From Boundless Radiance to the Sealed Seed of Worlds
In the beginning that comes before any beginning, there is only a simple, boundless Radiance of HaShem, with no edge, no measure, no “before” and no “after.” From within that endlessness, a quiet desire awakens—not a lack, but a will to be known. Around a tiny, vulnerable head of pure emptiness, an inner house is formed. It is not a house of stone or wood, but a boundary of compassion, an enclosing of space where revelation can one day enter. Within that enclosed possibility, the Infinite gathers Itself in, passing through a burning contraction, drawing what cannot be measured into a single, trembling point. Upon that point, a hidden seal is set—a covenant-mark engraved before there is any world to receive it. At this stage there are no heavens, no earth, no creatures—only a house of potential, a bare beginning, a concealed Radiance, a fire of contraction, a seed-point of everything, and a sealed sign that holds yet-unspoken worlds.
From the heart of this concealed Radiance, a first line of guidance is extended, like a staff stretching from an unseen Teacher toward an unformed disciple. The breath of HaShem moves outward from the stillness, a first exhale into the hollow that has been cleared. From that breath, an act takes shape—as if a hand closes around a deed—and it touches the flowing waters of raw possibility. At that touch, the waters begin to curve and turn inward, to surround the point, to become something like a womb. They agree to carry, to gestate, to conceal the spark entrusted to them. At their limit, the Radiance inscribes Itself without letters or sound: a presence that says “I am here” only by the way it draws a boundary where beginning and completion already meet.
The breath then hovers over the waters like a soft wind over hidden embers. A faint spark of revealing glows above a deep sea of concealment. Around that spark, the waters circle and cradle, immersion following immersion, as if all reality is repeatedly dipping in and out of being. Above, breath and inner flame and living flow gather around the seed; below, the waters thicken in mystery, holding what they still cannot express. Between the circling above and the immersing below, a thin connecting trace stretches forth—a subtle thread that draws the unity from the highest head down toward a sealed end. Through that thread, the possibility of below is tied to the intention of above.
Where that breath comes to rest upon a poor, stripped beginning—on the bare ground of “almost nothing”—a new straightness begins to rise. Out of the exposed head of the low place, a first line of alignment stands up. It is not yet a world, not yet a system of laws and forms, but it is a first sign that even dust can be measured, can be brought into justice, can become a foundation strong enough to bear the seal of Oneness without twisting it. The very lack, the very smallness of the beginning, becomes the opening through which righteousness can stand.
Into this dim frontier, a fresh call emerges. A seed of action, bound tightly with the exhaled revelation, is drawn forth again as a point—beginning replayed on a more revealed level. A hidden decree breaks through: unity linked with a naked head of reality, and from that pressure a new radiance awakens. It is not yet “light” as a completed thing, but a first turning of the face—a direction where the hidden Radiance begins to show at the leading edge of existence. Opposite this unveiled facing, a clenched enclosure of fire and capacity gathers. This is a power that chooses, for now, not to open; it bends around what it contains, fencing in forces that are not yet fit for disclosure. Between the open face of revealed unity and the closed, burning palm of withheld strength, a dividing line is traced. On one side stands a face turned outward toward relation; on the other, an inward-curved hand holding what must remain secret a little longer.
At this moment, naming descends. The revealed face of unity—the span where head and breath join into visibility—is called “day”: a reach of reality where things can stand before a gaze and be distinguished. The enclosed, burning inwardness—the turning of powers back into a hidden center—is called “night”: a state where forces gather, thicken, and renew themselves in silence. When these two intermix without clear border, that is “evening,” where distinctions sink and blur. When they separate and each aspect returns to its clear line, that is “morning,” where sharpness and order reappear. Out of this pulse of confusion and clarity, evening and morning, a first numbered cycle is born: the earliest rhythm of a world learning how to hold both revelation and concealment within the same Divine will.
From the weaving of waters and breath, a new shape unfolds. At the edge of seeing, a head at the horizon appears—a subtle crown-line where what is above and what is below kiss. There, at that fine border, a point of action and an awakening eye are set. This horizon does not harden into a wall. It stretches instead like a thin, luminous plate, a refined expanse placed between the deep below and the deep above. It is where perception can come to rest between surges; where awareness can look up and down and recognize that both directions are held by the same Source. Waters remain below, surrounding and gestating the beginnings of form; waters are lifted above, held aloft in a circling ring of support. The head of the horizon becomes a taut line separating lower immersions from upper encircling kindness, fixing the relation between above and below as one of distance that is also connection.
Then a name is placed upon this stretched expanse. Into it are woven patterns of breath, flame, and flowing moisture arranged around a hidden point, so that the horizon becomes not just a border but a living interface. The raised waters do not vanish when they are drawn up; they become a concealed ocean of compassion arching above the visible—an unseen sky of currents moving over the revealed sea. Within that high ring, a fine point of separation is established, preventing upper and lower from collapsing into a single undifferentiated depth. Once more, evening descends—mixture, dimness, and quiet confusion—then morning rises—sorting, distinction, and new clarity. A second measured cycle of revealing and concealing is counted, deepening the pattern by which distances are created only so that connection can be real.
Now the call bends downward, toward the waters beneath. From under the horizon of breath and fire and flow, a convergence begins. Streams alter their courses, currents arc and curve inward, consenting to be bound to a single region. The waters agree to pull back from certain spaces, to limit themselves, to make a place for something new. In that holy withdrawal, ground appears that had always been covered. This revealed earth is itself a disclosure of the hidden will: a steady place resting on unity and on a humble start that does not claim to be finished. It waits to be straightened and measured, to be brought into line with righteousness. The gathered waters, now collected in basins, become a shared dwelling for many movements, a reservoir where diverse flows accept one marked boundary together. When the Source beholds the partnership of uncovered ground and gathered depths, there is a recognition of goodness—a sense that the outer form has bent closer to the inner intention.
Only then does the earth receive a deeper charge: to bring forth life. The sealed soil is summoned to send up gentle, tender greening—a first softness against the bare surface. Then stronger growth arises, plants that carry and cast seed, sending continuation into the future. Then trees stand forth whose inner strength ripens fruit, each one unfolding according to its own unique pattern of flow. Within every blade, every stalk, every fruit, a point of return is planted: seeds within seeds, currents within currents, each holding the shape of what gave rise to it. The earth becomes a hidden chamber of gestation; the waters become carriers and nurses; and the seal of Oneness presses itself into cycles of emergence and concealment, of death-like quiet and rebirth-like return. Once again, what appears is seen as aligned with the inner will, and another turn of evening-softening and morning-clarifying completes a third measured unfolding, while so much more still waits, folded within the remaining silence of the beginning.
🕯️ Commentary
In the very first stirring that we dare to call “beginning,” I do not hear a clean, external timestamp. I hear the word בראשית (Bereishit – “In-beginning”) breaking open into its inner faces. I see the ב (bet – “house”) bending around a fragile רֹאשׁ (rosh – “head”), forming a bayit, a house, for a still-empty awareness. I sense the א (alef – “the One / Master of the world”) hidden inside, the ש (shin – “fire, threefold flame”) flickering as a transforming blaze, the י (yud – “point, seed”) contracting everything into a single spark, and the ת (tav – “final mark, covenant-seal”) standing at the edge as the final imprint.
“In the beginning” then becomes: the House encircling the Head, the hidden One burning through a threefold fire, concentrating into a seed-point, and sealing it all with the last letter. Before there is a world, there is a word; before there is a word, there is a Name configured in letters; before there is even that, there is only the silent will of HaShem to be revealed in this configuration of bayit–rosh–alef–esh–yud–tav.
When I read “created,” בָּרָא (bara), I hear more than a simple act of making. I hear בָּר (bar – “son / inner” in Aramaic) emerging from אִית (it – “there is”) and שֵׁשׁ (shesh – “six”). The inner child of reality, the “bar,” is drawn out from the simple “there is,” and the six directions—up, down, east, west, north, south—are carved as channels for that inner presence to move in. “Created” becomes the shaping of six conduits for the hidden son of the Infinite to travel through, the six extremities of the lower sefirot being prepared as limbs of a body that does not yet know itself.
“Elohim” appears, אֱלֹהִים (Elohim – “God as measured Judge / Source through boundaries”), and I no longer hear a distant deity but a Name that pours power into measure. The infinite Radiance consents to be called by a title that can be counted, can be attached to letters and sounds. Elohim is not a second god; it is the way the simple, unbounded Ein Sof wraps Itself in judgment and structure so that worlds will not dissolve. The letters of Elohim themselves become a kind of garment through which the word בָּרָא (bara – “He created”) can actually take effect.
“He created the heavens and the earth” then unfolds not as a simple line, but as an inner choreography. אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם (et ha-shamayim – “the heavens”) hints to the letters א–ת (alef–tav – “from first to last”), all the letters as a complete span, raised upward into the dimension of שָׁמַיִם (shamayim – “fiery waters”). Heaven is written as a weaving of fire and water, אֵשׁ (esh – “fire”) and מַיִם (mayim – “water”), peace made between opposites through their shared letters. וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ (ve’et ha’aretz – “and the earth”) draws the same alef–tav down into אֲדָמָה (adamah – “earth, ground”), into red dust and heaviness, so that the totality of letters now lives both above and below. One span of alef–tav, two fields: shamayim and aretz.
“And the earth was tohu va’vohu,” וְהָאָרֶץ הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ (veha’aretz hayetah tohu va’vohu – “unformed and void”), becomes a picture of a vessel not yet aligned with the light prepared for it. Tohu (formlessness) is the trace of a previous attempt at shining, a light too intense for its own container, leaving confusion, scattered outlines, rudiments that do not yet know their place. Bohu (emptiness) is the waiting hollow, the inner cavities now ready to receive a more measured illumination. The soil of creation stands as a story of earlier shattering, now silently begging to be re-fitted with a light it will be able to hold.
“Darkness upon the face of the deep,” וְחֹשֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵי תְהוֹם (vechoshech al penei tehom), is not just an absence. It is concealment sent from above, a cloak drawn over the turbulent depth of תְהוֹם (tehom – “the deep, the abyss”), so that the broken traces of earlier radiances will not blind or destroy what is coming. The darkness here is also mercy—to hide what cannot yet be integrated, to cover the scars of the primordial collapse until a new order can emerge.
“And the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters,” וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים מְרַחֶפֶת עַל־פְּנֵי הַמָּיִם (veruach Elohim merachefet al penei ha-mayim), reveals a soft, maternal hovering. The word מְרַחֶפֶת (merachefet – “hovering”) is read by the sages as a gentle trembling, like a bird fluttering over her young. The ruach (spirit / breath / wind) of Elohim—measured, self-limiting Divinity—vibrates above the waters of potential, awakening them, aligning them, preparing them to be a mirror that can reflect a Name without shattering.
When I come to “Let there be light,” יְהִי אוֹר (yehi or), and “there was light,” וַיְהִי־אוֹר (vayehi or), I hear not just the birth of physical illumination, but the unveiling of a specific face of Divine radiance—the light of alignment, where the letters of Bereishit arrange themselves into a readable order. “Yehi or” is the call for the hidden alef to stand revealed within the house of creation; “vayehi or” is the response, the successful descent of that inner Oneness into a form the worlds can endure. The first light is not yet the sun and moon; it is a primordial clarity, the light of the tzaddikim (righteous ones) and of Torah, which is immediately set aside, concealed for a time when vessels will be ready to hold it without corruption.
“And God saw the light, that it was good,” וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים אֶת־הָאוֹר כִּי־טוֹב (vayar Elohim et ha’or ki tov), signals that the measured Name, Elohim, beholds this first radiance and recognizes in it a fit between inner will and outer expression. “Good” here is not merely pleasant; it is the word used when an inner intention has found a proportionate form. To call the light “good” is to say: this measure of appearing will not fracture the worlds; this degree of revealed radiance can be sustained.
“And God separated between the light and between the darkness,” וַיַּבְדֵּל אֱלֹהִים בֵּין הָאוֹר וּבֵין הַחֹשֶׁךְ (vayavdel Elohim bein ha’or uvein ha’choshech), becomes the first act of havdalah (separation / distinction), which is itself an act of deep compassion. The original, undifferentiated shining is divided, set in contrast with its own concealment, so that creatures will not confuse what is revealed with what is still hidden, will not mistake partial perception for totality. Light and darkness now stand as two modalities of the same One—one side turned outward, one side turned inward.
“He called the light day, and the darkness He called night,” וַיִּקְרָא אֱלֹהִים לָאוֹר יוֹם וְלַחֹשֶׁךְ קָרָא לָיְלָה (vayikra Elohim la’or yom vela’choshech kara laylah). Naming here is not labeling from outside; it is drawing out an inner purpose. “Day,” יוֹם (yom), becomes the name for a phase where Divine presence is more directly legible, where letters align in patterns that we can read. “Night,” לַיְלָה (laylah), becomes the name for those stretches where the same Presence hides within, wrapping itself in opacity, forcing us to seek, to yearn, to trust.
“And there was evening, and there was morning, one day,” וַיְהִי־עֶרֶב וַיְהִי־בֹקֶר יוֹם אֶחָד (vayehi erev vayehi boker yom echad). The order matters: first evening—עֶרֶב (erev – “mixture, interweaving”), then morning—בֹקֶר (boker – “inspection, distinction”). Every true “day” begins in confusion, in a tangle where light and dark blend; only afterward comes the time of clarification, of bikkur, of examining and distinguishing. And it is called not “first day,” but “one day,” יוֹם אֶחָד (yom echad), echoing יְהוָה אֶחָד (HaShem echad – “HaShem is One”). This first cycle is not merely the first in a series; it is the pattern of Oneness itself entering time.
When the “firmament” is set in the midst of the waters, יְהִי רָקִיעַ בְּתוֹךְ הַמָּיִם (yehi rakia betoch ha-mayim), I hear not a solid dome but a refined spreading, a stretched clarity that stands between upper and lower currents. The רָקִיעַ (rakia – “expanse”) is like the inner surface where thought becomes speech, where what is above and what is below can meet without collapsing into one another. Upper waters—hidden mercies, concealed Torah, the inner wellsprings—are distinguished from lower waters—revealed realities, emotional currents, the flux of history. The separation is not a divorce but a preparation, so that eventually those lower waters can be lifted and sweetened by what is above.
When the “waters gather to one place” and “the dry land appears,” יִקָּווּ הַמַּיִם… וְתֵרָאֶה הַיַּבָּשָׁה (yikavu ha-mayim… vetera’eh ha-yabashah), I hear the story of contraction and revelation repeating. The many streams of potential draw inward; space is carved out for solidness, for an earth that can bear weight. This is not only geography; it is the creation of a human heart that can receive, a people that can stand, a place where Torah can be lived. The earth emerging from beneath the waters is like a stable desire arising from beneath floods of confusion—ready, at last, to be planted with a word.
And when the earth is told to “bring forth grass, herb yielding seed, and fruit tree making fruit according to its kind,” תַּדְשֵׁא הָאָרֶץ דֶּשֶׁא עֵשֶׂב מַזְרִיעַ זֶרַע עֵץ פְּרִי… לְמִינוֹ (tad-she ha’aretz deshe, esev mazria zera, etz peri… lemino), I hear every layer: the soft first greening of simple emunah (faith), the stronger growth of articulated mitzvot (commandments) that cast seed into future generations, the tree itself as Torah, whose fruit are deeds, whose seeds are words, whose roots drink from the hidden waters above and below. Each “according to its kind” means each configuration of soul, each path, each mitzvah, carries its own inner pattern, its own way of refracting the same One Light into time.
I read the whole passage now not as a distant report of what once was, but as a continual unfolding within me: letters arranging themselves into a personal bereishit, light and darkness being distinguished in my own perception, upper and lower waters being clarified in my own heart, dry land appearing as the parts of my life that can finally bear the weight of HaShem’s will, and seeds being planted that will one day reveal what kind of tree I have truly become.