In the Beginning

Beresheet means “in the beginning,” and is the first reading of the year. For the past 4000 years, there has been a total misunderstanding as to the comprehension of Creation. The reason I say this is had Kabbalah been available to everyone, even science, there would not have been different interpretations of how the world began. I never understood the conflict of church and science, and the theories that emerged about the Big Bang, until now. The simplest thing was ignored, and once it reaches simplicity, it is out of the realm of science.

"Everything in the physical world is illusionary, including time."

Is it not clear when we find the skeletons of dinosaurs that they have disappeared? We have the proof that they existed, but how much proof do we need that dinosaurs do not exist anymore? The Zohar, in the portion of Beresheet, says nothing became extinct; so what happened to the great dinosaurs? We are around them. They have become reduced to mini lizards. Adam was so tall he could reach into the Heavens. He was not afraid of those small lizards of his day just like we are not afraid of our lizards today. Because this simple idea has been ignored, we have had to face the chaos.

The Bible made it so clear, and Rav Shimon bar Yochai said, that we can never apply a literal translation to the Bible because it is a code, and the tool to unravel this code is the Zohar. The Zohar says that everything in the physical world is illusionary, including time.

Even in prior lifetimes, physicality was with us. Time, space, and motion still weigh heavy on our daily routine because we cannot grasp the idea that physicality is illusionary. Sunday is an illusion and so is Shabbat, which we observe because we live in the consciousness of physicality. The Zohar says that when we reach the understanding that time, space, and motion are an illusion, Shabbat will be gone, but until then we have to use these tools like reading from the Torah and observing the precepts of Shabbat.

"Chaos, according to the Zohar, is a lack of understanding."

The Bible, in Beresheet, is speaking about an energy that consciousness cannot grasp with the five senses—that we cannot measure. It is the energy that makes us do things in either positive or negative ways. Once we understand their meaning, we can learn how to make use of these energies. Until then we are subject to the whims of positive or negative energy; it is a roller coaster ride.

Chaos, according to the Zohar, is a lack of understanding. The Zohar explains that Beresheet is the seed, and that the real world is an energy of understanding. The world that is real is not the physical world. It does not dictate that a person is out to get us; he or she is not our enemy. No physical thing is our enemy. Mankind must undergo physical chaotic conditions because of negative energy created by the self. We brought this chaos to ourselves, yet for most, we have not learned this truth. We still have a scapegoat.

"No physical thing is our enemy."

The Zohar says no one else is responsible for our chaos, and that we cannot remove chaotic conditions if we are not observing on a non-observable level. In Beresheet we are at the seed of this consciousness, to know that it is not someone else but our own actions that create our reality; that we are responsible for everything that happens to us.

The Zohar says that in Beresheet we capture the idea that physical reality is a development, an evolution of our consciousness, which is the immaterial aspect. The seven days of Creation is speaking about sefirot, seven levels of energy, Names of Divine Inspiration. These energies should become implanted in our consciousness to understand the real reality.