Congregation Beth Shalom

This Saturday morning, Jews all over the world will begin, again, a new cycle of Torah reading with the clarion call of Creation:  “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth (Gen. 1:1).”

God’s first act of creation: “Let there be light; and there was light (Gen. 1:3).”  Lurking beneath the surface of the text is a question that has troubled philosophers and theologians for ages.  What was there before there was light?  The philosophers Philo and Augustine, and even verses from the Qur’an, state emphatically  “nothing.”  God created his world out of nothing.  Their conclusion remains confusing, especially with regard to the next verse in Genesis: “God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness (1:4).”

Where did “darkness” come from?  We are only told that God created light.  This suggests that darkness existed even before God began the acts of creation.  It was not out of nothing this world was created, but out of darkness.  Furthermore, God did not create darkness, rather in response to darkness God first created light.  Rabbi Menahem Creditor of Berkeley, CA writes, “We are afraid of the dark and always have been.  God didn't like it either.  We name our fear every night when, during evening prayers, we say "You, God, who brings the day and brings the night," attributing to our Source of Comfort the power to bring the next day, and to thereby banish the scary darkness.”

As humans, we possess a primordial fear of darkness.  We see within it evil, misfortune, death, and ignorance.  We overcome the advantage of night by creating artificial forms of light to protect us until the dawn.

A wonderfully profound commentary in the Eitz Hayim Pentateuch states: “Light, the first thing God created, can be seen as symbolizing Judaism’s commitment to clarity rather than mystery, to openness rather than concealment, to study rather than blind faith.  Light, God’s first creation, becomes a symbol of God’s Presence, in the fire of the Burning Bush and the revelation at Sinai.”

Before God could complete his design for the world, he first had to bring light into an all-consuming darkness.   Before humankind can bring peace, prosperity, and happiness to a world sorely in need (and, in doing so, complete God’s act of creation), we must first shine light into those still dark corners of existence.

Rabbi Howard Siegel