The Torah before the Torah (Copy)

Zohar 1:134a

When the blessed Holy One desired, when it arose in His will, to create the world, He gazed into Torah and created it. For every act of creation throughout the world, the blessed Holy One gazed into Torah and created...As He was about to create Adam, Torah exclaimed: 'If a human being is created and then proceeds to sin, and You punish him, why should the work of Your hands be in vain, since he will be unable to endure Your judgement?' He replied, 'I have already prepared teshuvah, returning, before creating the world.' Once He made the world and created Adam, the blessed Holy One exclaimed, 'O world, world! You and your laws are based solely upon Torah. That is why I created the human being in you, so that he might engage in her, strive for her. If not, I will turn you back into chaos and void.'

Kedushath Levi (Beshalach), Rabbi Levi Yitzchok

The Torah existed before the world. Therefore, how is it possible for the Torah to contain such things as, "Timna was the concubine of Eliphaz" (Genesis 36:12) and similar facts. How could these accounts have existed before the world? Actually the entire Torah is God's name. It originally contained cobinations of letters and secret mysteries that "no eye has uncovered" (Job 28:7). In its sequence of descent to this lowly world, the Torah must become clothed in a material garment, which often consists of stories. When God grants a person knowledge, understanding and intelligence, uncovering the mask that blinds his eyes, he can see the wonders of God's Torah. The people on this level are few, however, and the majority only understand the Torah according to its simple meaning. This is the meaning of the expression, "And God spoke to Moses to say." The Word came to Moses in such a way that he was able "to say" it to the people, the Children of Israel. It was given to him so that they should be able to accept it, even the lowliest of them. The Torah contains many other hidden things, concealed mysteries, and secrets.

Geulath Yisroel, Rabbi Yehoshua Avraham

Our sages teach us that the Torah was created two thousand years ago. This is difficult to understand, since the Torah contains the accounts of many events that happened after creation. How then can the Torah speak of creation, Adam and Eve, Noah, the holy Patriarchs, and all the other happenings recorded in the Torah? Actually, when the Torah was first created, it was a mixture of letters, The letters of the Torah were not yet combined into words as they are now. Whenever anything then happened in the world, these letters were combined, and the words were recombined to form the account. As soon as an event [that was to be recorded in the Torah] took place, a combination was immediately formed, corresponding to that even. If a different event had taken place, the letters would have combined different. The Torah is God's wisdom, and it has no end.

God In Search Of Man, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

The word Torah is used in two senses; the supernal Torah, the existence which preceded the creation of the world, and the revealed Torah. Concerning the supernal Torah the Rabbis maintained: "The Torah is hidden from the eye of all living...Man knows not the price thereof." "Moses received Torah" but not all of the Torah "at Sinai." And not all that was revealed to Moses was conveyed to Israel; the meaning of the commandments is given as an example. Together with the gratitude for the word that was disclosed, there is a yearning for the meaning yet to be disclosed. There is a theory in Jewish literature containing a profound parabolical truth which maintains that the Torah, which is eternal in spirit, assumes different forms in various eons. The Torah was known to Adam when was in the Garden of Eden, although not in its present form. Commandments such as those concerning charity to the poor, the stranger, the orphan, and the widow, would have been meaningless in the Garden of Eden. In that eon the Torah was known in its spiritual form. Just as man assumed a material form when he was driven out of the Garden of Eden, so has the Torah assumed a material form. If man had retained "the garments of light" his spiritual form of existence, the Torah, too, would have retained its spiritual form.