In the BIG INNING - Who is the Boss?
In the BIG INNING - Who is the Boss?iStock

The Torah, the book of B'reishit, and Parshat B'reishit begin with the account of Creation - as we all know. A famous question is what do the first two p'sukim describe?

Are the p'sukim B'REISHIT BARA... and V'HAARETZ HAYTA... part of day one, or does day one begin with "And G-d said Let there be light?
One school of thought - which works for me and helps explain a lot of things - is that first there was Creation of Something from Nothing (YEISH MEI'AYIN) and then there was the organized formation of Something from Something (YEISH MEI'YEISH).

In the Beginning, G-d created the heavens and the earth is under- stood as His creation of everything in existence from the state of nothingness in which only G-d existed. What that means is not really within human grasp and it should not bother you if your head hurts from trying to imagine that.

As the second pasuk tells us, as a result of that first stage of Creation, everything was in a chaotic mixture - including matter, energy, time, and a lot more.

Starting with the third pasuk - Y'HI OR, we have the six days of Creation, culminating in the first Shabbat - SHABBAT B'REISHIT.
Regardless of how long you think the days of Creation were - 24 hours, 1000 years, or whatever, the first two p'sukim describe what took place in anywhere from a fraction of a second (Big Bang Theory) to immeasurable eons. Consequently, any question of age of the earth, fossil remains of pre- historic animals, and more - are rendered unanswerable.