תהו ובהו

In a famous passage from a fifth-century collection of rabbinic musing, we find the Rabbis wondering how God knew in advance what the universe should look like. If, as the Rabbis staunchly maintained, God created the universe out of nothing, there could have been no preexistent model available. How, then, did God, the divine architect, imagine a universe when no such architecture had ever existed before. The Rabbis solve the problem by imagining that God used the Torah as a primal blueprint. It is as if the Torah is eternal, transcending all time, even the moment of the big bang, when time as we know it began.
-- The Journey Home: Discovering the Deep Spiritual Wisdom of the Jewish Tradition, by Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman; p. 32

It is difficult for us, as humans with a long history to draw on, to imagine God creating something from nothing, with no reference points at all. I find it interesting that the Rabbis mentioned above felt the need to figure out how God knew what things would look like if He had no reference to begin with as it seemingly ignores the idea of the ineffable God that Heschel writes so well about. It is not surprising that the Rabbis couldn’t grasp the idea that God does not need a reference point to create, because, well, He’s GOD and we are not. It is inconceivable to the human mind to be able to imagine a world with no reference to anything else; we simply cannot grasp the idea of תהו ובהו and so how could we understand how God created the world from nothing? But, I would argue that it isn’t something we should try to understand or explain away. We cannot know the nature of God; we can search, and we can hope to find some sliver of understanding in our prayers and our deeds, but the bulk of God will always be out of reach. Personally, I’m okay with that. I don’t know that I would be able to handle the awesome ability to understand God, nor do I think I would want to.

To me the simple explanation is that God is God and if how He created the world without a reference is because He is God and it will remain a mystery to me.

However, returning to the quote above in context, the Rabbi Hoffman is trying to illustrate how “Torah defines the ideal shape of human life.” He goes on to detail how the Torah is much like Human life, with Genesis illustrating birth and childhood, Exodus is our lives as young adults, Leviticus dealing with our day to day lives where we find purpose, Numbers is our mid-life crisis, and Deuteronomy our end of life. I’m not far enough into the book to really write about what he is getting at, but it’s interesting and thought provoking so far, so I’m sure I’ll have more to say at a later date.

I’ll leave off with one last quote from Rabbi Hoffman as he addresses Leviticus:

The first two Hebrew words in the book are crucial: vayikra elohim. “God called.” The centerpiece of spiritual life is the sense that we are not here by accident. We are called. That is to say, every moment of life, from beginning to end, is a chance to rehear God’s love-laden call to purpose.
--p. 37