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BALAK 5782
The James Webb Space Telescope and Gd
Today is Shiva Asar b’Tamuz, the fast of the 17th day of Tamuz. The fasting is postponed till tomorrow because of Shabbat. We fast because it’s the beginning of 3 weeks of mourning culminating in Tisha b’Av, the saddest day in the Jewish calendar. A lot of tragic things happened in our history on this day. Moses broke the tablets of the 10 Commandments when he saw the Jewish people worshipping the Golden Calf. Apostomos burned the holy Torah. An idol was placed in the Holy Temple. The walls of Jerusalem were breached by the Romans—on their way to destroying the Holy Temple in the year 70.
Usually, I would speak about these tragic moments—comparing them to the tragedies and dangers of our world. But when NASA released the 1st images from the James Webb space telescope this week—revealing the most startling, awesome, amazing, intensive view of the universe—I couldn’t help but instead speak today of how awesome and vast is our world, and the universe Gd has blessed us with.
Our universe is simply beyond the ability of our minds to comprehend. As astronomers explain, every dot in these gorgeous images is a huge galaxy. One astronomer wrote: “Our universe is filled with thousands of galaxies, each with billions or trillions of star systems in each of those with its own planets.”
Rabbi Benjamin Blech writes in www.aish.com: “In a sense, the Webb telescope photo is a visual affirmation of one of the most powerful foundations of faith.” He cites Maimonides who writes in his Mishnah Torah on Jewish law that faith should be grounded in the love and awe of our Creator. Before one comes to follow Gd’s laws, “We must know Gd by way of the wondrousness of his creations. [As King David said in Ps. 8:4-5] ‘When I see Your heavens, the work of Your fingers...that You have set in place, [I wonder] what is a human being that You should be mindful of Him.’”
There are those who maintain that science and religion are at war with each other. Albert Einstein disagreed. “The more I study science,” he said, “the more I believe in Gd.” Blech also cites Joseph H. Taylor Jr.—Nobel Prize winner in Physics for the discovery of the 1st known binary pulsar: “A scientific discovery is also a religious discovery. There is no conflict between science and religion. Our knowledge of Gd is made larger with every discovery we make about the world.”
And so, with these startling, wonderous James Webb space telescopic images of the universe before us this week, the question that should gnaw at us is: What is all this for? Why did Gd create this amazing universe? I approach this question from a Kabbalistic mystical perspective. That approach may surprise you—even though you may have heard me share some of it before.
Kabbalah maintains that Gd created the universe because He “willed” to have an opportunity to display His goodness (Ramchal, Derech Hashem 2:1). It makes no sense to speak of Gd “needing” anything—for Gd has no needs. In order to display His goodness, it was necessary to create a being as much like Him as possible. Gd’s display of His goodness would then be revealed in the subsequent relationship with that being—namely us!
The sages of the Talmud (Pesachim 112a) compare it to a calf and its mother: “More than the calf wants to suckle, the cow wants to provide it with milk.” Here’s the amazing thing. Gd wants, more than anything, to shower His love upon us. What it all adds up to is that Gd wants a relationship with us so that He can be good to us, and He created this incredible universe to make a space where that can happen! Remarkable!
Scientists tell us the universe was created with a “Big Bang.” They tell us that originally there was this Big Bang and from a spot no larger than the period at the end of this sentence, that energy flowed out into the universe and all the solar systems and stars then emanated from it. We are now getting a glimpse of what that looked like from the James Webb space telescope whose images reveal moments from the birth of the universe.
This all leads to a very religious idea: that there was a beginning to our world. A beginning implies a Creator. And this beautifully coincides with the Kabbalistic point of view that everything was created from Gd’s loving energy. Energy and matter, as we know, are interchangeable. So from Gd’s loving energy comes everything. As Psalm 89 teaches: Ki amarti, olam chesed yibaneh (I have said the world is built of love)—the loving energy of Gd. And if everything in the universe is made from Gd’s loving energy, this means there is a unity to everything and everyone.
I once heard the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson make a similar point on a PBS special that to me describes the oneness of Gd’s creations in the physical world. I was so impressed, I looked when it would play again and I recorded it and wrote it down: Recognize that the very molecules that make up your body, the atoms that construct the molecules are traceable to the crucibles that were once the centers of high mass stars that exploded their chemically enriched guts into the galaxy enriching pristine gas clouds with the chemistry of life. So, we are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically. That’s kind of cool! That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It’s not that we’re better than the universe; we’re a part of the universe. We’re in the universe and the universe is in us.” In other words, the source of all creation is Gd’s loving energy.
One more teaching from creation. Kabbalah also teaches that in order to create the universe, Gd had to do a tzimtzum. Tzimtzum is a Hebrew word meaning “contraction.” Is it a coincidence that human beings are born with contractions just like the universe? Hardly.
Kabbalah teaches that before creation there was no room for the world because Gd’s Light filled every space. I’m not sure I fully understand what this means, but go with me on this. Gd had to contract himself to make room for the world. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik (Family Redeemed p.38)—himself more of a rationalist than a mystic—makes the exquisite point that this creation story is a model for our relationships. If we are so full of ourselves that there is no room for anyone else in our lives, how can we possibly have a relationship with anyone? As Rabbi David Aaron expresses it in his book Endless Light (p.20): “In order to love, you need to withdraw yourself from the center and create a space for an other. Love starts only when you do that—move your self out of the way to make room for another person in your life.” All relationships require a tzimtzum to be meaningful.
Here’s the amazing point. What Gd expects from us, beyond all else, is a relationship. I think that’s a wow! But isn’t keeping the laws of the Torah and our traditions what Gd expects of us? Yes, that is true, but only because Gd’s laws are an expression of His love for us. The Torah is Gd’s guide for us to live a better life. It is, as my friend the scholar Rabbi Yaakov Fogelman z”l describes, “Gd’s factory-authorized manual” for how to be in a relationship with Him. And our traditions are an expression of our love for Gd. Gd lovingly gives us the laws of Passover so we may understand the importance of freedom. And we express our love for Gd with our traditions of a Seder and family gathering thanking Him. The minutiae of Jewish law and tradition are also—if understood in this context—a dance of love that we do with our Creator.
In today’s Torah portion, Balak King of Moav, hires the heathen prophet Bilaam to curse the Jewish people. It seems that he had demonstrated such abilities in the past. However, Gd thwarts his efforts and turns his curses into blessings. The fascinating thing about all this, is that the Jewish people at the time had absolutely no idea this was happening. Balak and Bilaam were on cliffs above them. The point is that because Gd—more than anything wants a relationship with us—He protects us all the time in ways we know nothing about.
My friends, what’s the message? Engage Gd. Be in a relationship with Him, and He’ll bless you in so many ways that you couldn’t even imagine. Amen!
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