From: Stan Tenen Subject: Genesis I.1 The "deeper meaning" of Genesis 1:1 is to be found at the deeper level of the text. Torah is said to be written on 4-levels: Pshat (simple narrative meaning), Remez, Drosh, and Sod (the deepest, "mystical" level.) Rabbi Pinchas Peli, writing a few years before his death in the old Jerusalem Post, mentioned that there were over 900 halachically acceptable word translations to Genesis 1:1. There is a kabbalistic teaching that says that the secret of the Torah is in the first letter. If you cannot understand the secret from the first letter, God, in His infinite mercy, repeats the secret, in greater detail, in the first word. If you cannot understand the secret from the first word, God, in His infinite mercy, repeats the secret, in greater detail, in the first verse. If you..., in greater detail in all 5-Books. This is a description of what mathematicians call a hierarchical array. Each layer repeats and includes the previous layer, always in the same pattern, but with increasing detail. This implies that we could find something fundamental about Genesis 1:1 if we could see how the first letter was like the first word and how both were like the entire first verse. The first letter is Bet. Bet means house. As an archetype, a house represents the distinction between inside and outside. Mathematicians have proven that _all_ of formal logic can be derived from the distinction between inside and outside. The first word of Genesis is B'reshith. The initial Bet is translated as in, or with, while reshit is usually identified with the root Resh, meaning head. Thus B'reshith is commonly translated as "In the beginning." However this is not the only possibility. Esh means fire, and Shith denotes either a thorn or the number six - or, more likely, both a thorn and the number six. A "six-thorn" as an archetype is readily identifiable with what mathematicians call a tetrahedron. (A tetrahedron is a pyramid shape, the first Platonic solid, with 4- triangular faces, 4-corners, and 6-edges. Tetrahedra look like thorns.) When we put a fire in a tetrahedral frame we have an archetypal model of the relationship between inside and outside - a light in a tent. All cultures make use of and recognize the archetype of a tripod of sticks (a tetrahedron) holding a cooking pot over the fire. All cultures have a fire pit in the middle of their tents. Thus the first letter, Bet, and the first word, B'reshith, can have the same meaning. We can see this inside-outside relationship repeated in the rest of Genesis 1:1. The "heavens" surround the "earth." The "earth" in the conventional translation is inside and the "heavens" are outside - thus extending the inside-outside relationship in greater detail just as is claimed by the kabbalistic tradition. There is even more. Reshith can also be seen to derive from the root Reshet which designates a woven net or network. An examination of the letter sequences in Genesis 1:1 demonstrates that the letters are all strictly arranged in the same woven order. In fact the order of the letters in Genesis 1:1 is so explicitly defined that even if a single letter had been miscopied or omitted it could be uniquely corrected by reference only to the other letters of Genesis 1:1. If this posting is printed out in 10- pt. Courier, the diagram below will show the _auto-correlation_ pattern for Genesis 1:1. Genesis I.1: "B-R-A-S-I-T B-R-A A-L-E-I-W A-T E-S-M-I-W F-A-T E-A-R-Y:" (Read left to right.) | \ | / 011 210 000 [E]----------------------[T]----------------------[A] |\\ ||| //| | \\ ||| // | | [E]------------------[T]------------------[A] | | 011 210 000 | | | | | | | \----------------|----------------/ | | | | | | | | | | | 000 201 001 | | | | | | [A]----------[R]----------[B] | | | | | | |\\ ||| //| | | | | | | | \\ ||| // | | | | | | | | [A]------[R]------[B] | | | | | | | | 000 201 001 | | | | | | | | | start | | | | | | | | | \----|----/ ^ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 202 | | 202 | \|/ | | 210 | | 012 --- - [S]==-===-==[S] - - + - - - [T]==-===-==[F] --- \ | | | | | /|\ | | | | | | \/ / / / / | | | | | | /\ / / / /000 201 | | | | | / -/---/---/---/-[A]---|---[R] | | | | | | | | | | // \\ | | | | | | | | | |// -001 \\| | | | | | | | | /-------[Y]:end---\ | | | | | | | | // ||| \\ | | | | | | | |// ||| \\| | | | | | | /-----------[I]-----------\ | | | | | | // 100 \\ | | | | | |// \\| | | | | [A]---------------|---------------[L] | | | | 000 102 | | | 011 100 212 | | [E]------------------[I]------------------[W] | | // ||| \\ | |// ||| \\| [M]----------------------[I]----------------------[W] 110 100 212 / | \ | Alef=A Bet=B Heh=E Vav=F Yod=I Lamed=L Mem=M Resh=R Shin=S Tav=T Mem-sofit=W Zadi-sofit=Y Notice that ALL of the letters in this diagram are paired as indicated by the triple lines of vertical dashes, |||, and double horizontal or diagonal lines of dashes, ==-===-==, //, \\). This is possible because all of the letters that appear an even number of times can be paired with themselves, while all of the letters that appear either once or three times can be paired once with themselves and once with their opposite. Letter opposites are determined by counting the alphabet in 3-layers of 9-letters, similar to the standard Gematria/numerological count, but with what mathematicians call base-3 notation. All of the 3 and 1 pairs are introduced in the same pattern. Resh, Resh, Lamed, Resh. Tov, Tov, Vov, Tov. He, He, Mem, He. This is the Reshet, the woven net, specified by the first word. What does all of this amount to? In fact, when Genesis 1:1 is auto- correlated as described above, it defines a set of relationships that really do describe _creation_. Not as a physical theory described by the narrative, but as an unfolding set of universal (what mathematicians call topological) relationships. BTW, while the above must be classified as speculative until it passes formal peer review, this is NOT your usual new-age kabbalistic mishmash. This is undeniably a part of a work that is still in progress. But it has been reviewed by recognized experts, it is understandable in spite of my clumsy language (particularly when you can see the drawings and models), and it enables a wide range of currently obscure texts, such as Sefer Yetzirah, to be understood as the lucid and unambiguous tutorials they were intended to be. Stan Tenen Meru Foundation 617 784-8902 (Email your surface mail address and we will ship you a packet of introductory information and a sampler videotape.)