THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE (1:3)

The Speaker of the House (1:3)

We formally introduce the SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE, the one who SPOKE and the universe came to be. 

 

The Speaker of the House (1:3)

After all these years of utilizing the Timeless Torah venue and talking so much about Him, I feel we ought to formally introduce Him. Of course, I refer to the Speaker of the House. No not Newt Gingrich (update to Bill Frist or any other politician occupying the post). I refer not to that Speaker.  I mean the SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE, the Man Upstairs, of whom the Bible says, He SPOKE and the universe came to be. 

According to our Sages, He actually SPOKE ten times for the entirety of Creation to unfold. But how does something come into existence from mere words? For in fact, what are words? Nothing really; at least not in the material sense.

Physically, speech has no substance. It's a pattern of sound waves. Yet there is no mistaking the power of the word. The simple word has the power to move you, to inspire you, to utterly transform your perspective on reality.

Nonetheless, the Torah describes the creation of the world as a series of divine statements as in, “Let there be light.” Thus if we wish to understand the nature of the created reality, we must examine the phenomenon we call speech.  As speech, G-d's words did not actually create anything of substance.  All they did was change a perception, change the manner in   which the preexisting reality would be perceived.

When G-d said, "Let there be light" nothing really happened, other than the impact this had on us, the listeners, to whom it made a world of difference.

The Listener

Say something; any word or phrase. Say it again. As you quickly repeat your words they spin into meaningless noises and lose their impact. Spoken words that are not perceived by any listener have no effect. But say them again, this time to someone who hasn't heard them yet, and they will regain their meaning.

If G-d speaks a world into existence, then by definition, someone is listening. Someone outside of Himself; ‘outside’ in the sense that he perceives his own reality as something  separate from G-d's, failing to comprehend that he is but the embodiment of the Divine desire that he exist.

Someone, so far removed from G-d, that he  might consider G-d to be nothing more than an idea, something to think about; or someone who might question G-d's existence altogether.  Someone like Man.

The Language

You hear someone speak. He is saying something very powerful; something with the ability to enlighten you, to provoke you, to open new vistas before you. You realize as much from the tone and timbre of his words. But you are unmoved for he is speaking Chinese.

For the word to impact the listener, he must know the language.  To appreciate the significance of the divine speech we call “universe”, we must first acquire the language in which it was spoken.

"G-d looked into the Torah and created the world."  You can spend a fruitful lifetime just listening to the tone and timbre of the galaxies He articulated. But if you sense significance in the grandeur of the stars, if you sense the whisperings of nature to be a communication, look to the Torah, the dictionary of creation.

He gave us the Torah in order to teach us the language of creation, to enable us to comprehend His communication to us, and in turn, to communicate with Him.

        The Conversation

  A conversation may sometimes serve no purpose other than to convey the information contained in its words; directions to the bank, the price of the dress in the window. But this is speech at its shallowest. Meaningful speech is the endeavor to communicate, to reveal oneself to another.

  G-d spoke to us so that we may understand Him.  Not just the world He said, but Him, its speaker.  By mastering the language of Torah, we not only gain insight into the significance of the created existence, we also enter into a heart-to-heart conversation with its author, the SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE.