Our ancestors did, too. And their answers, found in texts like Bereshit Rabbah, are mind-bending.
Bereshit Rabbah, a foundational Midrashic text (a collection of rabbinic commentaries on the Torah), dives deep into the creation story of Genesis. And in Bereshit Rabbah 4, we find some truly wild imaginings about the structure of the universe.
Rabbi Pinḥas, quoting Rabbi Hoshaya, gives us a sense of scale: The space between the earth and the rakia (firmament) is equal to the distance between the rakia and the upper waters. The rakia? That's the expanse God created to separate the waters below from the waters above. "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water" (Genesis 1:6) suggests it’s smack-dab in the middle. Think of it as a cosmic divider.
But here's where it gets interesting. How exactly are those "upper waters" held up?
Rabbi Tanḥuma steps in with a clever textual argument. He says, if the Torah had simply said, "God made the firmament and he divided between the waters that were on the firmament," we might assume the waters are resting directly on this solid divider. But the text goes further: "And the waters that were above the firmament" (Genesis 1:7). The word "above" implies something more – a suspension, a holding aloft. So how are they suspended? By the very word of God, Rabbi Tanhuma concludes.
It's a beautiful image, isn't it? The sheer power of divine utterance keeping the cosmos in balance.
Rabbi Aḥa adds another layer, using a lovely metaphor: It's like the flame in a lamp. The wick, soaked in oil, doesn't sit on the bottom of the lamp; it's held above it, seemingly suspended by the oil itself. That's how the upper waters are held aloft.
And what's the purpose of these upper waters? They're the source of rain, says Rabbi Aḥa. But here’s the kicker: these celestial waters are never depleted. They produce rain the way a tree produces fruit. The Zohar, that foundational text of Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), also talks about these upper waters as a source of blessing and abundance for the world. A cosmic reservoir of potential, constantly giving without diminishing. It’s a beautiful image of divine generosity.
This isn't just some dry cosmological theory. It’s a way of understanding our place in the universe, a universe held together by divine power and sustained by limitless giving. These rabbis, wrestling with the text, weren't just trying to understand the physics of the world; they were trying to understand the nature of God. And maybe, just maybe, the nature of ourselves.