Sanctification for those who accept evolution

I didn't understand.
What do we define as the six days of creation, and what about the seventh day?
If we accept that development at all levels of the world (inanimate, plant, living, desert) occurred over millions of years, then what exactly happened in the first six days of creation? The establishment of laws?

So in six days, natural laws were created, and in the seventh, not? And is the description in the Pentateuch of Genesis metaphorical?

It sounds to me like I'm forced to accept the Genesis passage selectively. We will accept the statement that a certain activity took place that lasted exactly 6 days as simple, and we will accept the details of what was created only metaphorically.

I didn't understand. In any case, the six days are six periods and we remember this in a weekly framework.

Sorry, but I don't understand, I would appreciate it if you could elaborate and extend a little.
What am I supposed to say in Kiddush: what are the six days, what is created in them, and what is the rest on the seventh day?

In response to another answer, I recently wrote something that may be relevant to this question:
Regarding creation in six days, only on the fourth day were the luminaries created. So it is probably not a day measured by the rotation of the Earth around itself, but a unit of time of some length that is considered a day in the eyes of God. In the sense that a thousand years in your eyes are like yesterday. Or as the verse says, on that day the Lord will be one and his name one – a day is a stage in time that is not necessarily 24 hours long.

According to this, the process of creation included six stages called “day”, and the seventh stage is rest. In contrast to the six stages of creation, we are commanded to remember them by doing work for six days and on the seventh to rest.

In addition, there are two reasons for the Sabbath commandment that appear in the Torah. The first really concerns the days of creation (Exodus chapter 20):
7 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 8 Six days you shall work, And thou shalt do all thy work. 9 And the seventh day is a sabbath unto the LORD thy God: thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. 10 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and kept it holy.

But in Deuteronomy chapter 5, a different (social) reason appears:
1. Keep the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. 12. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work. 13. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God: you shall not do any work. And thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and thy ox, and thy ass, and all thy cattle, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, for thy manservant, and thy maidservant, as thou art. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and the LORD thy God brought thee out thence by a mighty hand, and by an outstretched arm: therefore the LORD thy God hath commanded thee to do, On the Sabbath.

Oren, thank you.

A short question for the wise:
There is indeed no reason to accept the claim that ”day” in Genesis appears in a metaphorical sense. And if so, its actual length is not the same as what we call a day (24 hours).
The apparent problem is that in other places in the Torah, I assume, this word is used in the meaning that is accepted by us.
Therefore, the concern arises that the appeal to metaphor in this particular case is arbitrary.

Aharon, I think your question is excellent.

I have several interesting sources on the subject, and when I get around to editing them (as a chapter for a book on symbols in the Torah), I can send them to you. These are unfamiliar sources, especially from the 19th century.

In any case, here was my discussion with Rabbi Mikhi and others on exactly this subject: https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%AA%D7%99%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%A6%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%9C%D7%92%D7%99%D7%9C-%D7%94%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%9D/

In short, I think God forbid that there were seven periods (which science has never heard of). This is just as ridiculous as God creating the world in six days. (It may have been so, but it is still ridiculous from a scientific point of view. So are seven “periods.”)
What needs to be said on the subject is, in short, either the division into seven is subjective and the Torah seeks to impose it retroactively (for the sake of the commandment on the Sabbath), even though the actual creation was organic and uniform, more like a sol-vent or stretched gum than six defined groups of a halachic man with a priestly view P.

Another possibility is that this division does not express the past but rather the present – the six days of work ending with a Sabbath, or six years ending with a Shemita. When man rests, he testifies and acknowledges that God rests (meaning his view of creation ceases to be productive but recognizes it as a work) and God rests = creation is complete and God stands behind it. This sounds very far-fetched, and if God wills, I will try to sit down and explain the Sabbath. There are a number of assumptions here about pantheism and akhmal.

Recommended reference sources for now:
A. Sinai's column The Writing and the Book (on the development of the Sabbath from the customary division into six months of work/hours per day and more)
B. Uriel Simon's article on the six days of creation
C. The book Maase Bereishit by Rabbi Velikovsky (in Otzar Hochma)

Doron,
In many texts there is a metaphorical use of a word that is usually used in its simple meaning. I do not see this as a real difficulty. It is true that we came to this conclusion after scientific findings, so what? Now it has become clear to us that the use here is metaphorical. In particular, the ancient biblical commentators, long before modern science, wrote that the description in Genesis is metaphorical and not historical-factual.

Even if we say that this is a metaphorical use of the word day, I still don't understand why the creation of grass appears before the creation of the sun if according to science the sun preceded the grass.
Or should we also say that regarding the content of the creations at each stage, it is ”not necessarily” but rather as a kind of reflection of the place it belongs to?

If you have a plausible criterion for distinguishing between the word “day” in its metaphorical use and its conventional meaning, then you have a case.
I am not entirely convinced that this is the case.
I do not understand the claim that from science we have learned that the use of the word day is metaphorical. At most, science has shown us that the development of the world took much, much longer than is written, meaning that there is a contradiction between scientific truth and writing.

It is still possible that the author of Genesis truly and sincerely believed that ”day” meant our 24 hours. If this is the case, then it seems to me that the problem has not been solved. After all, the author did not intend to say anything metaphorical at all

Oren,
I only referred to the term day. The description itself is certainly lacking in scientific terms, although it is not clear what exactly the hanging of the sun means in that context. For example, it is not clear what evening and morning were before the hanging of the sun.

Doron,
Indeed, but if you come to the conclusion for some other reason that the author of the verses is God, then you are asked to conclude from this that the usage is metaphorical. If you do not agree with this assumption, then of course you will conclude something else.

Again I saw that there was a disagreement regarding the source of light from before the creation of the sun on the fourth day:
Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Hagiga, page 12, page 1
And light on the first day of the Hebrew month? And it is written, And God placed them in the firmament of heaven, and it is written, And there was evening, and there was morning, the fourth day! – According to Rabbi Elazar. Rabbi Elazar said: Light that the Holy One, blessed be He, created on the first day – Man watches over it from the end of the world to its end, because the Holy One, blessed be He, looked upon the generation of the flood and the generation of the flood and saw that their deeds were corrupt – He stood and hid them from them, as it is said, And withholds their light from the wicked. And to whom were they hid – for the righteous in the future to come, as it is said, And God saw the light, that it was good, and there is no good but the righteous, as it is said, They said, The righteous, that it was good. Since he saw the light that they hid for the righteous, he rejoiced, as it is said, The light of the righteous shall rejoice. As a condition: A light that the Holy One, blessed be He, created on Sunday, a person watches and gazes at from the end of the world to its end, the words of Rabbi Yaakov. And the sages say: They are lights that were created on Sunday and did not hang until Wednesday.

I thought about another possibility that could explain the story of creation this way:
In Pesachim 54:1, there is a question about the date of the creation of fire. Some say that it was created on the eve of Shabbat, while Rabbi Nehemiah says, on the authority of his father, that it was created on the eve of Shabbat between the sunsets, and in the end they make excuses that in thought it was created on the eve of Shabbat, but in reality it was not created until the eve of Shabbat.

We see from this a basic principle that when we say that something was created at a certain time, the act of creation can be interpreted in two ways, in thought or in reality. Therefore, I propose to interpret the story of creation as a process of creation in the mind of God. Thus, even if the chronological order of the story of creation does not correspond to the findings of science, this does not mean that there is a contradiction, because it is possible that the order of creation in the mind of God was different from the order of the actual creation of things.

According to Maimonides in the book "The Guide to the Perplexed," the creation of the world took place in two different stages: the creation of the world out of nothing, which is written in the verse "Genesis, God created the heavens and the earth," in which God created "the heavens," "the people," which according to biblical expressions may allude to the word "people," meaning He created the heavens and all that is in the heavens, the earth and all that is in the earth. At that moment, when the wheels that determine the measure of time were created, the counting of time began, and on each of the six days of the week, the Holy One, blessed be He, brought the powers inherent in creation from potential to actual use, like Adam sowing seeds, and by the power of the sowing done in one moment, fruits come forth over a long period of time.

That is, Maimonides also proposed the idea that it is possible to divide the time of actual creation and the time of potential creation (or thought) of each element of creation.

This explanation also fits well with Platonic idealism (or the world of ideas). That is, everything in reality is a reflection of something that exists in the world of ideas. The story of creation describes the process of creation in the world of ideas, while science describes the reflection of this process in our world.

According to this, the division of creation into days in the mind of God can also be interpreted as days of 24 hours in the literal sense, and not necessarily as 7 periods. Because it is possible that the process of thinking about creation lasted 7 days (or 24*7 hours). Alternatively, it can be understood that the word day in the story of creation refers to the idea of the “day” and not to the reflection of this idea in our world. That is, if the story of creation describes the process of creation in the world of ideas, then the concept of a day is not necessarily an actual day but an ideal day. The reflection of the idea of a “day” in our world is expressed in a period of 24 hours.

I would love to hear what the rabbi thinks about this idea.

Wishing you a good (ideal) week

PS, I wonder if this can be considered a study from a legend in the Talmud 🙂

You remind me of the Gra’s explanation of the dispute in B’s and B’s about whether the Havdalah says Creator from the light of fire or the lights of fire. His argument is that the light of fire is the principle force called fire (the idea) and the lights of fire is the actual fire.
The Torah’s plain language does not seem to refer to the creation of ideas. Especially since at the stage of ideas there was no time yet (but perhaps the idea of time), and therefore it is not clear whether it is possible to speak of a day as a literal 24-hour period.
This is indeed a study of a legend, and you know what I think about it. 🙂

The Torah had to speak in the language of the people of that time. Once there was no clear understanding of abstract concepts or the creation of an abstract thing. Therefore, the Torah also used fulfilling expressions such as the hand of the Lord, the wrath of his nose, and you saw my back and my face you did not see, etc.

So you're back to the fact that today is not just any day. So what's the point of the whole thing?

I think this is an interpretation that is relatively close to the simple. Even when God is couched in metaphorical terms, there should be a connection between the simple phrasing and the metaphorical meaning behind it. I have not heard of any interpretations (even symbolic) of the creation story that present a good connection between the simple and the symbolic interpretation.

That is, I guess you assume that once the interpretation is not simple, then the gates of interpretation are not locked, and anyone can offer any symbolic interpretation they want, and therefore it no longer matters what the interpretation is. But I am trying to argue that even when the simple is uprooted, one should still be as close to it as possible, and explain why the uprooting of the simple was necessary and why God did not couch it in a simpler way instead of speaking in parables and riddles.

For example, if you interpret "day" as a period as you wrote at the beginning of the reply, then there still remains the problem of the chronological order of the periods of creation that does not align with the findings of science. That is, the plants were created "day" before the sun, and this does not align with the findings of science to the best of my understanding. Then you are forced to take the concept "plants" and the concept "sun" out of context, and the interpretation already begins to lose its connection to the context and sounds less plausible.

I don't see a big advantage, but if it's better in your opinion, then that's of course a possible interpretation.

Is there another interpretation of the creation story that you think is better? I would love to hear which interpretation you prefer.

For example, what Gil wrote above. This is an educational myth whose goals are not the facts but various lessons. And to understand about six periods, and about the sun I already commented above.