Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s excellent new book “Astrophysics for People in a Hurry,” begins with the words: “In the beginning, nearly fourteen billion years ago, all the space and all the matter and all the energy of the known universe was contained in a volume less than one-trillionth the size of the period that ends this sentence.” He then goes on to describe an amazing series of cosmic events that occurs within the first second after the Big Bang at the end of which the universe is already a few light years across and a billion degrees in temperature. The evolution of nature continues at lightning speed for the first two minutes, before pausing for another 380,000 years of relative stagnation. Then the stars and the heavens begin to form until another 8.5 billion years or so later, our own star is born in what Tyson calls, “an undistinguished part of the universe.”
For hundreds of years scholars have argued about how God created the world in six days. In reading Tyson’s book, I finally see that it actually took far less time than a week, and the Shabbat that eventually resulted lasted twenty times longer than human civilization. We should not examine this week’s Torah portion, Bereishit, the very first in our yearly cycle, on scientific terms. Our ancestors had only a fraction of the knowledge about physics that we have today, however, given that fact, it is remarkable how much they actually got right. The basic order of creation from plants, to fish, to larger creatures is not far off from our current understanding. And, while, yes they had no understanding of dinosaurs, and believed the planets, sun and moon only formed on the fourth day, the basic outline presented in the first chapter of Genesis is essentially correct.
Most important is the values it conveys, something that Albert Einstein once addressed in the following way: “the essence of the Jewish conception of life seems to be an affirmative attitude to the life of all creation. The life of the individual has meaning only insofar as it aids in making the life of every living thing nobler and more beautiful. But the Jewish tradition also contains something else, something which finds splendid expression in many of the Psalms, namely a sort of intoxicated joy and amazement at the beauty and grandeur of this world, of which humankind can just form a faint notion. It is the feeling from which true scientific research draws its spiritual substance, but which also seems to find expression in leafy trees and the crash of waves.”
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Alex
Last Updated on 10/13/2017 by wpadm