Sunday, October 21, 2007

Begin at the beginning

Zohar class began again today, and this year we are studying texts from the Zohar on creation. We learned a passage from Bereshit Rabba 1:10:

רבי יונה בשם רבי לוי אמר: למה נברא העולם בב'? אלא מה ב' סתום מכל צדדיו ופתוח מלפניו — כך אין לך רשות לומר מה למטה, מה למעלה, מה לפנים, ומה לאחור; אלא מיום שנברא העולם ולהבא.

Rabbi Yona said in the name of Rabbi Levi: Why was the world created with the letter Beit [the first letter of the story of creation in Genesis 1]? Just as the letter Beit is closed on all sides with an opening facing forwards, so you have no right to say what is below, what is above, what is before and what is behind, except from the day when the world was created and onwards.

Then we learned from the beginning of the Zohar (I 1b):

כיון דשאל בר נש ומפשפש לאסתכלא ולמנדע מדרגא לדרגא עד סוף כל דרגין, כיון דמטי תמן, מ"ה. מה ידעת, מה אסתכלתא, מה פשפשתא, הא כלא סתים כדקדמיתא.

When one asks and investigates to see and know from one level to the next unto the end of all levels, one reaches a point where one can only ask "What did you know? What did you see? What did you investigate? Everything is as concealed as it was in the beginning."

(a very rough translation)

This is a kind of visual riff on the theme of those two passages: bereshit