100.02 The Primordial Divine (pps.65-67)

Out of whose womb came the ice?
And the hoar-frost of heaven,
who hath gendered it?
-Job 38:29

Independent of time, matter, and energy, and indeed, independent of a universe, existed Holy Divine Potential-the pri-mordial Divine.²¹⁶ At the eternal origins of out-of-time: Holy Potential within potential within potential . . . ad infinitum-tracking to the forward edges of time.²¹⁷

At the embryonic stage of holiness, deep in the womb of nothingness, deep at the core of out-of-time, hinged on an indefinable and infinite circularity, there was an ascending holy metaphysical fire: Yearning, imploring, calling forth into the void.²¹⁸

[The concept of a primordial Divine has clear and direct precedent in the concept of the En Sof of Kabbalah.²¹⁹ See section 100.03 below.]

Traversing the Bridge

And as nature abhors a vacuum, Holy Potential abhors nothingness. This is a cosmic axiom.

Simultaneous with the eternal origins of out-of-time, an equilibrium of nothingness was thrown into disequilibrium by its own Holy Potential. Exploding and imploding. Echoing through this day and racing towards infinite time, Holy Potential screamed forth.

Genesis

Flowing from the Essence of the Divine, the infinite holy potential of the Divine demanded more expression.²²⁰ Among these elements were the potentials for creation of the universe, and within the latter the potentials for man to quest for his

²¹⁶ We find it easier to posit Infinite Holy Potential as eternally preexisting all, as opposed to positing the classic God of Israel-an entity-as preexisting all.
Cf. Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, p. 348. Later in the text (section 200.00) we call Holy quest for potential the underlying ‘dynamic.’ Subsequent to the First Printing, Haim Cohen, Former Justice, Supreme Court of Israel, suggested that the term ‘abstract dynamic’ or ‘dynamic abstraction’ might be closer to the intended mark. I agree, in particular, for the embryonic staees of Holy quest for potential

²¹⁷ See Sefer Yesirah (1562) fol. 63a, as cited in ibid., p. 341. “Before anything at all was created, God was unfathomable and limitless, alone and unique, capable of subsisting by Himself in the potency of existence.”
Cf. ibid., pp. 282-283, 441.
Cf. Hirsch, Chapters of the Fathers, on Avot 5:1. “However, in this world . . . all the things that were made first were contributing factors in the creation of what came after them, and were, in fact, completed by the latter. . . . All things sustain and are sustained in their turn.”

²¹⁸ See Matt, Zohar, p. 24.

²¹⁹ See Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, pp. 281-284, 438, 443.
Cf. ibid., pp. 431-432. “Asher ben David, too, expresses himself clearly in a theistic and personalistic vein, identifying ‘en-sof’ with the personally conceived supreme primordial cause.”
Asher ben David was the nephew of the aforementioned Isaac the Blind and grandson of the Rabad. He “carried on the traditions of his father and uncle during the first half of the thirteenth century in Provence and at the same time served as one of the most important links with the mystical centers newly forming in northern Spain, above all in Gerona.” Ibid., p. 252.

²²⁰ See Hirsch, Timeless Torah, p. 16.

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