152 Aaron W. Hughes
And in their love I will grow
And with them we will have
Discussions, investigations, and examinations . . .
And with Abraham the son of Ezra
We shall have open rebuke and hidden love. 30Much of Nahmanides’s commentary on the Torah derives its energy from
diff erentiating his own understanding of the biblical narrative from that of
his predecessors. A sustained example should suffi ce to demonstrate this.
He faults both Rashi and Ibn Ezra for misunderstanding the grammar in
the opening verse of Genesis. Th is, according to him, leads them to misun-
derstand the account of creation. Nahmanides writes,
In the beginning [Heb.: bereshith]. Rashi wrote: “if you wish to explain [the
word bereshith] in accordance with its plain meaning [i.e., the fact that it
is in what grammarians call the construct state], it must be explained like
this: at the beginning of the creation of the heaven and the earth, the earth
was formless and void and there was darkness, then the Holy One, blessed
be He, said, Let there be light.” If so, the whole text leads into the creation
of light.
Rabbi Abraham [Ibn Ezra] explained it similarly. However, he claimed
that the letter vav in the word va-ha’aretz is not a connecting letter [that
adds new information but rather is specifying something further about
what has already been mentioned]. He points to many such instances in
scripture. Th e meaning [for him] is that at the beginning of the creation
of the heaven and dry land, there was no habitable place on earth; rather,
it was unformed and void and covered with water, and God said Let there
be light. According to [Abraham Ibn Ezra’s] opinion, only light was created
the fi rst day. 31According to Nahmanides, both Rashi and Ibn Ezra in their desire to un-
derstand the simple meaning of the text actually misunderstand it. Instead,
Nahmanides writes,
Now listen to the correct and clear explanation of the verse in its simplic-
ity. Th e Holy One, blessed be He, created all things from absolute nonex-
istence. . . . Everything that exists under the sun or above it was not made
from nonexistence at the outset. Instead He brought forth from total and
absolute nothing a very thin substance devoid of corporeality but having a