The Age of the Universe

As Part II of our series on God and Science, we pick up where we left off last week. We explained the correlation between the Big Bang theory and the creation story from Genesis. But what happened after that? If Scientists today measure the age of the universe at 13.7 billion years old and the age of the world at 4.6 billion, while Torah measures it at 5,773 years old, how can we possibly bridge this tremendous gap? And how could the greatest of scientists and philosophers also believe in a Creator? To name a few: Copernicus, Bacon, Kepler, Descartes, Pascal, Boyle, Newton, Kant, Pasteur. There are many ways suggested by scientists & intellectuals to resolve the apparent contradiction, but we will look at one.

We will not focus on the fact that the effort to extrapolate backward in time to measure the age of the universe is presumptuous and unsubstantiated, since we're assuming the conditions and rate of processes we observe today have been consistent in the past millions of years. At the first moments of existence, the conditions of extreme pressure and incredibly high temperatures incomparable to anything today make it very hard for us to assume the chemical, geological, physical and cosmological were the same. Add to that Einstein's general theory of relativity, that time is relative and depends on the speed of the system in which it is measured, it becomes even more difficult to extrapolate.

LET'S disregard all of that for now and work on the assumption that the world and universe are billions of years old. This does not have to contradict whatsoever with the biblical account. In the beginning of the book of Genesis, on day 6 of creation, Adam and Eve are placed in the Garden of Eden, asked to follow just one rule: Don't eat from that tree. But let's back up a second here. Adam is only a few hours old. How can he possibly be ready to understand this directive? He's like a baby! And how is there fruit on a tree in the first place? The trees and creation at large were created just days beforehand, no time for edible fruit to grow. We have no choice but to say that everything was created ready for use. If Adam sliced open the tree, he would find rings dating it way back.The Talmud teaches that even Adam himself was created "ready-made", with the body and intellectual and psychological abilities of a healthy 20 year old. Genesis describes 4 large rivers flowing in the garden. Taking into account the rate at which a river is carved out (a few centimeters a year), rivers are sometimes dated at millions of years old!

All of the phenomena observed today in the world and universe at large can be explained with this same principle, that they were created with an advanced physical age, even though its historical age is only the age implied in the Torah. Why God did it this way, can perhaps be answered by the fact that the world had to be ready for man's use immediately, to affect and uplift the physical, to live among oxygen providing trees and rivers to travel on.

Let us appreciate the world we live in, as Wilhelm Gottfried Leibniz (1640-1716) said: "We live in the best of all possible worlds. It must be the best possible because it was created by a perfect God." And as Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) said: "The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator." There is no contradiction.

Shabbat Shalom!

-Rabbi Daniel

Genesis & the Big Bang

"Conflict between Science and religion is impossible." - Albert Einstein

Science and Religion; Genesis and the Big Bang. Many thoughtful people, whether of the 3 major religions or the atheist professor at your local university, have pondered the issue of Science and Religion. Are they compatible? And if so, how? On a basic level, as Einstein stated above, there cannot be conflict since Science comes to explain the how and what, whereas Religion explains why. A step deeper, science can actually complement and vitalize religious and spiritual thinking and vice versa, as Max Planck, a Nobel Prize Laureate in physics, once said: "It is certainly not by chance that the great thinkers throughout the generations had a deep religious feeling." So what seems to be the problem, the schism?

One problem throughout history, is the religious belief that the universe was created ex nihilo, from nothing (G-d Willing, we will explore the other issues some people have in upcoming email posts). There are 3 major theories recently explaining how our universe came into being: The steady state theory, the oscillating model, and the standard model, all theories that focus on the universe being eternal; it was always here with no beginning. Perhaps one of the motives for this hypothesis of a universe that always was, was fueled by a desire for scientists to refute the notion of the Torah and Genesis story, of a beginning point of creation. Because of the limited scope of this email, suffice it to say that the steady state theory has pretty much been refuted. Besides for no real evidence found, cosmological findings show that galaxies are moving apart from each other at a fixed speed from a central point and the further they are from that point the faster they go. These findings led to the standard model, according to which the Big Bang theory came about, which today is the accepted theory of the scientific community (unlike the oscillating model, the Big Bang was a one time gigantic explosion, as opposed to many).

With these recent discoveries, Science was now pointing toward a story that was written thousands of years earlier in Bereishit - Genesis! This must have made a few scientists quite uneasy, as Dr. Stephen Hawking said in 1988: "For many people it is difficult to accept the fact that time had a beginning, probably because it points to supernatural intervention in the universe." How the matter of this universe came into existence from pure energy, is a question that Albert Einstein helped explain with his famous theory of e=mc2. Besides for the completely illogical original explosion of that ball of energy (the law of inertia states that every body seeks to remain at rest forever unless an outside force acts upon it), the real question is where did this ball of energy come from? Ironic as it is to say, the Scientific community has accepted the creation of the world as an accepted fact through the Big Bang theory!

We haven't even begun to discuss how that original energy came to form our universe. If there was a bomb set off at a large scrap yard of metal parts, and a complete Boeing 747 with control panel and leather seats came into being, that would be nothing compared to our universe resulting from the explosion of the Big Bang, without a guiding hand. May we continue to further our Jewish and spiritual observance, while continuing to explore the nature of our universe, for rather than contradicting, they compliment. As Maimonides taught, to really feel a love and appreciation for G-d, one must study his intricate and incredible universe. Wishing you and yours a Shabbat Shalom!

-Rabbi Daniel

Beauty in the Mirror

When the holy Rabbi Chaim of the city of Tzanz (known as the "Divrei Chaim" after the book he wrote) was of marriageable age, the beautiful daughter of the well respected & pious Baruch Tam was suggested & the match was made. Back in those days, matches were made & the prospective groom & bride didn't interact or even meet until the wedding would near. A week before the wedding, the two decided it would be good to meet for a short while and chat. When the bride to be entered the room where her groom was waiting, she was shocked at what she saw. The Divrei Chaim is known to have had a limp because one leg was shorter than the other. Also, while being a very holy individual, he wasn't a very handsome man to say the least. Immediately after their short meeting, the bride went to her parents and told them the wedding was off. She just couldn't see herself marrying this guy!

Both sides of the family tried to reason with her, explaining what a special person the Rabbi Chaim was, a once in a generation righteous scholar. But she wasn't going to be swayed. When word reached back to Rabbi Chaim, he asked to have a word with the girl. "But unnecessary private meetings aren't proper!" he was told. "It's over." Rabbi Chaim asked for the opportunity to have one more word with her, and the parents relented. Once together, Rabbi Chaim asked the girl to look into the large mirror in the room and tell him what she saw. Looking in the mirror, the girl saw something amazing. Rabbi Chaim appeared as a striking, very handsome man. The bride, however, now appeared with a gaunt face, crouching a bit with a noticeable limp. "Our souls were destined to be together from the beginning," said Rabbi Chaim. "But before we descended into this world, I saw that you would have this appearance and I pleaded with God to switch our appearances." The two were married a week later.

Right now, the Jewish people may not be at the apex of our spiritual abilities. We may be walking with a limp, without a very handsome appearance. But who are we still doing our best to serve and connect to? Who have we been killed for adhering to and sent into exile away from Israel for so many years? Our affliction is God's affliction. We are united at the hip and the Jewish destiny is connected to God. He feels our pain, and we feel his. Through our final acts of good deeds and Torah learning, kind acts and Jewish adherence, may God bring peace and only revealed good to the world, where both bride & groom are beautiful inside & out together, speedily in our days!

Shabbat Shalom!