MISHPATIM 5783
Balloons and Aliens. What Does the Torah Say?
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a balloon? It’s a…we don’t know what it is! Are you concerned about an alien invasion? The increased number of unidentified flying objects being shot out of America’s skies in the last couple of weeks has led to increased speculation about extraterrestrials. Liz Sherwood-Randall—White House Homeland Security adviser—said: “There are no UFO’s. This is not an invasion of the aliens.” Although the 1st flying object was clearly a Chinese balloon, admittedly so by the Chinese, the White House has said they have no idea what the others are or what they were doing.
And then W. J. Hennigan, a senior military official, did not rule out the possibility that their provenance could be extraterrestrial. In the past few years, the US has tracked hundreds of UFOs in its airspace.
What’s going on here? I’m not really sure, but I thought that with all the hype, this was a good time to reflect upon Judaism and life on other planets.
What if a spaceship landed on Mars and found intelligent life there, would that challenge our faith as Jews? Did Jewish sages ever have this discussion? Yes they did. Rabbi Pinchas Eliyahu Horovitz of Vilna wrote a book (Sefer HaBrit, 1797) where he showed from various sources that Jews believe that there is life elsewhere. From a verse in Isaiah (45:18), he showed that there are creatures on out planets: “Gd did not create the earth for emptiness; He fashioned it to be inhabited.” In other words, if there are other inhabitable planets—and there are—they were created to be inhabited.
In one opinion in the Talmud (Moed Katan 16a), the word Meyroz, in the verse oru Meyroz from last week’s Haftorah (Judges 5:23), is a star or a planet. Devorah had called upon Barak to lead the Jewish people in a battle against Sisera. In her victorious song she sings: Oru meyroz (cursed be Meyroz). This indicates that Meyroz was inhabited—otherwise, what or who is it cursing?
3 verses earlier reads: “From the Heavens they fought, the stars from their orbits battled Sisera.” In other words, even the heavenly bodies came to help Israel in this great battle. Meyroz, however, which was a dominant star of Sisera, according to the Talmud, apparently didn’t come to their aid. And so, Barak, the general of the Jews, cursed Meyroz and its inhabitants.
I’m not quite sure what all this means, but whether Meyroz actually refers to Mars, as some scholars suggest, or not, is a question—especially now when the latest space probes have shown there is no life there. However, they do show that there might have been. There is a passage in the early morning service that we say every day in which we refer to Gd as, Ribon kol haOlamim (Master of all the worlds)—not just of this little planet of ours.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menchem Mendel Schneerson z”l, taught that there is support in the Torah that life exists on other planets. Dr. Velvel Greene was an original participant in NASA’s Exobiology program searching for life on Mars (d. 2011). He sought and received an audience with the Lubavitcher Rebbe to ask him if this was the sort of work he should be doing. The Rebbe responded, “Dr. Greene, look for life on Mars and if you don’t find it there, look somewhere else in the Universe for it! Because for someone to say there is no life outside the planet earth is to put limitations upon the Creator.” Showing interest and support, the Rebbe then asked him for regular updates on his research.
Let’s go even further. Is it possible that at one time there was communication between extraterrestrial life and this world? Can we find support for this in the Torah? Yes! In Genesis (6:4) we find the passage: Han’filim hayu vaaretz bayamim haheym (The N’filim were in the earth in those days). Whoever the N’filim were—various approaches include giants, princes or fallen angels—they were, as the meaning of the name indicates, “people who fell,” nafal means, “to fall”—i.e. people who fell to earth from somewhere else. While there is quite a discussion as to who they were, there are many Torah scholars who believe they came from someplace beyond the earth. So according to this view, the N’filim were the 1st extraterrestrials who came to earth.
The Midrash (Rabbah Breyshit 3:7) has no hesitation in teaching that ours is not the 1st world Gd created: Borey olamot umachliban (Gd created other worlds and destroyed them). How many worlds came before this? according to Midrash (Tehillim 90:13) it was 974!
Is a Jew allowed to go into space? Whether or not we’re permitted to go up into space depends upon our motive. If our motive is like that of the people who built the Tower of Babel, or similarly like the King of Babylon in Isaiah (14:13), both whose goal was to push Gd off His throne, then it’s idolatry and forbidden. But if our motive is research and understanding better Hashem’s creation, and not to challenge Gd, then, of course, it is permitted. In fact, it becomes a mitzvah. For as the Vilna Gaon said when challenged for studying Euclidian Geometry, “The more we understand of the creation, the more we appreciate the Creator!”
So, would you want to go into outer space? I’m sure you’ve heard that old joke about the 3 astronauts—American, Russian and Israeli—who orbited the earth for weeks on end. After landing the American astronaut steps off the shuttle smiling and refreshed. The Russian salutes to the cheering crowd as he steps on land again. But the Israeli astronaut needs to be taken off in a stretcher. He’s near death—beyond exhaustion. The news team surrounds him and points a microphone in front of him and asks: “What happened to you? Why are you so exhausted?”
He responds, “It was terrible. It takes 92 minutes to orbit the earth with sunrise and sunset. So, all the time it’s Shacharit (morning service), Mincha (afternoon service), Maariv (evening service), Shacharit, Mincha Maariv… tefillin on, tefillin off, tefillin on, tefillin off!”
You see, if a spaceship orbits the earth every 92 minutes, and if each orbit is considered a “day,” then an observant Jew would spend most of his time in space davening. And after every 6 orbits, he would have to observe a Shabbat which would only last 1½ hours—making it difficult to daven, gulp down 3 kosher rehydrated Shabbat meals, read the Torah portion, and still take a nap! No wonder the man is exhausted!
But Jewish law takes a different path. Rabbi Simcha Halevi Bamberger of Bavaria was asked by his son in 1886 how he should observe Shabbat in Norway—where it’s often mostly daylight. His answer was: “You shouldn’t live there.”
But most scholars reject this. Instead, they suggest we find a way to observe Torah in these places. That’s what it means to believe in Torat Chaim a living Torah. And so, it’s not right to say that a Jew should not go to Iceland; it’s not right to say a Jew should not go to Norway; and it’s not right to say a Jew should not go to outer space!
Rabbi Israel Lifshitz (l782-l860) who wrote Tiferes Yisrael, a great commentary on the Mishna, writes: If you have a watch that shows the time at your point of origin, you should observe Shabbat according to your point of origin if you intend to return there, and if there is no Jewish community where you are.
And this makes sense for those travelling to Iceland or Norway. And this makes sense for astronauts because, otherwise, they would have to adjust their watches every few minutes as they orbited around the globe. Jewish NASA astronauts would then daven and observe Shabbat according to Houston time.
Remember the Israeli astronaut Colonel Ilan Ramon who went on the tragic Colombia mission 20 years ago this month? Ramon was not an observant Jew, and yet he decided to go on that mission as a representative of the Jewish people—eating kosher food and observing Shabbat. He made Kiddush in outer space! It was a great Kiddush Hashem (sanctification of Gd’s name). Unfortunately, Ramon died on the way back to Earth.
Israeli astronaut Eytan Stibbe wasn’t supposed to be aboard the International Space Station (ISS) during Passover. But his original launch date was postponed till April 8, 2022. So, he managed to make the 1st Passover seder in outer space! Chabad gave him a Passover care package that included Kosher food, matzah and several small boxes of grape juice that he can drink through straws. It is impossible to use a Kiddush cup in space. The juice or wine would not be held down with gravity.
The tricky questions were whether Stibbe should follow Israel time—since that’s where he lives—or Florida time—since that’s where he left earth. Should he keep one day of Yom Tov, like they do in Israel, or 2 days? What about leaning during the seder in a weightless atmosphere? It was ruled that he keep Florida time with one day of Yom Tov and that he does not have to lean. The point is, Stibbe demonstrated that a Jew must never leave his Judaism behind wherever he goes—in or out of this world!
Are the passages cited by the Midrash, Rabbi Horovitz and the Lubavitcher Rebbe definitive proof that the Torah maintains there is life on other planets? Not necessarily. But it does give us reason to pause and contemplate the awesome universe Gd created. And that alone helps elevate our faith.
Our faith is not rooted in the hope that one day NASA will find alien life on another planet…but it is rooted in the fact that we, as a people, actually saw Gd’s miracles and experienced a direct relationship Him. It happened to the ancient Israelites during the Exodus from Egypt with the 10 Plagues and the Crossing of the Red Sea; it happened on Mt. Sinai hearing Gd give us the 10 Commandments; it has happened in our time with all the miracles of the modern State of Israel; and it happens in each of our lives. To see it we only need to open our eyes. Amen!
