Rashi on Creation: Beyond Plato and Derrida

In different places in his Commentaries on the Bible and the Talmud, Rashi discussed things that had been created before the creation of world and by means of which it was created. These preexistent things include tohu and bohu, the four physical elements, and the Torah and its letters. Rashi's theory of creation out of primordial materials is based on his careful reading of Scripture, as well as on interpretations found in the Talmud, the Midrash, and Sefer Yeṣirah. It seems also to be indebted to Plato's Timaeus, which was available in part (until 53c) in Calcidius' Latin translation and commentary. According to Rashi, the world was created out of tohu, which is insubstantial and intangible, and made of the Hebrew letters of the Torah, which are nothing but "mere speech and word."