One of the most beautiful ideas is that God created the heavens by wrapping Himself in a prayer shawl – a tallit – of pure light.
Imagine that for a moment: a tallit, but instead of wool or cotton, it's woven from light itself, radiating outwards to fill the cosmos. The light cast from this divine tallit, they say, suffused the entire world. Not just any light, mind you. This garment was covered with the very letters of the Hebrew alphabet, etched in black fire on white fire!
Other traditions offer different, equally stunning visions. Some say God draped the six days of Creation around Himself like a royal gown, dazzling the universe with His glory from one end to the other. Still others believe God took the light and stretched it like a garment, and the heavens continued to expand, growing ever outward, until God finally declared, "Enough!"
It all stems, of course, from the famous verse in Genesis 1:3: "Let there be light." But that simple statement raises so many questions, doesn't it? Did God conjure this light from absolutely nothing? Or did this light somehow already exist, waiting to be shaped?
Rabbinic sources offer a range of answers, all rooted in interpretations of Psalms 104:2: "Who covers Yourself with light as with a garment, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain." As we find in Midrash Rabbah, Genesis Rabbah 3:4, there's a fascinating dialogue between Rabbi Simeon ben Jehozadak and Rabbi Samuel bar Nachman that explores this very question.
Rabbi Simeon asks, "How did God create light?" Rabbi Samuel replies, almost in a whisper, that God wrapped Himself in a white garment. Now, Rabbi Simeon points out that this idea is already there in Psalms 104:2, so why the secrecy? Rabbi Samuel explains, "I received this tradition in a whisper, so I passed it on in a whisper."
Why the hushed tones? The suggestion here is that light, in some form, pre-existed creation. That’s a radical idea! It implies that while God is undoubtedly the Creator, He might have used existing "building blocks." Some might feel this diminishes God's achievement. And there's even a Gnostic interpretation that identifies the light of God's garment with the First Created Being (as explored in "The First Created Being," p. 118 in Tree of Souls). No wonder it was shared in a whisper!
The idea that light was a primordial element, existing alongside darkness, chaos (tohu) and void (vohu), is found elsewhere too, like in "Light from the Temple," p. 411. And in Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer 6, the verse from Psalms 104:2 is interpreted to mean that God took an existing light and stretched it out to create the world: "How were the heavens created? From the light of the garment with which God was robed. He took this light and stretched it like a garment and the heavens began to extend until He said, 'Enough!'"
Another verse often linked to this imagery of God's garment is Psalms 104:1: "You are clothed with glory and majesty." According to Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 22:5, this is said to be the first of ten occasions in which God clothed Himself in a garment.
So, what does it all mean? Perhaps these stories aren't meant to be taken literally, but as powerful metaphors. They offer us a glimpse into the ineffable mystery of creation, suggesting that light, whether created ex nihilo or shaped from something pre-existing, is intimately connected to God's very essence.
Perhaps the real question isn't so much how God created the heavens, but what this image of God's radiant garment of light tells us about the divine. Does it suggest a God who is both transcendent and immanent, both creator and sustainer, a being whose very essence is light, glory, and unimaginable majesty? It's a thought worth pondering, isn't it?