Some Thoughts About Shabbos Bereishis

Submitted by email from an anonymous Breslover

In Likkutei Moharan II, 67, the Rebbe quotes the Tikkunei Zohar's drush that the letters of "Bereshis" can be rearranged to spell "Rosh Bayis" -- the "head of the house." Then the Rebbe says that "Bereishis" is a hesped (eulogy) for Noach. (Take a look at that lesson, and you'll see where he goes with this idea.)

This remark has always bothered me. What exactly is this hesped: the final verse, "Vi-Noach motzah chein be-eynei Hashem / And Noah found grace in the eyes of G-d?" If so, Noach was still alive at the time; so how could it be considered a hesped?

Last year during Sukkos, I realized that the Rebbe means that the Tikkunei Zohar’s drush of Bereishis = Rosh Bayis is the hesped, not the parshah of Bereishis in the Chumash. (Maybe this should have been obvious to me, but it wasn't.) And if that's the case, maybe we can add: the first verse of Bereishis is the "ma'amar sasum / hidden saying" (Maharsha), and this concept is implicit in that very first word of that verse and of the entire Torah. If so, "bereishis" includes all hastoros, all concealments in creation, because it is the first saying and therefore the root of all ten divine sayings. THUS... in context of Likkutei Moharan II, 67, the ha'alamah (obscurity) of the "Rosh Bayis" -- whom the Rebbe understands to be represented by Noach, but who includes all tzaddikim of the highest level -- is the key to the entire drama of creation. The churban which the Rebbe laments in that lesson is an echo of this primary concealment at the root of existence, and its tikkun comes with the ge'ulah, the final redemption...