Yoma

Even as a man embracing his companion.1 Resh Lakish said: When the heathens entered the Temple and saw the Cherubim whose bodies were intertwisted with one another, they carried them out and said: These Israelites, whose blessing is a blessing, and whose curse is a curse, occupy themselves with such things! And immediately they despised them, as it is said: All that honored her, despised her, because they have seen her nakedness.2 AND IT WAS CALLED SHETHIYAH: A Tanna taught: [It was so called] because from it the world was founded.3 We were taught in accord with the view that the world was started [created] from Zion on. For it was taught: R. Eliezer says: The world was created from its centre, as it is said: When the dust runneth into a mass, and the clods keep fast together.4 R. Joshua said: The world was created from its sides on, as it is said: For He saith to the snow: ‘Fall thou on the earth’; likewise to the shower of rain, and to the showers of His mighty rain.5 R. Isaac the Smith said: The Holy One, blessed be He, cast a stone into the ocean, from which the world then was founded as it is said: Whereupon were the foundations thereof fastened, or who laid the corner-stone thereof?6 But the Sages said: The world was [started] created from Zion, as it is said: A Psalm of Asaph, God, God, the Lord [hath spoken],7 whereupon it reads on: Out of Zion, the perfection of the world,8 that means from Zion was the beauty of the world perfected. It was taught: R. Eliezer the Great said: These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth, in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven.9 The generations [the creations] of heaven10 were made from the heaven and the generations of the earth were made from the earth. But the Sages said: Both were created from Zion, as it is said: ‘A Psalm of Asaph: God, God, the Lord, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof.’ And Scripture further says: ‘Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined forth’, that means from it the beauty of the world was perfected. HE TOOK THE BLOOD FROM HIM THAT WAS STIRRING IT: etc. What does ‘KE-MAZLIF’ mean? — R. Judah showed it to mean formed until the earth was completed. all sides towards the centre, which is last in foundation. All Scriptural verses here are used as intimation not logically but illustratively. Here is an amazing anticipation of the modern theory that the world was founded by the solidification of vapours, the Talmudic account ascribing this gradual creation to the will of God.