LEARNING FROM PARALLEL
PROCESSES OF CONTRACTION
The Ten Commandments and creation were both predicated on
God contracting His infinite being in order to create a finite reality
and reveal His will to mankind. A deeper understanding of the
parallels between creation and revelation is arrived at by comparing
the various ways in which the Midrashic and mystical traditions
explain how this process of contraction manifests itself. Tellingly,
these interpretive traditions apply the same methodologies to both
the story of creation and the Ten Commandments in order to reveal
the deeper and higher energies hidden and condensed within each of
these two narratives.
Firstly, according to a tradition cited by Rashi, all that would ever
be created was created in potential on the first day (Rashi on Genesis
1:14). Each succeeding day of creation then revealed that which had
already been created in potential on the first day. The textual basis
for this interpretation is the description of the “first day” of creation
as “one day.” In contrast to all the other days of creation, which
are referred to in the text by their ordinal numbers (second day,
third day, fourth day, etc.), the first day is referred to as “one day.”
Commenting on this linguistic anomaly, Jewish tradition explains
that this day was not just the “first day,” it was a unique and self-perpetuating
day which included all the other days as well.
The notion of all creation being contained in, and emanating
from, an initial starting point has been substantiated by the Standard
Model of the Universe, also known as the Big Bang. According to
science, the entire universe, composed of tens of billions of galaxies,
was contained in an almost infinitely small and condensed speck
of matter that “exploded,” and to this day is still expanding. The
Jewish tradition cited above, which states that all that would ever be
created existed in potential on the first day of creation, can now be
understood quite literally.
Secondly, Kabbalah and Chassidut teach that the first verse of the
Torah — “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”
— contains all that was created on the first day in archetypal form.
The creation of heaven represents the creation of everything spiritual
that would ever come into existence, while the creation of earth
symbolizes the creation of all material and physical reality. Therefore,
the creation of light and darkness and their eventual separation on
the first day of creation was already contained in embryonic form in
the creation of heaven and earth; as were all such pairs and opposites.
A third manifestation of cosmic contraction is evident in the six
letters of “bereishit,” the Torah’s first word, into which the six days of
creation are condensed, with each letter representing a particular day.
An additional insight regarding the process of contraction, which is
related to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, is that the very nature
of this world, its dualistic appearance and its relationship to God, can
all be intuited from a deeper understanding of the unusually large
letter beit found in traditional Torah scrolls as the Torah’s opening
letter. Particularly relevant for this discussion is the mystical teaching
that indeed all of creation is contained within this enlarged beit that
begins the Torah. (See the letter beit in The Hebrew Letters by Rabbi
Yitzchak Ginsburgh for a more in-depth analysis.)
Having traced the contraction process from the six days of
creation to the first day, verse, word and letter of the creation story,
we now turn our attention to parallel contractive dynamics in the
Ten Commandments. Firstly, it is important to note that just as
there are 620 letters in the Ten Commandments, there are also 620
commandments in total (613 actually mandated by the Torah, and
seven Rabbinic mitzvot that have been endowed with the status of
Torah mitzvot). Thus, all the mitzvot of the Torah, as it were, are
contracted into the Ten Commandments. For this reason, we refer
to the day the Ten Commandments were given as the day on which
the Torah itself was given.
Secondly, since the Ten Commandments, like the rest of the
Torah, is comprised of both positive commandments and negative
prohibitions, tradition teaches that all the mitzvot in the Torah are
condensed into the first two of the Ten Commandments. All the
positive commandments are encapsulated in the belief in one God,
the first of the Ten Commandments, and all the prohibitions in the
Torah are rooted in the second of the commandments to not have any
other gods before Him (Exodus 20:3). This teaching gains support
from another tradition that stresses the uniqueness of the first two
commandments: the people heard only the first two commandments
directly from God. The Midrash teaches that the people, petrified by
God’s awesome revelation, asked that the other eight be transmitted
to them by Moses (Mechilta).
Thirdly, the second commandment, prohibiting the worship of
any other gods, is obviously predicated on the first commandment
commanding the positive belief in one God. Following the second
act of contraction mentioned above, not only are all the positive
commandments encapsulated in the first commandment, in a
certain sense so too are all the negative prohibitions. Since the
negative prohibitions serve as stepping-stones to building a
positive relationship with God, other human beings and the world,
from a certain perspective, they can also be classified as positive
commandments. Thus, all the prohibitions relating to the second
commandment, as well as all the positive commandments, are in
essence included in the very first commandment.
Fourthly, Kabbalah also teaches that the Ten Commandments
and God Himself, as it were, are condensed into the opening word
anochi, which, the Talmud explains, is an acronym for the phrase,
“I have written Myself down and given it to you” (Shabbat 105a).
This is not merely another instance of contraction in the Ten
Commandments, rather it reflects the epic primordial event wherein
God contracted His infinite Being in order to allow finite creation to
come into existence; in this case, related to the first word of the Ten
Commandments, God condenses His infinite essence, in a manner
of speaking, into the finite Hebrew letters that can subsequently be
learned and transmitted from generation to generation.
Fifthly, just as the beit, the first letter of the Torah, contains all of
creation in embryonic form, so too the alef, the first letter of “anochi,”
the first word in the Ten Commandments, in essence contains the
entire Torah. Furthermore, the beit of “bereishit,” whose numerical
value is two, symbolizes the seeming duality in this world, whereas
the alef of “anochi,” whose numerical value is one, represents the
essential oneness underlying all reality. This simple numerical
and linguistic juxtaposition of the beit of creation and the alef of
revelation clearly demonstrates the role and function of the Torah in
creation — to reorient all apparent duality and multiplicity toward
an awareness of underlying and ultimate unity.
Having described the Divine process of contraction as manifest
in both creation and the Giving of the Torah, we can now ask: How
is this understanding translated into our own lives? Human beings
are created in the image of God; therefore, understanding the
dynamics of His creation and the expression of His will provides us
with tools to actualize our own creative and expressive potentials,
as well as empowers us to function on a higher spiritual and ethical
level when interacting with the world around us. The fundamental
realization that behind all multiplicity lies an essential unity, and
that behind the veil of seeming circumstance is God’s Providence,
provides us with the impetus to actively analyze the myriad bits of
seemingly disconnected bits of information and stimuli bombarding
us daily. It trains us to organize, prioritize, and seek out essential
underlying principles and causes within each and every experience
and encounter.
By searching for the essence and primary causes behind perceived
phenomena we are able to trace our souls back to their initial unity in
God, the source of all existence. It is there we find ultimate purpose
and meaning in life, as well as the strength to strive and accomplish
that higher purpose revealed to us through the Torah.
