10-22-22 Message to Roeh Israel Abilene – Bereshit (“In Beginning”) Torah Portion; Gen 1:1 - 6:8
Haftarah: Isa 42:5 – 43:10
Suggested Acheron K’tuvim: John 1:1-3
Beginning
Central question of this message: How can you prove that Yeshua is the One who created?
Today we are beginning the Torah cycle once again with the reading of Bereshit. This parashah takes its name from the very first word of the very first parashah of the Torah.
Gen 1:1-5
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2
The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the
surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. 3 Then God said, "Let there be light ";
and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good; and
God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the
light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was
evening and there was morning, one day.
On Shemini Atzeret (the eight day) we finished the Levitical festivals of G-d found in Leviticus chapter 23. And on Simchat Torah, just a few days ago, we read the last few lines of Deuteronomy and in the same ceremony the first few lines of Genesis.
We make certain not to separate these two readings, because we don’t wish to leave the impression that we are ever truly “finished” reading the Torah. I have found the Torah to be an ever-renewing well from which I can draw fresh waters of life every yearly cycle.
A dear friend of mine has described the yearly cycle not as a retracing of the same circle of study, but rather like a spiral staircase. It might seem that we are going in a never-ending circle, covering the same ground, if
viewed from one angle, but from another angle, we are constantly progressing upward.
I agree with this analysis. If we are studying with a proper mind and heart, we will be constantly finding new inspiration, new lessons, and also new applications for our life’s journey toward greater holiness.
I wish to deal with a few basic matters as we begin the cycle again. The first is the fact that G-d created the universe, and He did so just as Bereshit says. The second is that the triune nature of G-d is found in Bereshit, as is a cryptic appearance of Yeshua. I know that I am going to pass-up a large number of wonderful teachings by focusing today on just these few things, but I believe I must lay a precious corner-stone for future study before we go further in this parashah.
G-d as creator. The Torah begins with the word bereshit, which is commonly translated “in the beginning.” That is not an illegitimate translation, and is very popular in both the church as well as in ancient Hebrew literature, but there might be more to see.
בְּרֵאש ִׁ֖ית
If you trust the pointing of the Masoretes (which may or may not be valid in this instance), the pointing under the Hebrew letter bet ְּב for “in the..”
is not present. The pointing for “in a..” is there. That means that a legitimate English translation for the first word of Torah could be “In a beginning.” What does that do to your personal theology? For me, it is an affirmation that the Torah is not all about mankind… but rather it is about G-d… and His interaction with His creation. And maybe it is an affirmation that there was an existence before creation. Possibly the fact that Torah begins with the second letter of the alephbet, and not the first, gives us another subtle hint as well.
We know that we were not the first entities to exist. Most certainly G-d preexisted everything we know from Bereshit forward, but what existed before then? Was our universe the first? G-d has expressed a willingness in several instances to “start over” to a greater or lesser degree, in dealing with His creation.
We can be certain of one thing. It is that G-d is the creator, and not some natural flow of events which reach back to some mythical “big bang”.
Here is a pictorial depiction of the “big bang” created by NASA.
The depiction is shown as a single-direction event so a time-line can be better shown in the graphic, but the theory is that the matter went everywhere at once, not in a single direction, as depicted.
The latest super space
telescope,
the
James
Webb Space Telescope (a
significant improvement
upon
the
Hubbel
Telescope)
has
now
returned an image of the
most far reaches of the
universe ever seen. There is no dispute among astronomers that these
galaxies are the furthest ever photographed. This telescope has produced a few surprises.
Allison Kirkpatrick, an astrophysicist at the University of Kansas, told Space.com,
"JWST is designed to find the very earliest galaxies in the
universe. One of the things that it found is that those galaxies are possibly more massive than we thought they would be,
while another surprising thing is that it revealed that these galaxies have a lot of structure, and we didn't think galaxies were this well organized so early in the universe."
When a scientist says that a reading by a scientific instrument has produced a “surprise”, it means that it has just disproved something that scientist believed to be settled. Let’s look at one of the many “surprises” which this telescope produced.
To understand the first “surprise”, we must first lay-out the elements of the “big bang” theory.
According to the previously established “big bang” theory, if one were to look far enough away into the universe, one would be able to see light that
began heading our way to Earth much earlier in the formation of the universe. Since the theory believes that matter was generally unorganized right after the “big bang”, what we should see at the ultimate edge of the universe is a lot of the unformed cloud of matter that had yet to congeal into galaxies. So, the JWST should produce a stunning photograph of the time not long after the “big bang”, with lots of cosmic clouds, and a few primordial stars.
Here is that image.
Where is the cloud of uncongealed space gas? Where are the primordial stars? This photo shows mostly empty space (no big clouds of congealing matter) and fully-formed galaxies as far as one can see. Remember, popular modern astronomy science says we are looking “back in time” billions of years due to the speed of light, which they suppose is constant.
And another one of the most remarkable aspects of these galaxies is that they seem to be oriented in different planes of rotation. That is important because the “big bang” theory postulated that the universe as we know it came from an infinitely dense single point, that began spinning and came apart in an explosion and sent primordial matter outward.
The law of conservation of angular momentum is: “The angular
momentum of an isolated system remains constant in both magnitude and direction.”
This law states that if you placed me on a smoothly-spinning rotating surface (imagine me in the center of a merry-go-round on the playground) and you spin it pretty fast. I am sitting in the middle of the center (the point around which the rotation occurs), and I am holding a hammer in each hand at arm’s length. Assume the spinning gets to be so fast that I cannot hold onto the hammers, and release them at the same time (the “bang”). The hammers, now free to move on their own, would travel out from me in straight lines. But the remarkable part about this is that both hammers would also be spinning as they flew outward, and they would be spinning in precisely the same rotational plane as when they were in my hands.
Let’s apply this law to the matter cloud that exploded from the “big bang”.
This law of physics says that all the galaxies in the same area of the universe should each be spinning in the same rotational plane as they were at the time they were “released” in the initial explosion.
So, take another look at that photograph. Can you see that the wellformed galaxies are not all in the same rotational plane?
So, there are in that photo three remarkable proofs of creation as reported in Genesis:
1. No cloud of unformed gas and primordial matter.
2. Large, well-formed galaxies already in place, and they are already mature as those much closer to the center of the universe.
3. Galaxies are rotating in different planes.
Now I want you to understand that I do believe in the big bang. Scripture speaks of it. I just believe that it hasn’t happened yet.
Matt 24:35-36
Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words shall not pass
away.
1 Peter 3:10
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be
destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and the works in it will be burned up.
Isaiah 65:17
17 For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth;
And the former things will not be remembered or come to mind.
I don’t worry when believers debate whether one of the “days” of Genesis is a literal 24-hour day (as our sages believed), or actually “1,000 years” as some Christian apologists insist, based on Ps. 90:4. We will all find out the answer to that inquiry together.
But I cannot, as a scientist myself, understand why believers would buyinto the concept of a creation of our universe taking some 13.77 billion years. I can prove, with many more proofs not included in this message (for the sake of time) that this immense timespan is nothing short of fantasy, and a denial of G-d, His work of creation, and the validity of Scripture.
Triune Nature of G-d. Our people have in the last couple of thousand years been teaching that G-d consulted with others in the creation.
Gen 1:26
26 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image,
according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
The commentary written by Jacob Ben Asher (who wrote during the 13th and 14th century in Spain) titled Ohr HaChaim on Gen 1:26 supposes that G-d brought to bear His 13 attributes in this creation.
And He said, "let us make," since He is the source of humility;
for this reason, He spoke in the plural form, since this is how a humble individual speaks. And He did not get concerned
with giving room for error [that there are other powers besides God which helped in the creation of man], since He preceded
[it] by stating, "And God said," [which is in the] singular: the Lord, He is God, He, Himself in His glory - as if it were
possible - molded the dirt and blew the spirit of life into it. Its stating "let us make" in the plural form also wants [to teach] that the attributes of God are many; the thirteen attributes of mercy and the name, Elohim, which is the attribute of
judgment, agreed together to create man.
Ramban suggests that G-d partnered with the Earth to create man. Others have suggested that G-d consulted with the angels to create man.
All of these seem to be efforts to disregard the concept of Messiah in creation. They think, I suppose, that the Messiah in creation is a solely Christian concept. They would be very wrong.
Even though our sages could not find agreement on this important topic in recent ages, Isaiah had already made it clear that G-d consulted with no other entity in creation.
Isa 40:12-14
12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand,
And marked off the heavens by the span, And calculated the
dust of the earth by the measure, And weighed the mountains
in a balance, And the hills in a pair of scales? 13 Who has
directed the Spirit of the Lord, Or as His counselor has
informed Him? 14 With whom did He consult and who gave
Him understanding? And who taught Him in the path of
justice and taught Him knowledge, And informed Him of the
way of understanding?
Several hundred years before Yeshua was born as a human baby, our people believed something quite different than what is currently being taught in popular Jewish theology regarding Messiah’s role in creation.
They had believed for centuries that The Almighty partnered with King Messiah to create all, to include the creation of mankind.
Yonatan ben Uziel, wrote in a targum (we would call that a “living Bible” today) of how the creation occurred. He said, “The Almighty was the architect, and King Messiah the builder.”
Is this statement correct? I contend it is, for it is found repeated in the opening phrases of the gospel of John.
John 1:1-3
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with
God. 3 All things came into being by Him, and apart from
Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
It is not accidental that the first word of the Torah is “bereshit”, and the first word of the gospel is “in the beginning.” John is invoking not only
the dawn of creation, and associating it with Yeshua, but he is also endorsing the earlier.
So, we now have two of the three natures of the triune G-d found partnering in creation. And the Spirit shows up immediately as well.
Gen 1:2
And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over
the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving
over the surface of the waters.
I find it very interesting that another commentary of Jacob ben Asher on this verse says,
“And the spirit of God was hovering: has a numerical
equivalent (gematria) of 'this is the spirit of messiah.'”
Is this a correct understanding? It does seem to line up well with what Yeshua Himself declared.
John 14:25-27
25 "These things I have spoken to you, while abiding with
you. 26 "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father
will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.
The Aleph-Tav. Although this is actually a sub-set of the triune nature of G-d appearing already at the dawn of creation, I wish to examine in greater detail a mystery which was initiated here, but lacked final resolution until the Revelation.
It is clear that G-d was the agent of creation, and we know that Messiah was the builder. But I wish for you to look at a curious linguistic quirk in the Hebrew language, the aleph-tav.
It appears twice in the first verse.
This particular word has no English translation, nor does it have a Hebrew meaning, other than it is used to connect the actor to the thing being acted upon. It is often represented in interlinear Bibles with a simple dash.
This word is composed of the first letter and the last letter of the Hebrew alephbet. That is important.
In Genesis 1, the aleph-tav connects the creator with the creation, first with the heaven, and also then with the earth. The Hebrew letter vav
that is appended to the second appearance of the aleph-tav in this verse is the Hebrew way of saying “and.” It is merely a connector which shows a continuation of that previous thought.
We have already seen that Messiah is the creating force as applied to the plan of the Almighty for the universe. And this aleph-tav seems to fit nicely into that idea here. But is there Scriptural support for this concept elsewhere?
John, on Patmos, had
a vision of Yeshua,
and to him many
things were revealed,
to
include
the
identity
associated
with the aleph-tav.
Let me preface my
teaching on this by reminding you that both Yeshua and John were
Hebrew speakers. Greek would not have been their native language. Nor would Latin have been used, although that part of the world was under Roman domination at the time they lived.
But once the writings of John were translated into Greek and distributed, the Greek language seems to have taken hold of certain aspects of the translation. One of those remnants of Greek that remained when these writings of John were translated into English, is the “alpha and omega.” True, the alpha is the first letter in the Greek alphabet, and omega is the last letter, but if these people were speaking to one another in Hebrew, there is no reason for them to resort to the Greek language for only two words of that Hebrew conversation.
I contend that Yeshua did not say, “alpha and omega”, but He rather said, “aleph and tav.” If you restore the entire conversation to Hebrew, then you will restore these two words as well, and once that is done, the verse explodes with new meaning. Although that phrase appears three times in Revelation, I will focus on the final use of it, because it is clearest in meaning. I will restore the Hebrew, below.
Rev 22:12-13
12 "Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me,
to render to every man according to what he has done. 13 "I
am the aleph and the tav, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."
Yeshua could have merely said He was the beginning and the end, and left it at that. Why did He need to three times repeat “aleph and the tav”?
I believe it was because He wanted to identify for all time what His participation had been in creation. The Almighty was the architect, and Yeshua the builder. Yeshua made it clear that He was the
So, I think it is appropriate for each of us now, wherever we see the Hebrew word
we should consider whether it is yet another
appearance of Yeshua peeking out at us from within the Torah. As you read not only Torah but also the prophets and writings, I think you might find some delightful surprises if you will simply slow down and take a closer look at each time the aleph-tav appears.
