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Preface
Acknowledgments
CHAPTER 1.
RELIGION AND SCIENCE IN HARMONY
Cosmology and Kabbalah
6
Preconceptions and Prejudices
12
Motivations and Questions
15
The Path Ahead
18
CHAPTER 2. TWO
VIEWS OF COSMOLOGY
Disparate Views of Creation
24
The Modern Scientific Picture
27
The Expanding Universe
27
Corroborating Evidence
29
The Isotropic, Expanding, Homogeneous Universe 33
CHAPTER 3. THE PARADOX OF “WITHOUT-LIMIT”
The Age and Shape of the Universe
39
General Relativity: A Scientific Perspective on Unity 42
Special Relativity: The Coupling of Space and Time 50
CHAPTER 4. THE
COSMIC CAST
The Four Forces
57
The Particles and Their Forms
63
The Bosons
64
The Fermions
66
Antimatter
68
Dark Matter
70
A Summary
72
A Unified Description of Forces and Particles
73
Strings
77
The Inflationary Universe
81
The Sefirot: Force and Substance in the Kabbalah 87
One from Many: The Revelations of Symmetry
92
CHAPTER 5.
MOMENTS OF CREATION
The Sefirot in Creation
100
Before the Big Bang: The World of Atzilut
105
The Sefirah of Keter
106
The Big Bang through the Great Inflation:
The World of Briyah
108
The Sefirot of Hokhmah and Binah
110
From Inflation to Atoms: The World of Yetzirah 112
The Epoch of Quarks
112
The Epoch of Leptons
116
The Epoch of Radiation
118
The Sefirot of Hesed, Gevurah, and Tiferet
122
The Parting of Radiation and Matter to the Formation
of Galaxies, Stars, Planets, and
Life:
The World of Assiyah
124
The Epoch of Matter
124
The Sefirot of Netzah, Hod, Yesod, and Malkhut 129
CHAPTER 6.
COSMIC WISDOM
The Awesome Universe
135
Wisdom (Hokhmah) and the Universe
141
The Anthropic Principle
142
A Miraculous World?
142
A Purposeful World?
149
CHAPTER 7. A
QUANTUM OF SENSE
Quantum Mechanics and Awareness (Yirah)
160
Purpose and the Kabbalah
169
From Nothing, Everything: Creation ex Nihilo
171
CHAPTER 8.
MIRACULOUS WILL
Intelligence and Self-Awareness
175
Free Will
177
Intelligent Life in the Universe
183
Miracles
190
CHAPTER 9.
BEFORE AND AFTER
The End
195
Distant Horizons and Countless Universes
200
CHAPTER 10.
BRINGING TRUTH TO LIGHT
Drawing Lessons
209
Closing Meditation
215
Figures:
Schematic of the Evolution of the Cosmos
217
Tree of Life — Ladder of Sefirot
220
Notes and Comments
221
References
253
Index
265
About the Author
279
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