Time in the Teachings of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi

‘Ets hayim
that he refuted elsewhere as an 
insufficient explanation of the timing of the creation.
82
In this passage Vital argues 
that the creation was preceded by a sequence of emanations, and that the duration of 
this sequence determined the exact timing of the creation of the worlds. Rashaz does 
not accept Vital’s argument with regard to time and the creation, but he is willing to 
use the idea that lies behind it: in Rashaz’s 
ma’amar
the notion of the order of time 
explains the sequence of the coming into being of the 
sefirot 
of the World of 
Emanation.
This idea, hinted at in Rashaz’s teaching, as illustrated above, is further 
elaborated by the Tsemah Tsedek, whose attitude to philosophical discussion was 
80
Pirkei de-Rabi Eli‘ezer
, ch. 3, 2b. 
81
LT 
Balak
70c [Appendix 26]. 
82
See Vital, 
‘Ets hayim
, Sha’ar 1, ‘anaf 1, 25, and see 
Seder tefilot 
75d-76a. See also note 16 above. 

---

50 
much more welcoming than his grandfather’s. In the following passage he attempts 
to explain what Hasdai Crescas may have had in mind when he claimed that time 
had somehow existed before the creation of the world: 
It would seem from the words of the author of the 
‘Akedah
83
that Rabbi 
Hasdai came to the conclusion that [the categories of] prior and posterior 
apply [to God]. But he may have argued that they apply to the essence of the 
Creator only from the moment of the emanation of the ten 
sefirot
, for only 
then do [the categories of] prior and posterior apply. This is what is called the 
order of time [
seder zemanim
], that is to say, priority and posteriority, for the 
attribute of 
Hesed
was emanated first, and only then the attribute of 
Gevurah
and 
Din
, and after that the attribute of 
Rahamim
, etc.
84
The Tsemah Tsedek revises Hasdai Crescas’ critique of Aristotle and Maimonides, 
mediated to him by Yitshak Arama’s 15
th
century work
 ‘Akedat Yitshak
. Contrary to 
Aristotle, Crescas maintained that time was not related to the existence of motion. 
Instead, he proposed the idea of time as duration.
85
Among the consequences of this 
change were the attribution of time to eternal and immobile entities, such as God and 
the Intelligences on the one hand, and the conceptualisation of time as pre-existent 
on the other hand. Hence, says Crescas, the midrashic statement whereby the order 
of time preceded the creation “may be taken in the literal sense.”
86
The author of the 
‘Akedat Yitshak
disagrees with him, claiming that time could not have existed before 
the Creation, and that the midrashicic statement must refer to something else. 
According to Arama, the Midrash is attempting to resolve a much more specific 
issue than the one Crescas is dealing with, namely, the existence of time before the 
creation of the celestial spheres. Thus the question that occupies the Sages is not 
whether time is bound to motion by definition and in general, but rather it is whether 
time is bound specifically to the motion of the celestial spheres. According to the 
83
Yitshak Arama, 
‘Akedat Yitshak
, Be-reshit, 40a-b. 
84
Schneersohn, 
Sefer ha-hakirah
, 114a [Appendix 27].
85
See Wolfson, 
Crescas’ critique of Aristotle
, 93-98, 290-91, 657-58; Harvey, 
Physics and 
Metaphysics
, 4-8. 
86
Ibid., 290-291. This contradicts Maimonides in 
Moreh nevukhim
, ii, 30. See also Wolfson, 
Crescas’ 
critique
, 663. 

---

51 
biblical account of the creation [Gn 1:14-19], stars and planets were created on the 
fourth day; nonetheless, temporal characteristics such as the division between day 
and night feature in the creation from its very beginning. The order of time, 
according to Arama, refers to the first three days of creation, when the duration of 
time had already been established, yet there was no motion of the celestial spheres 
by which time is measured. Thus Crescas was wrong when he maintained the 
existence of the duration of time prior to the creation.
87
The Tsemah Tsedek refutes both Arama’s positioning of the order of time in 
the first three days of creation, and the idea that time existed prior to the creation, 
which Arama attributes to Crescas. Rather than agreeing with either of these views, 
he reinterprets Crescas in line with his Habad predecessors,
88
arguing that to refer to 
God in temporal terms, as in Crescas’ interpretation of the order of time, would 
imply that there was priority and posteriority in the divine before the creation. This 
cannot possibly apply to the essence of God, which according to Rashaz lies above 
and beyond any temporal characterisation,
89
but only to the world of Emanation, 
which is in a state of absolute unity with God,
90
and is thus above time, since time 
exists only from the 
sefirah
of 
Malkut
of the world of Emanation downwards.
Nevertheless, despite the unity of the world of Emanation with the divine, the 
ten 
sefirot
that constitute it had emanated from God in a definite order of 
concatenation. The Tsemah Tsedek, following Rashaz, identifies the order in which 
these ten 
sefirot
emanated with the ‘order of times’ mentioned in the Midrash. In this 
way he transposes the account of the creation into the theosophical discourse. The 
order of time, which Crescas ascribes to the divine prior to the creation, the Tsemah 
Tsedek ascribes to the 
sefirot
above the worlds of Creation, Formation and Making; 
time, which Yitshak Arama attaches to the subcelestial realm, the Tsemah Tsedek 
87
Arama, 
‘Akedat Yitshak
, Be-reshit, 40a-b. 
88
On the incompatibility between temporal categories and reality prior to creation according to 
Rashaz and Dov Ber, see note 18 above. 
89
On Rashaz's view on the supra-temporal character of God see section 1.1 of this chapter above. On 
the view of Rashaz and his immediate followers on the unknowability of any aspect of the essence of 
the divine and its manifestations, see Elior, 
Paradoxical Ascent
, 73-77. 
90
See note 68 above. 

---

52 
ascribes to the 
sefirot 
and to the worlds below 
Malkhut 
of the World of Emanation. 
The order of time is indeed something that exists prior to the created worlds, but it is 
still contained within the boundaries of the World of Emanation. It exists, as Rashaz 
puts it: “from the time of the emanation and coming into being of spiritual worlds,”
91
“spiritual worlds” meaning either the World of Emanation or the worlds created and 
destroyed by God before the creation of this world.
92
Lastly, the order of time is seen 
not only as something that precedes time but also as the paradigm of time and the 
source of its existence.
93
It is not surprising, therefore, that Rashaz identifies the 
order of time with the Tetragrammaton – “He was, He is, and He will be,” from 
which the temporal modes of past, present and future develop in the lower worlds.
94