[Avodah] dinosaurs

[Ilana Sober Elzufon]

My older daughter has been fascinated by both Torah and science at least
from kindergarten. Fortunately, AFAIK, no teacher ever told her that
dinosaurs didn't exist.

In general, when I don't have a good way of reconciling Torah with science
(and this child has been reading secular science magazines and books since
she learned how to read, so her science was never filtered through Bais
Yaakov), I say straight out that it's a good question and I don't know the
answer. Sometimes she keeps working on the problem and refining her
hypotheses. Recently (she's 13), she gobbled up Natan Aviezer's book on
Creation and Science in a single day. I expect she will continue reading and
thinking on the topic and refining her understanding. Unlike me, she has the
FFB advantage of a firmly imprinted worldview from a very young age that G-d
created the universe - I think the strength of her emunah gives her the
ability to ask hard questions without ch"v stumbling into kefirah. Whereas
I, who was raised with kefirah, find that more challenging.

As far as the BT on the blog - I think a good answer (and it's hard to think
of a good answer on the spot) would have been something like: It is hard to
understand where dinosaurs fit in the story of Bereishit. Different rabbis
have different ideas. Some people say that there were no dinosaurs - G-d
just made dinosaur bones and put them in the ground. Other people say that
G-d did create dinosaurs along with the other animals, but they all died.
Your rebbe is correct that no one has ever seen a dinosaur, and no one knows
the real answer to the question.

I'm not sure if I would get into the age-of-the-universe question with a
six-year-old. I originally chose not to, but my daughter discussed the
matter with an older cousin and got information that way, and it doesn't
seem to have done her any harm. So the father could also have said something
like, We don't really understand how time worked when the world was created.
Some people think that "days" were much longer back then, and that the world
is very old. But I would be cautious with this, because I wouldn't want to
swear the child to secrecy and I am sure there are parents in the school who
would not want their first graders exposed to these ideas.

- Ilana
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