The rabbi knows best part 3 – An article review A

When I had reached the 6,623rd word of this post, I knew it was time to separate it into parts. And I still haven’t finished yet. So here’s part one.

Day after day, the altars of veneration that I had built over the years break down and crumble one after another.

It was almost as a response to one of my most recent articles when an article was shared in a Facebook group that I am part of. It was a write-up of a speech given by rabbi Aryeh Kaplan called “The Age of the Universe: A Torah True Perspective” and it can be found here.

Now I am sure that this piece was shared with good intention. The person who shared it it is nothing but humble and kind in his manner. And yet reading this essay, once again I am reminded about how much faith I should put in rabbis.

Now I apologise in advance to people who don’t know Hebrew or Yiddish or whatever language the Jews choose to converse with one another. The speech is peppered with transliterations of odd and strange words that would likely be known to the audience but just make it an additional chore for the native English speaker. But it’s just something one has to deal with in these circles.

I will also highlight that the introduction and footnotes are by the person who chose to publicise the speech, Reuven Meir Caplan. I’ll comment on his words too.

This speech is rabbi Kaplan’s attempt to deal with a certain issue.

I will begin with a kasha, a question that has been around for almost a century. It involves the age of the universe, and it is a classical kasha. For all practical purposes, the Torah seems to teach that the Universe is no more than 6000 years old. There are many people who would say that anyone who believes that the universe is more than 6000 years old is an apikores. I’ve heard this from many people. On the other side of the kasha, there is almost overwhelming evidence(1) that the universe is more than 6000 years old…maybe even millions of times more than 6000 years old. This is the kasha. (page 2)

Now here Kaplan makes two admissions. He tells me what I’ve known, but what others have been telling me is utterly wrong: that the Torah seems to teach that the universe is no more that 6000 years old. But he makes sure this side of the debate, the “kasha,” is couched in questionable language, “seems to.” That is because, for the other side of the debate, he uses absolute language as if it is absolute fact: “there is almost overwhelming evidence that the universe is more than 6000 years old, maybe even millions of times more than 6000 years old.” This initial statement betrays his bias, a bias that is quite clear throughout his speech. Near the end of this written account he says the following, which I’ll return to.

The conclusion of all this is that, if one looks into our mekoros and seforim, and see what our sages have taught us, we see that Judaism is very much at harmony with the world as science sees it. I am not speaking of scientific theories or philosophy, but of scientific evidence and fact. There are no major problems. (page 22)

It is clear that he thinks something called “science” sees the world and its evidence and facts are what needs to be harmonised, which is why he spends the whole speech leaving the dictates of “science” immutable and untouched while bringing up ways to alter how the Torah is read. “Oh the Torah can be read this way.” “This source says this.” “That source can be interpreted as that.” The Torah is the thing, for rabbi Kaplan, that can be shaped and moulded to confirm with the real truth, which is the dictates of the scientist.

For me, that shows what his priority is and where his bias is. The scientist has spoken the immutable truth and the fact, and the Torah from God can be reinterpreted, not the other way around.

It seems more like a feature I see amongst many Jews (and others), the desire to conform and be subjugated, maybe even assimilated, to fall in line with the so-called “authorities.”

This “almost overwhelming evidence,” what is it? What makes this billions of years so true that the Torah only seem to speak differently? Rabbi Kaplan treated it like a given and elucidated it no further. And if the listener who accepted Torah was even a bit skeptical, and didn’t just accept claims, even from rabbis, they would see that this whole debate is baseless without evidence that there was this insurmountable pile of factual evidence. Kaplan carries on regardless. But the person who published this speech thought he would help furnish some of this “evidence” with a footnote.

Now, just to remind you, this is supposed to be scientific evidence. So what does the publisher think it is?

This includes both terrestrial evidence (such as radioactive carbon dating, fossil records, ice core samples, and geological layering), as well as astronomical evidence (such as the Cosmic Microwave Background, red-shifting of galaxies, and parallax distance calculations of nearby galaxies.) (footnote 1, on page 2)

So this supposed to be “scientific evidence,” right? That means this is evidence to do with the scientific method, right? Not just the ukases and declarations of a person with the title of “scientist.”

to be continued

PS. Also based on the works of Rabbi Manechem Schneerson, found in the article, “Theories of Evolution” at https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/112083/jewish/Theories-of-Evolution.htm

and

How The Days of Creation Were Understood by Our Sages–Revised found at https://slifkin-opinions.blogspot.com/2012_10_01_archive.html?m=1