Rabbi Ḥanina said: There were windows in the Temple through which its light would emerge to the world, as it is stated: “He made for the House recessed narrowing windows” (I Kings 6:4). “Recessed narrowing” – they were narrow from within and wide from without in order to bring out its light to the world. Rabbi Levi said an analogy: [If] a king were to build a great hall, he would make its windows narrow from without and wide from within so that light would enter it.
But the windows of the Temple were not so, but rather, they were narrow from within and wide from without in order to bring out great light. Rabbi Shimon ben Yehotzadak asked Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥman: ‘Because I have heard about you that you are a master of aggada, from where did light emerge to the world?’16Before God created the sun and the moon. He said to him: ‘The Holy One blessed be He wrapped Himself [in light] as in a cloak, and the entire world shone from the aura of His glory’; he said to him in a whisper.17He did so in order to avoid expounding on Creation out loud (see Ḥagiga 11b).
He said to him: ‘It is an explicit verse, as it is stated: “Enveloping with light as if with a cloak, He spreads the heavens like a sheet” (Psalms 104:2), and you say it to me in a whisper?’ He said to him: ‘Just as [my teachers] said it [to me] in a whisper, so I said it to you in a whisper.’ Rabbi Berekhya said: Had Rabbi Yitzḥak not expounded it publicly, it would not have been possible to say it.18Rabbi Yitzḥak had publicly interpreted the verse (Psalms 104:2) as explained by Rabbi Shimon ben Yehotzadak.
By doing so publicly, he demonstrated that he did not consider this to be included in the Sages’ instruction to avoid publicly expounding the process of Creation. Beforehand, what would they say? Rabbi Berekhya said in the name of Rabbi Yitzḥak: From the place of the Temple, from there light would emerge to the world. That is what is written: “Behold, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the direction of the east, and its sound was like the sound of many waters, and the earth shone with His glory” (Ezekiel 43:2).
“His glory” is nothing other than the Temple, just as it says: “Throne of glory, exalted from the beginning, the place of our Temple” (Jeremiah 17:12).