Darkness, darkness everywhere...

To know what it tells, we must also know what it says, and to know what it says, we must understand what it describes.

1 What did the Earth look like before it was separated from Heaven? What was darkness, before there was light?

What is the Spirit of God?

What is abyss?

What is the image we see in our minds?

I will make one tangent -  The role of alliteration/onomatopoeia in painting a picture. Onomatopoeia: the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named (e.g. cuckoo, sizzle ).

2. Heaven and Earth, but we discuss Earth first. The emphasis right away is no God within the world and on the Earth.

1. Tohy IVohu

1. Two cognates in a row. Tohu UVohu (formless and without shape) and T’hom (Abyss). T’hom, is where there is water, see Gen. 7:11. Note the outflow of sound and breath: Tohy, Vohu, and then the outflow that spreads, T’hommmmmm )(sort of like Indian Ohmmm…)
2. What is Tohy UVohu

4. Jeremiah 34,11. And he shall stretch over it the line of Tohu and the plummet of Bohu. Tohu and Bohu are a pair!

II Playing the sounds to create an image

1.A feature of the Holy Tongue is the close relationship between sound and meaning.

 2.See Proverbs 31,26 L She opened her mouth in wisdom – Piah Potcha B’chochma. Three consonants that open into a flowing sound, illustrating opening the mouth and producing sound – sound joins words to impart meaning.

3. The Songs of Songs – three sibilants and RRR sounds – ShiR haShiRim aSHeR leSHlomo – each partially opening a flow of sound against friction – foreshadowing how many impediments and how difficult it is to let Love flow.

5. I learned to consider the complex of sound-meaning from the work of Victoria Hanna – In English: https://www.elsewhere.co.nz/world-music/8360/victoria-hanna-interviewed-at-womad-2018-songs-and-psalms-from-the-ancient-to-the-future/

In Hebrew with subtitles: : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeYV-srF69M&ab_channel=%D7%95%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%98%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%94%D7%97%D7%A0%D7%94VictoriaHanna

III. Is there darkness without light?

1. Is there dark if no one can see it?
2. IS there a hint of malevolence here?
3. Nachmanides to Exodus 10,23– darkness is an actual thing!
4. Maimonides – darkness is merely an absence of light, Guide III, Ch.10. This view was first enunciated by Plotinus, First Ennead, 8^th
5. Aquinas – the existence of shadows proves that darkness is only an absence of light, Summa Theologie I, Article 1, Q.5 see, https://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl201/modules/Philosophers/Augustine/augustine_evil02.html
6. In Isaiah 45, 7 – “He forms light and makes darkness, makes peace and crates evil. Sound like darkness and evil are both actual things.
7. But, it was not complete darkness, for the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.

1. Spirit is Wind

1.Saadia Gaon’s commentary - the wind was blowing from all sides. Interpretation 1: Because there was no up and down or directions. The second interpretation is given also by others – all four winds (eastern, Western, Northern, and Eastern), were blowing at once.

We will discuss two other interpretations of this phrase next time.