Modern physicists start with a single point or singularity that explodes into the 10 dimensions–the Big Bang–but the Zohar goes much further and explains how that space unfolded within that explosion. According to the calculations of the preeminent physics authorities, Steven Hawking, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose, time and space had a finite beginning that corresponded to the origin of matter and energy. The singularity didn’t appear in space; rather, space began inside of the singularity. Prior to the singularity, nothing existed, not space, time, matter, or energy – nothing. Yesh m’ayin, something from nothing. Elsewhere the Zohar discusses this very important concept, but it is in the Zohar portion Tetzaveh that Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai draws upon the illusive Book of Adam to illustrate the secrets of the Holy Name (YHVH) and plot for us the course of the universe as space itself unfolded.
Zohar Tetzavah 8. “The first secret is Yud Of the YudHeVavHe, which is the first point, which stands upon nine pillars that support it. They are stationed to the four directions of the world. Similarly, the end of thought, the last point stands to the four directions of the world.”
9. “This Yud has no body. When it is clothed by them, it stands on 9 pillars, according to the secret of the letter final Mem, without a circle. According to the secret of the letters that are engraved with dots that the supernal lights area quadrangle and those of below are circular.”
10. “This square has the amount of three (3) points, three (3) to each side. They amount to the number of eight (8) points, which are nine (9) points. And these exist by means of the luminary quadrupled [the final Mem] with nine pillars for the letter Yud. Yet they are eight (8) by means of the quadrupled letter final Mem, three (3) to each side.’
11. “and this is the secret. The letter Yud is one (1) point (dot) and even though it is one point, its shape has a head above, a tip below, and a dot below [the body], it amounts to three (3) points. Therefore, the expansion to four (4) sides, three on each side, equals nine.
12. These eight (8) points are pillar that stem from the secret of the luminary to support the letter Yud, and they are considered its Chariot.
13. In the secret of the Book of Adam, these nine that are eight divided into
Zohar Tetzaveh 14 illuminates the placement of the primordial 72 Names within the unfolding of the structure of the universe. But first we must note that it is from the Zohar section Beshalach and elsewhere that we learn that the 72 Names are formed by taking the 3 consecutive 72 letter verses (Exodus 3:19-21) in the Torah concerning the splitting of the Red Sea placement, flipping the middle verse around and then splitting the aligned and sandwiched collective 216 letters into 72 separate triplets and then setting them in an 8 x 9 matrix with 9 rows of 8 columns. From the understanding of Tetzaveh comes the understanding and structure reason for this matrix.
“They are the permutation of the Holy Name by means of 72 engraved letters
