|
|
=>New: Presentation
to the Harvard Divinity School's 2008 Paul Tillich Lecture --
"Kabbalah, Science, and Religious Pluralism" [click here]
 |
"You blew us all out of the universe with your engaging and provocative
presentation and discussion. The participants are still abuzz
about the expanding nature of the universe...
"You opened new
worlds of understanding, and we are grateful for your knowledge.
With much gratitude..."
-- Rabbi E. S. Zecher, Temple Israel of Boston
|
|
|
"Rabbi Hizkiah
opened his discourse with the text, 'Like a rose among thorns, etc.
(Song of Songs II,2)' " Zohar, 1:1 |
"We
cannot thank you enough for coming to our Temple and presenting the
best-ever program we've had. It was exciting, eye- and
mind-opening, and you are so gifted in making the mysterious clear and
the wondrous even more than extra-ordinary...."
-- H. Handleman, New York
Author's appearances
2008
|
- Temple Israel of Boston's Adult Education Lectures
"Modern Cosmology and Kabbalah - A Set of Eight Classes"
beginning January 3, 2008
- Congregation Agudas Achim, Austin, TX
"Cosmology and Kabbalah: Religion in the Age of Science"
January 8, 2008
- Temple Reyim of Newton, MA
"Let There Be Light: Religion in the
Age of Modern
Science"
February 10, 2008
- Laselle Community, MA
"Cosmology and Kabbalah: Religion in the Age of Science"
March 1, 2008
- Harvard Divinity School; Paul Tillich Lecture
Respondent to "Science, Faith, and the Dialogue of Cultures"
May 5, 2008 |
| This photograph is of the "Hubble Space Telescope Ultra Deep Field." Light from the most distant galaxies in this image has been traveling towards us for 90% of the age of the Universe, about 13.73 billion years. (Image courtesy of NASA; STSciI) |
|
From the Big Bang
to "In the Beginning":
Lectures with Text Study
The religious and ethical imperatives
of cosmology, and the
human seach for meaning: science and religion. Modern astronomy
-- the "heavens and the Earth and all their host (Gen:
2,1)." Modern physics and the Universe. The
Biblical
creation, and the multi-layered rabbinic understandings of the first word: Beresheit ("In
the Beginning"). Maimonides on the Divine authority for science.
Hubble, Einstein, General Relativity, and the Big Bang
Universe. A sense of Awe. The Kabbalistic view of the Big Bang; the ethics of Creation. Quantum physics and the
pervasive cosmic light of the Creation.
|
In the Beginning...13.73 Billion
Years Ago
What is the Universe?
- an overview from the smallest scales to the largest. The
Biblical
creation, and its Kabbalistic interpretation. The three pillars of
scientific cosmology: observation, the theory of relativity, and
particle physics. The
modern picture of where, when, and how the Universe was created.
Religious perspectives on human
knowledge: are we presumptuous in thinking we know the truth?
Kabbalistic and physical concepts of human consciousness and
its cosmological implications.
Religion and
Science in Harmony
Why
science and religion
are harmonious - a Jewish perspective. Attitudes towards science
in
the Bible, and from rabbinic authorities including Maimonides;
attitudes towards religion from great scientists including Newton and
Darwin. Shared concepts in science and religion, with examples drawn
from cosmology and
the Kabbalah. The big questions of today -- is the universe
eternally
expanding, is there any significance for humanity, is there life
elsewhere in the universe -- and some
possible answers from science and religious traditions including
Kabbalah.
A
Religious Perspective on
Scientific Cosmology
Why theories of cosmology should matter to us in the first place --
rabbinic perspectives on Genesis. The modern scientific
picture of the
universe and its creation, from the big bang to cosmic acceleration --
and how we know. Jewish
attitudes towards cosmology: Rashi, Maimonides, Nachmanides, and Isaac
Luria and the Kabbalah. Unexplained physical mysteries: dark
matter, cosmic acceleration, a Theory of
Everything, and quantum decoherence.
Intelligent
Life -- Views from
Astronomy and Kabbalah
Extraterrestrial
life in the
universe: is there any evidence for it, and if not, what are the
chances of ever finding it? How were the 180 known extra-solar planets
discovered, what do we know about them, and how they might have
formed. Our Earth is perfect
for life -- it this an accident? Quantum mechanics and human
consciousness. Human purpose
in the universe: consciousness, kabbalistic healing ("tikkun olam)," and related concepts from
the Zohar. What is free-will, and
do we have it? Rabbinic attitudes
towards free
will. Awe ("yirah") in the Zohar
and Kabbalah. Quantum mechanics, the
Copenhagen
interpretation, and kabbalistic awareness.
Our Wonderful
Universe: Intelligently Designed?
Our universe
and our Earth are
wonderfully suited for life -- some examples of this remarkable
phenomenon from physics, astronomy, and elsewhere. Does such perfection
imply "intelligent design"? The Anthropic Principle and contingent creation. The
primary text of Kabbalah, the Zohar,
and some perspective on humanity and its role in
the cosmos. Modern physics responds to the Anthropic Principle
with "many worlds." The
Jewish tradition on "many worlds."
Modern
Cosmology and Kabbalah: A Set of Lectures
(adjustable
in number)
What is the
Universe?
Science and religion contemplate the cosmos and its
creation. The remarkable truth -- today we know with
considerable confidence what the universe is like, and how it came into
being. Religious perspectives on why should we care about
cosmology, and why we can believe the scientific observations and
theories that are to follow. The universe and its size -- how big is it, really? The contents of the
cosmos: 95% mysterious dark
matter and
dark energy, plus galaxies, stars, and planets. Basic
ideas
in Kabbalah. The quest for meaning: science and religion as
partners in seeking. The path ahead.
The Amazing Nature of
our Universe
The
universe as created and dynamic, not eternal and unchanging.
Curved space, space-time, and other concepts in
relativity. The
remarkable speed of light. Astro- nomical
tools of the trade. Isaac Luria and the Kabbalah of Safed: mystical
concepts of space, time, and the creation. Light, the powerful
image of creativity and the Creation. The light of the Creation seen
today : the cosmic microwave background radiation.
The Creation of the Universe
The four forces and the elementary particles of our world;
how these participated in the birth of the cosmos. "Inflation" and the
first minutes in the life of the
universe. The
creation of the atoms of our world. Kabbalah, and
Lurianic
cosmogony : the sefirot in an evolving cosmos. "Reaching and not
reaching" in the Kabbalah; the release of the cosmic background
light. Modern astronomical mysteries, and the latest research
results.
Humanity in the
Universe
Science and religion contemplate the cosmos and its
creation; a more informed consideration. Human consciouness and
free-will. Quantum mechanics, measurement , and a mystical analog of
awe ("yirah"). The Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum
mechanics. Human purpose, and Kabbalistic healing of the
world: "tikkun olam." Extra-terrestrial
life in the cosmos. Take-aways: moral lessons from science and
cosmology. Some current mysteries, and some reassuring blessings.
|
*()*()*()*()*()*()*()*()*()*()*
“Kabbalah, Science, and Religious Pluralism”
response to the
Harvard Divinity School
2008 Paul Tillich Lecture
by
Dr. Howard Smith
May 5, 2008
[The keynote speaker for the 2008 Paul Tillich Lecture was Prof. Bruno
Guiderdoni, of the National Center for Scientific Research in Lyon,
France, who spoke on the topic: “Science, Faith, and the Dialog
of Cultures: Islamic Perspectives.” The following is the response
presented by Dr. Howard Smith.]
I begin by quoting Scripture – the words of Solomon, in his lyrical love poem, The Song of Songs.
He wrote “I was sleeping, but my heart was aroused: the
voice of my Beloved is knocking... ‘Open up to
me!’” This holy poem is, of course, the classic
Jewish metaphor for God’s love, and today - I would say
perhaps even especially today - I see that message – Open up to
me! – as a call to people of all perspectives.
For a religious person, that knocking comes from the voice of modern
science, which amplifies traditional ideas based on honest - but
erroneous - interpretations of Torah/Bible with amazing new cosmic
insights, and thereby opens up scripture to new profundities. For
a skeptic of religion or to an atheist, the calling voice is that of
enlightened religious traditions that offer context, depth, and meaning
to the narrow world of reductionism. Let me explain.
Science and religion have long debated with each other, in all of our
religious traditions. It’s old news. Is there anything new
for us to add to that discourse?
Amazingly, yes - there is something new to say today. It derives
from science’s ability to answer successfully most of the
profound mysteries of nature, puzzles that baffled people even
fifty years ago, and that had been attributed by many to God’s
unknowable ways. The Creation, for example, or the mechanics of
life. Today, for the first time, we understand a good deal about
these divine ways.
I speak and write about the form of Jewish mysticism known as the
Kabbalah, an esoteric tradition that dates back over two thousand
years, but which blossomed and became public in the 14-16th
centuries. For me, the Kabbalah offers a particularly useful
framework of religious expression from which moderns can consider the
issues of science and religion.
From a strictly scientific perspective, it is famous these days for
having detailed 600 years ago a dramatically unconventional cosmology
that echoes today’s big-bang picture. The Kabbalists
understood Scripture as symbolic notation to be unraveled - a feature
of sacred language that Bruno has noted. They take the first word
of the Bible, “In the beginning,” – B’resheit in the original Hebrew -- and unweave it to develop their “big bang” scenario.
“Resheit” is customarily translated as
“Beginning” but the Kabbalists called it Hokhmha =
“The LOGOS” – and Resheit is their name for the
infinitesimal point of the big-bang event. Their understanding of
the first word of Genesis is, thus: “With the Resheit God
created the heavens and the earth.” Today, thanks to General
Relativity, we understand that the location of the Resheit, of that
creative event, is right here with us, as everywhere. We can even
sense its presence in the cosmic microwave background radiation that
permeates this room - an omnipresent reminder.
From a theological perspective, the Kabbalah emphasizes a world in
progress rather than of eternal perfection, and thus shares many of the
features of process theology, appealing to modern sensibilities in this
as well. But, as I emphasize to my students, even the early
Kabbalists could not grasp the profound insights that we moderns have
thanks to Relativity and 20th century technology.
Two provocative themes flow from the remarkable successes of
today’s science. One is the modernist attitude of science
as a social construct. We are fooling ourselves about our
successes, this approach argues. Nothing is known for certain,
much less “one single, ultimate truth” about the
cosmos. I wonder if this view is not hinted at by Bruno’s
observation that “our ideas and behaviors are conditioned by our
metaphysical views on reality.” Conditioned
? Yes, exactly so. But, I think, not more than
that. I believe in a God whose world - and whose word - are
authentic sources of genuine knowledge, and which science will uncover
with effort.
Bruno wisely observed that just as science, by disagreeing with
tradition, reminds religion of “the multiplicity of
meanings” – namely, that truth is difficult to discern
– so too we must make room, as he put it, for “creative
tension between religions” - these are the blessed consequences
of God’s love of diversity. As the rabbis put it when
confronted with the divergent views of spiritual giants:
alu va’alu divrei elohim hayyim: BOTH these and these are the
words of a living God, a God who loves the process - the manifold
encounterings of love - as we try to comprehend that
multiplicity.
The second provocative new theme comes not from philosophers but from
scientists themselves. Not so long ago I think most astronomers would
have agreed that, overall, we pretty much understand the cosmos and its
origin in some kind of inflationary big bang. In the past 10
years this has changed. Today I’d guess that most
astronomers would say that, overall, we pretty much do NOT understand
the cosmos.
What happened!? Well, we discovered dark matter and dark
energy – 95% ! of the essence of our universe - and our
discomfort has grown because we still have no idea what they really
are. I think we scientists are being admirably honest in admitting that
we do not know as much as we thought. This lesson in
humility is one that scientists offer to theologians – the
admission that we do not know it all, regardless of our traditions or
our egos. Not only has the living God revealed to us
something deeper of these mysteries, secrets that our forebearers did
not understand – so too we acknowledge that future
discoveries await our children.
Another aspect of this revolution in attitude is that while our
theories seem - or let’s say, promise - to be beautifully
unified, a Grand Unified Theory or a String Theory of
Everything, as a consequence of inflation and of quantum
mechanics we scientists are forced to postulate a multiple-worlds
picture that is chaotically multitudinous, as Bruno alluded to. And, as
a consequence of anthropic arguments – that is, the perfect
suitability of the universe for life – many scientists welcome
this surfeit of worlds as explaining such miraculous perfection as an
accident. Unfortunately this solution raises the problem of a
wasteful infinity of worlds and voids.
How bad a problem? Stephen Hawking recently suggested a quantum
mechanical way to deny “reality” to all those many other
universes, his “top-down approach” — meanwhile
Max Tegmark argued that we should reinstate a Platonic paradigm
granting existence to all mathematically logical realities, no matter
how “unrealistic” - the 10-to-the-power-500 universes in
the string-theory landscape are not enough.
It is as though the “chaos and void”of the Bible never went
away... God’s creative speech simply picked off one multiverse
strand for us to live in.
So yes, today science is wonderfully successful....and at the same
time, wonderfully provocative.
Jewish tradition makes a daring observation. As the universe
unfolded, we are told that God saw that it was good: 6 times in 6 days
- the 6 stages of the evolution of the cosmos. And at the end,
Genesis reports that God saw everything together and “behold, it
was very good.” The whole was more beautiful, apparently,
than its many parts.
Science is not able to say of something, “it is good” -
religion and its ethical power provides us with this
perspective. But there is more. The early rabbis
notice the superfluous word “BEHOLD”, and suggest it
implies that God was surprised at the result. Our world was not a
predetermined outcome. The universe incorporates some level of deep
unpredictability, perhaps connected to the possibility of
free-will. In fact, speculate the rabbis, God created many
universes; he was surprised at this one because it was unlike the
others: behold- it did turn out to be “very good” –
and so he blessed it. Some of that goodness surely comes
from the freedom we humans have to transmute “good” into
“better” – a process the Kabbalists called
“tikkun olam” - improving the world.
“Open up to me!” This is the call of modern science
to spiritual seekers – open yourself up to the wonders of the
universe as revealed by science, and to the insights they convey
– that sense of Awe that Bruno spoke about. (Awe, incidentally,
is seen by the Kabbalists as identical with the LOGOS, and thus
conjoined with the Resheit and the big bang event).
“Open up to me!” This is the call of religion to
scientists – scientists are also seekers, certainly.
Open up to the possibilities of wonder, love, and to the
ethical responsibilities of living in a quantum multi-verse that
- behold! , is “very good.”
|
|
|
|
|
