In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and empty (tohu wa’bohu), and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God separated the light from the darkness, the day from the night, the waters above from the waters beneath, the sea from the land. He distinguished between the sun and the moon, fish and birds, livestock and creeping things and wild animals. As he breathed his life into human beings who bear his image, he differentiated between male and female. He marked off the days of work from the day of rest, Cain from Abel, the holy from the common. God’s work of creation is, among other things, a series of distinctions that bring order to what is formless (tohu), and life to what is empty (bohu).