A vort of the Rebbe on this week's פרשה, פרשת בראשית. The word בראשית is the first word of the Torah. And the first letter of the first word is a bet. And the question that's asked in many places is, why does the Torah start with a bet, which is the second letter of the alef bet? Why shouldn't it start with an alef, which is the first letter of alef bet, since this is the beginning of the Torah? Now in Yerushalmi it says that the word, the letter alef is an abbreviation of the word ארור, which means cursed. The letter bet is an abbreviation to the word baruch or berachah, which is a blessing. That's why it starts with a bet, to start with a letter that represents berachah. But the Rebbe asks, but there we could surely find good words that start with an alef, and chas veshalom not such good words that start with a bet. So because there is this word berachah and here there is the word ארור, that's why it starts with a bet? And another question: We find in the Gemara the story that Talmi HaMelech forced the Sanhedrin, the chachamim, to translate the Torah in Greek. They didn't want to. And he was afraid that they would make up to make changes, so he put each one in a separate room and they didn't know why they were put there, and he told each one to translate. Here, they can't make up before to make certain changes. Nevertheless, there're certain changes that Hashem put into the mind of each one of them that they had to change, because if they wouldn't change it, he would have explained peshat in the pesukim not the true way.

One of the changes they made is that they didn't write it as if it says בראשית ברא אלקים, but אלקים ברא בראשית. בראשית ברא אלקים means in the beginning Hashem created, but they could have taytsh, בראשית is a name of a creature. So בראשית ברא אלקים, this creature בראשית created Elokim, created Hashem. So that's why they changed it that it should read אלקים ברא בראשית את השמים ואת הארץ, that the Oibershter created in the beginning שמים וארץ. But it comes out that according to the translation they made for him, it did start with an alef. It started with the word אלקים. And it's interesting, why is it that that one did start with an Alef?

And the nekudah that the Rebbe says is that the reason that Torah starts with a beis is because the learning of the Torah has to be the beis, the second step. Before you start learning Torah, the approach to Torah, the Alef of Torah has to be the realization that Torah is holy and Torah is the wisdom of Hashem. And in order to connect to the Torah, not to the wisdom of the Torah, in order to connect to the kedushah, the holiness of the Torah, to the godliness of the Torah, you have to have that approach that this is חכמתו של הקדוש ברוך הוא. And then you start learning. So when you learn, which is the second step already, you will be permeated with the kedushah and the feeling of the holiness of the Torah. And that is the deeper peshat in what it says in Yerushalmi that beis is brachah and Alef is arur, doesn't mean kefeshuto because the word, the letter beis is abbreviation of the word brachah. If you learn the Torah in the form of beis, that means that the learning is the second step, then you will get a brachah, which means you will really have what the Torah is. But if you learn, the learning is the first step, there's nothing before that, there's no feeling of kedushah before it, but there is just the logic of it, then takeh that brings a kelalah. And it's interesting that hashgachah pratis is that the Gemara also starts with a דף בית. The first daf, the first page of the Gemara is already beis. There's technical reasons for it, but hashgachah pratis it is that way because to teach us that when you start learning even Gemara, the approach has to be that the learning already is the second step. And this is why when they translated it for Talmi HaMelech, for a goy, it did start with an alef, because this whole idea of feeling the kedushah and אלוקות in Torah and having that approach to Torah, m'meila when you learn Torah you connect to the essence of the Torah, which is Hashem, that goyim don't have. By them, they learn Torah, and some of them could learn Torah, and it's a great subject. The pasuk says, כי היא חכמתכם ובינתכם לעיני העמים, this is the greatest knowledge in the eyes of the goyim. They could learn, so there are goyim who even learn Gemara. But to them it was a subject. So to them, takeh the learning starts with an alef. But by Yidden, it starts with a beis because there's the alef before it. And this is the beginning of the Torah, before we even start learning we have to have that feeling, and that is the beginning of the whole Torah throughout the whole year. that when we learn Torah, we have to learn with the feeling of knowing that this is חכמתו של הקדוש ברוך הוא, and when we learn Torah, we unite with the Aibershter Himself.