Creation, kindness, and an apparently irrelevant detail

Avot 5:8 teaches that 10 things were created on the eve of the first Shabbat, though it ultimately raises the total to 14 (listed below). So what?

From our viewpoint as inhabitants of the 21^st century, it makes little practical difference to our daily lives whether the 14 things listed in this Mishnah were created just as the Six Days of Creation were drawing to their close, earlier in the week or even after the first Shabbat. In any event, our consumerist habits tend to direct our attention towards when things expire or pass their use-by date, not the precise moment in time in they were manufactured. The mishnah however teaches nothing in vain. So why do we need to know this detail? Rabbi Yehudah Assad, Chidushei Mahari’a al Pirkei Avot, explains that this apparently redundant piece of information teaches that all 14 of these creations reflect God’s chesed (kindness) towards His people.  How is this so?

A verse in the Book of Psalms records in part that “[In] kindness the World is created” (89:3), What is the significance of this? This verse hints that, when God created the World, he did so during the hours of daylight. Day is divided into 12 hours. Six days of 12 hours duration gives a total of 72 hours. The word for “kindness” in Hebrew is חֶסֶד (chesed). The numerical value of the Hebrew word חֶסֶד is also 72 and twilight on the Sixth Day of Creation represents the point at which the 72^nd and final hour of the working week literally shades off into night. The 14 creations in our Mishnah were therefore brought into existence as a matter of chesed. 

This message might seem a little cute and contrived, but it carries a powerful point: if all these things were created as an act or sign of God’s kindness, then the damaging forces called mazikim [discussed at length on 13 October 2020 here] must have been created as an act of kindness too. Bearing this in mind, it is worth considering afresh what they are and why God should have troubled Himself to create them.

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 The first 10 things are (i) the mouth of the Earth; (ii) the mouth of the well; (iii) the mouth of the ass; (iv) the rainbow; (v) manna; (vi) the staff; (vii) the shamir worm; (viii) writing; (ix) that which is written and (x) the tablets.

The four additional things are (xi) damaging entities (mazikim);  (xii) the burial place of Moses and (xiii) Abraham's ram -- and some say also (xiv) tongs that are made with tongs.