"In The Beginning" Hints at Evolution Part 1

In The Beginning," or in Hebrew, "B'reisheet," is the first chapter (or, in Hebrew, "Parsha") of the Torah (or, in English, the "Bible"). Apart from its transcendent beauty, it is the subject of much debate, controversy, legislation, feuding, conflict, and polarization between the so-called Creationists (or Religionists) and the so-called Darwinists (or Evolutionists).

To avoid suspense, let me begin with my opinion, which is, that this controversy is without basis.

The supposed basis of the controversy which has caused governments to ban the teaching of the Bible in public schools is that if one interprets the Torah narrative of the creation of the universe literally, then one has to believe that in six Earth days, G-d created Heaven and Earth, and everything in them. This, of course, clearly contradicts the scientific evidence of both evolutionary, organic and inorganic development of the Earth and everything in it, apparently spanning billions of years.

As a believing Jew, I have no problem with the evidence of billions of years of development because I have my pick of any number of explanations, plus my own original interpretative theory.

For those of us who believe in G-d, it is indeed a rewarding and awe-inspiring exercise in faith to contemplate that, since G-d can do anything, perhaps He did create a complete Universe in six Earth days about 5,769 Earth years ago, in such a way that it had all the appearance -- and evidence -- of having been around for billions of years. To disbelieve that G-d could do such a thing is a grave, self-imposed limitation. After all, what is G-d, if not omnipotent? And what exactly does omnipotent mean, after all? Why should we puny humans try to handcuff the Master of the Universe with the feebleness of our own imaginations?

The i-Dea being, to stretch a little. Think of G-d ... as really G-D!!

What a concept.

What if, in fact, all the inferences of science as to the nature of the universe are based on a "factional" reality created and supported by G-d for the past almost six millennia? Not possible, the rational person says. But the rationale for the scientific person's belief system is based on appearances, not necessarily substance.

I'm just being the Divine's advocate here, but is it really necessarily so? Did we all personally witness the buildup of the Earth's surface layers over eons? Is there really only one explanation for the core samples of the Earth going down deep into our planet indicating different ages spanning billions of years? By our science, of course, there's no alternative to the chronological build up of these layers but is this explanation, derived, as it is, from our human observations, the only one? What if there were a Greater Power, believed in by many, who made it all look this way, right down to the apparent mutations of our mitochondrial DNA, but created it in a much shorter period of Earth time? The point here is, are we capable of even conceiving of a power so great as to mold the shape of mountains, continents and seas in a day?

The Earth appeared -- by the evidence of their observations -- to be flat at some point to some people who accepted it as such. Some may still (see Flat Earth Society) promote this point of view, albeit in jest. The serious point is, appearances -- and all logical inferences derived therefrom -- can deceive. And what, by the way, happens after you get to the smallest known particle, and you still can't account for what's beyond it?

Thus, the world appearing to have evolved over eons may merely be a collectively subjective perception, deduced from our studies. We, anchored in our understandings and observations of physical cause and effect, presume it must be so because it fits our view of the laws of physics and nature, as we have currently inferred them.

For those hidebound in this faith, I say "loose the shackles of your imagination." Let it play with the concept that G-d supports the universe constantly with His Will, and should He withdraw that Will, the so-called Laws of Nature would fall apart. Can we stretch our minds to conceive of a power greater than all the stars of all the galaxies or, more locally, the Sun? Able to move tall mountains and vast continents?

It is an exercise in imagination beyond the grasp of most scientifically-oriented people. Such people focus on evidence and phenomena so much that it blinkers them to what may be above such phenomena.

"The G-d above phenomena" describes the concept. To those dedicated to the study of phenomena, it's hard to see. Phenomena, we can see, or at least infer. We can't see G-d. And even inferring His existence can be risky business -- from a scientific point of view.

So, let's turn that basically Buddhist-inspired (but not necessarily approved of by Buddha) song of the late John Lennon -- may he be dwelling in the Heaven of his choice much to his delight -- one-eighty degrees. "Imagine there's a Heaven ... It's easy if you try ... No blinkers on our spirit ... G-d sits above the sky ..."

It's an exercise which many a thinking person would not dare to attempt. It takes them back to the shame they experienced growing up when they discovered there was no Santy Claus, or Tooth Fairy, or Superman (Oops! For those of you who still believed in these, sorry). They won't fall for that again, these True Believers that human beings know everything there is to know. What's real is real. I can see, taste, touch, smell, hear or at least infer it. There is nothing in the "real" world to support the concept of the almost instantaneous creation of billions of years of a planet's history.

Funny how we enjoy all kinds of fantastical, impossible things in movies, TV, and books, suspending our disbelief for the pleasure of engrossment. Why do you think we have Science Fiction? Apparently, we have a need to contemplate things beyond the world as we know it. So let's use this talent of ours, and say it again.

G-d created a world in six Earth days which, by all the evidence, appeared to have been around for billions of years. That's billions of years of history created in a few days!

Awesome, isn't it? It's one explanation embraced by a population of believers -- of different religions, by the way. And it's liberating to contemplate.

And why would G-d do such a thing? Why to give us humans, "derech ha-tevah," a natural order of things, in order to stabilize our lives in this immense universe, and provide a normal baseline for us to study and learn about ourselves and our world from our point of view, as our souls enjoy the life of experience a merciful G-d has bequeathed us.

Perhaps.

Would I, however, dogmatically insist that everyone who believes in G-d accept the story of the Creation of the Universe, and the Earth, in its most simplistic, literal form? Nope. That's why I would never call myself a "Creationist" even though I do believe that G-d created all, or that everything came from the Mind of G-d.

I stand apart from Creationists because they don't merely believe that G-d created everything; they believe they actually understand how He did it -- just from reading the Bible, -- and they insist we accept their own literal view of what it all means.

The truth is, as much as we can enjoy the Bible's description of the creation of Heaven and Earth, we just do not have clue #1 as to how it all really happened. Nachmanides, aka the Ramban, a great and revered Jewish scholar, says as much, and his knowledge of the Bible was very great. He concluded that, despite the description in the Bible, the actual events of Creation are a mystery, and that anyone who claims they know how G-d created the Universe is simply blowing smoke. Remember, though, it's perfectly kosher to believe with complete faith one way or another. Knowing for a fact exactly what the Torah means in its description of Creation is, according to the Ramban, not possible.

I agree. As powerful and evocative a narrative as is the story of Creation, it's still pretty hard to figure out how it all works from the words alone.

So, on a very basic level, you can't really say that the belief that G-d created Heaven and Earth is unscientific because a) it's a matter of faith, and, more importantly, b) we don't really know how it all went down, and therefore, we can neither confirm nor deny whether or not the Torah story of Creation is scientifically viable. We don't really understand it. The description in Genesis is not meant to be a scientific proof. It really is a poetic outline, not a detailed log.

They say that genius, like a Louis Armstrong trumpet solo -- or like his legendary vocal artistry, (I also really like the late Jimmy Durante for this, even though I'm a big fan of "beautiful" voices, as well) -- has the ability to present depth and complexity in an elegantly simple way. The genius of the Torah, in fact, sets the standard for all genius when it takes an unfathomably complex topic like the creation of the universe, and distills it into a delightfully compelling six day story. This, we must infer, is all G-d wanted us to know about it, -- for now,-- but we must not fall into the trap of believing that it is everything there is to know. For instance, the actual length of a Day of Creation could easily be billions of years. We will know more, when we know more.

In fact, as I will explain in Part 2, the purpose of describing Creation at the beginning of the Torah was not to teach us about how everything came to be but to fulfill another function. In addition, we should know that the written Torah is a kind of a short-form abbreviation of all that G-d communicated to Moses. The Oral Teachings that Moses brought down to Joshua and the Elders fill in a lot of the gaps, some of which we are privileged to know, and some of which we are not currently privileged to know but they might well have had more of the specific details of Creation.

For those, therefore, who believe that the Earth's creatures have not evolved but were created whole instantaneously, I say, "You are RIGHT" to believe what you believe. The Torah is open to this interpretation. To those who say that creatures and the world have evolved, I say the very same thing.

So, to close Part 1 of this blog, I cannot agree that the assertion made in the Bible, that a Supreme Being created Heaven and Earth and all within them, conflicts in any way with the Theory of Evolution and the theories of the development of our planet because I can't possibly know how G-d went about creating Heaven and Earth from the biblical narrative alone. Anyone who says they do, is, in my opinion, indulging in premature speculation. I cannot, therefore, possibly have a conflict between scientific evidence, and the story of Creation. They currently work on different levels. In fact, my belief is, that when we understand the world through science well enough, and we understand the Torah well enough, we will find that the seemingly disparate realities represented by each are actually one and the same.

Next time, I will describe where I find a hint to evolution in the biblical narrative.

"In The Beginning" Hints At Evolution, Part 2

In Part 1 of this blog (which could be called a bblog, i.e. BibleBlog), I alluded to the real purpose of the Story of Creation being put at (or in) the beginning of the Torah.

According to Rashi, the premier encyclopaedic collator of commentary on the Torah, quoting a Rav Yitzchak, the Torah is a compendium of laws and guidelines for the Jewish people to live by. It should actually have begun with "Hachodesh hazeh lachem", loosely, "This month is your beginning," to denote the beginning of the Children of Israel's observance of commandments with the holiday of Passover.

As a book of laws for the Jewish people, the Torah need not actually concern itself with the creation of the universe at all. A well-known phrase embraced by religious Jews is "Torah tzivah lanu Moshe (Moses commanded us to keep the Torah)" which is all about keeping the commandments, not ooh-ing and aah-ing about Creation.

So why does the Torah start this way?

Because two Parshas (chapters) later, G-d promises the Holy Land of Israel to Abraham and his descendants.

After all, in those days, there were lots of gods. Each nation/tribe had its own god or gods. There were weather gods, war gods, Mesopotamian gods, Babylonian gods, Egyptian gods, wooden gods, stone gods, animal gods, sport gods, fertility gods, fashion gods, the list goes on and on.

The idea was that when the Jews (actually, the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob which is the Trifecta of Jewish lineage) laid claim to the land, they probably would encounter opposition from other tribe/nations, all claiming that their gods promised the land to them, too.

Thus, the reason, the Torah begins with the Creation of the Universe is to show that the G-d who made the promise to Abraham, is not a local, tribal deity but The One Great Power behind the entire universe, the G-d of all the heavenly powers and of all the tribal gods -- many of whom are, in fact, real powers in the affairs of humanity but subservient to the Ribono Shel Olam, the Master of the Universe, -- and what He says, goes.

This may be why the Torah does not go into excessive detail about Creation, in addition to the reason mentioned in Part 1, i.e., that the Written Torah is just a summary compared to the combination of it, and the Oral Torah together.

That, of course, does not mean the Written Torah is short on meaning. On the contrary, if one knows the rules of interpretation, it becomes clear that, in its succinctness, the Written Torah contains infinite myriads of secrets embedded in its words. These secrets require interpretation, and it is in this spirit of interpretation, that I find a possible allusion in the Written Torah to evolution.

Heavens, can it be? Well, I admit it sounds like heresy of the first order but hear me out.

My theory that a reference to evolution is hidden in the story of Creation is based on, as it were, "fundamental" principles of Torah interpretation. These are:

1. There are no unnecessary words in the Torah.

According to our sages, each and every word in the Torah is required. Moreover, Rabbi Akiva is said to have developed the art of understanding the meanings of the "crowns" or apparently ornamental lines shooting out from each letter of the Torah as handwritten by certified scribes (sophrim), and faithfully copied from generation to generation.

Then, because we are intellectually honest, we must admit that there is another side to the same coin, i.e.:

2. Some words in the Torah do seem unnecessary.

Often we find words that are simply not needed to convey the meaning of a sentence. They are seemingly superfluous. If the Torah were -- G-d forbid -- simply a work of literary art, we might say these additional words were there for aesthetics, i.e. metre, drama, alliteration etc. but this is definitely not the case.

This leads us to the third principle:

3. If a word is unnecessary, it means something extra.

Our sages teach us that whenever we encounter a word in the Torah which is not directly needed to convey the meaning of a sentence, then that word was put there to provide an insight above and beyond the meaning of the sentence, i.e. to teach us something.

An example would be the upcoming parsha "Lech Lecha." Here, G-d is telling Abraham (whose name at the time was still "Avram") to leave his homeland of Chaldea, and tells him "lech lecha."

"Lech," means "go." "Lecha," means "for" or "to" "yourself."

The second word in the phrase, "lecha," doesn't really seem to mean anything. G-d's command could have been communicated simply with the word "Lech," i.e. "Go from your land, the land of your birth, from your father's house to a land which I will show you."

Some might say G-d is enjoying the poetic echo in the similarity of the two words but, as mentioned above, aesthetics are not the purpose of curious, superfluous words.

One thread of interpretation of this extra word, "lecha," is that G-d is giving Abraham reassurance. It is a daunting task to just pick up and go from your native home to parts unknown. In fact, this is one of the tests that Abraham was given. Yet we see, in the word "lecha," (for yourself), a subtle hint from G-d that it will be to Abraham's benefit.

I personally, however, find another meaning in the phrase, "Lech lecha." I think it is meant to connect with the exact same phrase which occurs in an even later parsha, regarding the binding of Isaac for sacrifice. There, when G-d tells Abraham to take his only son from Sara up to Mount Moriah to be bound on the altar, G-d again uses this formulation, "Lech lecha." Another rule of interpreting the Torah is that if identical or very similar unique phrases or actions occur in the Torah, then they are tied together, and their relationship teaches something. More on "Lech lecha" when we arrive at its second occurrence in the Torah.

Now, how does evolution fit into these rules of interpretation?

As far as I know (which is not all that much -- I did not go to Yeshiva, and I am not familiar with all the commentaries), what I am about to say is a chidush, i.e. something new. It may, of course, actually be old (Solomon says in Ecclesiastes, "There is nothing new under the sun.") but I have not seen it anywhere.

Given the above-stated principles, let us examine the first sentence in the Torah, namely, "In the beginning, G-d created Heaven and Earth," as conventionally translated.

Now, let's look again at that phrase in the light of the beginning of this blog entry.

To state the glaringly obvious, the entire phrase "in the beginning," is unnecessary.

When else would G-d have created the world if not at the beginning? Of course it was in the beginning; that goes without saying.

Yet the Torah says it, so there's got to be a reason -- other than drama or poetry -- for this phrase.

Moreover, In the beginning of this blog entry, I stated that Rashi cites a comment that the purpose of using the Story of Creation in the beginning of the Torah is to establish the rights of the descendants of Abraham (later, that branch known as the Children of Israel) to the Holy Land.

If indeed, the purpose of starting the Torah with the Story of Creation is to establish the Jewish people's rights to the Holy Land, by showing that it is the Creator of All who made this covenant with Abraham, the phrase, "In the beginning," is also unnecessary for that purpose.

The purpose of showing that the G-d Who promised Abraham that his descendants through his son Yitzchak (Isaac) would inherit the Holy Land is the Master of the Universe could have been perfectly fulfilled without the phrase "In the beginning" or its Hebrew counterpart, the word "B'Reisheet."

The Torah could have said:

"G-d created the Heavens and the Earth," or if you will, the Hebrew, "Elokim bara eyt hashamayim ve'-eyt ha-aretz." This could alternatively be rendered in English as, "It was G-d who created the Heavens and the Earth."

That, after all, is supposed to be the point, that it was G-d who created everything, the same G-d who promised the land to Abraham.

Some may say we need the word, "B'Reisheet," because it starts with the second letter of the alphabet, Beit, indicating a prior Realm of G-d and/or another level of existence prior to our universe, symbolized by the first letter of the alphabet, Aleph, but if you had "Elokim barah eyt hashamayim etc.," you could teach the same concept by saying, "The first word in the Torah is a name of G-d, indicating that He preceded All Creation which is alluded to in the second word, "barah," and these two words begin, respectively with the letters, Aleph, and then Beit, indicating their order.

So, the phrase "In the beginning" is needed neither contextually nor subtextually, and now, we have a problem, or, just as the Chinese use the same word for both crisis and opportunity, an opportunity. What, according to Principle 3 above, can we learn from this unnecessary phrase/word, "In the beginning/B'Reisheet?"

And here's my disclaimer: there are certainly theories other than mine on this topic. One I have heard comes from the Vilna Gaon who said that the word "B-Reisheet" is a whole Torah in itself in that it contains all the mitzvahs of the Torah encoded, if you know how to manipulate the letters.

For instance, the Vilna Gaon simply took the letters of the word "B'reisheet," and using each letter to begin a word, found the commandment of "Pidyon Haben," the redemption of the firstborn male, a process of paying a token amount of money to a member of the priest class to "buy back" one's firstborn male child from G-d, the Master of the Universe having stipulated that all first fruits of the Jews are His, He having smitten the fistborn of Egypt in order to effect our escape from slavery.

The Gaon (a title reserved for great Torah geniuses) is said to have simply taken the Hebrew letters of the word B'Reisheet in their existing order and found "Bincha Rishon Acharei Shloshim Yom Tifdeh," i.e. "Your first son, after thirty days, you shall redeem," -- the exact commandment, in a linear contraction where each letter of the phrase/word "B'reisheet," starts a word.

The purpose, then, of having this seemingly unnecessary phrase, "In the beginning," according to the Vilna Gaon, may well be for us to understand that the Torah is full of encoded secrets -- even games -- for devout and brilliant Torah scholars to enjoy, and for us mere mortals to marvel at. More on this later, G-d willing, in my currently unfinished entry, Abraham and the Torah codes.

As far as my response to the question of the non-necessity of the word/phrase "B'reisheet," what I am about to offer is not an opinion; it's an observation.

We may, in fact, have a hint to Evolution, here, as this word/phrase, "B'reisheet," can have another meaning than the one we expect.

I suggest we note that this word/phrase can mean, "At its beginning" instead of "In the beginning."

And what can we possibly mean by "At its beginning?" We can mean "B'shoresh," or, "At its root."

If we see the word "B'Reisheet," therefore, as something that contributes to the meaning of the passage rather than something which does nothing, then we must acknowledge that the Torah may be telling us how G-d created the Heavens and the Earth, not when.

When you look at it this way, a reading suggests itself. That reading is, "G-d created everything at its root, i.e. at its beginning," i.e., not in its final form.

We say about G-d, "Mabit l'sof davar b'kadmato." "He sees the end of something in its beginning." This teaches us that G-d clearly sees the end result of all events at their inception.

G-d may well have seen the end result of the forms which would evolve from Creation but He may not have begun there. The implication of reading the first sentence of the Torah as "G-d created Heaven and Earth at their root," means G-d did not create everything in its final form but at its root, and allowed it, over billions of years, perhaps, to evolve.

Interestingly, Adam, the first human, was created last. Maybe, as suggested by a comment to this blog (I don't respond to comments anymore; I'm trying to have a life), Adam was created in his form instantaneously, and placed whole into the world, a world, I would suggest, which could still very well have evolved over time. Or, maybe there is an evolutionary link between Man and our DNA cousins, the primates, and the Torah is saying the G-d created Man out of the dust over eons, and, finally, when the physical vessel was ready, G-d breathed the life of a soul into him.

Evolutionists have yet to find that missing link between humans and other species, suggesting a quantum leap for mankind somewhere in the past, though we share a great deal of DNA with primates. Even if the universe and almost everything in it may have evolved from its root, there still is room for those who need it, to believe that Man did not -- but to me, that's really not the point.

Evolutionists may well be surprised to hear that an educated reading of the Torah may point to their belief. The Torah may have given us a hint, to those of us who are open to it, as to what really happened.

One should not take the Torah and its interpretation lightly. What interests me, here, is the possibility that it is the Torah itself, -- and not Charles Darwin or a geologist or a physicist, nor even a rabbi -- that points to the idea that the Earth evolved over time.

I am more than well aware that allowing for evolution in any form conflicts with the fundamentalist understanding of Creation but I go where the Torah leads me. In this instance, it suggested to me that I follow the rules, and take another look at the phrase "In the beginning." And, as I said in Part 1, we really cannot presume to know from the Written Torah exactly how Creation occurred. I, for one, therefore, am delighted to keep an open mind on this exhilarating and awe-inspiring topic.