October 24, 2008
"In the beginning..."
The great historian Paul Johnson wrote in 1987, "It is significant that the first chapter of Genesis, unlike any other cosmogony of antiquity, fits perfectly well, in essence, with modern scientific explanations of the origin of the universe, not least the 'Big Bang' theory." Dr. Stephen Hawking, Cambridge University's famous astrophysicist noted, "Many people do not like the idea that time has a beginning, probably because it smacks of Divine intervention." And Dr. Robert Jastrow, the director of the NASA's Goddard Center for Space Studies, wrote in the New York Times:
This is an exceedingly strange development, unexpected by all but the theologians. They have always accepted the word of the Bible: In the beginning God created heaven and earth... For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.
I would, as always, like to suggest you exhaust your scientific research not one iota short of complete intellectual and scientific satisfaction because in today's world, that can truly be found. The physical sciences and Torah (not the simple, evangelical reading of it, but rather the reading espoused by our illustrious sages and talmudic history) can live together in holy matrimony - two sides of the same coin. What I strongly suggest, however, is that once one's research is done, this coin gets flipped the right way around - and stays there.
The Torah is not a history book, nor a science manual, but rather God's instruction (as the word "torah" means in hebrew, like "morah", teacher). Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch wrote that theology is man's study of God, Torah is God's study of man. In fact, on a much deeper level, the Torah is the blueprint of creation - literally. When placed before the great movie projector in the sky, the Torah projects a created world beyond all concepts of time and space where the world is the silver screen, and we are the stars. From God's eye, the Torah recounts the heartbeats of creation - not a construct of atoms and molecules, astrophysics and cosmology, but a reflection of spiritual truth and oneness made manifest in a physical reality. The metrics of metaphysics. The Torah would do more to explain why you have ten fingers and toes than to outline the laws of nature.
This is the other side of the coin, without which we will never rise from grit and grime of mother nature. And while down here we're made of the same stuff as your ipod and monchichi pet, up there we're a gazillion miles away. Your soul puts you in a class by yourself, close as can be to God Himself, and that makes you the center of the whole shebang. The Talmud says each of us must teach ourselves to say, "for me the entire world was created." We need to teach ourselves either because we're incredibly humble, or cripplingly insecure, or more to the point stuck on this side of things and not yet truly aware of what's really going on. "In the beginning..." is a great place to start.
Good Shabbos
The great historian Paul Johnson wrote in 1987, "It is significant that the first chapter of Genesis, unlike any other cosmogony of antiquity, fits perfectly well, in essence, with modern scientific explanations of the origin of the universe, not least the 'Big Bang' theory." Dr. Stephen Hawking, Cambridge University's famous astrophysicist noted, "Many people do not like the idea that time has a beginning, probably because it smacks of Divine intervention." And Dr. Robert Jastrow, the director of the NASA's Goddard Center for Space Studies, wrote in the New York Times:
This is an exceedingly strange development, unexpected by all but the theologians. They have always accepted the word of the Bible: In the beginning God created heaven and earth... For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.
I would, as always, like to suggest you exhaust your scientific research not one iota short of complete intellectual and scientific satisfaction because in today's world, that can truly be found. The physical sciences and Torah (not the simple, evangelical reading of it, but rather the reading espoused by our illustrious sages and talmudic history) can live together in holy matrimony - two sides of the same coin. What I strongly suggest, however, is that once one's research is done, this coin gets flipped the right way around - and stays there.
The Torah is not a history book, nor a science manual, but rather God's instruction (as the word "torah" means in hebrew, like "morah", teacher). Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch wrote that theology is man's study of God, Torah is God's study of man. In fact, on a much deeper level, the Torah is the blueprint of creation - literally. When placed before the great movie projector in the sky, the Torah projects a created world beyond all concepts of time and space where the world is the silver screen, and we are the stars. From God's eye, the Torah recounts the heartbeats of creation - not a construct of atoms and molecules, astrophysics and cosmology, but a reflection of spiritual truth and oneness made manifest in a physical reality. The metrics of metaphysics. The Torah would do more to explain why you have ten fingers and toes than to outline the laws of nature.
This is the other side of the coin, without which we will never rise from grit and grime of mother nature. And while down here we're made of the same stuff as your ipod and monchichi pet, up there we're a gazillion miles away. Your soul puts you in a class by yourself, close as can be to God Himself, and that makes you the center of the whole shebang. The Talmud says each of us must teach ourselves to say, "for me the entire world was created." We need to teach ourselves either because we're incredibly humble, or cripplingly insecure, or more to the point stuck on this side of things and not yet truly aware of what's really going on. "In the beginning..." is a great place to start.
Good Shabbos
posted by Rabbi Lynn at
3:35 PM
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