Bereshyt:Genesis

Bereshyt/Bereshit/Beresheet/Berechit
Bereshyt/Bereshit/Beresheet

400 10 300 1 200 2
Gematria: 913

Yom Echad





Bereshyt Bara Elohim Et Ha Shamaim Ve Et Ha Eretz [Gematria = 2701]

berê'shiyth bârâ' 'elohiym 'êth hashâmayim ve'êth hâ'ârets

Suares:

Bayt: Containers of existence, existence of containers; duality; thought.
Raysh: Universe containing the existences, containing its own existence.
Aleph: Upspringing of life, intermittant pulsation, invisible, new, always/never present.
Sheen: Creation, cosmic movement, depth of movement, custodian of all possibility.
Yod: Existence, projection of life, negation of existence, continuity in duration of all that duration destroys, manifested existence in time of Aleph.
Tav: Sanctuary of energy, cosmic resistence to life which enables life to manifest.


Bayt-Raysh-Aleph-Sheen-Yod-Tav

Bereshyt is the primal statement of the Qabala, and contains the whole revelation in one word.

We may meditate endlessly on this initial equation which begins the story and compresses the whole process of creation descibed as the interplay of life/death and existence into six letters, and become that revelation in ourselves.

Bereshyt describes creation in a language where the signifier is the signified, and the map is the territory. It states that everything that is is the result of one dual energy, brought into creation by the Aleph (life/death, timeless) and Yod (existence, time) of Bereshyt.

Instead of poetic, but arbitrary translations, it is possible to follow the text of Genesis letter by Hebrew letter and watch coherent, visible structure emerge, in which every letter contributes to the whole meaning, and the whole is in every letter.

In order to get past the conditioning of our colloquial translations, we can begin reading with the analogy of formal logical statements or thermodynamic equations, and consider each Hebrew letter as one element of a basic set of 22 archetypal signifiers or energetic/formative structures. Each letter has both an energetic/numerical and a semantic/alphabetic aspect, each letter is composed of other letters of the basic set which determine its meaning and value and each letter does, or does not contribute to forming other letters of the set.

With that background, we can analyze the first 5 verses of Genesis in terms of the development (following Bereshyt) of these pairs of equations: heaven and earth; formless and void; darkness and light; (innner and outer light) night and day; morning and evening. All these pairs develop from the structure of Bereshyt.

We can then transcend these translations and follow the descendents of Aleph and Yod into manifestation, as they annouce the primary themes of Genesis, and begin the adventure of discovering a totally unseen dimension of a familiar reality.

Bayt-Raysh-Aleph: Life (consciousness) arises endogenously in the universe as a result of the containment of cosmic energy. It is not endowed from without, but arises as a result of God's presence in his creation.

Sheen-Yod-Tav: All of creation is the result of the interplay of the two players in the game of life, life/death and existence. Aleph, timeless pulsation of life springing from containers, Yod, the evolutionary process of existence in duration, caught between cosmic movement and ultimate resistence. This theme pervades Genesis from the first word and is elaborated intensely in the energy-equations of the first verses of Genesis and in the primary equation pairs of Elohim and YHWH, man and woman, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel and so on through Abraham and Lot, Issac and Ismael, Jacob and Esau, etc.



GENESIS CHAPTER 1:1 Mistranslated, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

In the original letter-numbers this is:

Bereshyt Barah Elohim et Ha Shamaim Vay et Ha Eretz.

Bereshyt: Containers of existences, existences in their containers. Universe containing the existences, containing its own existence. (Movement of the Universe.) Upspringing of life, intermittent pulsation invisible, not thinkable; life always new, always present, never present.

Creation! Vertiginous movement, immeasurable movement, movement that transcends all conception. In the hidden depths of movement is the secret of existence. And this movement is the custodian of all possible possibilities. Existence, projection of life, negation of existence. (Everything that exists must cease to exist.) Apparent betrayal of life. Revelation! Life-death is One. And the collision, the shock of passive resistance of the mass, the hard, the dry, the stones: blessed resistance! Without resistance there could be no birth. This is the becoming.

Thus are introduced the two partners playing against each other: Aleph springing from its containers, and Yod smitten by the "breath" of Sheen pressing against all that resists it so as to contain it.

Suares, Cipher of Genesis, p.88


In our digitalized translations of Genesis we forget that not only are there no vowels, but there are no punctuation marks, including spaces in the original. Without being distracted by "In the beginning" and "create(d)" we can see the whole structure of double creation elaborated as both an inner and outer process in the second Bara. The focus of the equation is the Yod of existence. This double creation in Bereshyt-Bara is the basis for the double creation of Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of Genesis (outer and inner creation).


Bara Shyt Bara

1 200 2 400 10 300 1 200 2


It is necessary to release ourselves from idiomatic translations of this text, and begin to think analogically in terms of energy and structure. As soon as we accept "In the beginning" we are lost in a land of irrational thought.

Bara, Bayt-Raysh-Aleph, is creation, considered not as an event in the past, but as an on-going, everpresent miracle of manifestation. Bara, creation, states the problem. The solution, or the most basic "how" of creation is given in the rest of the equation: Shyt, Sheen-Yod-Tav. As a result of Aleph's presence in the universal container of Bayt-Raysh, Existence (Yod) can manifest between the movement of the universe (Sheen) and its ultimate capacity to resist (to) Life-Death (Tav).

The second Bara, Bara-Shyt-Bara, completes the initial statement, and brings a second creation into full view: manifestation is a result of a double creation of an inner (the contained) and an outer (the container) life. This double creation is defined as existence.

So it is not just conventional translations that we need to abandon, but also conventional modes of thought, if we are to begin to enter the world contained within the equations of Genesis. If we do, we will find completely new story, of which the story we know is a shadow, and our interpretations the shadows of shadows.

Then, the true, inner story of Genesis, the story of how it is that anything at all exists and Man's place in God's creation, will unfold with the full complexity and beauty of the universe that it creates.

In Hebrew, each letter has its own spelling and structure. The first letter of creation is Bayt, but Bayt is spelled Bayt-Yod-Tav, so Yod and Tav are brought into existence in a latent form by Bayt. If we expand Bara, we see that it already contains the its own solution, the Sheen-Yod-Tav of Bereshyt:





Bara



Bayt, Bayt-Yod-Tav contains: Bayt, Yod, Tav, Waw, Dallet, Lammed, Mem.
Raysh, Raysh-Yod-Sheen contains: Raysh, Yod, Sheen, Waw, Dallet, Lammed, Tav, Noun.
Aleph, Aleph-Lammed-Phay contains: Aleph, Lammed, Phay, Mem, Dallet, Tav, Waw, Hay.

Three letters bring thirteen into manifestation and foreshadow everything in Genesis 1:1 up to the Tsadde of Eretz.

Bereshyt: Full Expansion
The Thoughts of Man







22 Autiot Yassod + Finals







Elohim
Elohim

40/600 10 5 30 1
Gematria: 86/646

Yom Echad | Archetypes of Genesis


Suares: "Total process through which timeless Aleph becomes Yod which is of time. This process sets in motion the organic functions of living beings. Existence is projected into the passive multitudes of resistence. These allow themselves or do not allow themselves to be fertized after the manner of the living and the dead waters."
--Cipher of Genesis, page 79.

Bereshyt Bara Elohim

Aleph-Lammed-Hay-Yod-Mem
Aleph : infinite, timeless, intermittant, sign of the unknowable, creation
Lammed : organic movement, functional, existent
Hay : archetype of Life itself
Yod : existence, duration in time, foundation of actuality
Mem : maternal waters (Maim), projection of resistance into organic/existence, where it becomes the passive creative matrix for existential life (Noun, 50)

Far from signifying some abstract conception of a "God," Elohim is an exact equation for the total evolutionary life process in the universe. Again, the two partners, Aleph and Yod, who made their appearance in Bereshyt, now in an organic, evolutionary role, driving the life process. Aleph (infinite unknowable consciousness) sets in motion organic life (Lammed-Hay); existence (Yod) then proves fertile, or not.






"In the beginning, God created ..." is an invitation to leave rational thought behind, an invitation taken in almost every case. The unthinkability of this thought is rarely tested, as Gershom Scholem points out in commenting on R. Isaac Luria's doctine of Tsimtsum:

This paradox of Tsimtsum -- as Jacob Emden said -- is the only serious attempt ever made to give substance to the idea of Creation out of Nothing. Incidentally, the fact that an idea which as first sight appears so reasonable as "Creation out of Nothing" should turn out upon inspection to lead to a theosophical mystery shows us how illusory the apparent simplicity of religious fundamentals really is. Scholem, Major Trends, Schocken 1995, p.253


Readers of English/Christian translations of the "Old Testament" (Hebrew Tanakh) may not always be aware of the actual Hebrew words translated as "God" or "The Lord" or "The Almighty" and may miss the significance of the different usages. There are many explanations for the usages of the two principle sacred-names of the Old Testament, Elohim and YHVH.

In brief, Elohim is the evolutionary process, while YHVH is Life-In-Existence, the goal of the involutionary process.

Elohim appears 32 times in Chapter 1 of Bereshit/Genesis.


Elohim
In Hebrew, Elohim is written in two alternative ways, according to the Qabala. Both terminate in MEM, but this may take the value 40 or 600. The spelling is ALEPH-LAMMED-HAY-YOD-MEM. The number-schemata are therefore either (1.30.5.10.40) or (1.30.5.10.600). We shall write the former as ELOHIM and the latter as ELOHIM .

Both words signify a projection into life on Earth of the Cosmic Drama of ALEPH playing the game against YOD. Incidentally, the word YOD is spelt YOD-WAW-DALLET and means hand in Hebrew. Since DALLET conveys the notion of resistance and response to challenge, the Hebrew meaning of hand could be rendered into English by "that which holds its own ."

MEM (600) signifies the highest achieved state of VAV (6). Since VAV is fertility, impregnation or planting, this MEM therefore symbolizes fruitfulness in the highest degree. Any achievement of cosmic significance is indicated by 600.

LAMMED (30) is the projection into existence of movements of change; the transformation of what exists; transfer or transmission through what exists.

Hence ELOHIM reads:

The unknowable power or energy (ALEPH) transmitted into and through the organic movement (LAMMED) of life (HAY) plays out the game with its own projection (YOD) in existence as "the waters" (MEM) of the biosphere.

Hence MEM (40) states the process. ELOHIM with MEM (600) expresses that the highest state of achievement of the process is in action: extending its scope, as it were, more and more. Through the action of ELOHIM the "waters" of the biosphere teem and seethe with living things, all participating individually in the process ELOHIM.

In ordinary usage, MEM (600) is the plural ending, indicating the notion of a numerical fruitfulness by which the one becomes many, becomes a multitude.

The cosmic game is indicated, in code, in ELOHIM by the presence of ALEPH and YOD together. Life (HAY) is in the middle, maintaining a precarious balance (precarious because the drama is hazardous) between opposing impulses of ALEPH-LAMMED and YOD-MEM acting from either side. The drama is being played out on the stage of life by two duelling actors. The fight is carried on through life and this is ELOHIM. ELOHIM , therefore, expresses a simultaneous emanation of life and of its physical supports, as an evolutionary process. It is not the deity it is supposed to be.

The juxtaposition of the letters ALEPH-LAMMED is a schema signifying that the energy of ALEPH acquires the power to project changes in existence. Without this LAMMED, ALEPH is not able to become organically alive in HAY. So ALEPH in isolation is like the enormous energy locked up inside the atomic nuclei, having an explosive potency not yet released. ELOHIM without the HAY would symbolize an enormous density of existing things on the Earth (YOD-MEM) locked in conflict with ALEPH-LAMMED, the timeless energy of ALEPH endowed with the potency to bring about tremendous changes. The out-come of their conflict would manifest as cataclysmic upheavals succeeded by comparative quiescence, the two alternating as the rallies of the game shifted it from one court to the other. Historically, whole continents, seas and mountain-ranges appeared and disappeared again and again as the Earth writhed between the hammer and the anvil of a doublefold energy, explosive and compressive. As we know from Earth history, this situation persisted for the two thousand millions of years of geological time that preceded the action of the biosphere as a reconciling force. At a certain moment, this conflict opened up the issue of ALEPH, and the Earth was able to produce the archetype ADAM. The cycle of evolution of life commenced to elaborate the living forms of the biosphere in order to resolve a further stage of the cosmic game playing itself out through ELOHIM.

The letter HAY is in a central position amongst the nine archetypes, the remaining eight are equally balanced on either sie -- four on one side, four the other. Life is a balancing factor in the cosmic game. It can transmit an impulse of reconciliation. Through ELOHIM, the conflict can maintain a state of equilibrium which evolves through stages of finer balance until a cycle of evolution is completed. Then a further cycle begins, and so on. They are not cycles in time but simultaneous. Vegetable life and animal life coexist as different modes of equilibrium whose seven-fold structure is exemplified in the biolgical classification of: Species, Genus, Family, Order, Class, Phylum and Kingdom. This is the projection of ZAYN (7) into life on Earth (the Seventh "Day"). The cyclic structure of vegetable and animal life, however achieved, is only a static, identical recurrence of the same modes of equilibrium. In them, ALEPH is, as it were, taken around closed cycles aganin and again, indefinitely. The cosmic game is being played out through an endless recurrence of the the same prototypes and not getting any further. ALEPH can only burst out of this closed cycle into a further cycle in a human being : ADAM This is why, in the book of Genesis, ADAM is described as "the living image" of ELOHIM. ADAM has with him as the DALLET of his name the resistance which must respond to the challenge of the ALEPH driving towards a further stage of fullfilment in MEM (600). In harmonizing these warring natures with him, he is ABRAM. In succeeding and thereby gaining a new life, he becomes ABRAHAM.

Suares, Tree II


Scholem on Bereshyt Bara Elohim:

There are certain spheres of Divinity where questions can be asked and answers obtained, namely the spheres of "this and that", of all those attributes of God which the Zohar symbolically calls Eleh, i. e., the determinable world. In the end, however, meditation reaches a point where it is still possible to question "who", but no longer possible to get an answer; rather does the question itself constitute an answer; and if the domain of Mi, of the great Who, in which God appears as the subject of the mundane process, can at least be questioned, the higher sphere of divine wisdom represents something positive beyond the reach of questioning, something which cannot even be visualized in abstract thought.

Ihis idea is expressed in a profound symbol: the Zohar, and indeed the majority of the older Kabbalists, questioned the meang of the first verse of the Torah: Bereshith bara Elohim, "In the beginning created God"; what actually does this mean? The answer is fairly surprising. We are "told" that it means Bereshith -- through th medium of the "beginning," i. e., of that primordial existence which has been defined as the wisdom of God,-- bara, created, that to say, the hidden Nothing which constitutes the grammatical subject of the word bara, emanated or unfolded, -- Elohim, that is to say, its emanation is Elohim. It is the object, and not the subject of the sentence. And what is Elohim? Elohim is the name of God, which guarantees the continued existence of creation insofar as it represents the union of the hidden subject Mi and the hidden object Eleh. (The Hebrew words Mi and Eleh have the same consonants as the complete word Elohim). -- In other words, Elohim is the name given to God after the disjunction of subject and object has taken place, but in which this gap is continuously bridged or closed. The mystical Nothing which lies before the division of the primary idea into the Knower and the Known, is not regarded by the Kabbalist as a true subject. The lower ranges of God's manifestation form the object of steady human contemplation, but the highest plane which meditation can reach at all, namely the knowledge of God as the mystical Mi (Who), as the subject of the mundane process, this knowledge can be no more than an occasional and intuitive flash which illuminates the human heart, as sunbeams play on the surface of water -- to use Moses de Leon's metaphor."

Gershom Scholem, Major Trends, Schocken, 1995, p.220


See: Belimah | Bereshit | Adam | YHWY





22 Autiot Yassod + Finals