[Avodah] Rav Keller's JO article on evolution

[Sober Family]

RGS: 4. The 4th of the aseres hadibros says to remember Shabbos and sanctify
it.. for in 6 days Hashem made the heavens and the earth and He rested
on the seventh. - Rav Keller writes about this "Can we seriously consider
this an allegory for a period of billions of years? Is this the lesson the
Torah is teaching us- the greatness of God that He took 6 long undefined
periods of time to crate the world?

My husband z"l used to take precisely the opposite position. He argued that BECAUSE the seven days can be understood as an allegory, we do not need to take them literally.

In other words: we do not need to posit that the Torah specifies six days in order to tell us that the world was literally created in six days. We are permitted to accept the overwhelming scientific evidence against a young universe. We can understand the Torah as describing the creation of the world in six distinct stages (length not defined), followed by a seventh stage of rest. The Torah calls these stages "days" not because each one lasted 24 hours, but to convey the message that the pattern of creation is eternally reflected in the sanctification of the seventh literal day of every week.

As always, Moshe's clear insights lose a lot in their transmission through me - I wish he were here to write this, but I will just have to do the best I can and hope that any inaccuracies will be forgiven.

(Ironically, RGS's post was originally submitted the day before Moshe died, but I doubt he would have had the strength to respond in any case.)

Gmar chatima tova,
Ilana
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