Creating and Re-Creating
Can God still create something new?
At the finale of Korach’s rebellion, when Moses requests from God that these rebels be punished and disposed of, Moses requests that the earth open up to swallow the rebels and utters one of the most surprising phrases in the Torah:
וְאִם־בְּרִיאָה יִבְרָא ה׳
“But if God creates a new creation...” (Numbers 16:30)
A new creation?
Hadn’t creation already ended with the six days of Genesis?
This week I discovered that this seemingly innocent phrase opens a fault line running through Jewish thought. Is the universe a finished project, with everything already programmed into existence? Or is God still actively creating and recreating the world?
A Battle Over a Single Word
The commentators immediately divide over the meaning of one word: בריאה.
Rashi embraces the obvious reading:
ואם בריאה — חדשה
“If a creation—an entirely new one.”
For Rashi, Moses is proposing a genuine novelty. If Korach and his followers are swallowed alive by the earth, it will be evidence of a new divine act.
But Ibn Ezra cannot accept that interpretation.
He begins by acknowledging the straightforward reading:
בריאה. י״א שהיא תורה על המצא מה שלא היה
“Some say that בריּאה refers to the bringing into existence of something that did not previously exist.”
And then he rejects it.
Instead, he argues that the word derives from Ezekiel’s use of the verb:
וברא אתהן
“And hack them down.” (Ezekiel 23:47)
According to Ibn Ezra, בריאה here does not mean “creation” at all.
It means:
splitting,
cutting,
hacking open.
He continues:
וכבר נבקעו מדינות רבות וירדו הדרים בהן שאולה
“Many lands have split apart, and those dwelling in them have descended into the pit.”
In other words, earthquakes happen.
The earth opens.
Cities collapse.
Nothing new is being created.
I cannot help but feel that what is driving Ibn Ezra is not grammar but theology. He is so uncomfortable with the possibility that God could create something after the six days of Creation that he redefines the word itself. Rather than allowing Moses to speak of a new act of creation, Ibn Ezra transforms בריּאה into a geological event. The earth is not creating; it is cracking.
The debate is not merely over the meaning of a word.
It is over whether God can still create.
The Mouth of the Earth Was Already Waiting
The Mishnah takes the same side as Ibn Ezra, although by a different route.
In Pirkei Avot 5:6 we read:
עשרה דברים נבראו בערב שבת בין השמשות
“Ten things were created on the eve of the Sabbath at twilight.”
The first item on the list?
פי הארץ
“The mouth of the earth.”
The Mishnah’s message is clear. The earth did not suddenly develop a mouth in the wilderness. It had been there from the very beginning, waiting for Korach.*
* and it is clear to me that our verse וְאִם־בְּרִיאָה יִבְרָא ה׳ triggered this midrash which explains why it is the header
Maimonides makes the point explicit:
לא יאמינו בחדוש הרצון בכל עת
“They would not believe in a new act of Divine will at every instant.”
According to Rambam, the rabbis believed that all miracles were built into creation itself. On the sixth day, God programmed the earth to swallow Korach, just as He programmed the sea to split for the Israelites.
Creation was complete.
Nothing genuinely new would ever be required.
Nothing New Under the Sun
The Talmud in Sanhedrin 110a pushes the idea even further.
Commenting on Moses’ challenge, Rava imagines Moses saying:
אם בריאה גיהנם מוטב ואם לאו יברא ה׳
“If Gehenom is already created, good; and if not, let God create it.”
At first glance, this sounds revolutionary. Moses appears to be asking God to create something entirely new.
But the Gemara immediately objects:
והא אין כל חדש תחת השמש
“But isn’t it written: ‘There is nothing new under the sun’?” (Ecclesiastes 1:9)
The Talmud simply cannot tolerate the possibility of a post-Genesis creation.
Its solution?
Moses was not asking God to create Gehenna.
He was merely asking God to bring its entrance closer.
The creation is old.
Only the location changes.
The rabbis seem almost desperate to protect the finality of Creation.
And Yet the Rabbis Create Something New
But there is a delicious irony here.
The Torah says:
וירדו חיים שאולה
“They descended alive into Sheol.”
In the Bible, Sheol is a vague and shadowy underworld. It is neither heaven nor hell. It is simply a pit; the place of the dead.
Yet the rabbis read:
Sheol = Gehenom.
Suddenly Korach is not merely swallowed by the earth.
He is sent to Hell.
And then they place a remarkable prayer in Moses’ mouth:
אם בריאה גיהנם מוטב, ואם לאו יברא ה׳
“If Gehenom has already been created, good; and if not, let God create it.”
The Talmud quickly retreats from the implications of this statement, insisting that Moses could not possibly be asking God to create something new because:
אין כל חדש תחת השמש
“There is nothing new under the sun.”
But what if we take Moses’ request seriously?
What if the rabbis imagine Moses saying:
“If You have already created a Hell to frighten human beings into obedience, wonderful. If not, we need one now.”
This is no longer about geology.
It is no longer about a crevasse in the earth.
It is about creating a moral reality.
A theological deterrent.
A place of ultimate accountability.
A new tool in the religious toolbox.
In the very passage where the rabbis insist that God cannot create anything new after Genesis, they themselves appear to be introducing one of Judaism’s most powerful—and arguably most dreadful—new ideas.
One could argue that we are watching the creation of Gehenom in real time.
The irony is breathtaking.
The rabbis reject a new creation in nature while simultaneously creating a new institution in religion.
Every Morning We Say the Opposite
And then the Siddur arrives and turns the entire discussion upside down.
Every morning before reciting the Shema we bless God:
ובטובו מחדש בכל יום תמיד מעשה בראשית
“In His goodness He renews each day, continually, the work of creation.”
Not “created.”
Renews.
Every day.
The source for this phrase appears in the Talmud:
ומחדש בכל יום מעשה בראשית
“And renews the work of creation every day.” (Chagigah 12b)
And Psalm 104 declares:
תשלח רוחך יבראון ותחדש פני אדמה
“You send forth Your spirit, they are created; and You renew the face of the earth.” (Psalms 104:30)
This is the polar opposite of Ibn Ezra and the Mishnah’s world.
Not a God who stopped creating.
A God who never stopped.
A God who recreates the world every morning.
When I wake up and say those words, I hear something deeply empowering. Today is not merely another day in an old universe. Today is the first day of a new creation.
The Chasam Sofer’s Great Innovation
Centuries later, the Chasam Sofer famously proclaimed:
חדש אסור מן התורה
“The new is forbidden by the Torah.”
The slogan became the battle cry of the Haredi Ultra Orthodox.
But here too the irony is striking.
The synagogue was an innovation.
Fixed prayer was an innovation.
The Passover Seder was an innovation.
Rabbinic holidays were innovations.
And Gehenom itself, in its fully developed rabbinic form, was an innovation.
The greatest—and arguably revisionist—innovation in Jewish history may be the claim that Judaism does not innovate.
Creating and Re-Creating
Perhaps Judaism has always lived between these two poles.
On one side stands Ibn Ezra, the Mishnah, Maimonides, and the rabbis of Tractate Sanhedrin, all insisting that creation is complete and that nothing genuinely new can emerge after Genesis.
On the other side stand the Siddur, the Psalms, and generations of Jewish thinkers who speak of a God who continually renews creation.
I find myself drawn to both.
In a world that is full of religions who base there veracity on a miracle, I cherish the rabbinic suspicion of miracles and the insistence that we not rely on supernatural intervention.
אין סומכין על הנס
“One may not rely upon a miracle.” (Pesachim 64b)
The rabbis were not merely defending a theory of creation. They were shaping a religious temperament—one that values responsibility over magical thinking.
But I am equally inspired every morning by the possibility that the world is being renewed, that today is not merely another day in an old universe, but the first day of a new creation.
And perhaps that is the deepest lesson of parshat Korach.
The question is not whether the earth opened its mouth.
The real question is whether God can still create something new.
And if the answer is no, how do we explain all the new ideas that Judaism itself has created along the way?
Maybe the answer lies in that beautiful line from our daily prayers:
ובטובו מחדש בכל יום תמיד מעשה בראשית
“In His goodness He renews each day, continually, the work of creation.”
A tradition that insists nothing is new.
A God who recreates the world every day.
And a Judaism that somehow manages to hold both truths at once.
Sefaria Source Sheet: https://voices.sefaria.org/sheets/735044
Listen on Spotify: