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Blessings of Shemah: Rashbi: Created All



“Who forms light and creates darkness, makes peace and creates all.” Rabbi Pinchas was a frequent visitor at the house of Rabbi Rechumai, who lived on the shore of the lake of Gennasar. He was a man of note, well advanced in years, and had lost his sight. One day, he said to Rabbi Pinchus, “I have certainly heard that our colleague Yochai possesses a precious jewel (Rabbi Shimon). I looked at that jewel, and it flashed like the radiance of the sun when it emerges from his sheath, and flooded the world with a light which radiated from heaven to earth and spread to the whole world, until the Ancient of Days was duly enthroned. That light is completely contained in your household, and from that light there emanates a tiny continuous Ray which is shed abroad and illuminates the entire world. Happy is your portion! Go forth, my son, go forth and try to find that gem which illuminates the world, for the hour is propitious.”

 

Rabbi Pinchus took his leave and embarked in a boat in the company of two other men. He noticed two birds which were flying to and fro over this see, and cried to them, “Birds, birds, you that fly about over the sea, have you seen anywhere the place of the son of Yochai?” He paused a while and then said, “Birds, birds, go on your way and bring the answer back to me.”

They flew away and disappeared in the distance, but before Rabbi Pinchus left the boat, they returned, and one of them was holding in its mouth a written note stating that the son of Yochai had left the cave together with his son. Rabbi Pinchus then went to visit him, and found him sadly changed, with his body full of sores. He wept, and he said, “Woe to me that I see you thus!”

Rabbi Shimon replied, “happy is my portion that you see me like this, for otherwise I would not be what I am.”

Rabbi Shimon then opened his lecture on the precepts of the Torah. He said: “The precepts of the Torah which the Holy One has given to Israel are all laid down in the first chapter of the Torah in summary.”

All is there at the beginning. The morning light reminds us of the first Light that was formed, contained in which was the Kol – All.

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