Torah Study

A good place for a new beginning, right? So instead of reading straight through the Bible, or going through in chronological order in a year, I've decided to slow the pace of my Bible study for a time. I'm going to take one section of books and try to delve a little bit deeper into my questions, make a little analysis, etc. I figured the best place to start would be the books of Moses, so here we go. Well, actually, You saw that I kind of started musing about this on Friday, wondering at what a pure creator You are, but anyways...

So here we really begin, at the true beginning. It is however, interesting to note that this is not where the Israelites begin counting the years of their existence, as we just saw in Exodus Community that this starts after the Passover event. My first question in coming to this text was this: What was going on before this? If You are from long ago, then what were You doing before You created the earth? Where were You hanging out in Your little three-in-one community of love? Even now, as I think back to Joel's sermon and Greg Boyd's teaching at Mars, You don't claim the earth as Your dwelling place alone. So where are You dwelling? Where were You dwelling?

Interesting rabbinical commentary that I found on the net. It notes that the first letter of the text, Bet or ב , is closed on three sides. According to midrash, a Jewish compilation of teachings, this is because we as humans should only worry about the story here going forward, not in the other three directions. Practically meaning that I shouldn't speculate about the Your beginnings or whatever preceded creation. That's a fascinating idea, looking at the very form of the letter itself to find some interpretation, but I'm not sure its enough to keep the thoughts from rolling around in my head.