ציטירנדיקער פּירוש אויף תהילים 105:8

You should also know that the period of time that Torah preceded creation of the universe until the directive of “let there be light,” has also been hinted at in the word ב-ראשית. The letter ב in that word alludes to the two thousand years Torah preceded our universe, a period called “beginning,” i.e. ראשית.
We find some proof of this in the Bereshit Rabbah 3,7 which points out that the Torah did not write יהי ערב, “let there be evening,” but only ויהי ערב, “it remained evening,” i.e. there had already been a system called time, [though time was not counted in terms we are familiar with. Ed.]
We must concede that the concept of time itself was a creative act and prior to that act “time” did not exist. Nonetheless we find time prior to the creation of the universe referred to specifically in several instances throughout the Bible. When the sages spoke about “two thousand years” which the Torah preceded the universe they did not refer to days or years in the manner we count days or years nowadays. The element of “time” in that context is not subject to investigation by the human intellect. Job 36,26 referred to this phenomenon when he wrote הן קל שגיא ולא נדע מספר שניו ולא חקר; “Here G’d is greater than we can know; the number of His years cannot be counted.” Another reference to this kind of time is found in Job 10,8 הן כ-ימי אנוש ימיך , “are Your days to be compared to human days?” or Psalms 102,28 ימי שנותיך לא יתמו, “the days of Your years are never ending.” During those “times,” it occurred to G’d to creative 1000 generations (of human history); however 974 of these generations were wiped out (compare Chagigah 13-14). This means that these 974 generations were “wiped out” from G’d’s original plan. They had not ever been created in the flesh. As a result of these 974 generations never having seen the light of day the Torah was given to the Jewish people after man existed for 26 generations. The reason G’d reconsidered His original plan was that He foresaw that the people in those generations would all be wicked. G’d advanced the giving of the Torah so that He would thereby advance the cycle that would otherwise have taken 1000 generations. This is the meaning of Psalms 105,8 “He is ever mindful of His covenant, the promise He gave for a thousand generations.” The words “for a thousand generations” mean: “at the end of one thousand generations.” These “lost “ generations are referred to by our sages in Chagigah 13 when they quoted Daniel 7,10 נהר דינור נגיד ונפיק מן קדמוהי אלף אלפין ישמשונה ורבו רבבן קדמוהי יקומון דינא יתיב וספרין פתיחו, “A river of fire streamed before Him; thousands upon thousands served Him; myriads upon myriads attended Him; the court sat and the books were opened.” The Talmud asks” “whence did the river originate?’ The answer given is that it was the result of the sweat of the beasts. To the question where this river Dinor ended, the answer given is “on the heads of the wicked in hades,” seeing that we have a verse in Job 22,1 אשר קמטו ולא עת נהר יוצק יסודם; “how they have shrivelled up before their time, and their foundation poured out like a river.” Rabbi Acha bar Yaakov interpreted the first half of this verse as describing G’d’s anger. Rabbi Shimon ben Chasidah understands this verse as a reference to the 974 generations which had originally been planned by G’d to come into existence prior to the universe as we know it. What did G’d do with them? He suspended them in that river. Some appear in each generation and they are the ones whose main purpose in life is to mock G’d. Thus far the discussion in Chagigah.

I believe we may have to pay closer attention to the wording we see in our paragraph i.e. “this is the word of G’d: ‘collect from it on a daily basis’” this indicates a linkage with the words: “this is my G’d and I want to exalt Him” (which the Israelites had said while at the sea). Ever since then they had been able to refer to G’d as “this,” the Israelites had become worthy of eating the same kind of “food” as do the angels. It is important to appreciate that inasmuch as the manna was definitely physical food it nonetheless enabled the derivative of the supernatural light to survive in terrestrial surroundings. G’d supplied this food to the people who received His Torah in order to refine their abstract intelligence and enable it to attain deeper spiritual insights into the mysteries of the Torah. It is not strange that physical food can have this effect. We have evidence of this on several occasions. Not only that. Our sages speak of physical food which G’d will feed disembodied spirits (human) in the hereafter when He will provide the flesh of the Leviathan which He has stored for this purpose (compare our commentary on Genesis 1,21). Unless such food could enhance the spirits of the departed souls, what would be the point in our sages telling us about such meals in the heavenly regions? Perhaps we are to assume that the creatures such as the Leviathan and the bird called בר יוכני are themselves derivatives of this original light, and that this is the reason they would be able to survive in this world until needed to provide food for the righteous in a future when life on earth will be different from today. Let us examine the creation of Leviathan and Bar Yuchni and what we know about them. Both these creatures were created on the fifth day of creation. Baba Batra 74, basing itself on the plural in the words התנינם הגדולים, states that one of them was to serve as food for the righteous in the hereafter. The same applies to the בהמות בהררי אלף, “the beasts on a thousand mountains,” (a reference to what is known as שור הבור, designated for consumption by the righteous (their souls) in the future. It has been described in Psalms as “of a thousand mountains” to reflect Psalms 105,8 דבר צוה לאלף דור, “something G’d has commanded to come true after 1000 generations,” (in the hereafter). According to Pirke d'Rabbi Eliezer this tremendous ox consumes the grass on 1000 hills daily. By night the grass grows again so as not to denude the environment. The beast exists in anticipation of the righteous in the world to come when G’d will feed its meat to them. On the other hand, the point of all this is may well be that there are creatures on this earth whose remains can serve as physical food for the bodies of the righteous in a period described by Isaiah 11,9 as a time when “the earth will be filled with knowledge of the Lord like water which covers the oceans.” At that time we, (terrestrial man spiritually refined), will be able to consume such food. No doubt, the meat of these creatures is the kind of refined food which resembles that of the manna and which had a spiritualizing effect on those who consumed it.

ועבדו לעולם, “and he will serve him forever.” Mechilta Nezikin section 2 accepted that the meaning of the word “forever” in this context is “until the advent of the next Jubilee year.” This would be the fiftieth year of the cycle during which the servant had his ear pierced. A period of fifty years has been called עולם already in ancient times and we find a reference to it as having this meaning in Samuel I 1,11 where Samuel’s mother Chanah vows that after she had weaned her young son she would bring him to the Temple to reside there עד עולם, “forever.” Clearly, seeing no one lives forever, she did not mean that the word לעולם is to be understood as literally “forever.” She referred to the active life span of a Levite who is forced to retire at the age of 50 as we know from Numbers 8,24. Samuel was a Levite, of course. Samuel only lived for a total of 52 years, the last 50 of them after his mother had dedicated him to be a servant of G’d as she had vowed before becoming pregnant with him (Jerusalem Talmud Berachot 4,1). The Torah’s direction that the Hebrew servant be freed at the advent of the Jubilee year is effective regardless of how many or how few years before that year the servant in question was acquired.
Another way of interpreting the word לעולם is: “as long as the world exists.” In that event the connection with the שנת היובל would be the יובל הגדול, a concept mentioned in Psalms 105,8 דבר צוה לאלף דור, “He gave a command which is in effect for 1000 generations.” A “generation” in that case would be considered a period of 50 years. When Solomon (Kohelet 1,4) spoke of והארץ לעולם עומדת, that “the earth will endure for a period called עולם,” he referred to these 1000 generations mentioned in Psalms. The word עולם in our verse then would refer to the “world of the great Jubilee.” I shall discuss this in greater detail in my commentary on Leviticus 25,8.

974 generations: In the two thousand years that the Torah preceded the world, these generations were destined to be created, as it is stated (Psalms 105:8), "the word He commanded for a thousand generations." But the Holy One, blessed be He, saw that the world did not survive so well without Torah, so He passed them up and did not create them, but gave it to the twenty-sixth generation. So behold that 974 were missing from the thousand.