Q&A: Who Created These
Who Created These
Question
Well known are Maimonides’ statements (and the difference between what he writes in Sefer HaMitzvot and what he writes in Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah) about contemplating the universe and from there understanding creation—and this is certainly not only from Maimonides, but also from verses, Talmudic texts, and other sages. For a long time I did not understand why. After all, it seems to produce the opposite: the feeling that one is just a tiny cog in the system (and as I understand it, this was a significant part of the opposition to heliocentrism). How is this to be explained?
Are the feelings that filled Kant in the face of the heavenly system related?
An extreme example is the Talmud in Berakhot 32b, which describes at length the immense size of the whole system, and in the end says that everything is for Israel. How can this be understood? (With a rational explanation, not pilpul such as seven corresponding to seven and the like; see the book Iyei HaYam there.)
Answer
I did not understand the difficulty. This can serve as evidence for the existence of God and at the same time for our own smallness. Why is that a contradiction?
Discussion on Answer
Who says that this understanding is correct? In any case, there is no contradiction here.
The main difficulty is that this runs contrary to the understanding that all creation is for Israel, and the difficulty was intensified by the fact that the Talmud (as above) presents the vastness of the universe as intended for Israel.
On the Sabbath I saw in a homily of Nachmanides (The Torah of the Lord Is Perfect) that Abraham ibn Ezra had already raised this point, and Nachmanides did not accept his words, but he did not answer there in that place; and Shwevel did not mention where he does answer it.