http://thetorah.

com/my-encounter-with-the-
firmament/

The opening sentence of Genesis is surprisingly difficult to translate, and many

translations misunderstand it. Yet the best translations do capture the point correctly;
this may be seen, for example, in both the Tanakh translation of the Jewish Publication
Society and Everett Fox’s “English with a Hebraic voice” translation, which render
Genesis 1:1-3 as a single grammatical sentence:

Tanakh Translation   Everett Fox’s Translation

1 1
When God began to create heaven and At the beginning of God’s creating of the
earth—2 the earth being unformed and void, heavens and the earth, 2 when  the earth was
with darkness over the surface of the deep wild and waste, darkness over the face of
and a wind from God sweeping over the Ocean, rushing-spirit of God hovering over
water—3 God said, “Let there be light”; and the face of the waters—3 God said: Let there
there was light.[3]  be light! And there was light.[4]

Rashi
In many ways, both of these modern translators follow Rashi, who in his second
comment to verse 1, notes:[I]f you come to explain it according to its plain, literal
meaning, explain it this way: “At the beginning of the creation of heavens and earth and
(or when) the earth was unformed and void and darkness…”  Scripture does not come to
teach the order of [the acts of] creation… for had it come to teach that, it should have
written, “At first (bar’ishonah), he created the heavens…”[5]

The Meaning of Verse 2

According to the translations offered above, verse 2 offers some background, by
describing the prevailing circumstances in the cosmos before any creative act affected it.
In other words, this verse describes what existed before God undertook creating the
heavens and the earth. The first act of creation occurs only in verse 3, when light is
called into existence. 

The Ordered Construction of the World:

Understanding Creation: Days 2-6 

Most obvious would be the large, domestic and undomesticated animals that humans
exploit (day 6), preceded by all manner of live creatures that swarm, creep, swim, walk
and fly (day 5).  There would need to be the regular cycle of day and night, complete
with sun, moon and stars that governed longer and shorter days and dry and wet
seasons (day 4). For all this to have occurred required that there be gathered waters, and
a sky, and earth, and victuals for all the creatures (days 3 and 2). [6] On these days God
either manipulates existent material elements in the world by fiat (verses 9, 11) or, after
deciding what each particular stage of his world construction project required, he makes
it for the world (verses 7,16-18, 21, 25, 27).[7]  The sense of deity projected in these verses
is not that of a magician spouting words and waving his wand, but of a thoughtful
master artisan at work, involved intimately in his own project (verses 6, 14-15, 20, 24,
and see 26).[8] 

The ordered presentation of the world constructed from raw materials that had to be
prepared and manipulated to provide for an infrastructure and then a complicated
superstructure, a self-sustaining biosphere, is presented as a logical, comprehensible
progression. Its conclusion, describing the settlement of the world by creatures, each in
its proper ecological niche, reflects the ideas of someone— to paraphrase Krauss—who
looked at the world and undertook to discover an answer to the audacious, original, and
retrospective question: “How did the world that I know come about?” Cele mai evidente
ar fi animalele mari, domestice și nedomesticate pe care oamenii le exploatează (ziua 6),
precedate de tot felul de creaturi vii care se rotesc, se strecoară, înoată, merg și zboară (ziua 5).
Ar fi trebuit să fie ciclul obișnuit de zi și de noapte, complet cu soare, lună și stele, care
guvernează zile mai lungi și mai scurte și sezoane uscate și umede (ziua 4). Pentru ca toate
acestea să se fi întâmplat, trebuie să fie adunate ape, un cer și un pământ, și alimente pentru toate
făpturile (zilele 3 și 2). [6] În aceste zile, Dumnezeu fie manipulează elementele materiale
existente în lume prin fiat (versetele 9, 11), fie după ce a decis ce fiecare etapă a proiectului său
de construcție mondială a cerut-o, o face pentru lume (versurile 7,16-18,21 , 25, 27). [7]
Sentimentul de divinitate proiectat în aceste versete nu este acela al unui magician care suflă
cuvintele și își flutură bagheta, ci un mândru artizan la lucru, implicat intim în propriul său
proiect (versurile 6, 14-15, 20, 24 și vezi 26). [8]
Prezentarea ordonată a lumii construită din materii prime care trebuia pregătită și manipulată
pentru a asigura o infrastructură și apoi o suprastructură complicată, o biosferă autosustinică, este
prezentată ca o progresie logică și inteligibilă. Concluzia sa, care descrie așezarea lumii de către
creaturi, fiecare în propria ei nișă ecologică, reflectă ideile cuiva - de a paraframa pe Krauss -
care privea lumea și se angajează să descopere un răspuns la întrebarea îndrăzneață, originală și
retrospectivă: "Cum a venit lumea despre care știu?"

He concluded that the raw stuff, earth and water, out of which the world’s infrastructure
had been made, must have existed as a shapeless, flowing slime that would later be
divided into component parts (verse 9).[9] The tehom (‫)תהום‬, an unbounded sea of fresh
water (see Proverbs 8:27-28) translated as “deep” and “Ocean” that would eventually be
contained under the surface of the earth (Gen 7:11, 8:2), also existed, but was restrained
from splitting apart by a covering of  “darkness.” This darkness was understood to be
something real and palpable, not merely the absence of light, as in the Egyptian
darkness plague (Exod 10:21). Other waters were kept from rising up by a horizontal
wind or rushing-spirit of God (see also Gen 8:1 where a wind sent by God drives flood
waters off the land and Exod 14:21 where such a wind drives back sea waters, exposing
the dry sea floor). Thus, before the creation of the world, different types of matter
moved in an otherwise empty void. Balanced, powerful forces in relational adjacency co-
existed in a cosmos that had no light. [10] The pre-creation cosmos was filled with matter,
energy, and motion. El a concluzionat că materiile prime, pământul și apa, din care a fost
făcută infrastructura mondială a lumii, trebuie să fi existat ca un șuvoi curat și neclar, care
ulterior ar fi împărțit în părți componente (versetul 9) Theom (‫)תהום‬, o mare neîngrădită de apă
dulce (vezi Proverbe 8: 27-28) tradusă ca "adânc" și "ocean", care va fi în cele din urmă sub
suprafața pământului (Geneza 7:11, 8: 2 ), dar a fost împiedicat să se despartă de o acoperire a
"întunericului". Acest întuneric a fost înțeles a fi ceva real și palpabil, nu doar absența luminii, ca
în ciuma întunericului egiptean (Exod 10:21). Alte ape au fost ținute de a se ridica de un vânt
orizontal sau de un spirit ghinionist al lui Dumnezeu (a se vedea și Geneza 8: 1 unde un vânt
trimis de Dumnezeu conduce apele de inundații din țară și Exod 14:21 unde un astfel de vânt
conduce apele de mare, expunând pardoseala cu apă uscată). Astfel, înainte de crearea lumii,
diferite tipuri de materie s-au mutat într-un gol altfel gol. Forțele puternice și echilibrate în
adjacența relațională au coexistat într-un cosmos care nu avea lumină. [10] Cosmosul pre-creatie
a fost plin de materie, energie si miscare.

“Let there be Light”

– What was this Light?

All this began to change in v. 3, “Let there be light” (verse 3).  This light, a new element
in the primeval soup, began to exist. It apparently mixed into the dark stuff
immediately.  That is why God’s second activity during the first day consisted of
separating out the light from the dark stuff to establish daytime, nighttime, and thereby,
a measurable day (verse 4).God later improved on the light of the first day by creating
the heavenly luminaries on the fourth day and designating their functions.  The author’s
unlikely conclusion that disembodied light must have been created before anything else
appears to partake in the common ancient Near Eastern conception that light was
associated with comprehensible order and structure, darkness with disorder and anti-
structure.[11]  According to this story, God co-existed with primal matter.  Since no world
even partially recognizable to humans existed before what the narrative refers to as “the
first day,” the author imagined that the raw materials of creation had existed eternally in
the same void where God later set the earth and the heavens, the world that he had
created.[12]  Although unable to articulate it precisely, the author of these verses indicates
that he thought the pre-world cosmos and God to be infinite in both time and space. He
could not imagine that either of these were measurable before God created the measure
and concept “day” at the end of day one and before he established physical limits that
created meaningful quantifiable distances between static objects in the world.  Once
time, chronological and biological, and distance could be measured, the world and its
inhabitants were understood to be finite, in the main. The mountains and earth, perhaps
everything falling loosely within our category of “mineral” may have been thought of as
infinite; but not those items in our categories of “vegetable” that wither away and
“animal” that die. The uncreated cosmos, matter moving in a void, simply “was.”  It
existed. It had existed always without rhyme or reason until it was turned into raw
material for a world.  The world, however, created by an intelligent being, God, could be
the subject of inquiry and evaluation because it had a beginning, and, therefore, a
purpose. Deși nu poate să o articuleze cu exactitate, autorul acestor versete arată că el credea că
cosmosul pre-lumii și Dumnezeu sunt infinite atât în timp cât și în spațiu. El nu și-a putut
imagina că oricare dintre acestea era măsurabilă înainte ca Dumnezeu să creeze măsura și
conceptul "zi" la sfârșitul primei zile și înainte de a stabili limite fizice care au creat distanțe
cuantificabile semnificative între obiectele statice din lume. Odată ce timpul, cronologic și
biologic, și distanța ar putea fi măsurate, lumea și locuitorii săi au fost înțeleși ca fiind finiști, în
principiu. Munții și pământul, poate că tot ce se încadrează în categoria noastră de "minerale"
poate fi considerat infinit; dar nu acele elemente din categoriile noastre de "legume" care
dispăreau și "animale" care mor.
Cosmosul necreat, materia care se mișca într-un gol, pur și simplu "a fost". A existat. A existat
întotdeauna fără rimă sau rațiune până când a fost transformată în materie primă pentru o lume.
Lumea, cu toate acestea, creată de o ființă inteligentă, Dumnezeu, ar putea fi obiectul cercetării și
al evaluării deoarece avea un început și, prin urmare, un scop [13].

The Septuagint Translation:

A Hellenistic Interpretation

In the middle of the third century, ca. 250 BCE, an anonymous Jewish scholar, most likely from
Alexandria, who “translated” Genesis 1:1-3 into Greek, provided his readers with an interpretation, not a
translation: In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth.  Yet the earth was invisible and
unformed, and darkness was over the bottomless deep; and the breath of God was floating over the water. 
And God said, ‘Let light come into being;’ and light came into being. [14]  The translator treated what in
Hebrew is a dependent adverbial clause in verse 1, indicating the moment at which God called light into
existence, as an independent sentence informing readers when God created the heavens and the earth. His
translation/interpretation taught fellow Jews in the Hellenistic Egypt of his day that God, who was pure
spirit, as many had come to believe, had never co-existed eternally with primal matter; rather, he created
the matter ex nihilo.  In this manner, he converted a popular Hellenistic philosophical premise, based on
Aristotle’s teachings, into a biblical teaching. For many Jews since, even those who read and understand
Hebrew well, this doctrine is a truism.  When they see and read the Hebrew, they think the Septuagint
translation.  When they read a similar translation in English or any other language, they assume that it
reflects the Hebrew accurately.  It does not.But the popular Hellenistic idea was strongly supported by
Maimonides on philosophical grounds and remains rooted in the contemporary religious thought of
Judaism and Christianity.[15] Even modern physics appears to support it.

Dark Energy – The Cosmology

of Modern Physics

Physicists agree that the universe consists of matter, energy, and space-time, and that these
interact in particular ways that are described as the “laws of physics,” that is, natural laws that
scientists discovered, mainly in the twentieth century, following strict methods of data-
gathering, experimentation, and quantitative analysis. According to Lawrence Krauss, the origin
of the universe as something is to be sought in primal “dark energy”—about which little is
known—that still exists in the void, filling almost all of space in our expanding universe. Krauss
explains that dark energy is “vacuum energy,” a force extant in empty space that contains
neither matter nor radiation. Under such conditions, the laws of general relativity and quantum
mechanics imply that “virtual particles” come in and out of existence in so little time that they
cannot be directly observed. Although physicists have access to only some indirect effects of this
process, these suffice for them to posit that the interconversion of energy into matter and vice
versa is a regular feature of the void.  This is because the posited process elegantly accounts for
various phenomena that are observed indirectly.     These virtual particles and their
corresponding anti-particles, equal to them in mass with an opposite electric charge, become
actual particles spontaneously.  This electron-positron pair collide and self-annihilate, leaving
trace radiating particles and empty space.  Consequently, Krauss determines on the basis of
what is known in physics today that something can come into existence from nothing. [16] Fizicienii
sunt de acord că universul este format din materie, energie și spațiu-timp, și că acestea interacționează
în moduri speciale care sunt descrise ca „legile fizicii“, adică, legile naturale care oamenii de știință au
descoperit, în principal, în secolul al XX-lea, ca urmare a metode stricte de colectare a datelor, de
experimentare și de analiză cantitativă. Potrivit lui Lawrence Krauss, originea universului ca ceva trebuie
căutată în primordial „energie întunecată“ -Despre, care este puțin cunoscut faptul că există încă în gol,
aproape de umplere a spațiului în universul nostru în expansiune. Krauss explică faptul că energia
întunecată este "energia vidului", o forță care există în spațiul gol care nu conține nici materie, nici
radiație. În astfel de condiții, legile relativității generale și ale mecanicii cuantice implică faptul că
"particulele virtuale" intră și ies din existență într-atât de puțin timp încât acestea nu pot fi observate
direct. Deși fizicienii au acces numai la unele efecte indirecte ale acestui proces, acestea sunt suficiente
pentru a se presupune că interconversia energiei în materie și invers este o caracteristică obișnuită a
vidului. Acest lucru se datorează faptului că procesul presupus oferă o explicație elegantă a diferitelor
fenomene care sunt observate indirect. Aceste particule virtuale și antiparticulele corespunzătoare,
egale cu ele în masă, cu o încărcătură electrică opusă, devin particule reale în mod spontan. Aceasta
pereche de electroni-pozitroni se ciocnesc si se auto-anihila, lasand urme care radiaza particule si spatiu
gol. În consecință, Krauss determină pe baza a ceea ce este cunoscut astăzi în fizică că ceva poate să
apară din nimic. [16]

His “nothing” is filled with energy that is quantifiable. This energy that converts itself
into or precipitates an event in space-time as a result of which a virtual particle,
behaving in accord with complex natural laws, becomes an elementary particle, is
different from what “nothing” means in common speech. Thus, in the title of his book
and lectures, “nothing” refers to no thing at all; but in his written and oral presentations,
“nothing” refers to no thing that is visible but that is none-the-less real and present.
Thus, Krauss’s use of “nothing” as a technical term referring to energy in all its forms
including mass compels translating his “something out of nothing” into natural
language by “something out of something else.” Correcting this “semantic slippage”
affects nothing in Krauss’s learned arguments. It does suggest, however, that his
explanation counters rather than supports the position of Maimonides.  The correction
also raises a question with regard to what he thinks it all goes to teach, especially in
comparison with Genesis 1.[17]    "Nimicul" lui este plin de energie cuantificabilă. Această energie
care se transformă în sau precipită un eveniment în spațiu-timp, ca urmare a faptului că o particulă
virtuală, care se comportă în conformitate cu legile naturale complexe, devine o particulă elementară,
este diferită de ceea ce înseamnă "nimic" în discursul comun. Astfel, în titlul cărții și al prelegerilor sale,
"nimic" nu se referă deloc la nimic; dar în prezentările sale scrise și orale, "nimic" nu se referă la niciun
lucru care este vizibil, dar care este cu atât mai puțin real și prezent. Astfel, folosirea de către Krauss a
"nimicului" ca termen tehnic referitor la energie în toate formele sale, inclusiv în masă, impune
traducerea lui "ceva din nimic" în limbaj natural prin "ceva din altceva". Corectarea acestei "alunecări
semantice" în argumentele învățate de Krauss. Totuși, sugerează că explicația lui controlează mai
degrabă decât susține poziția lui Maimonides. Corecția ridică, de asemenea, o întrebare cu privire la
ceea ce crede că totul merge pentru a preda, mai ales în comparație cu Geneza 1.

Conclusion – Explaining the Universe:

First Causes and Intermediate
 [7] On these occasions, even when God said yehiy, “let there be” or something similar,
the import of the words was “There should be X and I will now undertake to make it.” In
verse 20, yishretzu and ye‘ofef are used: “Let the waters swarm living swarming
creatures” and “let flying creatures fly.” 

[8] Two cases of calling for a change in circumstance are in verse 9, where the waters gather
themselves together so that dry land emerges, and verse 11 where the earth sprouts vegetation
from beneath its surface.  Verse 11 may reflect the idea of spontaneous generation unless what is
referred to as ’arets, earth, was known to include seeds that naturally germinate under
opportune circumstances. Două cazuri de chemare la o schimbare a circumstanțelor sunt în
versetul 9, unde apele se adună împreună, astfel încât să apară pământul uscat și versetul 11 unde
pământul culminează vegetația de sub suprafața sa. Versetul 11 poate reflecta ideea generării
spontane, cu excepția cazului în care ceea ce se numește "arete, pământ", era cunoscut faptul că
include semințe care germinează în mod natural în circumstanțe oportune.

– Part 1- 
The Sources of the Creation Stories
Another way is to enclose the unit through an inclusio (also called an inclusion or envelope
structure), where the beginning and end repeat or mirror each other.  In traditional parshanut,
this is called chatimah me’ein petichah.  For example, Psalm 8 (after the superscription of title)
opens ‫הוה אדנינו מה אדיר שמך בכל הארץ‬-‫ י‬ “O LORD, our Lord, How majestic is Your name
throughout the earth,” and closes with identical words, framing the composition and marking it
is a unit.  The tower of Babel story is similar: It opens with the words ‫ויהי כל הארץ‬,”the whole
land was” and closes (v. 9) with ‫על פני כל הארץ‬,“upon [on the face of]the whole land
was.” delimiting a literary unit; this is confirmed by the content of vv. 1-9.Similarly, the first half
of Genesis 2:4 (what scholars call 2:4a) reads ‫אלה תולדות השמים והארץ בהבראם‬, “Such is the
story of heaven and earth when they were created”; this hearkens back to Genesis 1:1, : ‫בראשית‬
‫להים את השמים ואת הארץ‬-‫ברא א‬,  “When God began to create heaven and earth.” The
boundaries of the story are marked through the verbal repletion, the inclusio.Once this is
established, several significant differences between the stories emerge.  God in the first story is
consistently called e-lohim, while in the second God is called Yhwh e-lohim. The first story is
highly structured, full of repeated phrases (e.g. God saw that this was good; there was evening
there was morning day x) while the second has a more meandering structure.  Indeed, the
second story does not even recognize “days” of creation.The word bara’, usually translated “to
create,” characterizes the first story, but is absent from the second.  For example, in 1:27, the
first human couple (or perhaps humanity as a whole, depending on how ’adam should be
translated is bara’ed, while in 2:7 the first male is yatzared.  The first story assumes that people
are ready to procreate as soon as they were created (1:28, “be fruitful and multiply”), while in the
second story, they only gain sexual knowledge after eating of the tree.  The first story is really
about the creation of the world; the second about the creation of humanity.If you look further,
you will see other vocabulary and stylistic differences between the stories, and will understand
better why scholars refer to Genesis 1:1-2:4a as “the first creation story,” and to the account that
begins in 2:4b as “the second creation story.”  Once these stories have been separated and
delimited, it is possible to examine each story on its own terms.  (Of course, such an
examination does not preclude the possibility of also looking at the text as we now have it, with
both stories edited, redacted or compiled together.) O altă modalitate este de a închide unitatea
printr-un inclusio (numit și o structură de incluziune sau plic), unde începutul și sfârșitul se repetă sau se
oglindează reciproc. În parshanut tradițional, acest lucru este numit chatimah me'ein petichah. De
exemplu, Psalmul 8 (după superscrierea titlului) se deschide ‫הוה אדנינו מה אדיר שמך בכל הארץ‬-‫י‬
"Doamne, Domnul nostru, cât mai mare este Numele Tău peste tot pământul" și se închide cu cuvinte
identice, încadrând compoziția și marcarea este o unitate. Povestea turnului Babel este asemănătoare:
se deschide cu cuvintele ‫ויהי כל הארץ‬, "întreaga țară era" și se închide (versetul 9) cu ‫על פני כל הארץ‬,
"pe fața întregii țări". delimitarea unei unități literare; acest lucru este confirmat de conținutul vv. 1-9. În
mod asemănător, prima jumătate a Genezei 2: 4 (ceea ce oamenii de știință numesc 2: 4a) citește ‫אלה‬
‫תולדות השמים והארץ בהבראם‬, "Aceasta este povestea cerului și a pământului când au fost create";
acest lucru se ascultă din nou în Geneza 1: 1: "Când Dumnezeu a început să creeze cerul și pământul".
Limitele povestii sunt marcate prin reluarea verbală, inclusio. Odată ce aceasta este stabilită , apar
câteva diferențe semnificative între povești. Dumnezeu în prima poveste este numit în mod constant e-
lohim, în timp ce în al doilea Dumnezeu se numește Yhwh e-lohim. Prima poveste este foarte
structurată, plină de expresii repetate (de exemplu, Dumnezeu a văzut că acest lucru a fost bun, a fost
seara în ziua dimineții x), în timp ce al doilea are o structură mai meanderingă. Într-adevăr, a doua
poveste nu recunoaște nici măcar "zilele" creației. Cuvântul "bara", de obicei tradus "pentru a crea",
caracterizează prima poveste, dar este absent de la al doilea. De exemplu, în 1:27, primul cuplu uman
(sau poate omenirea în ansamblu, în funcție de modul în care ar trebui să fie tradusă adamul, este
bara'ed, în timp ce la 2: 7 primul bărbat este lăcat. sunt pregătiți să se procreeze de îndată ce au fost
creați (1:28, "să fie rodnici și să se înmulțească"), în timp ce în cea de-a doua poveste, ei doar dobândesc
cunoștințe sexuale după ce au mâncat pomul. Prima poveste este cu adevărat despre crearea lumea, al
doilea despre crearea omenirii.
Dacă priviți mai departe, veți vedea alte diferențe de vocabular și stilistice între povestiri și veți înțelege
mai bine de ce se referă cercetătorii la Geneza 1: 1-2: 4a ca "prima poveste a creației" și la contul care
începe în 2: 4b ca "a doua poveste a creației". Odată ce aceste povestiri au fost separate și delimitate,
este posibil să examinăm fiecare poveste în termenii săi. (Desigur, un astfel de examen nu exclude
posibilitatea ca textul să fie privit așa cum îl avem acum, ambele povesti editate, redactate sau
compilate împreună).

– Part 2 –
Two Different Conceptions of the Divine Creator

The nature of the God of the first creation story is well-expressed in Psalm 148:5; ‫וכי הוא‬
‫צוה ונבראו‬, “for it was He who commanded that they be created.”  God is extremely
powerful, and His (yes—this God is masculine) words cause the primordial chaos (see
1:1-2) to restructure itself into the well-organized world that we know, where everything
occupies its proper place.  Although powerful, He has a divine council with whom He
sometimes deliberates, as made clear in the plural ‫נעשה‬, “let us make” in 1:26.  (see Rashi
and the sources he cites from b. Sanhedrin 38b and Tanhuma).  This suggests that God
is king—it is kings who have such advisors, and engage in massive building projects.

Tov, “good,” is a theme word of this account—a good God creates a good world; the
story, for example, narrates how God first creates foodstuffs, and then the animals who
will eat them (vv. 29-30).  Creation is highly symmetrical and well organized.  This God
also looks far ahead and thinks about Israel, creating the Shabbat already as part of
creation, even though its full meaning will not become evident until it is assigned as an
’ot (sign) and berit (covenant) between God and Israel in Exodus.Genesis 2:4b depicts a
very different God.  He is not king, but much more parent-like and personal.  He walks
the garden (3:8) and talks to people (3:9-19)—this is unimaginable for the royal, distant,
powerful God of the first story.  He makes mistakes.  First He thinks that land animals
or birds might be suitable mates for the man (2:19).  Then He makes the same error of
all young-parents—He does not know how to define limits, and says “You can do
everything but this,” not realizing that all children will of course gravitate to “this,” here,
eating of the tree.  But God remains parental, for example, replacing the primordial
couple’s fig-leaf with a more permanent, leather garment, dressing them Himself (3:21). 
Kings never do that to their subjects!

Focus on the term tzelem e-lohim brings out an irony and a further difference between
the two stories.  Although there is much debate in parshanut about the meaning of this
term, in the Bible, tzelem is always used to mean a physical, three-dimensional,
“plastic” representation.  Thus, this phrase in Genesis 1 suggests that people look like
God, a notion also found in Ezekiel’s heavenly vision in 1:26.  Nevertheless, the rest of
the Genesis 1 depicts God as most un-human like.This is clearest in the use of the verb
bara’ for divine creation.  The second creation story uses verbs like ‘asah and yatzar,
which are also used of humans, suggesting that in some way God’s creation is analogous
to, or contiguous with, human acts of creation and building and forming and making.  In
contrast, the verb bara’ only has God as its subject, and is a way of expressing that the
creation by God is completely different than any human building endeavor (and that is
why many parshanim understand the term as referring to creation ex nihilo, ‫יש מאין‬,
which humans can certainly not do—this is possible, but not certain).  This presents a
wonderful irony concerning the first creation story, which depicts a God who has a
human form, but acts in a way that is most unlike humans—an image which strongly
contrasts with the anthropomorphic God of the second creation story.

Where from Here?

The two creation stories that introduce the Bible introduce two long narratives that
continue throughout much of the Torah.  The different conceptions developed in the
initial story continue—a rather human-like God versus a majestic and distant deity.  Still
other sources introduce other depictions of the divine, making the Torah, and the Bible
as a whole, a polyphonic text—a work that speaks in many voices.  (For more on this see
my devar Torah for Shavuot.)I think that this is the strength of the Bible rather than a
weakness.  Different people relate to one or another of these divine portraits—some of
us are drawn to an approachable God, and being that is more be like us, while for others,
a majestic, distant deity is more “Godlike.” Sometimes this can even shift with time and
need—the very same person may sometimes need to connect to a God who walks about
the Garden at the breezy time of the day (Gen 3:8), while at other times they may need
to connect to a God who insists that all is ordered and in its place, good, indeed very
good.  

Post-biblical Judaism used interpretation to discover different images for God in the
Bible—no two parshanim or philosophers shared identical images of what God was like. 
But this inability to pin God down, to create one single, uniform, univocal image of God
already has strong roots in the biblical text itself. 

Woodcut from Nicolas Camille Flammarion: L’Atmosphere – Météorologie Populaire. Paris 1888.
Coloration: Heike Forests Hugo, Vienna 1998

The Double Creation of Light

The first act of creation, on the very first day, is God’s creation of light:

1:3
God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 1:4 ‫ד ַוי ְַּרא‬:‫ א‬.‫ג וַי ֹּאמֶר ֱאֹלהִים יְהִי אֹור ַויְהִי אֹור‬:‫א‬
God saw that the light was good, and God separated the ‫אֱ ֹלהִים אֶת הָאֹור כִּי טֹוב ַויַּבְדֵּ ל ֱאֹלהִים בֵּין‬
light from the darkness. 1:5 God called the light Day, and ‫ה ַויִּק ְָרא ֱאֹלהִים לָאֹור‬:‫ א‬.‫הָאֹור ּובֵין הַח ֹשְֶׁך‬
the darkness He called Night… …‫קָרא ָליְלָה‬ָ ‫שְך‬ ֶׁ ֹ ‫יֹום ְולַח‬

The light that God creates at the very beginning divides the time in the world between
day and night; this is used to define each of the following days of creation.

However, on day four, God seems to do the same thing again.

1:14
God said, “Let there be lights in the ‫ש ַמי ִם ְל ַהבְדִּ יל בֵּין‬ ָּׁ ‫יד וַי ֹּאמֶר ֱאֹלהִים יְהִי ְמא ֹר ֹת ב ְִּרקִי ַע ַה‬:‫א‬
expanse of the sky to separate day from ‫טו‬:‫א‬
.‫הַּיֹום ּובֵין ַה ָּליְלָה ְוהָיּו לְא ֹת ֹת ּולְמֹועֲדִ ים ּו ְליָמִים וְשָׁ נִים‬
night; they shall serve as signs for the set ‫טז‬:‫א‬
.‫ָָארץ ַויְהִי כֵן‬ ֶ ‫ש ַמי ִם ְל ָהאִיר עַל ה‬ ָּׁ ‫ְוהָיּו לִמְ אֹור ֹת ב ְִּרקִי ַע ַה‬
times — the days and the years; 1:15 and they ‫שנֵי ַה ְּמא ֹר ֹת ַהגְּדֹלִים אֶת ַה ָּמאֹור ַהגָּד ֹל‬ ְׁ ‫ַויַּעַׂש אֱ ֹלהִים אֶת‬
shall serve as lights in the expanse of the sky ‫שלֶת הַּיֹום ְואֶת ַה ָּמאֹור ַהקָּט ֹן ְל ֶממְשֶׁ לֶת ַה ַּליְלָה ְואֵת‬ ֶׁ ְ‫לְמֶמ‬
to shine upon the earth.” And it was so. 1:16 ‫ש ָמי ִם ְל ָהאִיר עַל‬ ָּׁ ‫יז ַוי ִּתֵּ ן א ֹתָ ם ֱאֹלהִים ב ְִּרקִי ַע ַה‬:‫ א‬.‫הַּכֹו ָכבִים‬
God made the two great lights, the greater ‫יח ְו ִלמְש ֹׁל בַּּיֹום ּו ַב ַּליְלָה ּו ֲל ַהבְדִּ יל בֵּין הָאֹור ּובֵין‬:‫ א‬.‫ָָארץ‬ ֶ ‫ה‬
light to dominate the day and the lesser light .‫הַחֹשְֶׁך ַוי ְַּרא ֱאֹלהִים כִּי טֹוב‬
to dominate the night, and the stars.1:17 And
God set them in the expanse of the sky to
shine upon the earth, 1:18 to dominate the day
and the night, and to separate light from
darkness.

Here, God creates the sun and the moon to separate day from night and to shine upon
the earth. But the distinction between day and night is already noted in day one!
Moreover, if the sun was only created on day four, and the sun is what determines day
and night, as we all know, then what is the light on day one?

This problem is often touted as proof that this text is meant as an allegory and not to be
taken literally.[1] In the modern day creationist lingo, this problem spawned what is
called the “Day-Age Theory,” i.e., that “day 1, day 2,” etc. cannot refer to what we mean
by a day but must refer to some unspecified long period of time.[2]

Admittedly, the impossibility of the creation account, which bears virtually no

resemblance in its understanding of the universe to modern notions, is only a problem
for modern, scientifically minded people. Nevertheless, the contradiction between day
one and day four was apparent to traditional commentators for millennia.

Traditional Interpretations

The Buried Light – The Midrashic-Kabbalistic Solution

The Babylonian Talmud suggests that God originally created a very special light on day
one, but that He hid that light and replaced it with sunlight because he saw that people
would be too sinful to deserve the original special light (b. Hagigah 12a, modified
Soncino trans.):

But was the light created on the first day? For, behold,
‫ואור ביום ראשון איברי? והכתיב ויתן אתם‬
it is written: “And God set them in the firmament of
‫אלהים ברקיע השמים וכתיב ויהי ערב ויהי‬
the heaven,” and it is [further] written: “And there
!‫בקר יום רביעי‬
was evening and there was morning a fourth day”?!
This is [to be explained] according to R. Eleazar. For
R. Eleazar said: The light which the Holy One, blessed
‫ אור שברא‬:‫ דאמר רבי אלעזר‬.‫כדרבי אלעזר‬
be He, created on the first day, one could see thereby
‫הקדוש ברוך הוא ביום ראשון – אדם צופה בו‬
from one end of the world to the other; but as soon as
‫ כיון שנסתכל הקדוש‬,‫מסוף העולם ועד סופו‬
the Holy One, blessed be He, beheld the generation of
‫ברוך הוא בדור המבול ובדור הפלגה וראה‬
the Flood and the generation of the Dispersion, and
,‫שמעשיהם מקולקלים – עמד וגנזו מהן‬
saw that their actions were corrupt, He arose and hid
.‫שנאמר וימנע מרשעים אורם‬
it from them, for it is said (Job 38:15): “But from the
wicked their light is withheld.”[3]
And for whom did he reserve it? For the righteous in
the time to come, for it is said (Gen 1:4): “And God ‫ולמי גנזו – לצדיקים לעתיד לבא שנאמר וירא‬
saw the light, that it was good”; and ‘good’ means only ,‫ ואין טוב אלא צדיק‬,‫אלהים את האור כי טוב‬
the righteous, for it is said: “Say of the righteous that .‫שנאמר אמרו צדיק כי טוב‬
he is good.”
As soon as He saw the light that He had reserved for
‫ שנאמר‬,‫כיון שראה אור שגנזו לצדיקים שמח‬
the righteous, He rejoiced, for it is said (Isa 3:10): “He
.‫אור צדיקים ישמח‬
rejoices at the light of the righteous.”

This midrashic solution to a textual problem eventually became an important concept in

kabbalah; whole books have been written about “the buried light” ( ‫)אור הגנוז‬.

Unfixed Lights: The Sages’ View in the Talmud

The same Talmudic passage records an alternative explanation, that the light created on
day one and day four are identical:

But the Sages say: It is identical with the luminaries; for they ‫ הן הן מאורות‬:‫וחכמים אומרים‬
were created on the first day, but they were not hung up [in the ‫שנבראו ביום ראשון ולא נתלו עד‬
firmament] till the fourth day. .‫יום רביעי‬

According to this, the light of the first day is the same as the lights of the fourth day. All
God does on the fourth day is fix the orbits of luminaries. Before this, apparently, the
orbits were erratic.

This solution, however, does not account for how day and night would have been
divided on days one through three—how did the luminaries divide between day and
night before they took their proper places?   More problematically, the story of day four
never says or even implies that pre-existing luminaries are being moved.  In fact, v. 14
says “let there be lights in the sky” (‫)יהי מאורות ברקיע השמים‬, suggesting that “the lights”
were only created then.  Furthermore, v. 16 says that God made the lights and v. 18 that
he placed them in the firmament, and both occur on day four.

The Original Light Was Placed in the Sun on Day Four: Malbim
The 19th century Ukrainian commentator known as Malbim (Meir Leibush ben Yehiel
Michel Wisser, 1809-1879) offers a complicated two-step process in which the light is
created on day one but is only gathered up and stored in the sun on day four (Gen 1:14).

And God said let the be lights – We already explained that ‫ כבר בארנו‬.‫ויאמר אלהים יהי מארת‬
balls of the sun, moon, and stars were created out of ‫שכדורי השמש והירח והכוכבים נבראו‬
nothing on day one, and from that point on they were ‫יש מאין במאמר הראשון ומאז סבבו על‬
travelling in their orbits as they always do. Only the sun, ‫ רק שהשמש שהוא‬.‫מעגליהם כדרכם‬
which spreads its light upon the world and all the stars, ‫המפלש אורו על הארץ ועל כל כוכבי‬
did not yet have any light in it and it was a dark ball. Thus ‫אור לא ניתן בו אור עדיין והיה כדור‬
by necessity, the other stars did not have light either since ‫ וע”כ לא נמצא אור גם ביתר‬,‫חשוך‬
they all receive their light from it. The light during the first ,‫הכוכבים שכולם מקבלים אורם ממנו‬
three days spread throughout the world with powerful, ‫רק שהאור התפשט אז בכל רחבי‬
unmitigated brightness. [This needed to change] once God ‫ ושמש‬,‫הבריאה בזהר עצום בלא נרתק‬
wished to create living creatures and humanity, which ‫ אבל אחרי שרצה‬,‫בג’ ימים הראשונים‬
cannot stand such a light, for their eyes cannot stand ‫לברוא בע”ח והאדם שהם לא יוכלו‬
anything more than the sun’s light, not the great light of ‫ כי עיניהם לא יוכלו‬,‫לסבול האור ההוא‬
God that appeared during the first three days which would ‫ לא אור ה’ הגדול‬,‫לסבול רק אור השמש‬
blind their eyes. So too the burning heat would have killed
‫שהופיע בג’ ימים הראשונים שהיה‬
them according to their constitutions (it will be used only
‫ וכן החום הבוער אז היה‬,‫מכהה עיניהם‬
in the future miraculously). For this reason,  [God]
‫ממית אותם לפי טבעם (ולא ישתמשו בו‬
gathered all this light and placed it inside the ball of the
‫ לכן הוכרח‬,)‫רק לעת”ל בדרך נסיי‬
sun, which functions as a [partial] cover and limits the
‫לאסוף את האור הזה ולשומו בכדור‬
output of the light and the heat in such a way that living
‫השמש שיהיה נרתק לו ומצמצם אורו‬
creatures can make use of it. Therefore, he said “let there
‫וחומו באופן שיוכלו הברואים להשתמש‬
be lights” meaning that the light whose sparks had been
‫ וע”כ אמר יהי מארת היינו שהאור‬,‫בו‬
spread to every place should now be gathered up and
‫שהתפזרו ניצוציו בכל מקום יאסף עתה‬
placed in the ball of the sun, and from that point on there
‫וינתן בכדור השמש ומעתה לא יהיה אור‬
should be no more “light” only one “source of light,” for
‫ ששם מאור מציין מקום ששם‬,‫רק מאור‬
the word “maor” implies the place in which the light is
placed. .‫נתון האור‬

Malbim’s interpretation is an unusual mix of 19th century notions of science and

traditional biblical interpretation. Malbim “knows” that only the sun gives off light, and
that the moon and stars receive their light from it. He is also familiar with the medieval
rabbinic notion that all creatio ex nihilo occurred on day one, for which the text uses the
term ‫א‬.‫ר‬.‫ב‬, “to create,” and thus the sun itself must have been created on the first day.
He combines these two notions into his idea that day four is when the already created
sun receives its light.

Malbim’s interpretation is not a peshat reading of the text. The text offers not a hint to
his notion of the sun and stars travelling around the sky with no light in them. [4]
Malbim’s interpretation of the text is also based on outdated scientific notions. The sun
is not a ball into which one can put light or anything else. The light of the sun, made up
of colliding hydrogen atoms, is the substance of the sun.[5] If anything, Malbim’s
mistaken description of the sun should caution a reader from trying to read his or her
own contemporary notions of science into the biblical text.

Signs for Humans: Rashbam

The eleventh century peshat commentator Rashbam (Samuel ben Meir, 1085-1158)
offers a reading much closer to the spirit of the biblical text, emphasizing v. 14’s notion
that these lights are meant to function as timekeepers for humans.

To separate between the day and the night – [The

‫להבדיל בין היום ובין הלילה – כבר אמרנו‬
Torah] already said above (v. 4) “and God separated
,‫למעלה ויבדל אלהים בין האור ובין החשך‬
between the light and the darkness.” Nevertheless, the
‫הלילה ותחלת היום ממש אין‬ ‫אבל עדיין נגמר‬
exact end of the night and the beginning the day is
‫ וגם גמר היום ותחלת‬,‫ידוע כי אם בהנץ החמה‬
only known by sunrise, and the exact ending of the
‫לא נודע כי אם‬ ‫ממש אין ידוע כי אם‬ ‫היום‬
day and beginning of the night is only known through
.‫בשקיעת החמה וצאת הכוכבים‬
sunset and the coming out of stars.  

Although Rashbam does not mention mitzvoth (commandments), this is clearly what
stands in the background of his comment. In order to know exactly when night or day
begins, we need to see the sunrise or set (or the first stars coming out). How else can a
Jew know when Shabbat starts or ends? How else can one know when exactly is the time
for the morning and evening recitation of the Shema? When to put on and take of one’s
tefillin?

Rashbam’s interpretation falls short, however, since the ability to tell the beginning and
ending of a day down to the second is a rabbinic/halachic concern, not a biblical one.
Moreover, we are still left in the dark about the exact relationship between sunlight of
day four and daylight of day one.

The Firmament Blocks the Light: R. Joseph Kara

The interpretation that seems to come the closest to understanding the “science” behind
the Torah’s description here is that of the peshat commentator (ca. 1065-1135), R.
Joseph Kara (vv. 14-15).[6]

Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens… to cast

‫יהי מאורות ברקיע השמים להאיר על‬
light on the earth – but wasn’t light already created on day
‫הארץ – והלא כבר נברא האור מיום‬
one? …But on day two it says, “let there be a firmament”
‫ראשון… אלא ביום השני נאמר ויהי‬
which implies that the firmament was under the heavens,
‫רקיע משמע שהיה הרקיע תחת‬
which contains the light, diminishing the effect of its light.
.‫השמים המאירים והמעיט את האורה‬
This is the intent of the verse (Ps 104:2) “wrapped the light
‫והיינו דכתו’ עוטה אור כשלמה נוטה‬
in a robe; You spread the heavens like a tent cloth.”
‫לרקיע‬ ]‫שמים כיריעה כלומר [נטה‬
Meaning, he spread the firmament underneath it and
‫ עטה האור ולא היה נראית‬,‫תחתיו‬
wrapped the light so that it was not seen.[7] Therefore, the
‫ולכך כתב יהי מארות להאיר על‬
Torah writes [that God said]: “Let there be lights that shine
…‫הארץ‬
on the earth.”…

R. Kara sees the light of day one as entirely unrelated to the lights on day four; this is
likely correct. Yet, he struggles to explain why the sun was created if day light already
existed, and suggests that it is because the firmanent blocks the light of the first day,
something that the biblical text never suggests. 

Historical-Critical Approach:
Separating between Daylight and Sunlight

The key to any critical explanation of the text is that the author of Gen 1 is trying to
explain the world as he sees it. It is often difficult for modern readers, familiar with
contemporary scientific notions, to put these aside and enter the mind of an ancient
cosmologist, but once we do the answer is, quite literally, as clear as the blue sky. [8]

The Bright Blue Sky: The Tyndall effect

Why is the sky blue during the daytime? The scientific answer is that molecules of air in
the atmosphere scatter blue light from the sun. At night, when the earth is facing away
from the sun, there is no light to scatter and the sky is black. The scattering of light by
the atmosphere is called the Tyndall effect, named after the scientist John Tyndall who
first suggested this mechanism in 1859.  
But the ancient cosmologist was living in a different world than Tyndall. In his
conception, the earth is the center of the universe, and the sun, moon and stars travel
above it, in the firmament. When this ancient cosmologist asked himself why the day-
time sky is blue, his answer was because there is light in the heavenly water above the
firmament. As he would have seen from earth, water is blue and thus when the light
enters the water, the sky looks blue. When the light leaves the water and darkness creeps
in, it is black.

The light and darkness in this conception should be pictured as diffuse physical
substances that permeate the waters of the heavens. The sun, in this conception, is a
totally separate light. Richard Elliott Friedman, in his gloss on v. 15, describes this view
in the following manner:

Note that daylight is not understood here to derive from the sun. The text understands
the light that surrounds us in the daytime to be an independent creation of God, which
has already taken place on the first day. The sun, moon, and stars are understood here
to be light sources—like a lamp or torch, only stronger. Their purpose is also to be
markers of time: days, years, appointed occasions.[9]

Moshe Weinfeld (1925-2009), in his commentary on Genesis (1:3), offers the same
overall reading:

The light is not dependent on the lights created on the ‫האור בלתי תלוי במאורות שנבראו ביום‬
fourth day, in accordance with the viewpoint popular ‫ בהתאם להשקפה הרווחת בימים‬,‫רביעי‬
during that period that light and darkness are ‫ כי האור כחשך יש להם קיום‬,‫ההם‬
independent entities that exist in hidden places [of the ‫עצמאי במקומות נסתרים המקצים להם‬
heavens] dedicated to them (Job 39:19-20).[10] .)‫כ‬-‫ יט‬,‫(איוב לח‬

The text to which Weinfeld calls the readers’ attention is God’s speech to Job:
Job 38:12
Have you ever commanded the day to break,
‫(ידעתה‬ ‫יב ְה ִמיָּמֶיָך ִצוִּיתָ בֹּקֶר‬:‫איוב לח‬
assigned the dawn its place…38:18 Have you surveyed the
ָּ‫יח הִתְ בֹּנַנְת‬:‫שחַר] ְמק ֹמֹו… לח‬ ַּׁ ‫[י ִדַּ עְתָּ ַה‬ )‫שחר‬
expanses of the earth? If you know of these — tell Me. ‫יט‬:‫לח‬
38:19 ‫י‬ ‫א‬ֵ .‫ָּּה‬
‫ל‬ ‫כ‬
ֻ ָּ‫ְת‬
‫ע‬ ַ‫ָד‬ ‫י‬ ‫ִם‬
‫א‬ ‫ֵּד‬
‫ג‬ ‫ָארץ ַה‬ֶ ‫עַד ַר ֲחבֵי‬
Which path leads to where light dwells, and where is ‫כ‬:‫לח‬
.‫ז ֶה הַדֶּ ֶרְך י ִשְׁ כָּן אֹור וְח ֹשֶׁ ְך ֵאי ז ֶה ְמק ֹמֹו‬
the place of darkness, 38:20 That you may take it to its
.‫כִּי תִ ָּקחֶּנּו ֶאל גְּבּולֹו ְוכִי תָ בִין נְתִ יבֹות בֵּיתֹו‬
domain and know the way to its home?

God here asks Job whether he knows where light and darkness are stored, implying that
these two substances are discrete entities in and of themselves. When one is spread out
in the heavens, the other is sitting in its appointed spot awaiting its turn.

A Sumerian Creation Story with Glowing Heavens

The view of light and darkness as physical entities that cause day and night can be found
in at least one ANE text as well. In a fragmentary Sumerian tablet (NBC 11108) from
Nippur during the Ur III period (21st cent. BCE), we find the following:
When Anu, the lord, made heaven shine, made earth dark… Heaven and earth he held
together as one… Day did not shine; in night, heaven stretched forth. Earth, bringing
forth plant life did not glow on its own…[11]

The text describes the Sumerian high god Anu’s creation of the world. When Anu
separates heaven and earth, the heavens shine but the earth does not. In other words,
when the heavens and earth were combined in the primordial mush, there was perpetual
night. By separating the heavens from the earth, Anu also separates light from darkness.

Wayne Horowitz notes the parallel with Genesis:

In NBC 11108:8, as in Genesis, where day exists before the creation of the sun, moon,
and stars, the heavens are conceived to have had their own glow, irrespective of the
presence of luminaries. [12]

The Function of the Sun, Moon, and Stars

According to Genesis 1

If day and night are controlled by the entry and exit of the primordial light and darkness
into the watery heavens, what is the sun for? The Torah lists three functions.

1. Light

The text equates the function of the sun with that of the moon and stars. These latter do
provide some light during the night but they certainly do not light up the sky. The same
is true of the sun, in the Torah’s conception. The sun adds light (and warmth) to the
already independently existing daylight, but even without the sun, the sky would be blue
and the daytime light. 

2. Ruling the Day and Night

We think of stars and planets as inanimate objects, but the ancients thought of them as
sentient beings—they move in consistent patterns so how could they not be?—and
generally worshiped them as gods. By describing the sun, moon, and stars as created
objects, the Torah denies their divinity, but this does not mean that the author of
Genesis one did not share the idea that they were alive and powerful beings, perhaps
part of God’s heavenly court. Thus, the Torah seems to mean what it says when it writes
that the sun and moon were created to dominate or rule ( ‫ל‬.‫ש‬.‫ )מ‬the day and the night.

3. Divide between Light and Darkness

Finally, the celestial lights divide between day and night in a symbolic way. Their
existence does not help divide between light and dark in a physical way; both are lights.
Rather, the Torah intends to say that the bigger luminary, the sun, symbolizes the
daytime, over which it rules, and the moon symbolizes the night, over which it rules.
 Separating between Ancient
and Modern Cosmologies

The viewpoint expressed in Genesis 1 and the Nippur fragment do not represent the only
view of the world in ancient times. Long before Tyndall, before the discovery of light
waves or atomic particles, the Roman naturalist Lucretius (99-55 BCE) already noted
that sunlight must be the cause of daylight. [13] He was probably not the first to think this
way and one can imagine that in a geocentric world, in which the heavens and all that
are in them surround the earth and circle it, the debate about what causes daylight could
have been lively.

Nowadays, however, a conception of daylight removed from the sun is virtually

impossible to even picture, since in our view of the universe, the earth is sitting in the
middle of the dark vastness of space and the only nearby light source is the
sun. Interpreting the Genesis creation story against the backdrop of modern notions of
the universe can yield readings that are fatuous and/or apologetic.

Friedman makes the point well at the end of his above referenced gloss:

People have questioned whether the first three days are twenty-four hour days since the
sun is not created until the fourth day. But light, day, and night are not understood here
to depend on the existence of the sun, so there is no reason to think that the word “day”
means anything different on the first two days (sic)[14] than what it means everywhere
else in the Torah. People’s reason for raising this is often to reconcile the biblical
creation story with current evidence of the earth’s age. But it is better to recognize that
the biblical story does not match the evidence than to stretch the story’s plain meaning
in order to make it fit better with our current state of knowledge.

In short, reading the biblical text as an allegory or a mystery is merely an attempt to

foist modern notions of the heavens upon an ancient text working with an entirely
different worldview, and doing so obscures the creativity and message of the biblical
author.

My Encounter with the Firmament

The Torah describes God’s fashioning the firmament (‫ )רקיע‬on
the second day of creation. This piece of the universe,
however, doesn’t actually exist—a problem obfuscated in my
yeshiva education.

Oren Fass, M.D.

 A fish-eye view of the Red sea in Israel, early spring. 123rtf

Of all the vexing problems modern cosmology poses for the first chapter of Genesis,
such as the insufficient biblical timeline of 6 days (as opposed to billions of years) until
the appearance of humans, or vegetative bloom before the sun and photosynthesis, the
most acute for me is God’s creation of the firmament (‫ ;רקיע‬rakia) on the second day.

If you are unfamiliar with the firmament, then imagine for a moment the horizon, where
the earth appears to meet with the sky. Only try and picture it as a connecting point
between two solids: a flat plate like earth, and a rigid dome like an upside down bowl
that vaults it, blue as ocean, from the vast stores of water it contains.  This is what the
Bible is describing when it refers to ‫ה ָָרקִי ַע‬, traditionally rendered in English Bibles as
“the firmament” (from the Latin firmamentum meaning “support”).

If you can entertain this notion, and feel yourself underneath this massive curved wall of
heaven, straining under the weight of the rainwater it holds back, then you are living on
the earth our sages knew, for this is the world, the universe, of which the Bible
conceived:
Gen 1:6
God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of
‫ו וַי ֹּאמֶר ֱאֹלהִים יְהִי ָרקִי ַע בְּתֹוְך‬:‫בראשית א‬
the water, that it may separate water from water.”  1:7 God
‫ז ַויַּעַׂש‬:‫ א‬.‫הַמָּ י ִם וִיהִי ַמבְדִּ יל בֵּין ַמי ִם ָל ָמי ִם‬
made the firmament, and it separated the water which
‫אֱ ֹלהִים אֶת ה ָָרקִי ַע ַויַּבְדֵּ ל בֵּין הַמַּ י ִם אֲ שֶׁר‬
was below the firmament from the water which was
‫מִתַּ חַת ל ָָרקִי ַע ּובֵין ַה ַּמי ִם אֲשֶׁר ֵמעַל ל ָָרקִי ַע‬
above the firmament. And it was so. 1:8 God called the
 …‫ש ָמי ִם‬ ָׁ ‫ח ַויִּק ְָרא ֱאֹלהִים ל ָָרקִי ַע‬:‫ א‬.‫ַויְהִי כֵן‬
firmament Sky…

The idea of a firmament is entirely contradictory to modern planetary science; yet there
God is, in our Torah, spending all of creation day number two fashioning it.

The Pre-Modern Belief in a Firmament

The idea of the sky above us as a solid structure is shared by almost all pre-modern
human cultures. It is best understood as a product of the pre-scientific mind, attempting
to make sense of what it sees and offering an intuitive, though factually incorrect,
account.

The sky is blue because it is full of water, like the sea.[1] Water doesn’t fall on us because
something is holding it up, and that something is transparent, since we can see the blue
hue of the liquid behind it.[2] This barrier is dome shaped, since we see the heavens
above curving into the horizon and meeting the flat earth.
This understanding is so ubiquitous that some anthropologists consider it a “general
human belief.”[3] As Paul Seely, a Bible scholar who works on the intersection of ANE
literature and science, writes:

Apart from a scientific education, it is just too natural for people to think of the sky as
something solid.[4]

Cultural legends describing the dome are abundant enough to include arrows being shot
into the firmament and lodging there (Japan, Native America, Chuckchee), adventurers
climbing up to the sky (India), people climbing up through a hole in the firmament
(Navaho) or tumbling down through one (Seneca), and heroes sailing a ship to the place
where the sky meets the earth (Buriat), and where the firmament is so low that ship
masts can end up scraping it.[5]

This belief in a solid firmament was standard among the people of the ANE, who
distinguished between the “atmosphere” in which we live and the solid sky above. In
Sumerian mythology, An is the god of the sky/firmament, whereas Enlil (literally, “Lord
of Wind”[6]) is the god of what happens between the ground (controlled by En.Ki, “Lord
of the Earth”) and the firmament.

In Egypt, the sky is pictured as the goddess Nut, with stars all over her body. Her hands
rest on one side of the earth and her legs on the other, and Shu, the god of air, stretches
his hands in the air to hold her up. In Babylonian creation story Enuma Elish (tablet 5),
Marduk kills the giant creator goddess Tiamat, and uses part of her corpse to create the
earth and the other to create the sky:

He set her thigh to make fast the sky.

With half of her he made a roof; he fixed the earth. [7]

In short, to the ancients the universe was a terrarium of sorts, a carefully preserved
space that was fashioned for them by a creator or creators, a “bubble” in endless waters,
in which the terrifying calamity of certain flooding was prevented by walls that vaulted
above them, the floodgates (‫ )א ֲֻרב ֹּת הַשָּׁ ַמי ִם‬of Genesis 7:11. Thus, to the ancient Israelites,
the depiction of the second day of creation was natural: the creator was building for
them the firmament, the great dome of the sky, and protecting them from being
drowned by the waters above.
 The ancient conception of  the universe.
Diagram from “A dictionary of the Bible; dealing with its language, literature, and contents, including the
Biblical theology;” (1898)

The Pre-Copernican Dome

Every pre-Copernican commentator in Judaism who wrote about the rakia knew exactly
what it was.[8] The Talmud, for instance, records varying opinions about the thickness of
what is clearly a solid firmament; from the seven layer firmaments of Resh Lakish (b.
Chagigah 12b), to the two firmaments of R Judah (ibid.), from the finger-width
firmament of Rav Joshua ben R Nehemia (Gen. Rab. 4:5), to the “50 year journey”
firmament of Rav Judah (j. Berachot 2c).

The Rabbis even debate the routes of the sun at night when it leaves the visible sky
under the dome, whether it travels either above the firmament or under the earth (Gen.
Rab. 6:8; b. Pesachim 94b). The latter possibility leads to the Rabbis forbidding water
not drawn before nightfall for matzah baking, lest the sun travel under the plate-like
earth and warm the water from underneath before it returns to the dome for morning
(b. Pesachim 42a).[9] This is called mayim she-lanu (water that has been left out [lit.
rested] and avoided being heated by the sun), still in observance today in certain circles,
[10]
and it removes the Talmudic understandings of cosmology from mere aggadic
speculation into practical halachah.[11]

As modern people, we know that the sun does not heat ground water by traveling
underneath a flat earth. After all, the earth is round. The moon, the stars, and the sun
are not placed in a dome that rotates about the earth. Rather, the earth revolves around
the sun, the stars are distant suns, and the moon orbits around the earth. But our round
earth, revolving around a giant sun, and situated in the vast expanse of space in an
immense universe, is not the world of the Torah or the Sages. 
 What We Have Been Taught

My wife and I were both brought up in Yeshiva Orthodoxy. When discussing this essay
with her, she told me that in her senior year of high school in an Orthodox seminary, a
sizable amount of time was dedicated to the first and second days of creation. The focal
point of this discussion was aimed at highlighting the magnificence of the conversion of
nothingness into “something-ness” or matter. This series of lectures involved a great
many invocations of avant-garde physics terminology as well as deeper, albeit hidden
knowledge. The firmament itself was not described as a dome over a flat earth, and the
waters it separated were not waters at all.  It was all a metaphor for a material process of
creation outside of our knowledge, and in fact, outside our imaginations, and was
somehow tied to these obscure, scientific-sounding processes.

My own educational experience regarding the firmament began in ninth grade in

Yeshiva while learning the Talmudic tractate of Nedarim. It was not tied directly to
pseudo-science, as was my wife’s training.  When I asked my Rebbi what the firmament
was, he replied that it was the “sheath” through which the sun traveled. There was no
mention of the premodern beliefs about the earth’s dome. My Rebbi chose to describe a
new force of nature, something apparently unknown to science as of yet.

“What is this sheath, and how does anyone know about it?” I wanted to know. The
answer from my Rebbi was very direct. The sages knew things that we don’t. My Rebbi’s
answer was very familiar to me, as it would be to any student from the Yeshiva system.
This is the concept of da’as Torah [12] (‫)דעת תורה‬: The sages’ immersion in Torah studies
provided expertise in worldly knowledge as well, to be trusted above scientific
pronouncements (contemporarily regarding evolution).

Not completely satisfied, I returned to my Rebbi again after tracking down Rashi’s
comment (Gen 1:6)—which he took from earlier rabbinic texts [13]—about how the rakia
was really made on the first day and only congealed on the second, based on a midrashic
reading of a verse in Job:

“Let there be a firmament” – let the firmament solidify. For

‫ שאף על פי‬.‫יהי רקיע – יחזק הרקיע‬
even though the heavens were created on the first day, they
‫ עדיין‬,‫שנבראו שמים ביום ראשון‬
were still liquid, but they congealed on the second day in
‫ וקרשו בשני מגערת‬,‫לחים היו‬
response to the Holy One’s roar, when he said “Let there be a
‫הקדוש ברוך הוא באומרו יהי רקיע‬
firmament.” This is what the verse means (Job 26:11): “The
‫וזהו שכתוב (איוב כו יא) עמודי‬
pillars of heaven tremble” – all through the first day, and on
‫ ובשני‬.‫שמים ירופפו כל יום ראשון‬
the second [they were] “Astounded at His blast” like a person
‫ כאדם שמשתומם‬,‫יתמהו מגערתו‬
who is stunned and freezes from the roar of someone
:‫ועומד מגערת המאיים עליו‬
threatening him.

“How could Rashi know that,” I asked? It was the same answer. Rashi had access to a
type of spiritual information that was no longer in existence.[14] We couldn’t know how he
knew; we were constrained to read and wonder and pine over what had been lost: the
secrets, the deeper understanding of, well, everything.
The concept of yeridos ha-doros (‫ ;ירידת הדורות‬literally, “the descent of the generations”),
the idea that every generation farther from the revelation at Sinai has gone down in its
spiritual level, meant we had fallen into ignorance over the centuries, and there was no
ladder back up. According to my Rebbi, the firmament was some type of energy, or
force, that the great sages, but not us, were aware of.

Encountering the Rakia as an Adult

There is no way around this ironclad ideology when one is thirteen and being instructed
in yeshiva. I did, however, have one last encounter with the rakia as an adult, while
attending a bar mitzvah two years ago on Shabbos Bereishes (‫ ;שבת בראשית‬the Shabbat in
which the creation story is read). In a side room, a guest speaker had come prepared to
solve all of the cosmological problems of Bereishis. After about thirty minutes, it seemed
that a room full of well educated, modern Orthodox men and women were fully satisfied
by “days” that didn’t mean days, and “seeds” that arrived on day three but bloomed on
day four with the creation of the sun (seeds from outer space were also acceptable).

When I caught the speaker’s eye and asked about the rakia, I caused the lecture to grind
to halt. “It’s a fictional structure,” I had said, but looking around the room at surprised
faces and questioning eyes, I realized no one other than the speaker understood my
question. Rather than answer the question, the speaker challenged me: “Who are you”?
[15]

I was terribly embarrassed to introduce myself as an average Joe; I hadn’t written a

sefer (traditional Jewish book), attended any type of biblical academic program, or
made so much as a podcast, to everyone’s disappointment. After introductions, the
speaker informed me that my question was so good, it needed to be answered, after the
shiur. True to his word, he found me at the kiddush afterward. “The rakia” he said,
“could mean air… or clouds,” he told me in private, and very quickly departed to his next
lecture.

Apologetics and the Firmament: Air or Clouds

Modern Jewish audiences are not the first to be disturbed by the imaginary firmament
so centrally displayed in the (ostensibly divinely dictated) Bible. Conservative
Christianity is equally anxious that such a state of affairs be reconciled.

In response to the Copernican revolution of the 16th century, John Calvin—the French
theologian largely responsible for the formation of the Protestant movement, Calvinism
—suggested in 1554 that the firmament refers to air or clouds.[16] (Little did the Shabbos
speaker know he was quoting John Calvin!) This idea occasionally appears on Orthodox
Jewish discussions of this topic, as it did with the speaker in Shul, and was introduced
into Orthodoxy by Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888).[17]

Although such answers neatly sidestep the root problem of God creating a nonexistent
structure, they create other problems. For instance, the air does not separate “water
from water” as the verse states, nor would air or clouds exist prior to the creation of the
sun and moon on day (time period) four in any cosmology that wanted to at least
pretend to be scientific. 

Additionally, the word rakia simply does not mean air or clouds. Insofar as clouds, the
Bible uses the term anan (‫ )ענן‬or av (‫)עב‬, not rakia. Moreover, the creation story in
Genesis 1 clearly describes that whereas the sun, moon, and stars are placed in the rakia
(‫)ב ְִּרקִ י ַע הַשָּׁמַ י ִם‬, birds—who fly through the air—are placed below the rakia ( ‫עַל ְּפנֵי ְרקִי ַע‬
‫ ;הַשָּׁמָ י ִם‬literally “on the face of the heaven’s firmament”). Thus, rakia cannot refer to air. 
Moreover, as the Talmud already notes[18] and contemporary biblical lexica such as BDB
and HALOT affirm, the etymology of the word rakia connects it with the activity of
“hammering out” of a solid material, as would be done to turn tin or copper into a
flattened dome. They are obviously not picturing air and clouds.[19]

Perhaps the clearest evidence that clouds or air is not really “the answer” is that no
English Chumash/Bible that I have seen uses such a translation. If this were really such
a persuasive answer, such a translation would be ubiquitous. I think back to my
interaction with the guest speaker two years ago. Why was he only willing to discuss this
in private conversation after the lecture was over? It’s because it can’t be offered as a
public answer, out loud, since it leads to yet another, deeper problem.

The Infallible Masorah

According to traditional Jewish conceptions, an unbroken tradition (masorah) exists

from God at Sinai to our sages to the present (see, e.g., m. Abot 1:1). For centuries, this
masorah understood the rakia as a solid dome. A modern speaker cannot simply
change that based on modern science without bringing up serious questions about the
origin of this unbroken chain, especially in the case of the rakia, where the core
pronouncements come from the Bible.

Moreover, this same masorah is also responsible for assuring us that what we know
about our traditions and our beliefs are true. All proofs and arguments central to the
defense of our core faith lead back to the idea of an unbroken chain of information
leading to God’s communication with Moses on Mount Sinai.

It is no easy task to walk away from any specific piece of it. It is especially difficult when
we have to at once discard part of our masorah, and admit, that immersion in Torah
knowledge (da’as Torah) did not produce a correct understanding of the mechanics of
the universe, even amongst our greatest sages. Instead, it is an astronomer—not of
Jewish lineage—who overturned this image of the universe, and through observation
and logic caused the dome of our sages, and our Bible, to disappear.

Why wasn’t this well known fact—the absence of a firmament in modern science—
touched upon in my yeshiva experience? Perhaps, because it is difficult to introduce
students to the idea that the rabbinic tradition is not absolutely reliable on all matters.
To teach students that our Torah was dictated by the Creator Himself, and that the true
understanding of this Torah has been passed down through the ages by sages of great
sagacity with unprecedented access to the secrets of creation, while at the same time
walking to the chalk board to draw a line and a semicircle and declaring this depiction to
be the universe of both God and the sages—the same world, in which people feared
sailing their ships off the edge—that is some choppy water to navigate through in the
first month of the Yeshiva school year, when the beginning of Bereishis is traditionally
read!

Thus, the solution has become: obfuscate and don’t discuss the simple meaning of the
text. “Issues with Bereishis? What Issues?” has been adopted as the way to go. In fact,
rather than presenting these verses as conflicting with science, educators assign them to
the realm of the unknown or to descriptions of vague and mysterious scientific
processes. Ironically, this turns them into support for da’as Torah (only Rashi could
have known about the firmament’s energy!) and a support for the masorah (the sages
have always understood what science is barely beginning to grapple with, like the big
bang and cosmic energies and quantum physics).

What the Mepharshim Say

So what do the Rabbis mean by saying that the rakia was liquid on the first day and
congealed on the second? Genesis Rabbah (Bereishit 4; Theodor-Albeck edition), while
discussing the possible meanings of the word shamayim, states the following:

R. Isaac said: “[Shamayim should be parsed as a

‫ לחלב‬,‫ר’ יצחק אמר שאמים טעון מים‬
command:] Sa-mayim (“carry water”), i.e., it holds up
‫שהיה נתון בקערה עד שלא תרד לתוכו‬
water. [The heavens] were like milk in a dish; until a drip
‫ כיון‬,‫טיפה אחת שלמסו הוא מרפרף‬
of rennet is put in it, [the milk] sloshes, but once a drop of
‫שתרד לתוכו טיפה אחת שלמסו מיד הוא‬
milk is put in it, [the milk] congeals and becomes solid.
‫קופה ועומד כך עמודי שמים ירופפו‬
This is the meaning of (Job 26:11): ‘The pillars of the
‫(איוב כו יא) ניתן בהם את המסו ויהי‬
heavens were shaky.’ A coagulant was placed in it, “and it
‫ אתיא כההיא‬,‫ערב ויהי בקר יום שני‬
was evening and it was morning, day two.” This follows
‫דאמר רב לחים היו [נ]עשים [ביום‬
that which Rav said: “They were liquid on day one, and on
.‫] ובשיני קרשו‬20[]‫ראשון‬
day two the congealed.”

As noted above, Rashi uses this same verse from Job, only adding that God’s roar is the
coagulant, which connects the two parts of the verse to each other. The image of the
clear rakia as being made of congealed water makes intuitive sense in pre-modern
thinking since clear water is transparent. And thus, on the first day, God lifts up the
water, but holds the water up himself. On the second day, God “barks” at the lower layer
of water, thereby solidifying it and allowing it to hold up the water in God’s place.

This explanation is likely influenced by the fact that rakia is used as a parallel term for
shamayim in Psalm 19:2:

The heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament ‫שה י ָדָ יו‬
ֵׂ ‫הַשָּׁ מַ י ִם ְמ ַספ ְִּרים כְּבֹוד אֵ ל ּו ַמ ֲע‬
proclaims His handiwork. .ַ‫מַ גִּיד ה ָָרקִיע‬
This may also be what lead the 8th century midrashic work, Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer (ch.
4) to claim that the rakia was created on day one, since shamayim, which includes the
rakia, was created on day one: 

But the heavens and the earth were already created on ‫ָָארץ נִב ְְראּו ּבְיֹום‬
ֶ ‫ּׁש ַמי ִם ְוה‬
ָ ‫ַוהֲֹלא ַה‬
the first day … so what kind of firmament was created on ‫ִראׁשֹון… וְאֵ יז ֶה ָרקִי ַע ּב ָָרא ּבְיֹום‬
day two?…[21] ?‫ׁשנִי‬
ֵ

An even more telling verse comes again from Job, in which Job’s “friend” Elihu
describes the creation of the world (Job 37:18):

Can you help him stretch (‫ע‬.‫ק‬.‫ )ר‬out the heavens, firm as a ‫ש ָחקִים ֲחזָקִים כ ְִּראִי‬
ְׁ ‫תַּ ְרקִ י ַע עִּמֹו ִל‬
mirror of cast metal? .‫מּוצָק‬

If the stretched out heavens are also the rakia, then in one sense, rakia and shamayim
are the same, and in another sense they are not. Putting all this together, Rashi went
with the idea that the rakia is substantially the same material as the heavens, namely
water, but that God congealed it so that it became “as hard as a mirror of cast metal” but
as transparent as glass or clear water.

Interpreting Rashi Honestly: My Devar Torah

and the Benefit of Context

As people living in the scientific era, we make arguments about the nature of the
universe based on empirical study, but, as a general rule, this is not how scientific
arguments worked in premodern times. In medieval times especially, it was perfectly
acceptable to argue a scientific theory based on deductions from biblical texts, as we see
here. Moreover, the arguments put forth above only make sense if we accept that these
scholars understood the rakia in its simple sense, a large blue barrier holding up the
heavenly waters.

When we try to “modernize” the rakia, thinking of it as some sort of mystical energy, or
as clouds or air, why these commentators are interested in a firmament or other support
already present on the first day becomes inexplicable. What for? Why would the world
need a cloud or some mysterious energy on day one more than on day two?

But when we see the universe in their own terms, with waters above that crash down if
not held in place, then it becomes clear that having a separate “heaven and earth” on the
first day of creation mandates some type of partition; if there is a shamayim (heavenly
waters) separated from earth, there must be a firmament of sorts to hold it up. This
follows logically when we understand the nature of the pre-modern universe. Thus,
ironically, we can only understand and appreciate the insights of our mephorshim
(traditional commentators) when we view them through a pre-modern lens, and not
when we “force them to speak” in contemporary scientific parlance.
 Teaching Torah in the Age of Google

I understand the yeshiva world’s simple calculation in avoiding discussing the rakia
honestly. The odds that the typical ba’al habos (‫ ;בעל הבית‬average working stiff) will
connect these verses with ANE concepts of the universe is low. It may thus be reasoned
to be well worth the risk to avoid this altogether, compared to the alternative: exposing
entire classrooms to the problem thereby “unnecessarily” challenging these young
adults. But this strategy doesn’t always work; it didn’t for me. 

As I eventually continued to explore Judaism outside of the yeshiva bubble and realized
what had been hidden from me—the rakia is only one illustrative example—I was
disheartened. I felt like I was “taken in” by the concepts of da’as Torah and the
masorah as promoted by educators, and left feeling foolish. It took me some time, long
after I finished high school, before I came into contact with contemporary notions of
biblical scholarship that make concepts like the rakia accessible in a logical manner.

It has been a few decades since my high school experience, and it is no longer difficult to
find information about what the Bible means in its ANE context that will quickly
contradict whatever apologetics one may hear in yeshiva. Perhaps the community of
educators within the system should consider a new strategy. After all, a lazy lunchtime
Google search will bring anyone with a passing curiosity a dozen sources with everything
the yeshiva educators were hoping students would never find out about the rakia and
many other challenging topics. If this piece can be a source for a young student such as
I was, trying to figure out a path through the contradictions, for my part, I’m happy to
add one more.