Time and Other Tidbits

Dear friends, 

I'm working on a series that gives you tidbits of Torah. I am working on an article on Yaakov, but it is not ready yet. Please enjoy this article on Time and Other Tidbits. 

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Time and Other Tidbits 

1. Is G-d spiritual or physical? 

Neither. G-d created both the spiritual and the physical, as it says, "In the beginning G-d created the heavens and the earth." Genesis 1:1. 

2. The sun is not what makes days, rather it what lets us know when it's day, as there were three days of creation before the celestial bodies were created, they were created on the fourth day. Days existed before the sun. 

What marked evening and morning on the first three days? (Avi Haberfeld) 

In the spiritual realms, there are 24 shifts of angels, each one praises Hashem a different hour. There are 12 that are for the 12 configurations you can make out of the 4 letters of the name Adnai (pronounced Ado-nai, in Hebrew it has 4 letters), and 12 that are for the 12 configurations you can make out of the 4 letters of the name Havaya (the Tetragrammaton, the 4 letter name of Hashem that we don't pronounce, made up of the Hebrew letters yud, hay, vov and hay). One of the 12 configurations represents evening, and the other morning. 

It is interesting to note, that long before the clock was invented, the Jewish people divided their day into 24 hours, 12 for evening and 12 for morning. Of course depending on the time of year, the evening hours get longer in the winter and shorter in the summer, and the opposite for morning hours. This is the way we calculate halachic times. The spiritual reason for this is the 24 shifts of the angels. 

If you remember the Torah story, where Jacob was wrestling with the angel, he asked Jacob to allow him to go. Why did he want to go? Because it was his shift to praise Hashem. 

So Hashem set the sun to the same schedule as he did the angels. 

According to the Ohr Hachaim, everything was created on the first day, and the angels were created on the second day so that no one would say that the angels had a part in the creation. How did the 24 hours work before the angels had their shifts? 

The system of 24 hours, 12 evening and 12 morning,  could have begun on the first day before the angels were created, and after they were created, they were put on that schedule. In other words, there was already a system of evening and morning in the spiritual realms. And even though everything was created on the first day, the sun and the other celestial bodies didn't go into effect until the fourth day. 

3. What was the first thing to against G-d's will? 

It was the earth. On the third day of creation, G-d said, " let the earth sprout... Fruity trees bearing fruit..." Genesis 1:11. But when the earth brought forth trees, it says, " The earth gave forth... Trees bearing fruit..." Genesis 1:12. The wood of the trees were also supposed to taste like fruit, but the earth went against G-d's will and didn't make the actual trees fruity. Later, the first man, Adam, was created from the earth and that is where humanity got the nature to go against Hashem's will. 

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I hope you enjoy these Torah tidbits, next week I will start a series explaining the Shabbat dinner and the symbolism it holds.