When Moses de Leon revealed—or possibly wrote—the Zohar in the late 12th century he made the argument that within the Torah there are hidden meanings that compose a real Torah—one, which only the wisest of God’s servants could discern and understand. Understanding the meaning of Be-reshit—or “In the beginning”—and the truth hidden within, is built upon multiple leaps of logic. To find the meaning concealed in be-reshit one has to understand the relationship between the first three words of the Hebrew Bible: “Be-reshit bara Elohim” (Genesis 1:1). Reconstructing “Be-reshit bara Elohim” leads to the Sefirot and Ein Sof, the thing concealed within be-reshit. By following this logical progression, ultimately, Ein Sof can be found within the word be-reshit, and from Ein Sof a physical and metaphysical understanding of the world is created.

The first component to unlocking the real meaning behind be-reshit is to change one’s understanding of the meaning of the first few words of the Hebrew Bible: “Be-reshit bara Elohim.” Normally this is translated as “In the beginning God created” (Genesis 1:1). The Zohar argues that by “dividing the Hebrew word Be-reshit differently and supplying slightly different vowels” reveals “the word bara, ‘created’…within Be-reshit, ‘In the beginning’” (Biale 437). Understanding Bara as a word within Be-reshit changes the grammatical structure of the sentence. The object of the verb—Elohim, “God”—now becomes the subject of the verb. This changes the reading from the conventional “In the beginning God created,” to “In the beginning created God” (Zohar 1:3b). This connotes that there was something, sometime before which created God. Understanding that there is something which “created God” leads to the Sefirot and Ein Sof, the something concealed within be-reshit.

The second step to understanding what is hidden within be-reshit is to understand the Sefirot and how they relate word-to-word to “Be-reshit bara Elohim,” God, and eventually Ein Sof. The ten sefirot, or the emanations of Ein Sof, create the physical realm and a higher metaphysical realm, which the Zohar tries to tie together. The first way it does this is by linking be-reshit to the second sefirah, Hokhmah, or “wisdom.” This is seen when “Rabbi Yudai said, ‘what is Be-reshit’” it “is the Wisdom on which the world stands” (Zohar 1:3b). Wisdom, again, being Hokhmah, the sefirah of Wisdom, “from which issue[s] six springs and streams, flowing into an immense ocean. This is bara shit” (Zohar 1:3b). The six springs are understood as the six lower sefirot, revealed in the mystical Torah: din, power; hesed, love; rahamim, beauty; hod, splendor; netsah, eternity; and yesod, foundation. The upper sefirot are locked by a “single key, which locks everything in a single place” “punctuated by a thrust point” (Zohar 1:3b). The “key” is hokmah, or wisdom. And the “thrust point” is binah, understanding. How hokmah and binah relate to “Be-reshit bara Elohim” (Genesis 1:1) is the last step to understanding how Ein Sof is concealed within bara.

Understanding the two sefirot: hokmah and binah and how they relate to God is the last step in finding Ein Sof concealed within bara. According to the Zohar, Elohim is associated with the sefirah: binah, or understanding. And the word reshit is associated with hokhmah, or wisdom. Changing Elohim and reshit in the original, “Be-reshit bara Elohim” changes the meaning to “In wisdom created understanding.” But, now there is no subject of the verb. To Kabalists, this is where Ein Sof is hidden, fulling the role of the missing subject of the verb, hidden within creation, or bara. Finally, changing the meaning all the way from the “In the beginning God created” of Genesis 1:1 to “In wisdom Ein Sof created understanding.”

Through leaps of logic, one arrives at that which is locked behind the sefirot: hokmah and binah. This is bara, hidden within be-reshit, “Be-reshit—a revealed word combined with a concluded word. Bara, Created, is always concealed, closing, not opening” (Zohar 1:3b). Ultimately, for Kabalists what is hidden within Be-reshit is bara and the existence of Ein Sof, which through the sefirot inform an understanding of the physical and metaphysical universe and creation.

Works Cited

Biale, David. “Introduction1:3b [On Be-Reshit, ‘In the Beginning’].” The Norton Anthology of World Religions, edited by Jack Miles, 1st ed., vol. 2, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, New York, 2015, pp. 437–438.