BERESHIT: Three Things You Didn’t Know About Creation
We all learned the story of Creation as children. Much of what we heard then stayed with us, unchanged. The problem is that some of those stories don’t match what the Torah says. Here are three examples.
TOHU VABOHU DOES NOT MEAN “CHAOS”
וְהָאָ֗רֶץ הָיְתָ֥ה תֹ֙הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ וְחֹ֖שֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵ֣י תְה֑וֹם וְר֣וּחַ אֱלֹ-הִ֔ים מְרַחֶ֖פֶת עַל־פְּנֵ֥י הַמָּֽיִם׃
Almost every translation says the earth was “formless,” “without form,” or simply in a state of “chaos.” Even in modern Hebrew, “tohu vabohu” means a total mess.
But the idea of a primordial chaos is not Jewish. It comes from Plato. For him, the universe always existed as a disordered mass, until a mythological god, the demiurge, put it in order. The concept of chaos probably entered through the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Torah. From there it passed into nearly every later translation: first the non-Jewish ones, and then, incredibly, the Jewish ones too.
Judaism has no notion of chaos. God creates, and His creations appear fully formed and complete. Nothing escapes His control.
So what does tohu vabohu mean?
Targum Onkelos, the Aramaic translation our Sages considered the official translation of the Torah (targum didan, “our translation”), renders it this way:
וְאַרְעָא הֲוַת צָדְיָא וְרֵיקַנְיָא
“And the earth was desolate and empty” (Targum Onkelos, Bereshit 1:2).
Rabbi Yonatan ben Uziel is even more precise:
צַדְיָא מִבְּנֵי נַשׁ וְרֵיקַנְיָא מִן כָּל בְּעִיר
“Desolate of human beings and empty of every animal” (Targum Yonatan, Bereshit 1:2).
In one word, tohu vabohu means “uninhabited.” The Torah does not describe a primordial mess. It opens by describing what the newly created planet does not yet contain, and what will arrive at the end of the process of Creation: life. Tohu vabohu are the same words a scientist would use today for the most important fact about Mars or Venus: is there life there or not?
Incidentally, the description of tohu vabohu also tells us that life does not appear on Earth by itself. It is a Divine creation.
THE “UPPER WATERS” ARE NOT IN SPACE
On the second day, God made the rakia, the firmament, and separated the waters below from the waters above.
וַיַּ֣עַשׂ אֱלֹ-הִים֮ אֶת־הָרָקִיעַ֒ וַיַּבְדֵּ֗ל בֵּ֤ין הַמַּ֙יִם֙ אֲשֶׁר֙ מִתַּ֣חַת לָרָקִ֔יעַ וּבֵ֣ין הַמַּ֔יִם אֲשֶׁ֖ר מֵעַ֣ל לָרָקִ֑יעַ וַֽיְהִי־כֵֽן׃
Some may picture the upper waters as a cosmic ocean floating above the sky, or water in outer space :). But Maimonides explains that rakia here is not the universe. It is the sky we see, where clouds form (Guide for the Perplexed 2:30).
Rabbi Moshe Chefets, in Italy, more than 300 years ago, described it in words any elementary school student would understand today:
יהי בתוך המים אויר וגוף מתנועע דק ומתפשט
“Let there be within the water a vapor, a light body that moves and expands” (Melekhet Machashevet, Bereshit 1:6).
Heat turns ocean water into vapor. The vapor rises, cools, and falls back as rain. “The waters above” are the clouds. (Ask Grok “What are clouds?” in 4 or 5 words. It answers: water suspended in the air. Try it!)
On the second day, God established the water cycle, the mechanism of evaporation and precipitation that produces the fresh water all life on Earth depends on.
Since Shemini Atseret last week, we say it every day in the Amida: mashiv haruach umorid hagashem, the Almighty “makes the wind blow and the rain fall.” Every time it rains, the mechanism established on the second day of Creation repeats itself.
THE SUN WAS NOT CREATED ON THE FOURTH DAY
In kindergarten we were taught that on the fourth day God created the sun, the moon, and the stars. But that raises an obvious problem. How was there evening and morning for the first three days without a sun? And how did the plants grow, when they appeared on the third day?
The answer of our Sages, led by Rabbi Akiva, is simple. The sun was created at the beginning, together with the entire universe, in the first verse of the Torah. Rashi says so explicitly on “yehi meorot,” “let there be lights”:
מִיּוֹם רִאשׁוֹן נִבְרְאוּ, וּבָרְבִיעִי צִוָּה עֲלֵיהֶם לְהִתָּלוֹת בָּרָקִיעַ
“[The sun and the moon] were created on the first day, and on the fourth day [God] commanded them to be placed in the firmament” (Rashi, Bereshit 1:14).
The text of the Torah confirms it. On the fourth day, it does not use the verb bara, to create from nothing. It uses “made” and “placed”:
וַיִּתֵּ֥ן אֹתָ֛ם אֱלֹ-הִ֖ים בִּרְקִ֣יעַ הַשָּׁמָ֑יִם לְהָאִ֖יר עַל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃
“And God placed them in the firmament of the heavens, to give light upon the earth” (Bereshit 1:17).
On the fourth day, just before creating the first living creatures, God set the sun and the moon in their final positions, at exactly the right distance for the Earth to have the temperature that keeps water liquid and sustains life.
A PLANET READY FOR LIFE
The three mistakes have two things in common. First, most of our rabbis held a different view from the one usually taught in Jewish schools. Second, each one makes the Creation story harder to understand than it really is.
Read properly, the biblical text describes Creation with a logic that is easy for a modern reader to follow. It begins with an uninhabited planet, but with water in the ocean. Then, thanks to sunlight, rain forms and fresh water appears. Next comes dry land, and on it, plants, which produce oxygen. On the fourth day the planet reaches the exact temperature to keep water liquid. On the fifth day, when everything is ready to receive it, life appears.
This Shabbat we begin reading the Torah from the beginning. It is worth reading it as if for the first time.
Rabbi Yosef Bitton
Recommended for anyone who wants to understand the biblical account of Creation from an Orthodox Sephardic perspective (Ibn Ezra, Radak, Maimonides, and others), one that turns out to be surprisingly compatible with contemporary science.
A book for understanding the biblical Creation with depth and intellectual rigor. Also available in Spanish and Portuguese. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08WPDHMW1