“IN THE BEGINNING, God created the Heaven and the Earth.” What an INCREDIBLE understatement. That’s a little like saying about the biggest bakery in the world, “They made some cakes today.” I mean, just take a look at the world around you, and when you’re done using only your eyes, use a microscope to look inward and a telescope to look outward. After catching your breath, re-read the first verse and tell me it just doesn’t tell the whole story.

And that’s just talking about physical Creation, which is really quite small and mundane compared to the massive spiritual world it hides. Our universe is like those snow globes with this intricate world inside that is big to everyone inside of it, but teensy compared to the world outside of it. Physically, we’re at the bottom of the spiritual totem pole called “Asiyah.” There are four more exponentially larger worlds beyond ours.

Just words, right? It’s not like taking an elevator to the top of the some hundred floor skyscraper and taking in the breathtaking view. Your eyes can see that. You brain can process that. The view from the “top” we’re talking about is something you can only climb towards in your mind. You can only see it in your mind’s eye. But when you do, if you will, I assure you that the “view” is even more breathtaking than looking down from a hundred floors up.

Dovid HaMelech wrote:

This is from God, that which is wondrous in our eyes. (Tehillim 118:23)

But isn’t everything from God, not just the wondrous things? Of course. Then what is Dovid HaMelech telling us? That when we stop seeing everything as being from God, it is because we have stopped seeing life as wondrous, having become accustomed to the miracle of life.

The Rambam alluded to this indispensable truth for life in his halachah about fear of God.

What is the way to love and fear God? When one contemplates His actions and His wondrous and great creations and sees in them His wisdom, that it has no limit and no end, immediately he will love and praise Him, and desire tremendously to know His Great Name. When he continues to reflect on these same matters, he will immediately recoil in awe and fear, appreciating how he is a tiny, lowly, and dark creature, standing with his flimsy, limited, wisdom before He who is of perfect knowledge, as Dovid stated: “When I see Your heavens, the work of Your fingers… I wonder what is man that You should recall Him” (Tehillim 8:4–5). (Yad Chazakah, Yesodei HaTorah, Ch. 2:2)

True love and fear of God, the Rambam explains, are not surface emotions, but levels achieved only through increased spiritual sensitivity. This is what makes life more wondrous in our eyes and love of God more real in our hearts. And the truly amazing thing is how mere words and thoughts can accomplish this sometimes even better than actual visual presentations. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but the right thousand words can be worth a lot more than a picture.

And you know why? Because images show physical things, but struggle to display abstract thoughts. Furthermore, a photograph can be misleading or lack background information, while a well-written explanation provides facts, intent, and truth. And finally, the right words guide the reader to an exact conclusion, whereas a picture leaves too much room for different personal guesses.

That’s all technically-speaking. There is an important spiritual reason as well that ties back to the Creation story itself, though not one many are aware of.

It’s like designing a house. A person can have plans drawn up for a house that simply makes them feel good to live in. It can be stylish, beautiful, even look expensive. If asked, “Why did you design it like that, or with this?” The answer will simply be, “Because I like it that way.”

Or, a person can design a home that is meant to convey their philosophy of life. People who do that have to convey to the architect what they think and how best to embody it in the house design. Every last detail of the house has to be thought out and designed to guarantee that its intended message comes through. Such a house is not only to be admired and appreciated, but studied, analyzed, and learned from.

This is the way God made the world, as a means of Divine communication. Every last detail of Creation, from a microbe to a massive star many times the size of our earth exists and functions as it does to tell us something about its Creator, our Creator, and the purpose of life. Reverse engineering Creation, as Avraham Avinu did in his time, will reveal God to you and His hidden world of infinite insight.

It’s like opening what seems like a simple door and discovering an ancient storehouse of vast treasures. Even though your eyes see everything, your brain will struggle to catch up because it wasn’t ready for what it found. Wonderment is an understatement in such a scenario.

That’s Creation. It is an ancient storehouse of unimaginable intellectual wealth, hidden behind a simple and unobtrusive door we call everyday mundane reality. Learn to open it and you’ll not only be wildly amazed, but invited to another dimension of reality more like the one in the next world.

Newest book on Amazon: “Heaven to Earth: Decoding the Spiritual Infrastructure of Reality.” It’s about the sefiros, what they are, why they exist, and how they impact our daily lives, and a lot of other important topics along the way.

Have a great Shabbos Bereishis,

Pinchas Winston