Torah and Jewish Idea > Torah and Jewish Idea
Shalom
muman613:
--- Quote from: Sefardic Panther on December 01, 2009, 04:17:30 PM ---Did'nt nature work differently before the mabool?
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I have heard this too...
--- Quote ---http://www.torah.org/learning/rabbis-notebook/5766/vayera.html
At what price? What was the cost of wiring the universe so that it will not sustain continuous and unrepentable evil? Rav Hirsch explained that by altering the physiology of the world after the Mabul (or during the Mabul) G-d shortened the life span of the human and the ability to perpetuate and perpetrate generations of evil. However, along the way He also shortened the ability to perpetuate and perpetrate generations of goodness. Avraham died when he was 175. Yitzchak died at 180. Yakov died at 147. Even Moshe died at the tender age of 120. The price of curtailing evil was the curtailing of good. Clearly, G-d decided that it was worth limiting the potential for good in exchange for limiting the potential for evil.
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I think that the change in nature was the length of a mans lifespan...
Another opinion is that Hashem made the sun rise in the East and set in the West after the Mabul {it must have risen in the west and set in the east beforehand}...
http://www.dafyomi.co.il/sanhedrin/reviewa/sn-ra-108.htm
muman613:
What you quoted seems quite supportive to what I was saying... It also contains quite a bit of Kabbalah {discussion of the ten sefeirot}... Where is there discussion of the Ohr Ein Sof? I believe when he says 'prime matter' or 'elemental fire' it is referring to the 'primordial light' which I have referred to...
PS: it is hard to understand these passages without a deeper understanding of the concept of tzimtzum, or contraction, which occured at the moment Hashem created our reality.
http://ohr.edu/yhiy/article.php/933
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High Noon. The Desert. Hot air rises on the horizon like a cobra under a snake-charmers spell.
In this heat, everything floats. Nothing is distinct. Everything shimmers, melts, and re-forms into different shapes in front of your eyes.
An Unformed World
No one is certain why and how mirages occur and why they happen only in some places and not in others. Scientists postulate and theorize, but the mirage remains shrouded in mystery. What is the connection between the mirage and the desert? Is it mere metrology, or is there some deeper connection?
The Closest Encounter
On the sixth of Sivan, nearly 3500 years ago, the Torah was given on a small mountain in the middle of a large desert called Sinai.
Why was the Torah was given in the desert?
If the Creator decided to give over the blueprint of His creation in a desert, it must be that the desert is the quintessential place for the Torahs giving. To say that G-d could just have easily given the Torah in a shop or a restaurant would be to accuse the Creator of a certain sloppiness, G-d forbid. In other words, the desert must represent the exact necessary elements of place for the Torah to enter this world.
What is it about the desert that makes it the ideal place for the Torah to be given?
Formless And Empty
"In the beginning, G-d created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was void (tohu) and formless (bohu) and darkness was on the face of the deep." (Bereshet 1:1)
The way we see the world now, is not the way it looked at the dawn of creation. To arrive at the world as we know it, creation went through two prior primordial stages: tohu and bohu.
Everything physical is a marriage of form and matter. Matter is the raw material. Form molds matter to give it its specific shape. The form, the shape of something, reveals its purpose. The purpose of something is its spiritual component. The purpose of a spoon is to stir. Its shape expresses its purpose.
When G-d created this world, He first brought into existence physical matter whose form could not yet be defined, whose spiritual dimension was not yet revealed. That substance contained in it the myriad potential of everything that might be formed from it. The ancient Greeks called this primordial material "hiuli". The Torah calls it tohu. This was the first tiny dot of creation ex nihilo. Pure matter not garbed by form.
Tohu is connected to the word meaning regret. For if you would try to give this formless substance a name, immediately you would regret your decision, and give it another name. This second name you would also regret as insufficient, and another, and so forth, for this elemental matter could not be garbed with a name. As it had no form, as its purpose was as yet undefined, it could have no name. Tohu was the potential as yet un-actualized.
There's Something Here
Then, within this primordial matter, like the blocks of a building, form began to emerge. This second stage of creation was called bohu, from the two words: bo meaning "in it" and hu meaning "there is." In other words, within the limitless potential of pure matter, it was possible to say, "There is in it." "Something is here." A recognizable shape had taken hold on shapeless matter. The actual was starting to emerge from the potential.
Time Warp
The mirage is the most distant echo of the world of tohu, a world where nothing is distinct and all things are possible. It is a throwback to that first stage of creation. Form seems to dissolve and re-form like a melting chocolate bar. Temporarily, form seems to have lost its dominion over matter. The world of the actual liquefies into myriad possibilities once again.
The Ultimate Shape
Precisely for this same reason, the Torah was given in the desert. The Torah is the ultimate shape of the world, its ultimate form and purpose its spiritual component. Therefore it must enter the world in the place where there is the least form. That place is the desert.
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http://www.vbm-torah.org/archive/intparsha/bereishit/01-65bereishit.htm
--- Quote ---THE INFERENCE OF RASHI'S WORDS
The perceptive reader will have already understood the import of Rashi's interpretation. While Rashi confines his discussion to technical matters of grammar and syntax, there is an astounding inference from his words. If the first verse of the Torah means "In the beginning of the Lord's creating of heaven and earth, the earth was formless and void…" then the real subject of the initial part of this section is not the creation of heaven and earth, but rather the fashioning of the light. The first two verses that speak of heaven and earth, of chaos and emptiness, of darkness and of the deep, are entirely introductory, and are meant only to set the stage for the creation of the light that follows. Or, to quote the Ramban (13th century, Spain), "according to Rashi's reading, everything leads up to the creation of the light." In other words, the Torah begins its chronological recounting of God's creation of the cosmos only from the fashioning of that supernal light and forwards, but concerning the INITIAL act of creation by which He transformed utter nothingness into matter, the Torah is completely silent.
It is as if the account of these six days has provided us, the human readers, with a glimpse into the early stages of God's work. But with respect to His original acts, by which the first elements were brought into being and manipulated by Him to form the primordial matter, we are told absolutely nothing. We cannot fathom, according to Rashi, God's first acts, nor can we ever hope to garner any insights from the text. All we can say with certainty is that at the outset, the earth was formless and void and the spirit of the Lord hovered upon the dark surface of the waters. But how it was that earth, those heavens or the deep waters – the elemental materials from which all else derived – came into being, we cannot know.
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takebackourtemple:
--- Quote from: muman613 on November 30, 2009, 05:46:38 PM ---Dan,
It is believed that the plants did not bloom till man was created because man must pray for rain in order for it to fall.
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In essence the seeds were created and were at their lowest spiritual level on that day. It required the prayers of man not only to call for rain, but to elevate it. My question become whether they were able to bloom before the seventh day, since the seventh day could not be without food.
Kahane-Was-Right BT:
--- Quote from: muman613 on December 01, 2009, 09:56:58 AM ---
--- Quote from: Kahane-Was-Right BT on December 01, 2009, 06:28:09 AM ---
--- Quote from: muman613 on November 30, 2009, 05:46:38 PM ---Dan,
I believe I can 'shed some light' on this topic...
First, the light created on the first day is not sunlight or any other kind of light which we know of today. The light created on the first day we call the Supernal light, the Kabbalistic light which was put away shortly after it was created to be saved for the righteous on the day of judgement. If this light is not sun-light or any other kind of light which we know, it cannot be the light which sustained the plants.
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"Kabbalistic light?" Let's not invent things wholecloth here. I know what idea you refer to, it's in Rashi on Chumash and it has nothing to do with "kabalistic light."
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Why do you suggest that I am inventing something? There is very much written about this light. You know about "Ohr Ein Sof"? The Infinite light of creation...
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Cite me where the light in creation is called "kabbalistic light."
--- Quote ---But aside from that... You suggest that anyone who looks to Torah must totally ignore the first few Parashas because you think it is too complex?
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LOL, did I say that? Is that what the rishonim held? NO. You are reading into what I'm saying something that isn't actually there. Because you are dead-set on the mystical reading, contrary to most rishonim and their understanding of the maaseh bereshith.
Kahane-Was-Right BT:
--- Quote from: Dan ben Noah on December 01, 2009, 03:41:10 PM ---Also, KWR-BT, it is feasible that G-d could create light without a sun or any celestial bodies, so I still have no problem with the literal interpretation that the light was created first. Saying that G-d must create the sun before light weakens G-d. If it is supposed to be symbolic, then fine, but there are still no problems with the literal interpretation without resorting to Kabbalah.
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I hear what you're saying, but it's not that I'm saying God couldn't create light (or anything) without the sun. What I mean to say is that "morning and evening" as we understand it, refers to the presence of sunlight (the sun "rises" in the perception of the human eye), and then the lack of sunlight (when the sun "sets," or goes down, in the perspective of the human eye). So in that way, it can't possibly be that morning and evening means what we usually take it to mean, since this happened several times without there being a sun created yet.
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