Sefat Emet

Rashi quotes “Rabbi Yitzhak said: The Torah should have started at “From this very month...”...the first mitzvah...[because of] ‘the strength of His deeds...”. One must understand the solution given regarding all of the Torah portions from Bereshit until “...this very month”. The interpretation of the matter is that the essence of the Torah is the mitzvot—this is the written Torah—but the Holy Blessed One wanted to clarify that this world and the entire Creation [exists] because of the ‘power of Torah’, as it says “B-reishit”: He looked within the Torah and created the world [according to it].” And this matter [is in contrast] with Oral Torah, which is dependent on human activity. Thus, all the Torah portions concerned with the stories of forefathers [are there] to show how Torah was created by their deeds. This is what is meant by “the strength of His deeds”—the power that the Holy Blessed One suffused within Creation. This is why it is called “the work/deed of Creation” to declare that the world was created with ten utterances, and the life-force of the world by means of the Torah. The task of humanity, then, is to understand that every deed is a result of the Holy Blessed One’s life-force. When a person performs any action, it is [only] because of the power of Torah to fulfill the will of the Creator, thus renewing the light hidden within Creation. This is hinted at in the verse “I have put my words in your mouth...who laid the foundations of the earth and say to Zion ‘You are my people’.” The sages interpret the verse: Don’t read ami/my people—rather immi/with me, as a partner in the work of Creation. The Zohar interprets ‘Zion’ as the inner point within all things as a imprint and sign to remember that the Holy One is [the source] of all things. This is the life-force which animates all things. The person who clings to this inner point and all of His life-force which flows from this point becomes a partner in the work of Creation. As a result of this ...“in order that He might give them the inheritance of the nations”—an inheritance without restraints. When a person joins the natural world to its active potential, nature cannot obscure the power of holiness.