Fire and Darkness -

Last Shabbat we read the following:

יט וַיְהִי, כְּשָׁמְעֲכֶם אֶת-הַקּוֹל מִתּוֹךְ הַחֹשֶׁךְ, וְהָהָר, בֹּעֵר בָּאֵשׁ; וַתִּקְרְבוּן אֵלַי, כָּל-רָאשֵׁי שִׁבְטֵיכֶם וְזִקְנֵיכֶם. 19 And it came to pass, when ye heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness, while the mountain did burn with fire, that ye came near unto me, even all the heads of your tribes, and your elders;

The description of the Divine voice is that it came out of the darkness while just a few verses earlier we read:

יב וַיְדַבֵּר יְהוָה אֲלֵיכֶם, מִתּוֹךְ הָאֵשׁ: קוֹל דְּבָרִים אַתֶּם שֹׁמְעִים, וּתְמוּנָה אֵינְכֶם רֹאִים זוּלָתִי קוֹל.12 And the LORD spoke unto you out of the midst of the fire; ye heard the voice of words, but ye saw no form; only a voice.

The Divine voice came out of fire. What was it fire or darkness? Medieval scholars saw light and darkness as one. Darkness being the lack of light, they understood that the underlying element of light is darkness and light is some kind of activation of that underlying element. Rambam in Moreh 2:30 explains it as follows:

“The four elements indicated, according to our explanation, in the term Eretz" earth," in the first verse, (he is referring to the first verse in the Torah- DG) are mentioned first after the heavens: for there are named Eretz (earth), Ruach (air), mayim (water), and Choshech (fire). By Choshech the element fire is meant, nothing else; " And thou heard his words out of the midst of the fire" (Deut. iv. 36): and," When ye heard the voice out of the midst of the Choshech" (darkness) (ibid. V. 2): again," All Choshech (darkness) shall be hid in his secret places: a fire not blown shall consume him" (job XX. 26). The element fire is called Choshech because it is not luminous; it is only transparent; for if it were luminous we should see at night the whole atmosphere in flames.”

In other words, there is the basic element darkness which when activated turns into light. If deactivated it becomes darkness. When we speculate about God we, humans, have to picture Him somehow. The things that come to mind are the least physical possible things we can imagine. One of those things is darkness which to our mind is described as lacking even light, the least physical of all elements, “it is only transparent”.

Yeshayahu 45:7 says:

ז יוֹצֵר אוֹר וּבוֹרֵא חֹשֶׁךְ, עֹשֶׂה שָׁלוֹם וּבוֹרֵא רָע; אֲנִי יְהוָה, עֹשֶׂה כָל-אֵלֶּה. {פ} 7 I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I am the LORD, that doeth all these things. {P}

Rambam in 3:10 notes:

“In accordance with this view we explain the following passage of Isaiah:" I form the light and create (borei) darkness: I make peace, and create (borei) evil" for darkness and evil are non-existing things. Consider that the prophet does not say, I make ('osseh) darkness, I make ('osseh) evil, because darkness and evil are not things in positive existence to which the verb to make" would apply; the verb Bara" he created" is used, because in Hebrew this verb is applied to non-existing things e.g.," In the beginning God created" (Bara), etc.: here the creation took place from nothing. Only in this sense can non-existence be said to be produced by a certain action of an agent.”

The word Bara is used when describing creation from nothingness where nothingness is the substrate that contains existence just as darkness is the substrate of light. First one has to create a substrate so that something else can be superimposed. The substrate itself has no real individual physical existence, just a negative connotation, and a lack of something. When saying that at Sinai we heard the Divine sound coming from fire or darkness we are saying that it came from a non-physical source. As most people have a hard time grasping nothingness, they use metaphors in their minds to describe it. Some see it as fire others more sophisticated, see it as fire’s substrate - darkness. That explains the ending of the verse- וּתְמוּנָה אֵינְכֶם רֹאִים- but ye saw no form – the fire they “saw” was just a metaphor, not something they saw with their eyes. Fire after all has a form. The same idea is conveyed by the terms Anan – clouds, Arafel – fog, used in the Sinai experience.

Rabbeinu Bachya has a similar approach in this Parsha. He explains the verse in Melachim 1:19:


יא וַיֹּאמֶר, צֵא וְעָמַדְתָּ בָהָר לִפְנֵי יְהוָה, וְהִנֵּה יְהוָה עֹבֵר וְרוּחַ גְּדוֹלָה וְחָזָק מְפָרֵק הָרִים וּמְשַׁבֵּר סְלָעִים לִפְנֵי יְהוָה, לֹא בָרוּחַ יְהוָה; וְאַחַר הָרוּחַ רַעַשׁ, לֹא בָרַעַשׁ יְהוָה. 11 And He said: 'Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD.' And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake;
יב וְאַחַר הָרַעַשׁ אֵשׁ, לֹא בָאֵשׁ יְהוָה; וְאַחַר הָאֵשׁ, קוֹל דְּמָמָה דַקָּה. 12 and after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.

Elyahu was “standing on the mountain” a metaphor similar to Ma’amad Har Sinai, where he was searching for an understanding of God. The process he used was to first imagine God as a strong wind, and when he realized that that is too physical, he imagined that God is a sound wave. Realizing that too is too physical he saw Him as fire and finally realizing that even that is anthropomorphism he ended up with silence – He cannot be described or imagined. Rabbeinu Bachya discusses this in the context of the Passuk Devarim 4:39:

לט וְיָדַעְתָּ הַיּוֹם, וַהֲשֵׁבֹתָ אֶל-לְבָבֶךָ, כִּי יְהוָה הוּא הָאֱלֹהִים, בַּשָּׁמַיִם מִמַּעַל וְעַל-הָאָרֶץ מִתָּחַת: אֵין, עוֹד. 39 know this day, and lay it to thy heart, that the LORD, He is God in heaven above and upon the earth beneath; there is none else.

He explains that the Torah lays out an obligation to try to get an understanding of God - “lay it to thy heart” - which follows this path of negating all things that one can imagine about God. Rambam’s idea of Negative Attributes had taken hold even among the Kabbalists of the medieval era. Rambam’s understanding of the Mitzvah of Yediat Hashem as being not just simple faith but a search for rationally understanding God, held sway. It is only in later generations that Emunah Peshuta as an a priori approach became mainstream Judaism.

As an aside, anyone that knows a little about Rabbeinu Bahya,( Bahya ben Asher or Bahya ben Asher ben Halawa also known as the Rabbeinu Behaye, born about the middle of the thirteenth century at Saragossa, died 1340 was a 13th century rabbi and scholar of Judaism. He was a commentator on the Hebrew Bible and is noted for introducing Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) into study of the Torah- Wikipedia)
knows that he was a Talmid of the Rashba, Rabbeinu Shlomo ben Aderet, one of the leading Possekim of his time and also a great Mekubal from the Ramban School. That school of Kabbalah would be considered rationalistic in our time. Both Rambam and Ramban were rationalists differing in their understanding of the natural world. The difference was not at the basic level but rather in the details, how they understood and perceived their reality. Ramban understood mysticism and astrology as scientific facts while Rambam made a clear distinction between the physical and non-physical.