Light and Sun
Shalom and thank you for your question! It is a wonderful question. The Talmudic sages discuss this question in the tractate of the Babylonian Talmud that deals with Genesis, Chapter 1. “Was light created on the first day” they wonder? Regarding the fourth day of creation, it says in Genesis 1:14 ” And G-d said ‘let there be luminaries in the expanse of the heavens, to separate between the day and between the night, and they shall be for signs and for appointed seasons and for days and years’.” This seems to imply that the luminaries were actually created on the fourth of the six days of creation. To resolve this dilemma, the sages present the statement of the mishnah that “these are {the very} luminaries that were created on the first day (of creation) and were not ‘hung’ (in the sky) until the fourth day. What this shows us is that there were two processes taking place, and perhaps three.
Firstly, even before the first day of creation, it says – Genesis 1 and 2, “In the beginning of G-d’s creation of the heavens and of the earth. Now the earth was astonishingly empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep…” the meaning here is not that darkness was created, but that there was no light, and darkness is the absence of light.
Next, on the first day of creation, the entity of light was created, without dependence on the heavenly bodies. Genesis 1:3 – 4 “And G-d said, ‘Let there be light, and there was light. And G-d saw the light that it was good, and G-d separated between the light and between the darkness.” The light had a certain duration, which was to be called day, and the darkness had a certain duration, which was to be called night. The classic Torah commentator Nachmanides, (also known as the Ramban) explains that the Torah text says “and there was light”, and not “and it was so” as stated with other elements of creation. This is because the attribute of light was changed during the six days of creation, from an entity which was independent of luminaries, to an entity which WAS dependent on luminaries.
The division between light and darkness, day and night, already existed, as mentioned in Genesis 1:4 “and G-d separated between the light and between the darkness.” The luminaries spoken of on the fourth day were assigned for the world to distinguish between them, that is, between light and darkness, between day and night. Interestingly a central feature of the fourth day was the ‘hanging’ of the moon, which is a luminary in the midst of darkness. This did not come into existence before the fourth day.
Genesis 1:14 – 18: “And G-d said, ‘Let there be luminaries in the expanse of the heavens, to separate between the day and between the night, and they shall be for signs and for appointed seasons and for days and years. And they shall be for luminaries in the expanse of the heavens to shed light upon the earth. And G-d made the two great luminaries: the great luminary to rule the day and the lesser luminary to rule the night, and the stars. And G-d placed them in the expanse of the heavens to shed light upon the earth. And to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate between the light and between the darkness, and G-d saw that it was good’.”
The division between day and night had already existed, as we saw, only on the fourth day luminaries were appointed, entities by which day and night could be discerned. As mentioned above, the novel feature of the fourth day was the moon, a luminary in the midst of darkness, which had not existed before.
Perhaps this discussion highlights the concept that nothing can come into existence without G-d so desiring it. If G-d wishes there to be light, there is light even without the sun. In a human being, there is the capacity to see, and there is the eye. If we close our eyes, or if a person becomes blind G-d forbid, there is the ‘mind’s eye’. The capacity to see exists but without the external mechanism. The world that we know is only an external expression of G-d’s will and desire. The sun is a creation of G-d and can only give light because G-d created it with that capability. Had G-d not created the sun or the moon, they would not exist at all, and not have any capabilities. The great scholar Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon, known as Maimonides, compiled thirteen principles of faith which are accepted universally as fundamentals of Jewish belief. The first of these thirteen principles is “Belief in the existence of the Creator, who is perfect in every manner of existence and is the Primary cause of all that exists.” Since G-d is the ‘primary cause of all that exists’, it follows that G-d can create light with or without luminaries, and thus there can be light before the existence of the sun or moon or stars.
Sources: Babylonian Talmud page 12 on Genesis chapter 1, with commentary of Nachmanides, Seforno and Kli Yakar.
