To the Perplexed of the Generation – Lesson 9

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, because it contradicts the principles of faith, the foundations of faith. And now it becomes very clear that the new approaches that argue only for development, as if saying that the world basically evolves—which is what he also discussed in the previous chapter about evolution—do not in any way negate the foundations of the Torah. Unlike that consideration because of which Maimonides rejected Aristotle’s eternity of the world, since that contradicts the foundations of the Torah. From the standpoint of the verses, I don’t necessarily reject it, but it contradicts the foundations of the Torah, so I reject it. So Rabbi Kook now says: let’s make a double move. Let’s now examine development, evolution, with the same tools Maimonides used to deal with those issues. He still didn’t know about this matter, but as we’ve already said, Rabbi Kook is trying to update the Guide for the Perplexed, or to apply the Guide for the Perplexed to the perplexities of his own generation. So what do we do? Now we have to make two checks. First, whether it’s reasonable; and second, whether it contradicts the verses or does not contradict the verses, right? Now, if it’s highly reasonable, then even if it contradicts the verses, I’ll work the verses out accordingly. All right? That’s what Maimonides tells us. Okay? But if it doesn’t have to be true, then of course I won’t twist the verses for the sake of something that doesn’t have to be true. So Rabbi Kook is basically saying this: in the first stage, I examine whether this can in fact be reconciled with the verses at all. He says that in principle yes, the verses can be arranged in a way that fits evolution, so really the issue is left to the decision of reason. If we decide that evolution is correct, then we’ll arrange the verses according to the interpretation that fits that; and if not, then not. Meaning, he uses Maimonides to move from the interpretive stage to the rational stage. From an interpretive standpoint, you can manage either way. And therefore now we need to go on and ask ourselves whether it’s true or not true. Then he says: this is not a negation of the foundations of the Torah; meaning, there is no contradiction here to the principles of the Torah, unlike the idea of eternity, right? And therefore Maimonides did not accept eternity, but here there is no problem. It does not contradict the foundations of the Torah that the world developed. And not even the description in the verses of the act of creation. And it also does not contradict the scriptural description of creation. Here you can begin to hesitate. What does it mean that it doesn’t contradict? Does it not contradict in the sense that you can interpret it creatively so that it fits? Or is that really the plain meaning of the verses in Genesis? Well, it’s not clear. Since he gave that introduction, both possibilities are reasonable, so it doesn’t really matter. But in the introduction he said, fine, at worst we’ll do a little creative interpretation. If the claimant says that since, for example, the material of the globe developed over tens of thousands of years—yes, “the globe” here means planet Earth—our reality developed over tens of thousands of years, if so, then he sees no hand of God here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is the claim of the claimant, of the challenger. He says: since it developed over tens of thousands of years, then it is not the hand of God; it is probably some natural process. And he adds another argument: why all this length of time? Why would the Holy One, blessed be He, do it through such a long process if He really did it? Why didn’t creation come into being all at once? If the Holy One, blessed be He, wants to create the world, and this is not a natural process—because if it is a natural process, then fine, it works according to the rules, however long it takes, it takes. But if the Holy One, blessed be He, decided to create the world, does that mean He needs all this duration? Let Him decide, do it just like that, and that’s it—the whole thing stands. Why is the whole process necessary?

So here too there is a methodological point that is interesting. It comes up in various contexts. For example, there are similar claims by evolutionary atheists, who say that there is a lot of fallout in the evolutionary process. Yes, a great many things that were produced along the evolutionary process basically dropped out, went extinct. They were oil on the wheels of the revolution, so to speak. In other words, a great many things went extinct so that the more successful things could move forward. Right? So the process is terribly wasteful. It is a process that is not—what? Okay, maybe. But the process seems terribly wasteful. Meaning: if in the end you want to produce a human being, why do you need to wipe out millions of creatures along the way just so that in the end a human being comes out? If you decided to do this, and after all you have the power to do anything, then create a human being directly.

Now, this argument—we need to understand what it is saying. It is a problematic argument. It is problematic because suppose that from the standpoint of evolution, yes, I come to the conclusion that the Holy One, blessed be He, exists. Not that it doesn’t contradict that; I said on one of the previous occasions, if I’m not mistaken—I think it even proves it. We’ll discuss that later. Now you have a new refutation: fine, if the Holy One, blessed be He, did it, then why didn’t He do it all at once? What this refutes—at most, even if you are right—it only refutes the picture of God that you are holding in your head. It has nothing to do with the basic argument.

If the basic argument says that statistically such a thing cannot happen by itself, there must be some external intelligence here that manages or organizes or directs this process—call it a statistical consideration, a logical one, whatever you want to call it—then I have reached the conclusion that such an entity exists. Now you have a new difficulty: but this entity does not work in the proper way, so-called, because there is a huge amount of fallout here. How can that be? So one of two things: either this really is not the proper way—and so what if that is what seems right to you? Or maybe it is the proper way, but He decided to work in what seems like an improper way for some reason. Since when are you responsible for how He works? It has nothing to do with it. You cannot conclude from here that therefore there is no external intelligence. It is simply not on the right plane of discussion.

You build for yourself some image—it is like, by way of contrast, those who say that because of the Holocaust they became heretics. If you say, look, there are two kinds of claims that come up in that context. You can say: if there is a Holocaust, there is no God. But if there is a Holocaust, then only God could do such an outrageous thing, I would say. Something so strange, so contrary to the normal way of the world on such a scale, has to be specifically supernatural. Leaving the world as merely natural explains it less well. That is one claim.

But beyond that, that is one claim. The second claim says: I am severing diplomatic relations with Him. God exists—I cannot know anything—but if this is what He does in His world, then I’m recalling the ambassador. In other words, I have no interest in diplomatic relations with Him. That is how one of Kant’s friends reacted. The second claim is an acceptable claim. Fine—if you are that kind of God, you are not willing to operate differently, okay, that is a person’s decision. The first claim is a foolish one. It is foolish because you draw a certain image of God, decide how He is supposed to work, conclude that the world does not work that way, and therefore there is no God. No—therefore God is not what you drew. He has different ways of acting; I don’t know what they are. Maybe we do not always understand them. But this is not operating on the right plane at all.

All those who “prove,” whether through morality or through some form of conduct, in this evolutionary context, that there is no God, are of course tacitly assuming a very specific image of God. Yes, obviously. So fine—the God of the religious people does not exist; there is some other God. Like that famous passage from the Rabbi where he says he came to… maybe I told you once about this? I told a friend of mine that I had been in Yeruham, and one of the rabbis there dealt a lot with the hidden writings of Rav Kook, and I told him that in Bnei Brak, where I had lived before, they always say that at Merkaz HaRav there is a lot of fear of Heaven—but it is not clear which heaven they fear there. So he almost fell on the floor in astonishment when he heard it, and he said to me: Do you know the source of that saying? Rav Kook. When Rav Kook came to the Land of Israel, he saw the old yishuv in Jerusalem—the Haredim of the old yishuv in Jerusalem. He said: look, there is a lot of fear of Heaven there, but what kind of heaven are they fearing there? A heaven so narrow, black, gloomy. What sort of heaven is that that they are fearing there? It underwent some processing in form and image—a very interesting process. But in any case, it is exactly the same outlook. You draw heaven for yourself in a very specific way, and then you say: well, if that does not appear, then there is no heaven. The heaven that you drew does not exist—that is true. But why do you decide that there is no heaven?

This is again the same thing—by the way, it is connected somewhat to what we spoke about earlier—to that same rationalism that says that if God has to be like this, the facts do not interest me. If I think that this is God, then that is God, period. And if He does not appear here—“Appear now at once,” as the poet said—if He does not appear here, then there is no such God. This saying of Rav Kook appears in the hidden writings…? Yes, certainly, it appears in… I can tell you the source. It appears in Shemonah Kevatzim; it seems to me that it is stated there again more explicitly. But it also appears in one of the… I don’t know, I won’t get bogged down in it… I’m not a great expert in Rav Kook’s writings, but I can check it. And it is a very… he… it seems to me that in that same passage, in that same passage where he speaks about there being a kind of faith that is like heresy and a kind of heresy that is like faith. You hear? There are those who deny, because they depict the Holy One, blessed be He, in a way that cannot possibly be. So he says: I too deny such a God. In that God, I too am a heretic. The passage surely appears in Shemonah Kevatzim…

In any case, again, all these are examples of people who draw God in some very defined way, and now they approach the question of whether He exists or does not exist. Does this fit the facts or not fit the facts? Supposedly an empirical outlook—they test Him against the facts, meaning how the world behaves. But notice what they come with when they examine the facts. They come with a whole system of tacit assumptions about what this God is supposed to be when they test Him against the facts. So every empirical… and this is true of all empiricism. Every empiricism ultimately assumes all sorts of assumptions. We are not always aware of them, but one should be—at least try to be—aware of them.

So here too he says that the Holy One, blessed be He, carries out such a process with a great deal of fallout and that takes many years. Not reasonable. So apparently God did not do it. True—not your God did it, but some other kind of intelligence, that is not the point at the moment. But the argument in favor of the necessity that there be some such intelligence is unrelated to what you are saying now. There must be some such intelligence, and true, it works this way or not the way you thought. That is a different matter. What does that have to do with the basic determination of whether there is some such intelligence—such intelligent design—or whether there is no such intelligent design?

Does that contradict what is written in the Torah and in the account of creation? No. If it contradicts the Torah and the account of creation, that only means that the Torah and the account of creation are not correct—not that there is no God. Two different things. There, that is certainly a claim, and then you would have to see whether by means of interpretive creativity you can still solve it. That is certainly a claim. And if it contradicts what the Torah presents as the attributes of the Holy One, blessed be He, then there is a problem. What kind of problem? You have proved, within that discussion, that the Torah is not correct. That’s all. I am talking right now about the more general claims of the neo-Darwinians.

And furthermore, excuse me. To that we will answer him with good sense and reason: the ways of development, this gradual advance in the order of reality, have never distanced us from knowledge of God. Rather, they have brought us closer to Him in love and exaltation of spirit. For after all, we see before our eyes every day the ways of causes and effects. And nevertheless, since we see that they carry out their actions in wondrous order, with great wisdom and great kindness and mercy, we recognize the One who acts and gives life to all, who is the living God, who has counsel and resourcefulness and kindness and mercy.

Basically, what he is saying is that this claim—why indeed the Holy One, blessed be He, does this process as a long process… suddenly it is there. So he says not only is this not a difficulty—I said before that even if this difficulty is a difficulty, so what? Then it means that… God is not the God you imagined to yourself, and that’s all; He is a God with different qualities. But here Rav Kook says: not so. This really is behavior that I would expect of God. Why? Because this gradual way in which He reveals, or develops, or creates reality reveals His laboratory to us. We begin—we see the modes of action, the ways of thinking. Yes, the Holy One, blessed be He, lowers preliminary assumptions and leaves the conclusions, within the evolutionary process if we are talking about that now. In other words, there are various preliminary assumptions that go extinct and the conclusions remain.

Now when we study Talmud, it is also very important to understand the preliminary assumption, right? If you do not properly understand the preliminary assumption, then you also do not understand what the conclusion is really saying. So if the Holy One, blessed be He, had told us, say—in the Torah context, and I am not making this comparison by accident—if in the Torah context we had received Maimonides at Mount Sinai, assuming that Maimonides is always right and that this is the only approach—no, no doubt that’s what you thought. All right? Suppose we had received Maimonides at Mount Sinai. Fine? Why didn’t the Holy One, blessed be He, give us Maimonides? Why did we have to go through several thousand years of give-and-take and arguments and disputes until we got Maimonides, who summarizes everything clearly, the bottom line appears there, and everything is fine? At least that is what he thought. It is very far from being that way, but that is what he wanted. What, what? Is Maimonides really a distorted name and a codex? It really isn’t; that is simply a mistake. No, I am not sure one really has to take it that far, but in general why indeed was it not given that way?

It was not given that way because the Holy One, blessed be He—and this is why Maimonides too was criticized very sharply—you do not expose us to your laboratory. How did you arrive at these conclusions? Because once we do not understand how you arrived at these conclusions, we also do not understand the conclusions. We do not really understand the conclusions, because the conclusions themselves do not cover all cases. I need to understand—for two reasons I do not understand the matter. One reason is that I need to compare one matter to another, to find another ruling that is not written in Maimonides. So I need to understand the logic behind this ruling in order to understand whether it applies in that other ruling. If I do not understand the logic, if all I see is the ruling, how will I do it? How will I do it? We know how much people dig today beneath Maimonides to understand what lies behind the laws he wrote. Only then can you understand what follows according to Maimonides’ approach in other places. So that is the first point.

And the second point is that the purpose of Torah is not only the conclusions—quite the opposite. The conclusions are a means for understanding the way of thinking. In the end, after all, we have already spoken about this before: in the context of Torah study there are two principled approaches. There are those who understand analysis as an instrument for reaching the correct halakhic conclusions. You simply want to analyze the passage, understand it, in order to reach the correct Jewish-law conclusions so as to know what to do. Of course, that portrays learning as some sort of auxiliary tool, a means for clarifying what I need to do. Fine?

There are others—and this, it seems to me, is how the classical yeshiva world generally understands it—that it works the opposite way. The purpose of Jewish law is to serve as a testing ground for concepts. I need the cases and the laws in order to test my hypotheses on them. I have some analytical hypothesis; I think that the definition of the law is such-and-such a definition. Let’s see: we have ruling A, ruling B, ruling C; let’s see whether it works, whether it really fits. If it fits, excellent. If it does not fit, then the theory needs to be revised—exactly as in scientific work. Fine?

Now the only question, of course, is what the purpose is. You can ask the same thing with respect to science. In science too, when you ask a scientist what his purpose is, is his purpose to know the maximum number of facts? Certainly not. That is not a scientist; that is not really a genuine scientist. A scientist’s goal is to know the theory as much as possible, not the facts. The facts, for him, are testing points through which he examines the theory. His goal is to arrive at theory, not at facts. Therefore, say, a technician who takes scientific knowledge and applies it for practical purposes—his goal really is to know how things work and to implement them. So these are simply two ways of relating to this process. He too may engage in science so long as these results are not yet known, because one has to get to these results; without that we will not know the facts. But for him the goal is the facts, and the theory is only the means by which to know all the facts, or as many facts as possible. But for the scientist it works in the opposite direction. He carries out the same process, but his goal is the opposite goal: he uses the facts in order to build the theory.

Yes, the goals—what Einstein always dreamed of discovering, the unified field theory, the one equation from which everything comes out. Why should you care whether it is one equation or eighteen equations? The main thing is that all the facts fit, and if it is eighteen equations, so what? Obviously, that is science in a nutshell. You want to arrive at the most complete theory possible. The facts are a tool: you test on the facts which theory is right and which theory is wrong. In Torah too it is exactly the same. In Torah too, you can approach the halakhic facts as a tool by means of which you build the theory, the meta-halakhic understanding, and that is your goal. And you can use your understanding only in order to infer more and more facts—to be a technician or a halakhic decisor in the halakhic context, rather than a scientist or a learner in the halakhic context. Those are exactly parallel functions.

Here too, when Rav Kook is basically speaking about this, I think what he is saying here is that the Holy One, blessed be He—you know, many have written about the fact that the world was created with ten utterances and there are the Ten Commandments. Ten Commandments and ten utterances. The Ten Commandments are the foundations of the Torah. All the early books of commandments were composed as a sort of set of warnings arranged around the Ten Commandments; somehow they tied all the commandments to the Ten Commandments in one way or another. And the ten utterances are apparently the foundations upon which the physical world is built, the way the world was created. Fine? So the claim is that these are really rather similar functions. This is with respect to science or physical reality, and this is with respect to spiritual reality, the Torah. These are the ten foundations of spiritual reality, and these are the ten foundations of physical reality. There are, in effect, two systems here that are parallel systems. Therefore in both of these systems we encounter those who look at the utterances—that is, the theory, because they are the abstract principles—as a tool for knowing the facts, both in the scientific context and in the Torah context; and there are also those who say the opposite: I use the facts in order to arrive at the theory, at the abstract principles. That is my goal.

Now here what Rav Kook writes is of course referring to the creation of the world, to the ten utterances, not the Ten Commandments. What he says is that when the Holy One, blessed be He, exposed the process before us, spread it out, did not do it all at once, did not give us only the conclusion but also gave us the give-and-take—He wrote for us the Talmud of nature, not just the Maimonides of nature. He opened before us all the processes, the ways of thinking, the preliminary assumptions that were rejected in evolution—things that arose and then were rejected because they did not work—and all sorts of things of that kind. He exposed us to His ways of thinking. And if our goal really is to trace the ways of thinking of the Holy One, blessed be He, then the Holy One, blessed be He, did us a kindness by laying out this axis before us—that is, by leaving it over tens of thousands of years, or in this case, as we know, billions of years. Billions of years, and not doing it all at once.

If He had not done it all at once, what would we have done with it? We would have received Maimonides at Mount Sinai. We would have received Maimonides. As for the one who would be at the end—what? How would you know? Because whoever is at the end and sees everything? Now whoever sees, each one sees according to how much he sees. What do you mean? There is no choice. Everyone has to be located at some stage. Yes, from the monkeys you don’t see anything, for example, or I don’t know. But each person according to what he sees—wherever he is, he can see. If you are later, you will see more, right? Are there times when we can learn what? You can always learn processes, things that developed and went extinct. Right. So there are certain things here that were on the verge of taking shape and in the end went extinct. Why? You can ask yourself why this really went extinct, what was wrong with this creature. You can ask that question, of course, on the scientific plane—why didn’t it survive? You can also ask it on the spiritual plane—why in fact were these not the creatures that ultimately emerged, but the others? Apparently the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted specifically creatures like these. And that is the learning, basically. What lesson can be drawn? One can try to think. At the moment, that is a job in itself; I have not done that work. I am only trying to explain what he is writing here.

He is basically arguing that when the Holy One, blessed be He, exposes His laboratory to us, His ways of thinking, His preliminary assumptions, then that is our way of understanding how He works. And the purpose in the end, as I said earlier, is the purpose of a scientist, not of a technician. We want to know what the theories are, what abstract principles stand behind the phenomena. That is what Maimonides writes: “And what is the path to loving and fearing Him? That one contemplates His wondrous deeds and recognizes from them the One who spoke and the world came into being.” Fine? If you had not been exposed to the laboratory behind these things, you would not be able to recognize the modes of action or the ways of thinking of the Holy One, blessed be He. So precisely this unfolding enables us to know Him more.

Like Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin writes in Nefesh HaChaim—after all, Nefesh HaChaim was a book composed against Hasidism—he says that the purpose of learning is not, as the Hasidim say, that learning is a means to cleaving to God; learning is the cleaving itself. Learning is the cleaving. What does it mean that learning is the cleaving? The author of the Tanya also writes the same thing, or something very similar. He says that when you study “an ox that gored a cow,” you are not really studying it in order to know, should some case come before you, how much he has to pay. Rather, the Holy One, blessed be He, planted some… and the Holy One, blessed be He, inserts His ways of thinking, as it were, into some reality of oxen, cows, laws, and rulings, and miscarried fetuses and placentas, and all sorts of very, very prosaic things like that. Why? The goal is not the things. The goal is the ideas, the ways of thinking. Because in the end that is cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He. You cannot cleave to Him directly, since He is abstract. What can you do? If His things are clothed in a world of concepts close to our own world of concepts, then you can grasp them. And you have some point of hold. And that is cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He. That is what the author of the Tanya writes, that is what Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto writes—they all write the same thing on this point.

In other words, reaching the abstract principles is basically a kind of cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He. And in order for us to be able to reach the abstract principles—by the way, in both places: both the scientific abstract principles, as Maimonides writes, and the Torah abstract principles, where this is done in the analytical learning context—in both places one needs learning. In both places the goal is the abstract principles, and in both places the abstract principles are some sort of grasp of divinity, or of the divine mode of thought or divine will. The difference between Torah and physics in this context is that Torah is the divine will, while physics is simply the divine mode of operation, His influence. Torah tells us what the Holy One, blessed be He, expects from us, what He commands us, what He wants from us. There we are examining norms, not facts. In science we examine facts. Facts are how the Holy One, blessed be He, runs the matter, not what He expects from us. But both are in effect characteristics of the Holy One, blessed be He, that we manage to uncover, and in that sense we also manage to cleave to Him.

And you see this, for example, when people talk a great deal about the feelings of holiness, religiosity, that accompany scientific work. Even great atheists said that they are seized by a kind of religious amazement in the face of nature, when they stand before nature or before the laws of nature, before the complexity of nature. Because there really is something there—when one arrives precisely at the general laws, not at the private collection, but precisely at the general laws—there is something where you feel that you are truly approaching some sort of spirit of the thing. You begin to understand what drives all the phenomena that every person sees. If you understand the general laws, then you are basically rising to a kind of spirituality.

Now they deny the fact that this is basically a kind of encounter with the Holy One, blessed be He, so they call it religious feelings, whatever. But in truth it is clear that there is some sort of encounter with the Holy One, blessed be He, here. Dawkins goes on at length to prove that Einstein was an atheist—not that it changes anything; what difference does it make what he was, atheist or not? That is an ad hominem sort of thing, as though whatever Einstein thought was surely true. But his claim is that Einstein was generally an atheist—it is only these feelings of amazement. But I think it is not exhausted by feelings of amazement. You can be amazed by many things. There is something deeper here than that. It does not matter even if Einstein himself, had I asked him, would have answered otherwise. That is not important; I am analyzing the phenomenon. The phenomenon of standing before something whole, complex, fitting, comprehensive, where a few simple laws create such a complex and sophisticated and interconnected reality—that places you before the Holy One, blessed be He. If you are an atheist, you do not call Him the Holy One, blessed be He—that does not matter—but you grasp something of Him. In other words, there is something here that is specifically thanks to exposure to the laboratory of the Holy One, blessed be He, by which we somehow manage to encounter Him.

The exposure—just a second—the exposure to the Talmud, as opposed to Maimonides, is some sort of much deeper encounter with the Holy One, blessed be He, than exposure to Maimonides. Because there we see how the whole business works: what was the preliminary assumption, what is the conclusion, why does it begin, how did they think? We can now adopt those ways of thinking ourselves and internalize them within us; pieces of the Holy One, blessed be He, as it were, enter into us. If it is a halakhic ruling of Maimonides, then that is some kind of top-down directive. I cannot internalize it, cannot identify with it, cannot do anything. I will do what is written because I will fulfill what the Holy One, blessed be He, says. I do not have the ability to cleave to Him. That is what is denied me when I am not exposed to the laboratory but only to the results.

And this is what the Sages meant by, as they voted and concluded that study is greater because it brings to action. Why here is it like that? Is study greater or is action greater? And they voted and concluded that study is greater because it brings to action. If it really means because it brings to recognition of the Holy One, blessed be He, then fine—but that is not what is said in the Talmud. You are setting me up beautifully because I drew it from there, from what I said. The Talmud there says: study is greater because it brings to action. So various questioners asked: if it brings to action, then which is greater, study or action? Action is the goal and study is the means, right? So what does it mean that study is greater? You cannot say that study is greater because it serves as a means to action. So which is greater, the means or the goal?

No, it is both. What? Study is greater because it brings to action, because you get both. If you have only action, you do not have study. If you engage in study, action will always be inside it. No, that does not mean that study is greater. It means that study is more useful, because it brings you action as well. But when you examine what is greater in itself, study or action, I do not think you can infer from here that study is greater. You started with Maimonides from the Talmud; start here and you will get to Maimonides. And Maimonides does not… No, I agree. From the standpoint of usefulness, you are right. But when you want to ask which is greater, then you have to examine study in itself. If it is only a means to action, you cannot say that it is greater. Greater not in scope, greater in rank. No, exactly—not in rank. No, you should say study comes first, not study is greater. “Study is greater” does not mean it comes first. “Study is greater” means that engaging in study is more… “Torah study is equal to them all.” It is greater than engaging in action. That is not it. Not first.

But I think what is written there is really something else. What is written there is not that study is greater because it brings to action. Rather, you asked whether study is greater or action is greater. You assumed some setup in which study stands here and action stands there and the question is which is greater. And the answer is: you made a mistake in the very formulation of the question. What is greater is the chain of study that brings to action. That is what is greater. Because when you posed the question as either study or action, you simply made a conceptual mistake in how you posed the question. What does it mean, too, that study is greater because it brings to action? Obviously, if the whole chain is important and not only the action, then study is not a means. Because otherwise action would be greater, and study would of course be necessary, because without it you would not know what to do. But no—they tell you that this whole chain is the goal.

And what stands behind this? What stands behind it is that the goal of learning is not to know what to do. Rather, the goal of learning is to connect what I do with abstract ideas. That is the purpose of learning. Now in our Torah, when I study I arrive at abstract ideas. Philosophers too study abstract ideas. But for them it does not translate into things they do with their hands. It does not… it does not find expression in daily life. One of the things that, in my view, is most… I don’t know… most gripping in the Torah context is precisely this point: that you can emerge from some completely abstract concept about the nature of time—I don’t know, absolutely whatever you want—and it tells you tomorrow morning from which side to sew the fringes, or whatever. That is, you connect the completely abstract world, the philosophical world, depending on how far you soar in your learning, and that utterly abstract world finds expression in tiny practical details, in your action. Constantly, you connect what you do down here to ideas… everything is nourished by ideas up above. This connection between heaven and earth—that is the purpose of learning. And that is exactly cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He. Cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He, is connecting with what is above. What is below connects with what is above.

There are methods of learning—perhaps they are not great methods—someone who studies Shulchan Arukh, studies Beit Yosef… No, I told you earlier that the classical yeshivot see it this way. That is obvious. Rabbi Ovadia would not agree with you about what you are saying now. I said that I have several proofs; let’s see what he would say to them—but halakhic proofs in the end. But Rabbi Ovadia probably does not see it this way. Rabbi Ovadia does think that in the end action is the goal and learning is only a means to clarify what the action is. Consequently, he is also less invested in all the pilpulim, yes, of the Ashkenazim. Fine, that is a different outlook. Right now I am presenting my own outlook; I am not responsible… Again, I say: I have proofs, I think he is mistaken, but certainly there are such approaches, of course.

All right, I’ll bring you one proof. There are several. Women are exempt from Torah study. Right? It is written that women are exempt from Torah study, but they recite the blessings over Torah. Why do they recite the blessings over Torah? It is written because they need to learn what they practice, right? So they recite the blessings over Torah. In other words, learning what I need to know in order to act—that is called being exempt from Torah study. Right? Because a woman is exempt from Torah study, but she is obligated to learn what she needs in order to observe. And that is called being exempt from Torah study. So what is Torah study? Wait, and she also recites… No, on the contrary. She is exempt from the commandment of Torah study; she enters into the blessing because she too belongs to Torah. That is the explanation there. But she still—nobody disputes that she is exempt from the commandment of Torah study. It is a commandment that does not apply to women. Not obligated for women, not that it does not apply to women. They are not obligated. Right, but if all Torah study is learning in order to know what to do, then in what way is a woman different from a man? So why… why is it called that she is exempt from Torah study? This shows that learning in order to do is not Torah study. Torah study is doing in order to learn—not learning in order to do.

Yes, because through it one reaches exaltation of spirit, for we see before our eyes every day the ways of causes and effects coming about, and nevertheless, since we see that they perform their acts in wondrous order and with great wisdom and kindness and great mercy, we recognize the One who acts and gives life to all, who is the living God, who has not abandoned resourcefulness, kindness, and mercy. What is the difference, he goes on, between the development of the stellar spheres and the worlds according to their greatness over tens of thousands of years, and the development of the fetus in its mother’s womb over a span of months? Do you need evolution in order to ask that question? Already thousands of years ago people understood that a fetus takes several months to develop. Seven or nine; there were also shorter pregnancies once. But clearly it is not done immediately. You do not need evolution for that. This question should never have arisen—that is what Rav Kook is saying here. This question should not have arisen only because we discovered evolution. Gradual processes have existed from time immemorial. If the Holy One, blessed be He, wants to create a fetus, let Him do it just like that. Why does He need seven months or nine months now to draw it out in its mother’s womb? You see that the Holy One, blessed be He, works in gradual processes, and this is not a question that should arise only today. It is a question that could have been asked long ago. That does not mean there is an answer, but I am saying that the question itself is not new, and therefore there is no reason to get overly excited about evolution in this context.

And nevertheless we recognize that “Your deeds are wondrous, and my soul knows very well,” and so on; “I was made in secret, woven in the depths of the earth; Your eyes saw my unformed substance, and in Your book they were all written.” Well, here you see “Your deeds are wondrous” and everything he says above, that we actually see the laboratory of the Holy One, blessed be He, in how the fetus takes shape. If it emerged all at once, you would not see what complexity the process has, how varied it is, how calculated it is, how things happen that really have to happen. If everything happened all at once, then what—you would not see anything. So there is something here, some sort of encounter with the ways of conduct of the Holy One, blessed be He.

And all the more so if we count the stages of development through which the organic parts rose from being simple elements until they reached the condition of a complete human being, alive and intelligent, even righteous and upright and full of power and strength. Yes, if in one fetus that takes nine months to form there is all this wonder, then all the more so in the formation of the human species as a whole—from the beginning of evolution, say, until today. Then certainly, certainly.

And behold, a great period, and the paths proceed slowly—and they are precisely what testify to the power of God when they arrive at a proper purpose. Here he returns to something he said in the previous chapter as well. He says: the longer the process, the more strongly it testifies, I think, to the might of the Holy One, blessed be He, not less strongly. Because the more you can, by the means you cast into this world—four basic laws of physics—and from that point onward, go on your way within these rules. And what do you see? There is a big bang at the beginning, just some little ball of matter exploding, and after several billion years suddenly there are human beings, animals, frogs, I don’t know what—all kinds of things, unbelievable beyond telling. What is more impressive: that? Or that someone should do this and make a world immediately, the world as it is? To me, the first option is more impressive.

A person who manages, with four simple laws, to let the system run on its own and arrive where it arrives—that means he has absolute control over the system. Whatever he wants, he does. He sets three laws, four simple laws, and you take a lump of clay and an elephant emerges from it. That expresses much stronger control than creating an elephant directly. Fine, you made it—you’re a magician, I don’t know. Here there is an expression of absolute control over the laws of nature. You can establish lawfulness, you can cause nature to do what you decide it will do. Whatever you decide. You establish the laws, nature proceeds within them through processes that seem random—we discussed this in previous times—they seem random, but really everything is operating according to the basic laws of physics, and suddenly all kinds of creatures emerge that you would never imagine how they emerged.

So there is something here: the more it is aimed, it is like someone who shoots an arrow and hits a target at a distance of two thousand meters—he is of course far more accurate than someone who hits a target from a distance of one hundred meters. Because in terms of angular error, when you make the same angular error at two thousand meters, you will miss by a tremendous amount. In other words, if you hit the target at long range, you are a greater marksman than if you hit the target at short range. Right? It is a simple matter. Okay, the same thing here. The Holy One, blessed be He, basically fired this arrow twenty billion years before it reached its destination. It still has not arrived, but no matter, for now. Fine? Twenty billion years before it reached its destination. That is a greater marksman than someone who shoots on the spot and immediately what he wants is created. There is an expression here of much more absolute control—over everything that happens, over the laws, over reality as a whole. That is what he says: that the whole great period and the slowly moving paths are precisely what testify to the power of God when they arrive at a proper purpose, when the arrow ultimately hits the target after all that long path.

And behold, it is obvious to all those who know Torah that the acts of creation were explained in the Torah only in the slightest measure. And our Sages said in the midrash: to tell flesh and blood the full power of the acts of creation is impossible. Therefore Scripture said it only in closed form: “In the beginning God created,” without details. And the basic point is that the Torah spoke only of what pertains to our earthly sphere. The whole universe was created, but what is described in the Torah is the earth. So he says that in the words “In the beginning God created” there is folded up some very, very long process even before the reality was formed that concerns us, the one we know today—animals and grasses and human beings and things of that kind. And there are other very, very long processes before that. All of that is folded into “In the beginning God created.”

Yes, by the way, this is already stated in the words of the Sages, that this is why the Torah began with the second letter of “In the beginning,” because before that there is still the first letter, which is not said. So there is some very, very long process that does not appear at all. The Ari, of blessed memory, even placed markers on the axis—that is, from when the Torah begins back to where nothing is mentioned at all in the Torah, those are the worlds of chaos, generations of chaos, and so on, which are before the words “In the beginning God created,” in the space beforehand.

And the basic point is that the Torah spoke only of what pertains to our earthly sphere, and even that only according to the content by which the moral side is understood, the side that concerns setting straight the ways of man in his external conduct and his inner feelings, and so on. So Rav Kook says like this: everything described in the Torah is, first, only what concerns us. Things that do not concern us are not described. Second, even of what concerns us, not everything is described. Rather, from among what concerns us, or what belongs to our world, only that is described which can straighten our ways according to justice and uprightness and so on.

And again, Rav Kook’s emphasis, of course—and we will also see this later in the chapter—his emphasis is more on morality than on truth, on will rather than on intellect. We spoke about this in contrast to Maimonides, who places intellect at the center, while Rav Kook places will at the center. Here too we will see this all along the way. Rav Kook constantly goes with the second approach: that it comes to teach us the divine will and not only the intellect. What I explained earlier with evolution—that it describes the divine mode of conduct—that is intellect. But he goes back to what concerns the straightening of our ways, meaning divine morality, will, what He expects from us.

And when we consider the order of creation of our earthly globe, the place from which the Torah begins to tell the story—from there the Torah starts, with what concerns us and concerns the straightening of our ways—we find that it was without order. Yes, at first there was chaos and void, fine, not orderly. And because of the abundance of vapors—those are the thick and moist fumes—it was full of water and darkness. And the first step was that the vapors were somewhat purified, until a little light held sway, but the air was still not clear enough for the bodies of the luminaries to be visible through it.

Notice—this means that the luminaries were already there. When it says that on the fourth day the luminaries were hung up, or that the Holy One, blessed be He, created the light, according to Rav Kook this is not connected at all; the luminaries were already there much earlier. But from our standpoint—after all, everything is viewed from our standpoint—as far as we are concerned, so long as we did not see them, they were not there. Only when the air became somewhat clear and it was possible to see the luminaries hidden behind it, from our standpoint that is called the creation of the luminaries. What he is doing here is basically a kind of creative interpretation that he had earlier promised to do. He is effectively saying: I will now interpret the creation passage in a way that aligns it with what the proponents of evolution or the big bang say. The big bang did not yet exist then, but never mind—the new theories.

Fine, so the sun was already there before, and the moon was already there before, and behold the Torah says that it was created. Created means: since everything is described only from our standpoint, only in terms of what concerns us, then this creation too is described only from the standpoint of our eyes. When the air cleared, suddenly the sun and moon are seen, and that is called that the Holy One, blessed be He, hung them in the sky.

Then he goes on: if so, only the light was created with respect to our globe, while the luminaries themselves are not considered created from that point of view—they were already there before—for if a person had stood on it, he would not have recognized at all that there were luminaries in reality. So true, there were luminaries, but in my reality I cannot see them. Fine? However, there was evening and morning at any rate around the sphere. How was there evening and morning from the rotation of the sphere if the light still wasn’t seen? So why does the rotation of the sphere produce evening and morning here? Why? No, it doesn’t matter. Why are you trying to dig into this claim that the Torah is… No, no. As far as I am concerned that is not important. I am not trying at all to test these theses—whether they really fit, whether this is a correct interpretation or not. What interests me is simply how he does it, or what he is doing, what his methodological assumptions are. The details are not important to me at the moment—whether it does fit or does not fit, whether it explains “and there was evening and there was morning, one day.” Yes, yes, of course.

What Maimonides says here is—not that they did not see the light, but that time passed. Time passed because the sphere rotates. And if the sphere did not rotate, then time would not pass. There is some sort of conception here that says that time is the rotation of the heavenly bodies. What? What are you looking for? I didn’t understand. That the world was created in six days. What does he need to look for? No, so he said at the beginning—and he also says that these are only conjectures and so forth. He emphasizes this earlier too. But he says: let me show you, for example, that even with accommodation, the whole adaptation to evolution can be read into the first day. If the Holy One, blessed be He, created a human being on the sixth day, is it hard for Him to create a dinosaur skeleton too even if it never existed at all? Yes, fine, okay, that really is already a different kind of faith.

If, say, it were possible to prove—if archaeologists proved that the world was created in six days and so on—would you believe all this religious faith? Yes. But there was always good and evil, I don’t know. Choice would remain. I think there is choice even when the truth is clear. That is what Leibowitz said, you know: after the revelation at Mount Sinai they made the golden calf. In other words, they knew the truth—it does not change freedom of choice. People sin even when they know the truth. In short, what is the problem with creating all the accommodations? No, fine, that is another question: how reasonable it is. I am somewhat doubtful how reasonable it is that the Holy One, blessed be He, creates all sorts of dinosaurs inside the earth. I don’t know. Maybe He wanted to laugh at us. Fine, no, I cannot prove otherwise.

But what I am saying is that once again we are missing the point here. Rav Kook is not really trying to propose a true model. He is trying to teach us a methodology. Not only am I reading him that way—this is also his purpose. He did not really mean this to be the interpretation of the verses; I am sure of that. He also gives the introductory remarks that say so. He is only saying: let me show you that you have no reason to get excited at all. Through interpretation I can do whatever you want. Let me now show you that everything fits evolution. As a thought experiment, saying to you: don’t get excited by these difficulties; it is not relevant. That is why he also prefaced it with all the preliminaries. Otherwise he would have simply started straight off like Avi Ezri. You understand? Here, come listen—I’ll explain to you that all of evolution is actually hidden in letter-skipping in the book of Genesis. And that’s it, everything is fine. He does not say that. He begins with lots of apologies, all kinds of apologies. He says: listen, first of all this is only a conjecture; it is not Torah. Second, today they say this, tomorrow they will say that, but never mind. Second, even if it were true, with the verses one can always manage. Right? Let’s see.

There is a statement of Rav Kook that we have no need whatsoever to deny the whole theory of evolution, since it accords with all sorts of verses from the Torah and from Maimonides; and in any case this is not the essence of Torah. Yes, yes, correct. Well, that is part of the same introduction. He wants to show that with interpretation one can basically arrange almost whatever one wants. It is only a question of how creative you are. And he gives us an example to show this, and that is all. I do not think he means to offer an interpretation he truly stands behind. It does not seem to me that he means that either. I certainly do not read it that way. It does not look to me as though he meant it either. He is trying to teach us a methodology.

He is saying: look, are you troubled? Have you been convinced by evolution? Are you terribly troubled by the contradiction to Torah? Come, I’ll go with you, let’s talk according to your view. I say: I don’t know at all; it does not trouble me. Personally—speaking about myself—the whole issue of these questions truly does not trouble me at all. To the extent that I can invent a thousand kinds of explanations like this and other explanations. It will not decide anything one way or another. I do not know whether any of these explanations is true, if any of them is true at all. But because there are so many possibilities, these questions are no longer relevant. So why is it interesting? We will not reach any conclusion with these questions. I think that is what he wants to show here. He wants to show here that he can arrange whatever you want. So leave me alone with these questions—that is basically what he is saying here.

And then he continues and says: however, there was evening and morning all around the sphere because of its rotation; and after that the air came to the condition fit to be called firmament. Yes? The air became clearer, as he said above. Even though the moisture was still very great above the range of air perceptible to sight, had a person stood there upon it. Yes, in other words, in short, there were still screens, and the person did not see what was going on above. A moist firmament that was wet and afterward dried. Yes, never mind. I am only saying that he says it was a gradual process. That is, there were still screens. It is something gradual. Fine? And afterward came the gathering of the waters of the earth to one place and the development of the power of growth. And afterward the refinement of the air to such a degree that the luminaries could be seen properly, in the proper manner. That is the hanging of the luminaries in the firmament. There was already light before. That is the light of the first day, when the Holy One, blessed be He, created the light and the darkness; but He hung the luminaries in the firmament on the fourth day. And what does that mean? The air had already become clear enough—like blind people, you know. Blindness has different levels; sometimes a person can only see light and darkness, he does not see the source of the light clearly. If he is less blind, that is, if he has better vision, then he can already see that there is a source here. So here too: the clearer the air becomes, first we only saw that there was light, and now we can already see that there are actually luminaries hanging in the firmament. Fine?

The hanging of the luminaries in the proper manner was also for the intellectual development of the human being, so that a person could investigate their revolutions. Now one can already grasp and see that they rotate, the stars too. What? No, but it reached the level at which, if a person had been there, he could already have discerned their revolutions. And only then did the air become fit for living creatures. Exactly—that is what he is showing here. There are preparations; everything is preparation toward creation. It became fit for living creatures, and winged creatures were created on the fourth and fifth days, after all this whole business was already prepared. Now it was possible to create flying creatures that move in a place where the air is thin, and fish, which do not require the purification of the air as much, because it was still not perfect. Who had still not been created? The human being, on the sixth day, because the human being apparently needs purer air than animals. Right? And afterward, when the air became purer still, it was fit for the emergence of animals that walk on the earth, and of the human being.

In other words, what he is trying to show here is, first, don’t come to me with questions—I can reconcile whatever you want. And second, he is also offering us a model. Come and see that I can show you that what was written there is a parable that can teach us things about the will of God, about His modes of conduct, about the fact that He prepares things in a way suitable for the next step. He thinks ahead about the procedure of what He is going to do and keeps preparing the process toward the next step. From here we too, of course, are supposed to know how to conduct our own affairs.

All right, we’ll continue next time. Up to here was the lesson of Rabbi Michael Abraham, 22 Cheshvan 5770, Wednesday, November 4, 2009, “Peace in the Perplexities of the Generation.”