We're going to delve into a fascinating idea from Da'at Tevunot, a work that explores the nature of divine knowledge and creation.
The text presents a crucial point: even though everything in God's dominion is preordained – meaning nothing can change His ultimate plan – we can't say that these things happened solely through power that needs to emerge through action. This, the text says, is where some early believers went wrong. We, as humans, understand power and action as separate things. We have the power to lift a box (potential), and then we lift it (action). But applying that kind of thinking to the Divine can lead us down a mistaken path.
The text emphasizes that anything related to God that predates creation is, frankly, beyond our full grasp. We can't apply the boundaries and definitions that we use in our world – things like power, action, or even the relationship between the two – to that pre-creation reality. These concepts, power and action, are themselves creations!
Da'at Tevunot argues that when God decided to create the world, He innovated the very existence of power and action. He made the world and everything in it first through power, and then through action, in order to create this very existence of power and action.
How did this happen? Well, according to the text, God's first utterance to create the world brought the world into being in power. Afterwards, it emerged into action. Our Rabbis hint at this in Rosh Hashanah 32a, stating "...Breishit was also an utterance...". Breishit (בְּרֵאשִׁית), meaning "In the beginning", wasn't just any utterance; it encompassed the world in power, before it moved into action.
So, imagine the potential energy, the blueprint if you will, all contained within that initial divine utterance.
The text goes on to explain that when God innovated nature in power, all the aspects of Godly emanation that were mentioned previously were made. Then, everything emerged into action, just as it was prepared in power. It's like a sculptor first conceiving of the statue in their mind (power), and then chipping away at the stone to reveal it (action).
What does this all mean for us? It's a reminder that our human understanding, while valuable, can only take us so far when contemplating the Divine. The act of creation itself redefined the very concepts we use to understand the world. Maybe the most profound act of faith isn't just believing, but also acknowledging the limits of our understanding, recognizing that some mysteries remain, and perhaps always will.