Why Does a Primary Being Matter?

RABBI MANIS FRIEDMAN

The question of whether we originated from a Primary Being is not as compelling as the quest to understand the nature of that Primary Being. Dry reasoning would lead one to conclude that we couldn’t have sprung from nowhere and nothing. But what a thrill it would be if we could hear from that Primary Being, and perhaps gain an insight into what inspired a perfect, at-peace Primary Being suddenly to create.

Thankfully, we have the Torah (sometimes referred to by other religions as the “Old Testament”), which is just that: a direct, lucid communication from the Creator to the created. This “Guidebook” has been often imitated, was never duplicated, and is often under- appreciated. Like a graphologist who can learn all about a person from his handwriting, ancient wisdom through the ages has come to know the Creator intimately through the letters the Creator wrote us in the Torah.

Here is what we have learned:

The reason for the popular but mistaken notion that we come from nothing is simply a misunderstanding of the word “nothing.” While it is hurtful to the Creator if we dismiss the Creator as nothing, it is completely accurate to say that the Creator is no-thing; no particular, measurable, definable thing. The Creator is no mere thing; the Creator is everything, and includes everything. The Creator is not, however, comprised of every thing. Having a Creator who is greater than the sum of all things makes creation volitional and purposeful.

In an act of Divine generosity, the Creator created things, which brought about the precious reality we call our life. It is composed of infinite things, including our own selves. And with a pleading that seems downright motherly in its sense of alarm and urgency, the Creator has asked us to reverse engineer the world - one thing at a time - back into everything, by revealing the Creative energy in it. This is also known as “doing a mitzvah” (a commandment from God).

In this way, it is a marriage of our forces. The Primary Being compresses infinity and everything-ness into things and the created beings learn to transform physical matter and thing-ness into holiness.

It is this that the Creator envisioned when deciding to create something out of everything. To ask why the Creator finds us important and interesting is just a bit more insensitive and unreasonable than asking a mother why she feels so strongly about her children.

The big question cannot be whether we were created, but rather what we were created for. Then, instead of obsessing idly over the mystery of our existence, we can obsess productively over what good we are doing with it