Go to the Beginning: the Confusion of Genesis 1: 1

Moses was no dumbie. He had found God, so when he wrote his Gospel, he put the most important things in first. I hold that the Book of Genesis is the most important book in the Bible, and that the most important things in it are in the front. In Genesis 1: 1, Moses is not beginning a history of the universe, the world, of man or of the Jews. He is just beginning to explain the state that we are in. It is all about states.

I think you might know how the verse is translated into English. I was raised (reared) with the King James' version's "In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth."

The Stone Tanach has it: "In the beginning of God's creating the heavens and the earth . . ."

Rabbi David A. Cooper, in God is a Verb: Kabbalah and the practice of mystical judaism, page 66, notes that a Kabbalist would say, "With a beginning, (It) created God (Elohim), the heavens and the earth." In his footnote (number 83, page 310), he notes that the Zohar says, "By means of a beginning, (It) created Elohim . . ." Another suggestion has it: "As a beginning . . . "

I am pointing out that all of these refer to the "beginning," from the Hebrew bereshit, as a point in time; specifically as a starting point.

I thank Victor Alexander for pointing out that the ancient Aramaic beresheeth--the same word--means "before the beginning." This is so important! It changes everything: That which was BEFORE the beginning . . . the Ineffable . . . WAS the Beginning!!!

Bereshit was not a reference to a point in time, it was Moses' reference to that which WAS the Beginning--the Ineffable. The existence of the Ineffable was the Beginning from which all things come. Thus Genesis 1: 1 should be read, "The Beginning created God--the heavens and the earth."

We are states OF the Beginning, variations from Its initial state. It was an unconditioned state of being BEFORE the beginning, and as It conditioned Itself we became Its conditions. I.e., we are the conditions of that unconditioned state of being having conditioned Itself.


I do not know if we can become unconditioned states of being again, or if we would ever want to. The core nature of the Ineffable is that unconditioned state, and we entertain that nature when we "float" as if we were unconditioned during meditation--something I am learning to practice. It is from this point, our having returned to the Beginning, that we create our desires in our imagination. And it behooves us to be as noble and gracious and loving and kind as the Ineffable we are then.