Perek 86

[Bentzion Meltzer]

The Baal Shem Tov taught:

It is known that the Hebrew letter aleph represents wisdom and
thought, as the verse alludes.1 With this we can understand the first
verse in the Torah, "Breishith bara Elokim," which the Targum renders,
"G•d created with 'reishith,' with wisdom," which is the letter Aleph.
Hence, G•d created the world with the letter aleph.

For all of the twenty-two letters of the aleph-beit are "garments" for
one another. For example, the aleph is hidden within the beit, because
beit is numerically two - two alephs, each of which is numerically
one. Similarly, the gimel is three alephs.

Thus, the initial stage of creation was with the letter aleph, which
represents wisdom, meaning that everything was created with wisdom, as
the verse indeed says, "You created everything with wisdom."2 Hence,
the spirit of G•d was enclothed within the aleph, with which G•d
created the light - the ohr [which begins with the letter aleph],
which is the Light of the World of Atziluth [which begins with an
aleph]. After that, the spirit of G•d in the letter aleph became
enclothed within the letter beit, with which G•d created the World of
Beriah.3

1 Job 33:33
2 Psalms 104:24
3 Toldoth Yaakov Yoseph, Breishith #1

Translation and Commentary by Rabbi Yehoshua Starrett and reprinted
with the kind permission of the Baal Shem Tov Foundation. Please visit
www.baalshemtov.com

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