“… when the earth was tohu and vohu …” (Gen. 1:2)
These two Hebrew words are notoriously difficult to translate. Richard Friedman suggests that they effectively mean the same thing: the linguistic term for this is hendiadys. He translates them as “shapeless and formless;” the JPS as “unformed and void;” Stone as “astonishingly empty.” I prefer Robert Alter’s translation: “welter and waste,” capturing the similarity in phonetic structure. So, what did the sages do with these strange terms? Of all their answers, here is one of my favorites:
R. Abbahu said: This may be compared to the case of a king who bought two slaves on the same bill of sale and at the same price. One he ordered to be supported at the public expense, while the other he ordered to toil for his bread. The latter sat bewildered and astonished: ‘Both of us were bought at the same price,’ exclaimed he, ‘yet he is supported from the treasury whilst I have to gain my bread by my toil!’ Thus the earth sat bewildered and astonished, saying, ‘The celestial beings [the angels] and the terrestrial ones [man] were created at the same time: yet the celestial beings are fed by the radiance of the Shechinah {the Divine Presence on earth}, whereas the terrestrial beings, if they do not toil, do not eat. Strange it is indeed!’ … Therefore, THE EARTH WAS TOHU AND VOHU (BEWILDERED AND ASTONISHED).
Midrash Rabbah – Genesis II:2
Imagine, the Earth bewildered and astonished! How many of our actions must be bewildering and astonishing to that foundation from which we were made, and which now supports us! However, let’s take this a notch deeper, shall we?
There is a deeper pattern at work here: the equality of pairs. The words tohu and vohu are the same, the slaves were the same in the beginning, as were the two beings (angels and humans). What was bewildering and astonishing was that circumstances somehow made these equalities seem different.
In the kabbalistic understanding of angels, they are messengers with a single purpose and no free will: in effect, they are inferior to us in that world view. But what if there is a more essential similarity between us – something that goes back to our fundamentals?
I believe that the answer is something beyond the simplicity of us both – angels and humans – being created by G!d. I suggest that, in fact, we are all fed by the radiance of the Shechinah, in the most fundamental sense of who we are and what sustains us.
We live in a G!d-created, and G!d-nurtured world. And the moment we remember that, we can also remember that, as G!d’s partners, we must nurture those around us. For isn’t that the “delivery vehicle” of G!d’s sustenance in this world?
Tags: Bereshis, Bereshit, Jewish, maggid, midrash, Torah study