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When Judaism Meets Science
Posts Tagged ‘Judaism’
The Cosmos, Oneness and Judaism: Are Pantheism and Panentheism Kosher for Jews?
The psalmist and the skeptic and the prophet and the professor look at the universe in which we find ourselves, see the same stars, feel the warmth of the same sun, hear thunder pealing from the same sky, understand the processes by which nature unfolds in spring, retreats in fall only to regenerate again the following year, and yet often draw different conclusions from the same observable data. So, for instance, in response to the emergence of humankind, a non-theist might merely record the evolutionary data or might, like cell biologist Ursula Goodenough, marvel at the improbability, the mystery, and the grandeur of our existence. (See, e.g., The Sacred Depths of Nature (Oxford University Press 2000).) The traditional Jewish believer, by contrast, might offer a prayer to the Supreme Being: Blessed are You, sovereign of the universe, who has fashioned us from the dust of the Earth in Your image and breathed our soul into us.
Is there another way, a way to attempt to understand one’s place in the cosmos that is consistent with current scientific knowledge, and yet recognizes the miracle of our presence without dependence on some supernatural being? Is there an approach to the cosmos which might be attractive to many, perhaps most, American Jews who do not believe in the traditional personal God who dominates the Torah, but nevertheless accept the existence of (and may even yearn for) some extraordinary power, force or spirit which pervades all that is? (See Post March 14, 2012) And, if so, is that path kosher? read more
Jews, Genes and Genetics: A Look at Family, Haplotypes and Peoplehood
In the United States today, the freest and richest nation on the planet, a country characterized by opportunity and mobility, the reality is that most Jews are Jews, if at all, by choice. For some, that choice is relatively easy, a coincidence of birth, culture and acceptance. For others, the situation is more complicated, involving perhaps disaffection with the faith or circumstances into which one was born and raised or, conversely, an attraction to a set of beliefs or patterns of behavior newly encountered.
Regardless of one’s position, in the open and fluid society that is America, most adults are not forced to be Jewish, i.e., to engage in conduct commonly understood to be specifically Jewish, such as attending shul, keeping kosher, studying sacred texts or simply identifying as a Jew. Nor are they forced to believe in a particular collection of ideas or ideals, including whether God exists, or, if they think that God does, what attributes or aspects that God may or may not have. Certainly strong social pressures can operate on an individual to motivate him or her to behave or believe one way or another, but most individuals still retain the ability to choose whether to be Jewish.
There is, however, one matter that is not open to choice, much less dispute or revision, and that is one’s genetic structure. And here, as elsewhere, advances in science in the relatively recent past have allowed us to investigate, to probe, to attempt to provide science based perspectives, if not answers, to the most basic questions: “Who am I?” and “Where did I come from?”. read more
Jewish Spirituality: When Defining Something is Harder than Discussing It
You know, or should know, there is a problem, when you cannot define the subject that you want to discuss or analyze. Potter Stewart famously faced such a situation when he acknowledged that he could not say what hard core pornography was. That inability did not, however, preclude Justice Stewart from also declaring that he knew it when he saw it. (See, Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 197 (1964). Not only that, despite his lack of a definition, Justice Stewart was able to express his opinion about an allegedly obscene film and concur in a Supreme Court decision reversing the criminal conviction of a manager of a motion picture theatre.
Not to equate the two situations in any way, but the same sort of problem attaches to Jewish Spirituality. What is that exactly? And if we cannot define it, will we at least, like Justice Stewart, know it when we see it? And be able to talk sensibly about it, measure it, and do something concerning it?
Whatever Jewish Spirituality is, it seems to be drawing a fair amount of attention. We can measure attention drawing fairly easily these days. All one needs to do is run a few Google searches. If you did that one night in early April, 2012, within less than a second, you would have learned that there are over 33,800,000 sites that Google has identified as relating to Jewish Spirituality. Is that a lot? Well, similar search results in only 2,030,000 sites for Reform Judaism, the largest of the Jewish denominations in North America, and Reform Judaism appears to elicit about twice as much interest, as measured by the Google search count, as does Orthodox Judaism, for instance, which generates only 1,070,000 sites. Searches for Conservative Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism yielded 738,000 and 459,000 sites respectively. And for perspective, consider that the results for Justin Bieber exceeded 640,000,000, thankfully less than the number for President Barack Obama at 943,000,000. read more
Jewish Atheism and Jewish Theism: The Data and the Dilemma
American Judaism has a God problem. Actually, and paradoxically, it seems to have two God problems. One is Jewish atheism. The other is Jewish theism. Here we will look at the data and the dilemma.
At the outset, we have to recognize that there is something odd about the concept of Jewish atheism. Is there really such a thing? Can there be a Judaism without God, however you want to define it. What are the People of the Book without the Hero of the story? How can there be commandments without a Commander? Doesn’t a Covenant require a Party of the First Part and a party of the second part? What do you do with prayer? Can there even be a place for atheism within Judaism?
The questions recall the story about President Harry Truman being asked whether he believed in baptism. “Believe in it?” the crusty president responded, “Hell, I’ve seen it done!” read more
New Planets, A God For The Cosmos and Exotheology
We are blessed to live in an age of great discoveries. Prior to about fifteen years ago, astronomers had not been able to identify planets in orbit around stars beyond our solar system. These planets, known as extra solar planets or exoplanets, have now been found. In fact, in the first dozen years from the discovery of the first exoplanet, about 500 such planets were located in diverse areas of the known universe.
Then NASA initiated the Kepler space mission, which was designed to find Earth sized planets within the habitable zone of a star. The mission focused on a relatively small star field in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra, perhaps the extent of the sky obscured by an average extended fist. The discoveries have been phenomenal, and the pace seems to be accelerating. As science writer Timothy Ferris has said, “We live in a changing universe, and few things are changing faster than our conception of it.” (Ferris, The Whole Shebang (Simon & Schuster 1997), at 11.) read more
The Wise Scientists of Chicago Debate About the Latke and the Hamantash
What is it about latkes and hamantashen anyhow? What makes these two foods different from all other foods? Which food is better and which best represents the values and aspirations of the Jewish people?
Since 1946, these and related questions have occupied some of the greatest minds of the Western hemisphere. In that time, world renowned scholars have gathered annually under the auspices of the University of Chicago Hillel to debate the merits of the latke and the hamantash.
As often happens when scholarly pursuits become intense, everybody wants to get into the act, and imitations of the Chicago debates have been attempted at other institutions. But in all these years, no one quite does it like the Maroons, with grand entrances, flowing academic robes and standing room audiences in excess of 1,000 at venerable Mandel Hall. read more
Science and Judaism: The Strange Claim of Dr. Schroeder (Part III)
Fernando Botero – Adam and Eve
In two prior posts, we have reviewed Dr. Gerald Schroeder’s strange claim in The Science of God (“TSOG”) (Rev. Ed. 2009) that billions of years of cosmic evolution and six biblical days of creation actually occurred simultaneously. With his self-imposed standard of not bending the Bible to science or science to the Bible in mind, we have analyzed how objective Schroeder actually was with respect to the Bible and science. In both instances, we have found Schroeder’s work sorely lacking. He has failed to meet his own standard and other more objective ones as well. read more
Science and Judaism: The Strange Claim of Dr. Schroeder (Part II)
In a prior post (10/18/11), we started to look at Dr. Gerald Schroeder’s argument in The Science of God (“TSOG”)(rev. ed. 2009) that the six biblical days of creation and the billions of years of the evolution of the universe as measured by scientists actually occurred over the same time period. Our focus was on Schroeder’s interpretation of certain biblical passages that he believes show that time is treated differently before and after the creation of Adam. (See, e.g., TSOG, at 52, 54.)
Now we are going to address that part of Schroeder’s argument that rests of physics and mathematics. In the concluding post of this series, we will review the conclusion of Schroeder’s conflation argument. read more
Science and Judaism: The Strange Claim of Dr. Schroeder (Part I)
The literal accuracy of the biblical description of the origin of the cosmos and of life itself has been the subject of controversy and reinterpretation for millennia. Even before recent scientific discoveries made the story of a six-day creation simply untenable as fact, many Jewish scholars, among others, readily acknowledged that the opening chapters of the Bible do not reflect a true portrayal of historic creation. (See, Post 10/11/11.)
Today that view has achieved a sort of consensus. With respect to B’reishit (Genesis), the Reform movement’s latest commentary asserts that the Bible “has a great deal to tell about God’s relationship to the world and about human beings and their destiny,” but concedes that the opening chapters are “unscientific, antiquated myths” that may be approached “in the same manner as one approaches poetry.” (Plaut, The Torah, rev. ed. (2005), at 6.) Etz Hayim, the Torah commentary published by the Conservative movement (2001) holds similarly: “The opening chapters of Genesis are not a scientific account of the origins of the universe. The Torah is a book of morality, not cosmology.” (At 3, emphasis supplied.) The Chumash (The Stone Edition)(1993), published as part of the more traditional Art Scroll series, accepts Rashi’s understanding that Torah starts with Creation in order to establish God’s supremacy, but acknowledges that “the Torah is not a history book . . . .” [All year citations are CE, unless otherwise noted.] read more
Science and Judaism: Would That You Were Right, Rabbi Mitelman
Shortly before this blog was launched several months ago, Rabbi Geoffrey Mitelman of Beth El Synagogue in Northern Westchester, New York wrote an article for Huffington Post titled Why Judaism Embraces Science. See, www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-geoffrey-a-mitelman/why/can-judaism-embrace-s_b_880003.html. There Mitelman presented three “especially significant” reasons for his thesis.
At the outset, I recognize that Mitelman was writing a brief essay and not an academic paper, let alone an expansive book. And I also recognize that his audience was whoever was reading or may read the HuffPost blog and not a dedicated group of adult learners. Nevertheless, the three bases for Mitelman’s post, even if assumed to be correct, do not compel the conclusion for which they are mustered and they raise more questions than Mitelman answered in his piece. read more