking to, especially since the angels were not finished until the second day and

man not until the sixth? Both explain that vayomer in this portion does not mean 'say' as it

usually does, but that God 'thought' or 'intended', and that it is only man who can not do

both thinking and saying as one, but has to separate them. Thus vayomer is a creative word.

As to verse 21, Sforno makes an interesting observation. We might look at verses 9, 11 and

20 as being similar, as in 11, "let the earth sprout vegetation" and ask why the sea giants

are different. He explains that the earth was able to produce vegetation and the waters in 20

were able to produce the creeping creatures, but the sea giants were more than the seas

could produce without God taking further action. It still fits our understanding of the first day

Creation of what is often called "primordial matter" which God then spends the rest of the

week finishing off.