Let’s rewind the cosmos back to the beginning, and then just a little bit more. By thinking this through we get a surprise bonus: a personal discovery of a basic principle of kabbalah and how it explains what may be the greatest enigma of all time. by Arnie Gotfryd
Choose your beginning.
Many people believe in a big bang creation, a “singularity”, that started the universe with an immensely powerful infusion of primordial light in the distant past. Others believe in a six day creation that started the universe with an immensely powerful infusion of primordial light in the distant past.
In either case there was a beginning to the physical universe, a beginning to time and space, a first event that emerged from absolute nothingness. But how could that be? How could something come from nothing?
Thirty-eight hundred years ago, Abraham had not heard of a six-day creation. He also hadn’t heard of the big bang. But he did figure out that there must have been a beginning. From observing and contemplating nature, he deduced that prior to the first defining moment of creation, there was an undefined Creator. He also figured out that this Creator was not a thing. In fact the most cogent thing one might say about this Creator is that He is the consummate example of no-thing-ness.
But wait a moment. What’s the difference between saying that the Creator is no-thing and saying that the Creator is nothing? We are basically using the same terms to define monotheism and atheism! But these are obviously not the same, for in one scenario, the world and everything that’s in it is an exquisitely planned and executed masterpiece while in the other it’s a collosal, uncaused, accidental, cosmic hiccup (without a hiccuper, no less!)
Abraham knew the difference between no-thing-ness and nothingness. He empathized with those who felt that they are real and the Creator is zero. Yet he knew that actually he was the zero while the Creator is the Real One, strange as that might be.
It’s all a matter of perspective. From the Divine perspective, we are like the creatures in our dreams, vivid, yet ephemeral, constantly subject to the creative imagination of the dreamer. Were G-d to remove His mind from us, we would vanish. But from the human perspective, the Creator is an option, if we believe, He is real, if not, not. Ultimately, it is our perspective that is illusory for whether we dream or not, the ultimate reality is Divine.
The nothingness that precedes creation is the great divide, the Big Block, the curtain that hides the Divine presence from the Creations. That curtain allows us free choice, allows evil to exist, allows us to relate to G-d, and Him to us. It allows the created to seek the Creator in an ultimate game of hide-and-go-seek, and it provides a context for reward once the game is up.
(Further reading.. Likutei Torah, Devarim. Maimonides, Laws of Torah Foundations 2:10, esp. English commentary, Moznaim ed. p.174)
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