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When Judaism Meets Science
Posts Tagged ‘cosmos’
Exploring Einstein and Kaplan, God and Science
Influenced by the writings of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, the Mordecai M. Kaplan Center for Jewish Peoplehood is a trans-denominational organization which seeks to strengthen “each of the existing denominational movements” and have a positive effect “on the lives of individual Jews regardless of their levels of observance, or even, within limits, their theologies.” Towards that end, it hosts webinars which explore many aspects of the Jewish civilization, including the relationship of Judaism and science.
In January, 2022, the Mordecai M. Kaplan Center for Jewish Peoplehood invited Rabbi Michael M. Cohen and Roger L. Price, authors respectively of Einstein’s Rabbi and When Judaism Meets Science to discuss their books, the thoughts of Albert Einstein and Mordecai Kaplan, and other current issues involving science and Judaism. The entire program, which runs almost two hours, as well as biographical information about the authors and the chatroom log, can be found under Webinars on the main page of the Kaplan Center.
Enjoy!
In the Beginning and In the End
Credit: NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
When the cosmos was about to be created — the fundamental forces of nature being unified in an exceedingly hot, dense point and galaxies, stars, planets, even stable matter itself yet unformed — there was no recognizable space, no measurable time. There was no darkness over the surface of the deep because there was no deep, no surface, no over and no under. No wind hovered over any water, as there was not yet any hydrogen or oxygen, much less any combination of them in the form of water. And there was no wind, either. What there was — all that there was — was chaotic, pulsating Potential.
At some moment, for reasons yet unclear, what was began to change into what is. Gravity separated first from the combined strong nuclear and electroweak forces. Then the strong force emerged and the electroweak force devolved into the electromagnetic force and weak nuclear force. The nascent universe, still small and unbelievably hot and turbulent, was an ever changing soup of energy and sub-atomic particles. It was all good, and about to become better.
Within one second from the mystery of beginning, our mini-universe inflated, and then started to expand. Its temperature dropped from an unfathomably hot state of 100 nonillion degrees Kelvin to only one trillion degrees, but that relative cooling was sufficient for sub-atomic particles to become protons and neutrons and other heavier particles. At the three minute mark, with the temperature now down to a cool billion degrees, particles fused into atomic nuclei, mostly hydrogen nuclei, some helium nuclei and other kinds as well. This, too, was good. read more
Ten Commandments from the Past, Ten Principles for the Present
Credit: Cecil B. DeMille, Producer
The theophany at Sinai is one of the grandest and most compelling stories of all time, a story written for the silver screen – before there was a silver screen or any screen for that matter. It is a story that is found in the weekly Torah portion (parashah) traditionally titled “Yitro” (Ex. 18:1-20:23). But it is a story that really deserves top billing.
The revelation of God to the people is one of the three core themes of traditional Jewish theology, along with creation and redemption. But it is more than even that. It is a story whose influence over the course of the last three thousand years or so cannot be overstated.
The thirteen verses announced at Sinai, in the form of Ten Commandments, according to parashah Yitro, are embedded in our broader political community as the essence of morality and social order. They are symbolized by tablets that are physically enshrined in multiple locations, including at least two places in the courthouse of the highest court of our land. read more