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Orchard of Delights Bereishit

law speak of and actually codify concern for the environment. These In Pirkei Avot (5:1) we find the following statement: “With ten
discussions and laws stretching back thousands of years pertain to utterances the world was created.” Pirkei Avot is certainly not
air, water, and noise pollution; the dangers inherent in and proper considered a mystical treatise or a collection of allegorical sayings.
disposal of toxic matter; animal conservation; the prevention of It is a collection of the Sage’s ethical and moral teachings; therefore,
pain, not to mention cruelty, to animals; overgrazing the land; tree this dictum can be accepted at face value. The normative tradition,
preservation; allowing land to rejuvenate by lying fallow; water as brought down in Pirkei Avot, unambiguously declares that the
preservation; designating open areas around cities, and more. As in so instrument through which God created the world was, indeed, Divine
many areas of modern life, the Torah is a shining light, offering both speech.
practical and philosophical wisdom. Concern with the environment This tradition is based directly on the Torah’s account of creation.
is an ancient Jewish principle, one that needs to be applied and Nine times during the course of creation, the Torah records a
practiced now more than ever.
Divine utterance, followed immediately by the very act of creation
mentioned. For instance, on the first day of creation, the Torah states:
“And God said let there be light – and there was light.” The Sages
consider the opening verse of the Torah – “In the beginning God
££The Sixth Millenium created the heavens and the earth” – an all-encompassing utterance.
£The Sixth MilleniumThe Sixth Millenium
Thus, according to the Oral Torah, which was given along with the
Written Torah, the world was created with ten utterances; Divine
speech is quite literally the instrument of creation.
Although the Zohar, the Kabbalah’s foundational text, is not a
prophetic book as such, it does contain the following two predictions. A stunning teaching illustrates how the first verse in the Torah
Commenting on the verses, “In the six hundredth year of Noahs’s life, graphically conveys this notion. The letter peh (פ), which means
in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that “mouth,” is traditionally written so that the black outline of the
day all the foundations of the great deep burst forth and the windows letter peh contains the white outline of the letter beit (ב) within it. No
of heaven were opened. And the rain was on the earth for forty days other Hebrew letter contains another letter formed within itself like
and forty nights,” the Zohar states that in the six-hundredth year this. Since the Torah begins with the letter beit, the inverse graphical
of the sixth millenium both the waters from below and the waters relationship may be presumed true: the first letter of the Torah is
from above will burst forth and flood the world in preparation for conceptually surrounded by a white letter peh, meaning “mouth.”
the Messianic era (Zohar 1:117a). The lower waters symbolize secular Thus it is as if the opening letter of creation emanates directly from
knowledge and the upper waters Torah wisdom. God’s mouth!

The sixth-hundredth year of the sixth millenium ended in the Further bolstering this notion of the creative power inherent
year 1840 in the Gregorian calender and spanned the hundred years in God’s speech, the Sages teach that the instruments of Divine
preceding that date. During the years 1740-1840 virtually every speech, the Hebrew letters, are the building blocks of creation. Not
field of human endeavor underwent a radical change. The Industrial just linguistic symbols, these letters actually contain an animating
Revolution began and the United States of America and France Divine force. Thus, for instance, the letters spelling the word for light
were forever transformed by political revolutions. The changes actually constitute light. (See chapter five of The Mystical Nature of
initiated during that period gathered steam and were followed by Light, for a fuller elucidation of this concept.) Indeed, not only are
revolutions in science, transportation, communications, medicine, the letters an animating force, the Torah is actually considered the

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