Reply To: Short & Sweet

Bereishis: What A Waste

The second passuk in the Torah tells us that at the beginning of creation, the world was “תהו ובהו”. Rashi explains that the בהו means empty, while the תהו means that a person is astonished by the emptiness.

R’ Moshe Feinstein asks, why is this second description necessary? Nobody was alive to be astonished by the emptiness – why does the Torah point it out?

R’ Moshe answers that since there is such an important message here, the Torah felt a need to teach this right at the beginning. If we see a vacuum, we see emptiness where we know something positive could exist, it should bother us. It should astound us. We should ask ourselves, how can this be? How can I fill the void?

The Ramchal writes in the Derech Hashem that Hashem “didn’t finish” creating the world. He could have made a perfect world, but He made an imperfect world instead.

The Ramchal explains why Hashem did this. If the world would be perfect, we’d have nothing to add. But the fact that some of the world’s potential has not yet been realized gives us an opportunity to be the ones to fill the void and fix the emptiness.

לע”נ דוד חיים בן ישראל דוב הכהן
לע”נ ר’ חיים דוב בן ר’ בן ציון שלום