Bereshit
In the Beginning God
created the Heavens and the Earth:
Genesis 1:1
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 for bringing forth something from
nothing other than the word “bara” (created)….God brought forth from total and
absolute nothing a very thin substance devoid of corporeality but having a
power of potency, but to assume form and to proceed from potentiality into
reality…God did not create anything, but formed and made things with it…
Ramban (13th
Century)
The paragraph tells us that heaven
and earth with all their derivatives were created on the first day, none of
them having been preceded by any physical matter at all. This fact is attested to by the word “bara”
which describes the creation of “something out of
nothing.”
Rabbeinu
Bachya (14th Century)
The process of creation commenced
with the coming into existence of primordial matters called “heaven” and
“earth.” …The former exist only in the feelings of the prophets, is an
intangible. The latter comprises basic
materials not yet fused in any shape or form.
The two are so basically different from one another that they could not
have been part of any single directive.
Akedat
Yitzchak (15th Century)
A few hundred years ago, a man wrote a book
which contained no less than 913 different interpretations of “Bereshit,” the
first word of the Torah. He stopped at
913 because that is the numerical value of the word “Bereshit” according to the
system of “Gematria.”…Readers of the Torah were never bothered by the
simpleton’s question, which is often shared by the so-called “scientific mind”” Of all the
commentaries, which is the “true” or “real” one? They knew, as keen students of hermeneutics
and modern literary criticism know, that what differentiates great literature
from its lesser counterpart is that the former can be interpreted on many
levels, all equally “true” and “real.”
And what is true of great literature is certainly true of the word of
God, embodied in Torah.
Pinchas
Peli (20th Century)
More important, whether “creation
out of nothing” is implied in verse 1 depends, not so much on how we begin the
verse, but on how we understand “heaven and earth.” If we understand “heaven and earth” as
everything there is or can be, then, to the modern mind, it would seem that
neither time nor matter can pre-exist…If the concept of heaven and earth
describes only an organized and ordered universe, then a primordial pre
existence is not precluded…
Hershel
Shanks (Contemporary)