Take the creation story, for example. Genesis 1:3 tells us, "And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light." Seems straightforward, right? But Rabbi Berachiah, in the Sefer HaBahir, one of the earliest and most important texts of Kabbalah, asks a crucial question: why doesn’t it say, "And it was so," like it does with other acts of creation?
He offers a beautiful analogy: a king possesses a precious object, so beautiful he hides it away until he has prepared the perfect place for it. Only then does he bring it forth. So too with light. "Let there be light, and there was light" indicates, according to Rabbi Berachiah, that this light already existed. It wasn't created ex nihilo, out of nothing, but rather revealed. What was this primordial light? The Bahir doesn't explicitly say here, but later Kabbalistic tradition identifies it with the light of the Divine Presence, the Shekhinah, or with the Torah itself.
Then, the text shifts. Rabbi Amorai asks, "What is the meaning of the verse (Exodus 15:3), 'God is a man (ish – אִישׁ) of war'?" Now, ish is a simple Hebrew word for man, so the question seems almost…too simple.
Mar Rahumai, clearly respecting Rabbi Amorai but also gently chiding him, responds, "Great master, do not ask about something that is so simple." But then he offers a profound teaching.
"Listen to me," he says, "and I will advise you." He tells a parable: a king possesses many beautiful dwellings, each with a unique name. He favors three in particular, each named after a Hebrew letter: Aleph (א), Yod (י), and Shin (ש). “I will give my son this dwelling whose name is א. This one whose name is י is also good, as is this one whose name is ש.”
What does the king do? He gathers all three letters together, creating a single name and a single house from them.
The Bahir doesn't spell it out completely, but the implication is powerful. The letters Aleph, Yod, and Shin, when combined, can allude to the Divine Name itself, the Tetragrammaton (יהוה), or at least to aspects of God’s qualities. The king, representing the Divine, unites these seemingly separate aspects into a unified whole.
One voice asks: "How long will you continue to conceal your meaning?" The other replies: "My son, Aleph is the head. Yod is second to it. Shin includes all the world. Why does Shin include all the world? Because with it one writes an answer (t'shuvah – תְּשׁוּבָה)."
T'shuvah. Repentance. Return. The path back to God. The letter Shin, then, isn't just a letter; it's a gateway, a reminder that even in the midst of war and conflict, the possibility of return, of reconciliation, always exists.
These short passages from the Bahir are tiny windows into a vast landscape of mystical thought. They invite us to look beyond the obvious, to search for the hidden meanings woven into the very fabric of the text. And to consider: What "light" already exists within us, waiting to be revealed? And how can we, through t'shuvah, return to that source?