“Hovering” Parashat Bereishit 5787
One of the cruellest things we do to our children is to make them start learning the Torah from the beginning. The story of creation, as it appears in the first chapter of the Book of Bereishit, is nearly impossible understand, even for a grown adult. It all starts [Bereishit 1:1] “In the beginning”. In the beginning of what? The universe? Planet earth? And how does all of this mesh with “the science” that our government officials would have us follow? Let’s leave the first verse behind for the moment and plunge into the second verse [Bereishit 1:2]: “The land was utterly void and there was darkness on the face of the depths. The Spirit of G-d (Ruach E-lokim) hovered over the face of the water”. What is this “Ruach E-lokim”? Is it a physical entity or a metaphysical entity? And why was it hovering the face of the water? Did it have any weight? Was it a gas? Was it bound by something so that it did not fly away? The medieval commentators are divided regarding the essence of the “Ruach E-lokim”. One group of commentators, led by Rashi[1], asserts that “ruach” is translated as “spirit”, such that it was G-d’s Divine Presence that was hovering over the water. A second group, led by the Chizkuni[2], translates “ruach” as “wind”, meaning that a breeze of some kind was hovering over the water. Translations of the Torah over the years reflect these two schools of thought. JPS 2023 merges the two interpretations, translating the verse as “A wind from G-d [swept] over the water”. Not just an ordinary wind that happened to be passing by, but specifically a “wind from G-d”. What does this wind do? How is it special? The Torah does not tell us. Apparently we have no other recourse but to interpret the verse allegorically.
This is frustrating because while cognizant that the Torah is not a book of history nor a book of science, the act of completely detaching the Torah from physical reality always seems like a sort of cop-out. And so in this essay, we will attempt interpret the verse using not science, but mathematics. In an article from Tradition Magazine [Spring 2026 Issue 58.2] with an outlandish title, “Algorithms, Zombies and Maimonides’ G-d: A Jewish Theology of Consciousness for the Age of AI”, Marina Zilbergerts[3] proposes a concept that nearly caused my head to explode. In order to understand this concept, we must introduce a book written nearly a century and a half ago called “Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions”. Flatland tells the story of a Square living in a two-dimensional world populated by geometric figures whose shapes determine their social status. Everything is flat, like a piece of paper. One day, Square is visited by a Sphere from a three-dimensional world who demonstrates the existence of a dimension beyond anything the Square has ever imagined. The Square eventually comes to understand the third dimension but when he speculates about a possible fourth dimension, he is dismissed as a heretic by his society. Through this journey, the novel explores the limits of perception, the challenge of understanding higher dimensions, and the human tendency to reject ideas that fall outside accepted beliefs.
Imagine you are a square living in Flatland and one day a sphere visits your world. You don’t see a sphere. You can’t see a sphere. All you can see is the sphere’s projection into your two-dimensional world, which appears as a circle. From that circle, you know something real about the object that produced it, but only something limited. You have no way of knowing whether the source is a sphere, a cylinder, or a cone. You do not know its colour, its texture, or its size. Even if someone told you it was a sphere, you would still have only the faintest idea of what a sphere actually is because your world lacks the dimension needed to perceive it directly. Yet the projection is not meaningless. Although it does not tell you everything about the higher-dimensional object, it does tell you some things. The shadow is real. It comes from something real. And certain possibilities can be ruled out. You might not know exactly what produced the circle, but you know it was not a cube. This is how Zilbergerts understands the relationship between G-d and human consciousness. Our consciousness is like the spheric circle in Flatland: a projection into our world of a higher reality. From it we cannot reconstruct G-d’s full nature. G-d projects consciousness onto us. We cannot know what Divine Consciousness is like in itself. But we know something true about the source, even though we cannot fully comprehend it. For instance, when the Torah tells us that G-d was “sad” or “happy”, it does not mean that He smiled or cried like a human. But it does let us know whether our actions that caused this response were acceptable or not.
Now we can return to the second verse of creation. The Book of Proverbs [27:19] teaches, “As face answers to face in water, so does one person’s heart answer to another.” Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi[4], writing in the Tanya, uses this verse to describe the relationship between man and G-d. When a person looks into water, he sees a face looking back at him. The face in the water is real, but it is not the person himself. It is a reflection, a two-dimensional projection of a three-dimensional reality. It has no independent existence and cannot tell us everything about the person standing above it. It cannot tell us what he is thinking, where he has been, or why he has chosen to stare into a puddle. Nevertheless, the reflection is not arbitrary. If the person smiles, the reflection smiles. If he frowns, the reflection frowns. The face in the water reveals something genuine about its source, but only in a form that the water can contain. Perhaps this is the meaning of the Spirit of G-d hovering over the water. At the beginning of creation, the Torah introduces the relationship between G-d and His world. G-d cannot be contained within creation any more than a sphere can be contained within Flatland. What creation can contain is a projection, a reflection of a reality that lies infinitely beyond it. But why does the verse describe G-d as “hovering”? The same word appears later in the Torah [Devarim 32:11]: “Like an eagle who rouses his nest, hovering over his young, He spreads His wings, takes them and carries them.” An eagle does not hover over its young because it is uncertain where to land. It hovers because it is protecting them. It remains close enough to guard them, but high enough not to crush them. The distance is not absence – it is part of the protection. This changes the way we read the opening moments of creation. The darkness, the depths, and the formlessness are not evidence that G-d has abandoned His world. Quite the opposite: He is there, hovering above it, present in a form that the world can endure. Like the eagle above its nest and like the face reflected in water, G-d reveals Himself without overwhelming the creation He has brought into being.
We often look at the world and see only the reflection. Sometimes it is clear; sometimes the water is turbulent and the image is distorted beyond recognition. We see events that seem random, painful, or simply incomprehensible, and we ask what kind of reality could possibly stand behind them. Flatland offers us a measure of intellectual humility. A circle cannot reconstruct a sphere, and a human being cannot reconstruct G-d. But the circle is not meaningless, and neither is our world. It is a projection of something real, even when we lack the dimensions required to understand it. The Torah begins not by explaining G-d, but by teaching us how to seek Him. We will not find Him by mistaking the reflection for the Source, but by looking through the reflection toward the reality beyond it. The Spirit of G-d hovers over the water, close enough to protect us and distant enough to let us exist. Everything we perceive is incomplete, yet it is still true. Even when all we see is darkness on the face of the depths, the eagle is still hovering above its young.
Shabbat Shalom,
Ari Sacher, Moreshet, 5787
Please daven for a Refu’a Shelema for Rachel bat Malka, Iris bat Chana, Sheindel Devora bat Rina, Esther Sharon bat Chana Raizel, Meir ben Drora, Golan ben Marcelle and Hodayah Emunah bat Shoshana Rachel.
[1] Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, known by his acronym “Rashi,” was the most eminent of the medieval commentators. He lived in northern France in the 11th century.
[2] Rabbi Hezkiah bar Manoach, known as the Chizkuni, lived in France in the 13th century.
[3] Dr. Zilbergerts is a philosopher, author, and scholar of Jewish literature and religion who currently serves as a Visiting Professor at the University of Ottawa.
[4] Rabbi Schneur Zalman, who lived in Liadi, Belarus, in the second half of the 18th century.
