The Gemara teaches that this world was created with the letter hey, while the World to Come was created with the letter yud. R’ Yayva (1738–1791) points out a remarkable allusion to this in the very first pasuk of the Torah. The letters that created these worlds—yud and hey—are the first two letters of Hashem’s name, י-ה-ו-ה.
The Torah opens with the words: בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ, in the beginning of Hashem’s creating the heavens and the earth.
R’ Yayva offers an interpretive insight: The word בראשית can be read as a contraction of ב' ראשית referring to the first two letters of Hashem’s name י-ה-ו -ה. These two letters created the next world (השמים) and this world (הארץ).
Let’s conclude with this. The first letter of י-ה-ו-ה is a yud, which created the next world, while the second letter of י-ה-ו-ה, the hey, created this world. Strikingly, the pasuk lists שמים, the next world before הארץ, mirroring the order of these letters in the Divine name.
