[Avodah] How old is the world?

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 12:40:06PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote:
> From http://tinyurl.com/l6t88mq
>
> Mr. Friedmann, based on classical sources, aligns the dates of key  
> events as described in Genesis 1 and 2 with those derived from  
> scientific theory and observation. How? One Creation Day = 1,000 x  
> 365.25 x 7,000 = 2.56 billion years.

I sent the following to R' Kalman Packouz, who forwarded it on to
RDFriedman:

We discussed R Aryeh Kaplan's "Kabbalah and the Age of the Universe"
(later renamed "'Immortality, Resurrection, and the Age of the Universe"
when republished after the word "Kabbalah" got hijacked). Available on
Lulu for free at <http://j.mp/18nxdIk>.

The problem is, as R' Aryeh Kahn noted at
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol14/v14n065.shtml#14>, there is strong
indication that we aren't in the 7th cycle. R' Yitzchaq Sagi Nahor says
we're in Din, Gevurah, which would be the second or perhaps (if climbing
upward) 6th. And the whole thing works according to the Ramban, but not
the Ari. See RAK's post.

Personally, I would go with R' Dessler's non-answer that time without
an observer is meaningless. Not for relativistic reasons (a la Dr Gerald
Schroeder) but for Kantian ones -- time is a phenomenon, a category the
human perception imposes on a basically incomprehensible reality. At
least that's my take (colored perhaps by R' Aryeh Carmell's various
references to Kantian elements to his rebbe's thought in footnotes) the
aptly titled "Yemei Bereishis veYemai Olam" at MmE vol II pp 150-154. The
last section, about how the eitz hada'as caused linear time and time's
arrow (from past to future), seems quite clear to me. And the same theme
is explicated further in vol IV, pp 113, "Zeman veHishtalshelus". R'
Dessler concludes that the answer is both -- science tells us one way
of how the unfathomable looks, and the words of the chumash give us a
spiritually more useful way of looking at the same (incomprehensible)
series of events.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Rescue me from the desire to win every
micha at aishdas.org        argument and to always be right.
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