I didn’t understand.
What do we assign to the six days of creation, and what to the seventh day?
If we accept that development on all levels of the world (inanimate, plant, animal, speaking being) took place over millions of years, then what exactly happened in the first six days of creation? The establishment of the laws?

So in six days the laws of nature were created, and on the seventh they were not? And the description in the book of Genesis is metaphorical?

It sounds forced to me to accept the Genesis passage selectively. The claim that a certain activity took place and lasted exactly 6 days we take literally, but the details of what was created we take only metaphorically.

I don’t understand. In any case, the six days are six periods, and we commemorate that within a weekly framework.

Sorry, but I don’t understand. I’d appreciate it if you could elaborate a bit.
What am I supposed to have in mind during Kiddush: what are the six days, what was created in them, and what is the rest on the seventh day?

In a response in another responsa thread I recently wrote something that might be relevant to this question:
Regarding creation in six days, only on the fourth day were the luminaries created. So apparently this is not a day measured by the earth’s rotation on its axis, but some unit of time of a certain length that is considered a “day” in the eyes of the Holy One, blessed be He. As in, “For a thousand years in Your sight are but as yesterday.” Or as they say in the verse, “On that day the Lord shall be one and His name one” — “day” there means a stage in time whose length is not necessarily 24 hours.

According to this, the process of creation included six stages called “day,” and the seventh stage is rest. Corresponding to the six stages of creation, we are commanded to commemorate them by doing labor for six days and resting on the seventh.

In addition, there are two reasons for the commandment of the Sabbath that appear in the Torah. The first really does relate to the days of creation (Exodus chapter 20):
7 Remember the Sabbath day, to sanctify it.
8 Six days shall you labor and do all your work.
9 But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work — you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, your cattle, or the stranger within your gates.
10 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and sanctified it.

But in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 5 a different reason appears (a social one):
11 Keep the Sabbath day, to sanctify it, as the Lord your God commanded you.
12 Six days shall you 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 — you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, your ox, your donkey, all your cattle, or the stranger within your gates — so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as you do.
14 And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.

Oren, thanks.

A short question for the wise:
True, there is no obstacle to accepting the claim that “day” in Genesis appears in a metaphorical sense. And if so, its actual length is not identical with what we call a day (24 hours).
The apparent problem is that in other places in the Torah, as far as I assume, this word is indeed used in the meaning familiar to us.
So the concern arises that appealing to metaphor דווקא in this case is arbitrary.

Aharon, in my opinion your question is excellent.

I have several interesting sources on the subject, and when I sit down to edit them (as a chapter in a book about symbols in the Torah) I can send them to you. These are not well-known sources, especially from the 19th century.

In any case, here was a discussion of mine with Rabbi Michi and others on exactly this topic: 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/

Briefly, I’ll say that in my opinion, heaven forbid, heaven forbid to break it up into seven periods (which science has never heard of). That is ridiculous to exactly the same degree as saying that God created the world in six days. (It may have happened that way, but it is still ridiculous scientifically. And so too seven “periods.”)
What can be said on the matter is, in short, either that the division into seven is subjective and the Torah seeks to instill it retroactively (for the sake of the command regarding the Sabbath), even though creation in fact was organic and uniform, more like cholent or stretched chewing gum than six defined groups of a halakhic man with a Priestly source P-type conception.

Another possibility is that this division does not express the past but rather the present — six working days followed by Sabbath, or six years followed by the Sabbatical year. When a person rests, he testifies to and acknowledges that God rests (that is, His regard for creation ceases to be productive and instead recognizes it in its suchness), and God’s rest = creation is complete and God stands behind it. This sounds very airy, and if God grants it I’ll try to sit down and explain the Sabbath. There are several assumptions here about pantheism, and this is not the place to elaborate.

Recommended sources for study for now:
A. Tur-Sinai, HaKtav VeHaSefer (on the development of the Sabbath from the accepted division into six months of work / hours of the day and so on)
B. Uriel Simon’s article on the six days of creation
C. The book Ma’aseh Bereishit by Rabbi Velikovsky (in Otzar HaChochma)

Doron,
In many texts a word is used metaphorically even though it is usually used in its plain sense. I don’t see a real difficulty in that. True, we arrived at this conclusion after scientific findings, so what? Now it has become clear to us that the usage here is metaphorical. Especially since early biblical commentators, long before modern science, already wrote that the description in Genesis is metaphorical and not historical-factual.

Even if we say this is a metaphorical use of the word “day,” I still don’t understand why the creation of vegetation appears before the creation of the sun, if according to science the sun preceded vegetation.
Or with regard to the content of what was created at each stage too, do we have to say that it is also “not necessarily” exact, but more like a rough pointer?

If you have a plausible criterion for distinguishing between the word “day” in its metaphorical use and its use in the accepted meaning, then you have a case.
I’m not fully convinced that this is the situation.
I don’t understand the claim that from science we learned that the use of the word “day” is metaphorical. Science at most showed us that the development of the world took much, much longer than what is written, meaning there is a contradiction between scientific truth and the text.

It could still be that the author of Genesis genuinely believed that “day” means our 24 hours. If that is the case, then it seems to me the problem has not been solved. After all, the author did not intend to say something metaphorical at all.

Oren,
I referred only to the term “day.” The description itself is certainly deficient on the scientific plane, though it is not clear exactly what the hanging of the sun means in that context. For example, it is not clear what evening and morning were before the sun was set in place.

Doron,
Indeed, but if for some other reason you arrive at the conclusion that the writer of these verses is the Holy One, blessed be He, then it follows naturally that the usage here is metaphorical. If you do not agree to that assumption, then of course you will conclude something else.

Again I saw that there is a tannaitic dispute regarding the issue of the source of light before the creation of the sun on the fourth day:
Babylonian Talmud, tractate Chagigah 12a
“Was light then created on the first day? But it is written, ‘And God set them in the firmament of the heavens,’ and it is written, ‘And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day’! — This is in accordance with Rabbi Elazar. For Rabbi Elazar said: The light that the Holy One, blessed be He, created on the first day — a person could see with it from one end of the world to the other. When the Holy One, blessed be He, looked at the generation of the Flood and the generation of the Dispersion and saw that their deeds were corrupt, He arose and hid it from them, as it is said: ‘But from the wicked their light is withheld.’ And for whom did He hide it? For the righteous in the future, as it is said: ‘And God saw the light, that it was good,’ and ‘good’ means none other than the righteous, as it is said: ‘Say of the righteous that he is good.’ When He saw the light that He had hidden for the righteous, He rejoiced, as it is said: ‘The light of the righteous rejoices.’ As it was taught by the tannaim: The light that the Holy One, blessed be He, created on the first day — a person could look and see with it from one end of the world to the other; these are the words of Rabbi Yaakov. And the Sages say: These are in fact the very luminaries that were created on the first day but were not hung in place until the fourth day.”

I thought this Sabbath about another possibility that could explain the creation story like this:
In Pesachim 54a there is a difficulty regarding the time of the creation of fire. There is one opinion that says it was created at the end of the Sabbath, while Rabbi Nehemiah says in the name of his father that it was created on Sabbath eve at twilight, and in the end they answer that it arose in thought to create it on Sabbath eve, but in practice it was not created until the end of the Sabbath.

From here we see a principle: 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 actuality. Therefore I propose interpreting the creation story as a process of creation in the thought of the Holy One, blessed be He. That way, even if the chronological order of the creation story does not match the findings of science, that does not mean there is a contradiction, because it may be that the order of creation in the thought of the Holy One, blessed be He, was different from the actual order in which things were created.

According to Maimonides in The Guide for the Perplexed, the creation of the world was done in two distinct stages: creation of the world ex nihilo, which is written in the verse “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” in which God created “the heavens” — and “et,” according to biblical idiom, may hint at the meaning “together with,” meaning He created the heavens and all that is in the heavens, the earth and all that is on the earth. At that moment, when the spheres determining 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 forth from potential into actuality the powers latent in creation, like a person who sows seeds and from the sowing done in a single moment fruits emerge over a long period of time.

That is, Maimonides too raised the idea that one can distinguish between the time of actual creation and the time of potential creation (or creation in thought) of each component of creation.

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

According to this, even the division of creation into days in the thought of the Holy One, blessed be He, can be interpreted as literal 24-hour days, and not necessarily as 7 periods. Because it may be that the process of thinking about creation lasted 7 days (or 24×7 hours). Alternatively, one can understand that the word “day” in the creation story refers to the idea of “day” and not to the reflection of that idea in our world. That is, if the creation story describes the process of creation in the world of ideas, then the concept of day is also not necessarily a real day but an ideal day. The reflection of the idea of “day” in our world is expressed as a time span of 24 hours.

I’d be glad to hear what the Rabbi thinks of this idea.

With blessings for a good (ideal) week

P.S. I wonder whether this can count as learning from aggadic literature in the Talmud 🙂

You remind me of the Vilna Gaon’s explanation of the dispute between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel over whether in Havdalah one says “Who creates the light of fire” or “the lights of fire.” His claim is that “the light of fire” is the fundamental force called fire (the idea), and “the lights of fire” is fire in actuality.
The plain sense of the Torah does not seem to intend the creation of ideas. Especially since at the stage of ideas there was not yet time (except perhaps the idea of time), so it is not clear whether one can speak of a literal 24-hour day.
This is indeed deriving from aggadic literature, and you know what my opinion is about that. 🙂

The Torah had to speak in the language of human beings of that period. In the past there was no clear understanding of abstract concepts or of the creation of something abstract. Therefore the Torah also used anthropomorphic expressions like “the hand of the Lord,” “the burning of His anger,” “you shall see My back, but My face shall not be seen,” and so on.

So you’ve come back again to the point that “day” is not a day in the literal sense. So what is gained by the whole move?

I think this is an interpretation that is relatively close to the plain sense. Even when the Holy One, blessed be He, formulates something metaphorically, there has to be a connection between the simple wording and the metaphorical meaning behind it. Until today I haven’t heard interpretations (even symbolic ones) of the creation story that present a good connection between the plain meaning and the symbolic interpretation.

That is, I’m guessing you assume that once the interpretation is no longer plain sense, then the gates of interpretation are open and everyone can suggest whatever symbolic interpretation they want as their heart desires, so it no longer matters what the interpretation is. But I’m trying to argue that even when one uproots the plain sense, one still has to remain as close to it as possible, and explain why uprooting the plain sense was necessary and why the Holy One, blessed be He, did not formulate it more simply instead of speaking in parables and riddles.

For example, if one interprets “day” as a period, as you wrote at the beginning of the responsa, the problem still remains of the chronological order of the periods of creation not fitting the findings of science. That is, plants were created one “day” before the sun, and that does not accord with scientific findings, to the best of my understanding. And then you are already forced to take the concept of “plants” and the concept of “sun” out of their plain sense too, and the interpretation begins to lose connection to the plain sense and sounds less plausible.

I don’t see a great advantage, but if it seems preferable to you then it is of course a possible interpretation.

Is there another interpretation of the creation story that seems better to you? I’d be glad to hear what interpretation you prefer.

For example, what Gil wrote above. It is an educational myth whose purposes are not the facts but various lessons. Also, understanding it as six periods; and regarding the sun, I already commented above.