GENESIS

The beginning

"In the beginning" [Gen. 1:1], when the will of the King began to be done, He engraved signs on the celestial vault [surrounding Him]. From the innermost void there arose a dark flame, from the mystery ofein sof, the Infinite, like a mist forming in the formless, enclosed in the ring of that sphere, neither black nor white, neither red nor green, of no color at all. Only after this flame began to take on form and dimension did it begin to produce radiant colors. From the deepest center of the flame emerged a well from which colors poured forth and spread over all that lay beneath, hidden in the mysterious hiding place ofein sof.

The shaft broke through, but not into the ether [of the sphere]. It could not be recognized, until a hidden and supreme point shone from the bottom of the impact of the last passage1 . Beyond this point nothing can be known. Thus it receives the name ofreshit, beginning, the first word [of the ten] by means of which the universe has been created.

The universe: shell and seed

When King Solomon"penetrated into the depths of the garden of nuts," as it is written,"I went down into the garden of nuts" [Song of Solomon 6:2], he took a nutshell and, studying it, saw an analogy between its layers and the spirits that motivate the sensual desires of humans, as it is written,"and the pleasures of the sons of men [are of] male and female demons" [Eccles. 2:8].

The Supreme Being, blessed be He, found it necessary to place in the world all these things to ensure the permanence and possession, so decided, of a brain surrounded by numerous membranes. The whole world, upper and lower, is organized according to this principle, from the primordial mystical center to the outermost of all layers. All are one for the other, brain within brain, spirit within spirit, shell within shell.

The primordial center is the innermost light of a transparency, subtlety and purity beyond comprehension. That expanding inner point becomes a"palace" with halls delimiting the center and, so radiant, its light is beyond the power of knowledge.

The"garment" of the"palace," of the unknowable inner point, while constituting an unknowable flash in itself, is nevertheless of a lesser subtlety and translucency than that of the primordial center. The"palace" spreads into a"garment" for itself, the primordial light. From there outward it expands; it exists in each extension superimposed on another extension, and each constitutes a garment for the one before it, as a membrane does for the brain. Although it is membrane first, each extension becomes brain in the next.

In like manner the process continues below, and, once established, man in the world combines brain and membrane, spirit and body, all for the sake of the most perfect ordering of the world. When the moon and the sun were in conjunction, she was luminous; but when she separated from the sun and ruled her own legions, her state and her light were reduced; layer after layer was made to invest the brain, all for her sake.

The first light

"And God said,"Let there be light" and there was light" [Gen. 1:3] This is the primordial light made by God. It is the light of the eye. It is the light shown by God to Adam and, by means of it, he was able to see the world from one end to the other. This is the light shown to David by God and he, beholding it, sang in praise saying,"O how abundant is Thy goodness, which Thou hast made available to those who fear Thee" [Ps. 31:20]. This is the light by which God re