24. Bereshit — Abarbanel on the Torah, Section 24

Shamayim as Fire and Intellect

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That the Sages referred to the separate intellects as “fire,” just as Scripture calls them so, is evident in many places. Explicitly they said in the chapter Ein Doreshin (Chagigah 14a): “Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani said: Every word that goes forth from the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He, creates an angel,” as it is written: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made” (Psalms 33:6). This shows that they indeed understood the name shamayim to refer to the angels. Likewise, the Kabbalists call them “the heavens of success.”

That the separate intellects which move the spheres were created together with the first moving sphere is also explained in Bereshit Rabbah (12-8). Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said: A human being who builds a ship first brings the beams, then the cedars, then the anchors, and afterward the sailors. But the Holy One, blessed be He, created the heavens and their governors together, as it is written: “Thus says the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out” (Isaiah 42:5). The word “stretched them out” (נ֣וֹטֵיהֶ֔ם) is written with a yod, implying those who stretch them. Thus they taught that the movers were created together with the things moved¹.

It is therefore fitting to explain why Scripture and the Sages also call the separate intellects by the name “fire.” I say that the name “angel” is applied to the separate beings only insofar as they are messengers, for every angel is a messenger, as the Master wrote in the Guide. But Scripture found no name that would describe them according to their true nature. Therefore, in order to guide the human mind, it compared them to the names of physical elements. And since among the four elements that constitute material things the most elevated and noble is fire, Scripture compared them to fire.

Thus it says: “For the Lord your God is a consuming fire” (Deuteronomy 4:24). Just as fire consumes everything yet is itself not consumed, and just as fire is the true agent of generation, being the source of heat in all things and the form of every living being—for the life of every creature depends upon its vital heat—and just as fire gives heat and light to others without losing anything of itself, so too the First Cause, blessed be He, brings the world into being and can destroy it when He wills. Yet He Himself neither comes into being nor passes away, Heaven forbid. He grants existence and essence to all that exists; He is the life and continuance of the world, its ultimate form. And He bestows light, goodness, and perfection upon all things without lacking anything.

Because of these considerations the prophets compared the form to its Creator and said of Him that He is a consuming fire. And the intellects that flow from Him are likewise called “fire,” because they are like sparks issuing from that first fire. For this reason they are called seraphim, which means “burning ones,” similar to sparks of fire. Thus it is said in the Song of Songs: “Its flashes are flashes of fire, a flame of the Lord” (Song of Songs 8:6). And at the beginning of Moses’ prophecy he saw “the bush burning with fire,” and “the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of the bush” (Exodus 3:2). Likewise in Isaiah: “One of the seraphim flew to me, having a burning coal in his hand” (Isaiah 6:6). And the Targum of Jonathan renders it: “with a word in his mouth.” For the fire and burning attributed to the separate intellects is only a metaphor for their intellect.

In the book of Daniel (Daniel 7:10) they are also called “sparks of fire” for this reason. See how accustomed the prophets were to designate the separate intellect by the name “fire.” At times they also called them “spirit,” because fire and spirit are the two lightest and least tangible of the elements, unlike water and earth, which are dense. By contrast, the celestial bodies were sometimes called “waters,” as will be explained later, because of their purity and their continual motion.

Thus Rav said: shamayim means “fire and water”—that is, shamayim is a name both for fire (the separate intellects) and for water (the spheres). The Sages also said that the rational souls of human beings were created together with the spiritual angels, for they are indeed of the same nature, and they too are included in the name shamayim. For this reason it is said: “Man’s soul is the Lord’s lamp” (Proverbs 20:27), since it too belongs to the realm of fire and of heaven. Therefore they said in Chagigah that in the highest heaven there are the souls and spirits that are destined to be created. All this clarifies what the name shamayim refers to in the first verse of the Torah.

When the Sages also said in Bereshit Rabbah that shamayim means that “creatures are astonished by them,” they intended the same idea: the continual motion of the celestial sphere without interruption, and the nature of the separate intellects (sechalim nivdalim) that move it, are difficult for the human mind to conceive, and therefore human beings are astonished by them.

As for the terms shechakim (“skies”) and kise (“throne”), these unquestionably refer to the celestial bodies. Yet because the heavens produce rain through their motions, Scripture often attributes rain to the heavens, the skies, or the throne, as in the verse: “He commanded the skies above” (Psalms 78:23), and others like it, as will be explained later.

The shamayim mentioned in the first verse – whether they refer to the totality of the celestial spheres or specifically to the highest sphere that encompasses all – will be explained further in the commentary on the passage concerning the firmament.

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