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There is a curious anomaly, that is
there is a curious not-fitting-together-of-ideas
in the opening chapter of the Book of Genesis.
What did God create on the first day?
Everybody knows that. God created light.
Not as many people know the answer to,
on what day of the creation sequence God
created the sun, the moon, the stars
and the heavenly luminaries?
The correct answer is day four.
That’s the anomaly.
You don’t have to be a "talmid chacham,"
you don’t have to be a rocket scientist,
You don’t have to be a brain surgeon
to see that there’s a problem there.
How could God make light on day one,
but not make any of the sources of light
until the fourth day?
The answer given by our tradition
is that the light that God created on day one,
when God said, “Let there be light”,
wasn’t optical light.
The reason it wasn’t optical light
was that there was no source
for the light yet created.
The light that God made on day one was,
as a matter of fact, consciousness
or awareness.
Even to this day, when we want to depict
a cartoon character getting a bright idea,
we draw a light bulb over his or her head.
What God made when God began creation
then was awareness. If you don’t believe me,
all you have to do is look at a newborn infant,
lying there in the dark oblivion of unconsciousness.
A little soul slowly opens, unfocused eyes,
and looks around at a universe.
And then, after that moment of light
and consciousness sinks back
into unconsciousness again.
The Midrash, and after it the Zohar,
take this image even further.
They say that the light that God created
on day one was so bright, that in it,
Adam and Eve were able to gaze from
one end of creation to the other.
Adam and Eve could see you and I right now.
Go ahead. Wave to Adam.
Hi Adam, how are you?
But then God had a problem because
when God realized that Adam was unable
to follow one simple mitzvah, "don’t eat the fruit,"
God realized that God would take that light
of ultimate awareness in which Adam lived
and would destroy creation.
On the other hand, if God simply took away
the possibility of ultimate awareness,
creation couldn’t exist either.
So the Midrash and then the Zohar say
that God solved the problem this way.
God had to leave the light in the world
and God did it by hiding the light
in gross matter. God hid the light
in the trees, and in the rocks,
and in the mountains, and in the streams,
and in people.
Like Yoda says in Star Wars,
“Beings of pure light, are we.”
And as the Psalms says, “Or zaruah la’tzadik”,
Light is hidden away for the righteous ones,
and when you act like a good man
or a good woman, then a little bit
of that ancient, hidden light
of consciousness and awareness
makes its way back into the universe.