iN the BegiNNiNg (geNesis, Beresheet)

[Ms Tercy Lonan]

iN the BegiNNiNg (geNesis, Beresheet)

iN the BegiNNiNg
(geNesis, Beresheet)
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was unformed and void, and darkness
was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God hovered
over the face of the waters.”
Interpreting these words literally can spark the mind
to imagine what the Creator looks like, how He “moves,”
“talks,” “sees”… There is unlimited room for fantasy: waters,
darkness, face of the deep…
But who needs these fantasies? Those who are trapped
by the desires of our physical world, who want to learn but
not attain, who like to contemplate and argue, especially if
there’s someone around to listen.
The Secrets of the Eternal Book

If you are still satisfied with the pleasures of this world,
then go ahead and enjoy music, art, and any other delight
this world can offer. But if you want to attain the spiritual
world, you should be concerned with something altogether
different—you need the Creator.
If you need answers to questions that will not leave you
alone, if you want to know why you were born, the purpose
of this vast universe we live in, it means only one thing: that
you will not rest until you get to the bottom of the mystery
that is your soul.
And if that’s the case, well, that is a completely different
story. It means that you have already begun to ascend the
spiritual ladder.
Before you awaits the highest rung one can attain. It is
Beresheet—the opening chapter of the Book of Genesis. The
highest state described therein can only be attained at the
end of correction.
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
This passage speaks of the creation of the Upper World—a
space wherein your soul will exist. Your “I” is not yet awake;
you do not yet perceive your own existence. Only the habitat
is created—the Supernal Mother in whose womb you will be
conceived.
So what is this habitat? I will jump ahead a bit and say
this: the words “created” and “in the beginning” allude to
the creation of two qualities—egoistic and altruistic—between
which your soul will soar.
“…the earth was unformed and void.” Here is where the
spiritual terms make their first appearance. The word “earth”
in Hebrew is Eretz, from the word Ratzon—desire. Therefore,
Chapter 1:In the Beginning (Genesis, Beresheet)

earth stands for desire. From here on we will only be dealing
with desire, because desire determines everything.
“…the earth (desire) was unformed and void.” It follows
that the desire was not yet formed (unformed and void),
meaning we had no desire to reveal the spiritual world.
So what was there? Only a clean sheet of paper ready to
record the history of humankind, the history of the one
soul. That is what the passages allude to—the very beginning,
when the spiritual world was conceived within you. In other
words, in this chapter we are beginning to examine the
conjunction of forces that arose first. They formed the world
within which man (Adam, your spiritual “I”) later appears.
They created the habitat that man will inhabit. “Man” is the
spiritual desire that springs up within.
You may ask: “If these forces are within me, why is it that
I cannot sense them?!”
Well, first of all, can you sense how your organs work,
such as how your stomach digests food, how your lungs
breathe? No, you can’t.
These processes fully determine your physical subsistence,
yet you do not sense them.
The same principle applies here. Your spiritual life
is formed by tumultuous processes that you do not
sense until you begin to feel an overwhelming desire to
become a participant, or better yet, the protagonist in this
wondrous play.
This is how your soul is formed. Working on you now are
your Great Grandfathers—the forces of the world of Atzilut.
Your time has come—the time for you to be born. Sooner
or later, when you traverse all the degrees of correction, you
The Secrets of the Eternal Book

will come to meet your “relatives.” But in the meantime, you
must be patient.
A black, impenetrable screen separates you from
everything that transpires on the inside; you cannot see or
otherwise sense anything through it. It has been growing
thicker over a long time (to use earthly wording), rendering
you increasingly egoistic and interested in external, rather
than internal matters. More and more, you grew concerned
with your body, rather than your soul. Just think back to all
the desires that sprang up inside you through your life, and
how far from spirituality they were.
The screen grew thicker with layer upon layer, smothering
the spiritual desires within you until you found yourself at
a dead end. “What surrounds me? Bodies upon bodies.
They eat, make money, propagate… What lies ahead of me?
Death? But if that’s the case, then what is the purpose of my
existence?”
These are the questions that prompt one to embark on
the path “back to the sources,” to Beresheet, “the beginning.”
In reality this path leads to the Light. You ascend toward the
forces that govern the world. Every spiritual degree along
the path is a mystery: “What other great surprises does the
Creator have in store for me?”
This is how we gradually begin to cleanse ourselves of
this dark coating called “egoism,” for it prevents us from
living, breathing, seeing. More and more, we begin to
uncover our souls—a complicated mechanism for attaining
the spiritual world.
The pleasure we are meant to experience is absolute. It is
precisely what the Creator has prepared for us. Herein lies
the goal of creation—to fill us, His creations, with the feeling
Chapter 1:In the Beginning (Genesis, Beresheet)

of eternity and perfection. Because the Creator Himself is
eternal and perfect, He wants to impart His state to His
creations.
Well then, let’s not keep Him waiting.
“And God said, ‘Let there be light.’ And there was light.”
This is how the spiritual world is created. This is how the
forces we spoke of earlier come together and determine the
exact residence of the future soul. It will reside in the Light
and will be filled by it.
What is the Light? Whatever you do, do not try to
envision it. It is a futile undertaking, particularly because
our corporeal notions are too narrow to properly define it.
We compare the Light to the light of the sun, or a feeling of
inner harmony.
The Light is the only thing in existence. It surrounds us—
our souls, the whole world, and the entire universe. It is the
quality of the Creator, the quality of complete and absolute
bestowal. It is the law of Love and Goodness. The Light is
all of those things.
And the sooner we realize this, the faster we will surmount
all the sufferings of this world, which are given to us for one
reason only—to help us realize what we need to “return” to—
that same Light of Love.
“And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided
the light from the darkness.” If the Light—absolute bestowal,
the Creator’s great law of altruism—comes into existence, it
stands to reason that there must also be someone whom the
Creator wants to delight, upon whom He wishes to bestow
everything He has.
The role of this “someone” is assumed by Creation.
The Secrets of the Eternal Book
24
Creation is us. It is me, the whole world, the world inside
of me.
We are the receivers.
And thus, two previously nonexistent states are formed:
bestowal—the quality of the Creator (or, the Light), and
reception—the quality of Creation.
The passage, “And God divided the light from the
darkness,” alludes to this process—the forming of two
states: the Light and the darkness, the Creator’s quality and
Creation’s quality, bestowal and reception.
This process was included in the very first word of the
Book of Genesis—Beresheet, which comes from the word Bar
(Aramaic: outside), meaning Creation’s departure from the
Creator, its exit from the “bosom” of the Creator.
The word Beresheet encompasses the entire path of
humankind and the full meaning of the Bible. Included is
the understanding that you have exited from the Creator’s
bosom and must return to Him following a long path of
growing egoism that all of humankind must undergo. For
that to happen, you must realize that you have truly become
distant from the Creator and have immersed yourself in
egoism, that you are unwell, and egoism is the cause of your
illness.
What is more, the illness of egoism affects the whole
world, tearing it into pieces. Only after you’ve understood
this can you embark on the path back to the Creator. As you
advance along this path of correcting your egoism, you earn
a reward infinitely greater than anything you can imagine—
you earn Eternity. You acquire eternal, unbounded bliss.
You rejoin with the Creator on a higher level because this
unification is conscious.
Chapter 1:In the Beginning (Genesis, Beresheet)

“And God called the light Day, and the darkness He
called Night. And there was evening and there was morning,
one day.” Two states have formed within you: Light—ascent,
bestowal, an altruistic quality, and darkness—descent,
reception, an egoistic quality. Separating, differentiating
between them is your first step toward correction. This state
is called “Day One of Creation.”