In a Beginning, because really we have no idea if this was the first time God woke up with an itch that needed scratching, a burning desire to create, a sort of Jackson Pollack moment where all the colors just had to be splashed on the canvas...In a Beginning, the energy of the infinite inhale became so concentrated, so intense, that God couldn't contain it another second (even though you understand, of course, that there were no seconds, there was no time or space before Creation). With an enormous exhale, out came all that is and all that would be. It was dark, dark like a threatening, shadowy back alley and suddenly gusty, that city wind that traps you in between tall buildings on a side street going west to the Hudson in January. Fierce and unwelcoming. But God said, to no one in particular, yehi or, let there be light and there was light. Unbelievable. Mind you, the light came out of nowhere, without a source. No moon, no sun, no stars. Just the really good idea of light, the idea of nurturing and growth. God saw that the light was good and decided to give it a name. After that, everything that seemed warm and open and childlike and white was called Day and everything that was sinister and hidden and mysterious and black was called Night. This caused a range of problems.
That seemed to be enough work for one day. On the second day, it became necessary to create the sky. You would think that would have come along right from the getgo, but apparently back in the day there was water everywhere kind of like after your pipes freeze and burst and it was necessary to form the sky as a way of separating the water below like Lake Superior and the Ganges from the water above, whatever that is. Now things were starting to take shape. So God called forth the Earth to form out of the water and imagined vegetation of all kinds growing on it, apricots and arugula, bamboo shoots and bok choy, watercress and avocadoes and Granny Smiths were created and God was like YES! because who doesn't like salad?
All this happened, mind you, without photosynthesis. Pretty amazing but maybe not sustainable in the long run. So, on the fourth day, God put lights in the sky because this was before iPhones with flashlights and it was really hard to see where you were going. So the lights, the sun and the moon, were created and with them the cycles of time. Weeks, months and years were set in place and provided a structure for nostalgia for the past and anxiety about the future which, as we shall see, would soon become essential. On the fifth day, the whole project really started to pick up steam with cardinals and blackbirds appearing in the sky, trout and catfish swimming in the rivers. God was delighted, clapping the divine hands and jumping up and down on the divine feet. P'ru ur'vu, God shouted. Be fruitful and multiply. Have lots of avian and underwater sex...which isn't as easy as one might hope.
Seeing the potential fecundity of the animal kingdom, on the sixth day, God just went for it, just went all out, calling for cattle, creeping things and wild beasts of every kind. Imagine the first rhinos lumbering around, the first leopards stalking. Must have been a sight to behold. But there was something missing. What was it? You can imagine God pacing up and down, trying to come up with a Big Finish. Suddenly, a radical idea just popped into the divine mind. What if God were to create thinking beings called humans, made in the divine image, beings preoccupied with the past and the future, who were capable of feeling and problem solving and art making and put these exalted beings in charge of the whole show? What could possibly go wrong?
It could be that God had some misgivings, because just before deciding to give it a rest some last minute items were thrown into the cart, some afterthoughts that needed to be included before all activity stopped for the first shabbes. And one of those items was the rainbow which was designed to explain to humanity that light is made up of many colors and to make it clear that the sun will shine through the rainiest day and the dove of peace will survive the flood. And God saw all that God had made and found it pretty good, but with room for improvement. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
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