hello everyone and welcome once again to the temple institute
parsha class my name is gedalia meyer i'm podcasting from milo doming in
israel as i speak israel remains in a
coronavirus lockdown that has made much of the population confused and angry
while leaving much of the rest cautiously hopeful
nobody knows exactly how much longer this lockdown will last
or if they do they are not letting the rest of us know
everyone hopes the numbers will go down significantly so that we can get back to
our normal lives but there isn't all that much confidence
that will hap that it will happen anytime soon needless to say
it is frustrating but like all things in life that are frustrating
this too shall somehow pass meanwhile life does go on normal or
otherwise thankfully we have things in our lives
that remind us however subtly that there is always a
way to begin again it may be a new year a birthday a
new job a new relationship or just about
anything else that we can somehow latch onto that manages to convince us
that things will get better it happens that judaism
is loaded with these things perhaps because jewish history
is unfortunately loaded with situations that demanded
optimism at all costs there is rosh hashanah there is yom kippur there is
passover there are weddings and bar mitzvahs and
births every one of these things is a reminder that things can change for the
better and that there is a silver lining
surrounding every cloud there is also of course the parsha
this week is not just any old parsha even though no parsha is really
any old parsha but this week's parsha is the epitome
of not just any old parsha it is the parsha
of bereshit where the nor where the annual cycle of reading the torah begins
anew no matter how disconnected a somewhat observant jew is from the
intricacies of the torah and its true message they cannot help
but be aware and even a bit optimistic about starting the torah all
over again this is not just any another new year's
celebration this is the torah and of course the
story of creation bereshit means
in the beginning everyone knows that even those who don't know a word of
hebrew or have never looked into the bible
somehow that phrase in the beginning in whatever language it is translated
has made it into the collective human consciousness
as the definitive statement of everything
there has been much discussion among jewish scholars for the ages
as to whether the this translation really hits the spot
or if some other variation reveals an inner truth
that is missed entirely by in the beginning
but in spite of all that this translation and
interpretation remains the gold standard nothing quite answers the ultimate
question like the opening sentence of the bible in the
beginning god created the heavens and the earth
we're going to analyze this sentence in classic jewish style
going through the words to find out what it really means
first of all let's deal with the general matter of creation
the word itself the third word in the hebrew text
has the connotation of creating something
from nothing the well-known latin term for this is creation
ex nihilo from the strictly scientific point of view there is no such thing
how can something come from nothing this might sound a bit too philosophical
for many people's taste but it is really quite a quite simple
matter that concerns us all it may have nothing to do with
the latest facebook or instagram post but when put
in perspective it seems a good deal more important than
those things how did everything get here science in
spite of all its majestic achievements over the past 500 years or so
still has no answer to this very basic question
what they have succeeded in doing is devising a structure for how it would
work if it could work the structure for better or better or
worse is called the big bang while the phrase sounds
like something a boy in kindergarten came up with
it is really the best thing out there it simply happened that the entire
universe everything space time matter energy
all the intricate laws of nature whether known or unknown
came into being in that one fateful instant
if you think this all sounds a bit like in the beginning god created the heavens
and the earth you would not be wrong it does
and it is the only difference is between the two creation stories is that
the biblical one has this thing called god while the
other doesn't and that the non-biblical
version has a vast amount of details concerning the laws of nature
and particles and quantum stuff and space time and all that while the
other one doesn't let's examine those differences
starting with the second difference it is obvious that the scientific
approach has a lot more going for it in terms of the
how it has all those intricate laws the brilliant theories of relativity and
quantum mechanics weird things like black holes dark
energy and cosmic expansion or contraction
it has protons neutrons higgs bosons and photons
to say nothing of electrons it has four forces that will hopefully one day be
merged into one primordial force that explains everything
the bible on the other hand just has the heavens
and the earth it's true that the next couple verses talk about chaos and
emptiness a spirit hovering over the waters and
god saying let there be light but this hardly suffices to explain
galaxy formation or the origin of the elements on this
difference alone let us say that scion science wins out in terms of a more
complete explanation now let's get to that first difference
god or no god that is the question it's
really that simple the god people and the no god people are
probably equally positive about their side being absolutely
correct and the other side being utterly wrong
there really doesn't seem to be any way of bridging
what looks like a completely unbridgeable gap between these two sides
god is a magical fairy tale to the no god people
an old man with a long beard who sits on some thrown in the heavens
dulling out occasional fire and brimstone but the big bang is not really
any more sophisticated than it sounds to the god people it's just a fancy way
of saying we don't know what happened to imagine some mysterious cosmic
firecracker exploding in the middle of nothingness
and then everything from atoms to time emerging from it seems like the ultimate
in making things up out of thin air of course
both sides are really misjudging the other side and simplifying things to a
ridiculous degree the big bang was not some cartoon
explosion it was an incredibly complex process
that involved multiple dimensions and spontaneous random fluctuations on
an unimaginably small scale there is no question that the current
model barely skims the surface of a complete picture
but there is also no question that they are on to something that may end up
explaining a great deal on the other side
god is no longer seen as the guy in michelangelo's painting
on the ceiling of the sistine chapel that may have been the
in vogue image of 500 years ago but it isn't any longer
that image had has been replaced by a much more refined and sophisticated
image of a quote source of existence or something
along those lines that such a deep and almost unimaginable
being should be interested in the fickle lives
of human beings and their fickle quirks and moods
is a matter of religious belief but it has no bearing on the basic reality
of this being god is the creator the one who lit the firecracker
now that we've clarified the field a bit more and made each side a good deal more
believable than the superficial image that first occurred to the other side we
can take stock of things and see if the disagreement between
the sides is really so great the big bang is really what happens in
the first verse of the bible from the perspective of science
with religious people called god the scientists would rather leave open-ended
from the opposite perspective god is really the mysterious
source of the big bang that single unanswered and
unanswerable matter that science could never work out
the god idea at least when it comes to god's creator role
is nothing more and nothing less than the answer to that question
what made it all happen the answer is this thing called god
if we could somehow get the two sides to sit in the same room and discuss
all this we might find that a quite remarkable thing has taken place
these two massively divided perspectives on almost
everything could practically agree on the most basic and important question
of all of course this will probably never happen
because the science side will never throw in the tower admit to the
existence of god well the religious people will never
stoop to the level admitting that these atheist scientists might be
on to something this is unfortunate since great things
could come of this union as none other than albert
einstein once said science without religion is lame
religion without science is blind as far as the words in that first verse
are concerned it really says all that needs to be said if one is only
interested in answering the basic question
in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth in the beginning
the first thing that happened was that god created god the source of existence
made from nothing the heavens and the earth
everything that those who lived in biblical biblical times
could possibly understand and fathom if one wants to know more about the
details about this creation process and if one wishes to update
the list of things that were actually created in that first instance perhaps
one should look into the latest and greatest
of astrophysics or something along those lines
the details may not be all that easy to understand
without proper training but they are out there in very
manageable forms like documentaries or books
or lectures of course there is another route that one could go
if they want only a few more details they could read the rest of this chapter
in the bible given that the presentation in the bible
was one that was meant for people living in biblical times
and not for people who knew about black holes in space-time curvature
things might seem a bit simplistic but for those who have no great need to
know about those details and are more interested in understanding
how people through the ages from biblical times until today sought
an answer to the most basic question and followed it through as best they could
the rest of this chapter is really not all that bad
what was the first thing god did after creation after seeing the chaos
and the emptiness the spirit of creation hovered above
those mysterious waters and proclaimed let there be light
and there was light is there really any better way of saying
that the process of creation didn't end with one big
explosion of a cosmic firecracker but continued in many different phases
beginning with the most basic thing of all light
light is what we all imagine to be the key to knowledge and
understanding from the loftiest ideas of quantum mechanics
to the twinkle of a star on an otherwise dark night
light is there to enable perception clarity distinction it may be
scientific or it may be religious or it may be something else entirely
but light brings order to a chaotic and empty world
if only we could all appreciate light a bit more
maybe then we could appreciate this thing that some call
G-d and others call reality. Shabbat shalom!