Chromosomes of the Creation

Shalom,

Yesterday we celebrated the opening of our new Jerusalem branch location in the Baq’a neighborhood and had a housewarming  ‘Chanukat Bayit’ – חנוכת בית  ceremony in our gorgeous offices here, which were designed by Sarit Harel.  

https://www.facebook.com/sarithareldesign/

Orly and I were so happy to meet and welcome many of our students, friends, new neighbors and, of course the members of our Tel Aviv and Virtual (GDL – Guided Distance Learning) branches.

Nachum, the head of our overseas branch in New York was present on Skype. 

As is the custom during Chanukat Bayit, we studied a little about the Hebrew alphabet 
as the DNA of the creation.

The Kabbalistic writing  – ‘Zohar‘ (by R. Shim’on Bar Yohay) states that G-d created the world using the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

This is alluded to in the very first words of the Torah:

בְּרֵאשִׁית, בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים, אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם, וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth

In Hebrew there is a unique preposition את  – ET. 
(It does not have an equivalent one in English). 

One can read therefore: 

In the beginning G-d created את

Breaking down the word “את”, it refers to the expanse of the alphabet from letters Aleph (א) through Tav (ת).

(An English equivalent would be – From A to Z). 

It means then that G-d’s first creation was the 22 Hebrew letters from Alef to Tav. 

So, in fact, being the first creation, the 22 Hebrew letters were G-d’s tools in the following creation of the world.

Thus, the DNA of creation is quite literally the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, being the “chromosomes” of this DNA.

* It is interesting to point out that humans have 22 pairs of chromosomes (called autosomes).

The 23-d pair differs between males and females.

So, unlike other languages which are descriptive of the world’s reality, the original Hebrew language is a creative language.

The Creator, in ten sayings (found in the book of Genesis) “pronounced” words and sentences made of the Hebrew letters in various combinations and these sayings formed all of the creation.

In Hebrew thre root for to “say/speak” and for a “thing” is the same: דבר, alluding that things were created by G-d’s speech.

G-d’s first quasi-material creation (after creating the letters) was light. 

וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים, יְהִי אוֹר; וַיְהִי-אוֹר

And G-d said: ‘Let there be light.’ And there was light

(Genesis 1:3). 

At Ulpan-Or it as our mission to bring the ‘Light of Hebrew’ to anyone around the world who wants to experience and study this unique language, and we are proud to have you as part of our Ulpan-Or family.

Shabbat Shalom,

Orly & Yoel