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2 God created" [the universe] (Gen. i. 1). It happened that a heretic came to Rabbi Akiba and asked him, Who created this world? The Rabbi replied : - The Holy One, blessed be He. The heretic rejoined, Prove this to me in an explicit manner. The Rabbi answered : Come to me to-morrow. The heretic did so and the Rabbi said, What art thou wearing ? A garment, said the heretic. The Rabbi asked, Who made it ? The weaver, replied the heretic. The Rabbi said, I do not believe thee, give an explicit proof. The heretic said, Why should I do this? thou knowest that the weaver wove this garment. Well, rejoined the Rabbi, but dost thou not also know that the Holy One, blessed be He, created His world? The heretic departed, and the disciples of the Rabbi said to him, Where was thy explicit proof? He said to them, my sons ! Just as the house testifies to the builders, and the garment testifies to the weaver, and the door testifies to the carpenter, so likewise the world points to the Holy One, blessed be He, as its Creator. (Midrash Temura). 1 3. A certain Philosopher (probably a heathen) said to Rabban Gamaliel II., Your God is a great artist, only He found good material ready which helped Him: such as, waste, void (Tohu, Bohu, see Gen. i, 2), darkness, spirit (or wind), water and depths. Then the Rabban said, thou art beside thyself! (literally, let the [evil] spirit of that man depart). All these things Scripture tells us were created. Waste and void, as it is ') This philosophical argument showing by analogy that there must be a First Cause was known to the Greeks, e. g. Aristotle, De An. II. iv. 6. and see Maimonides Guide I. Ixix Philo uses the same argument in his De Mundi op. 23. i. 16. See Kaufmann's Attributenlehre pp. 131, 280ff. for the views of the mediaeval Jewish philosophers on this subject. |
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