Question
Hello Rabbi, I have a profound question, how do we know HaShem, the timeless being, created us directly, and not a different creation creating us? I don’t think I am asking about a computer program, since that doesn’t really put life into the digitized “being”, it just lets us see an image made out of pixels.
Answer
Our sages teach us that inevitably, in order for an eternal all-knowing, omni-present Being (which we call: God) to create a physical, limited world, there was a need for a really significant Tzimtzum (reduction or contraction). This was carried out by a complicated series of myriads of stages of Hishtalshelut ("step-down" mechanisms). Those multitude of created stages were all created by God, and they all get back to Him. He is the only One (until He created man) with independent will or desire, so even if you wish to look at the various stages of the chain of evolution, it all really goes back to Him as the creator. Similarly, when it's written "and He breathed into man's (Adam's) nostrils the breath of life" (Breishit 2, 7) the Zohar explains, "when one blows into something (like a balloon), he takes the air in his own lungs and blows it into the other's. So the life itself and man's free will, could only have come from He who is the source of all life, and the only One with free-will who can share it with us.