Worlds created, then...undone.

The image is striking, isn't it? Before our familiar heaven and earth, the Infinite, utterly alone, conceived of creation. The spark of Ein Sof, the Infinite, bursting forth into visibility. But according to some accounts, the first attempts didn't quite hit the mark. God "began to trace the foundations of a world before Himself, and in this way God brought a heaven and earth into being. But when God looked at them, they were not pleasing in His sight, so He changed them back into emptiness and void." He wasn't satisfied. So, He started over.

The idea that God created and destroyed prior worlds appears in several places. The verse "These are the generations of the heaven and the earth when they were created" (Gen. 2:4) hints at it, according to the Rabbis. That little word "when" – b'hibaram in Hebrew – suggests something more than a single act of creation. And Psalm 90:5, "You carry them away as with a flood," is also interpreted as referring to the destruction of these prior worlds.

How many worlds are we talking about? The Zohar, that cornerstone of Jewish mysticism, suggests (1:262b) that God didn't actually build these prior worlds, but only thought about building them. But Zohar Hadash and Or ha-Hayim (1:12) give us a specific number: one thousand hidden worlds! These worlds, they say, were created through the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the aleph. That’s why our Torah, when describing our world's creation, starts with the second letter, bet. Fascinating, right? There’s even a connection made to the verse "You may have the thousand, O Solomon" (S. of S. 8:12).

Other sources offer different numbers. Midrash Tehillim 90:13 claims there were 974 worlds, created and destroyed over a period of 2,000 years. Imagine the cosmic trial and error!

So, why the repeated destruction? What was wrong with these prior worlds? Sefer ha-Zikhronot (1:1) suggests that when God decided to create the world, He drew up the plans, but they just wouldn't hold... until He created repentance, teshuvah. Repentance, the ability to turn back and correct our course, was the missing ingredient. It's what made our world possible.

Rabbi Yitzhak Eizik Haver (1789-1853) found more evidence in that initial bet of the Torah. He argued that it "hints that Creation was divided into two realms — that God created two beginnings."

Now, you might be thinking, "Wait a minute, if God is perfect, how could He make mistakes? Wouldn't destroying these worlds imply some kind of divine error?" It's a fair question, and one that theologians have wrestled with for centuries.

Interestingly, some Christian apocryphal texts, like the Gospel of Philip (99a), even describe our world as a sort of cosmic blunder: "The world came into being through a mistake. For He who created it wished to create it imperishable and immortal. He did not attain his hope."

But here’s a beautiful counterpoint: Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev, a great Hasidic master, insisted that "Everything God created exists forever, and never ceases to be." So, where did those prior worlds go?

Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, in Esh Kadosh, connects the creation and destruction of the prior worlds to the Kabbalistic concept of the Shattering of the Vessels. He suggests that God actually made the present universe out of the broken remnants of those earlier worlds. A powerful image of redemption, isn't it? Even destruction can be a source of new creation.

So, what does all this mean for us? Perhaps it's a reminder that creation is an ongoing process, not a one-time event. That even perceived "failures" can be stepping stones to something greater. And maybe, just maybe, it gives us a little comfort knowing that even the Divine Architect isn't afraid to experiment, to learn, and to try again until something truly beautiful emerges.