By Rabbi Yitzchak Saeidian
The Two Thousand Years of Nothingness
The first two parshiyos of the Torah span a period that Chazal refer to as the two thousand years of nothingness. What is the meaning of this description, and why were these years considered a time of nothingness?
Midrash Rabbah (Bereishis 64:4) states that Avraham Avinu was forty-eight years old when he “recognized his Creator.” This corresponds to his age at the time of the Dor Haflaga (Eitz Yosef ibid.), which occurred toward the end of the first two thousand years. According to the continuation of the Gemara, the two thousand years of Torah began when Avraham was fifty-two years old, when he began teaching Torah to the masses (Bereishis 12:5).
To understand the significance of these two thousand years, we must first understand the purpose of creation.
Hashem created the world with the intention of bestowing His goodness upon others. In order for mankind to truly earn this goodness, Hashem created a world in which good would not be readily apparent. Through the exercise of free will, man was meant to elevate himself spiritually and develop the ability to distinguish between right and wrong. By doing so, mankind would merit to cleave to Hashem and receive a reward that was genuinely earned (see Derech Hashem, Part 1, 2:2).
At the beginning of creation, there was no Jewish nation. Rather, all of mankind was entrusted with this mission (Derech Hashem, Part 2, 4:3). Unfortunately, humanity failed to fulfill its purpose. Instead of progressing spiritually, mankind continuously deteriorated, culminating in the Dor Haflaga. At that point, Hashem took this mission away from mankind and entrusted it to Avraham Avinu and his descendants (Derech Hashem ibid.).
With this understanding, we can now appreciate Chazal’s description of the first two thousand years on a deeper level.
These years were not predestined to be years of nothingness. Rather, they became years of nothingness as a result of mankind’s failures.
Had mankind succeeded in its mission, it could have brought the world to its ultimate perfection. Instead, humanity fell into a vicious cycle of idolatry, immorality, and robbery (Rashi, Bereishis 6:11).
It is only in retrospect, after mankind failed to fulfill its purpose, that Chazal refer to this period as the two thousand years of nothingness.