The Fourth Day – The Creation of the Luminaries By Prof. Dr. Eli E. Lasch
“And God said: let there be luminaries in the firmament of the heaven ( Rakia ha’shamajim, the basis of realization, see above) to separate THE day from THE night (or to differentiate between them ) and they shall (in the Hebrew original) become otot and moadim, yamim and shanim (Let them designate signs and seasons, days and years). In order to illuminate /shine upon the Earth. And it was so.” And God made two luminaries; the greater one to govern the day and the lesser one to govern the night; he made the stars also. And God set them in the Rakia ha’shamajim to give light upon the earth. And to rule over the day and over the night and to divide the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. And it was evening, and it was morning – the fourth day.” According to the classical tradition, the sun and the moon were created in order to illuminate the Earth. At the same time, they were seen as signs (Otot) for the holidays (Moadim) as well as for the years (Shanim) and days (Yamim). In this tradition the author of the Torah tries to make it clear and to convince us that the sun and the moon aren’t Gods, they are nothing but luminaries which were created by the God who brought Israel out of Egypt. That shows that YHVH is superior to the Egyptian sun god Ra who, according to this view, doesn’t exist. Wasn’t He -YHVH- victorious over Egypt and its (non-existent) Gods?
Continue Reading »
