[Avodah] Bereishit

[Alexander Seinfeld]

7 things every Jew should know about Ma’aseh Bereishit, even if it was not
taught in BY:

1. The Torah is not a history book. It is not Historia. It is Toras
Chayim. If it says something that sounds historical but contradicts
scientific History, that’s not a kasheh on the Torah, it’s more like a
sha’elah - “Why did HKBH write this? What’s He teaching me here?”

2. We know that Adam HaRishon was created 5,779 years ago. There is no
significant debate about that.

3. We don’t know for certain the meaning of the 5.9 days before Adam
HaRishon. The sun was created on Day 4, so what was the meaning of a day
before that, if there was no sun? Not clear.

4. Learn the Ramban on the first perek – sounds a lot like the
descriptions we have of the Big Bang.

5. There are things in this world that look millions of years old. To deny
that they look that way is like denying that the Earth is round. They
really do look that way. So either HKBH made them looking old for some
reason, or they really are old. A person can ignore the question and say,
“It’s enough for me just to believe,” but the Gemara (and plenty of
Rishonim and Acharonim) says that we have an obligation to study Nature to
the best of our ability.

6. There are plenty of things that the smartest scientists admit they
don’t know. For instance, they think that right after the moment of
creation (Big Bang), the entire universe inflated instantly, like someone
blowing up a balloon. Just to make this clear. There are patterns in the
universe that defy logical explanation. In order to explain these
patterns, it has been proposed (and accepted by many but not all
cosmologists) that from
1/1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 second until
1/1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 second after the Big Bang,
the universe expanded at an exponential rate (in that short moment it got
100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times bigger), and then the expansion
slowed down. They have good reasons for believing this theory. It helps
explain some of the bizarre things that we see when we look through our
telescopes, chiefly, the fact that the universe appears to be the same in
all directions. Yet they have no idea what could have caused this
inflation. Worse for them, the current rate of expansion has been proven
to be accelerating, but again they have no idea what invisible energy
source could be causing this. It would be far simpler to say, “It looks
the same in every direction because it was created at the current size;
there was no Big Bang and no expansion and no inflation.”


But wait, we see that it is indeed currently expanding. Doesn’t that prove
the Big Bang?
- Expansion doesn’t prove anything. It’s a fact that requires a theory to
explain it. We know and believe that for some reason when HKBH made the
world 5,779 years (+ 6 days) ago, he decided to make it continuously
expand. 
- Maybe this bizarre things accelerating expansion that we see, along with
hypothetical inflation, are just the artist’s signature on His artwork?
For after all, the only thing that can cause acceleration is more energy.
The best rational explanation for this invisible “dark” energy is that
Hashem continues to be mashpia on the world and wants us to know it,
without being too obvious.

But wait, we also know that the stars are zillions of miles away from us,
and given the known speed of light, their starlight should have taken
millions or even billions of years to reach us. Doesn’t that prove at
least that the universe is mighty old?
- No, it doesn’t: see #5 above.

7. Yet to constantly answer, “Hashem just did/does it that way" is a bit
facile and reminds me of young people who give this answer when asked,
“What causes a hurricane?" If we dismissed every question with “Hashem
does it” without looking into the mechanism that HKBH uses to do it, we
would be much poorer, and possibly less safe and healthy. Besides giving
us practical wisdom (how to predict hurricanes, how to fight cancer, how
to build stronger bridges), knowing the details about how these things
work should increase our sense of wonder and our Emunah.

So what’s the answer to point #5 above? Is the universe vastly ancient, or
was it just made to look that way?

I don’t know, but I’m personally completely comfortable with either
answer. Neither answer can (to my understanding) be proven nor disproven.
I suspect they are both true.

That, as my grandfather z’’l would have said, is my 2-bits. Your critical
feedback welcome.

Good Shabbos
Alexander Seinfeld
jewishspirituality.net