HaRav Yitzchok Kolodetsky
Even though we all know that HaKodosh Boruch Hu created everything, many nursery and elementary school teachers say that before the Creation there was darkness or water or something, implying that there was something before the Creation of the world.
Of course if anyone is asked who created the water they would say Hashem (after all be bless "everything was created by His word") but it comes from lack of attention. As the holy Ohr HaChaim writes, "This gives, chas vesholom, a possibility for sinners to say that the water was not, chas vesholom, created by Hashem."
No one is suspected [of a substantive error] but the mistake must be corrected, by parents, teachers and everyone else.
In Medrash Rabbah (Bereishis 1:9) it says that a philosopher asked Rabban Gamliel about this, and he brought proof from explicit pesukim in Tanach that HaKodosh Boruch Hu created everything. Similarly in Chagigah (12a) it lists ten things that were created the first day: Shomayim, Eretz, Tohu, Bohu, light, darkness, water, the measure of day and the measure of night.
We must review and learn that HaKodosh Boruch Hu created the entire world, out of nothing, exactly as it sounds. Before the Creation there was nothing besides Him, and from the beginning HaKodosh Boruch Hu continually renews all of Maaseh Bereishis.
Hopefully everyone will raise blessed generations with pure hashkofoh in the spirit of Yisroel Saba.
Rav Kolodetsky is the son-in-law of HaRav Chaim Kanievsky shlita.
