Anything but Creation

"One giant step for mankind," said Neil Armstrong when he first stepped onto the face of the moon.

And I ask: Mankind, what are you seeking out there in space? What makes you so determined to conquer the heavens that you're willing to spend billions upon billions to strip the veil of mystery from the secret of creation? What is the source of this relentless craving to know and understand everything about everything, down to the ultimate, tantalizing question: How did it all begin?

Is it really mere curiosity?

I can understand why you send satellites into outer space for purposes of communication, weather monitoring, and intelligence. But why also shoot a gigantic telescope into the heavens, in an attempt to look upon the first moment of the "Big Bang," which, according to your theory, was the beginning of this universe?

For some reason, you are mesmerized by this riddle. You feel that you must have an answer to release you from this vague, unfathomable discomfort. Does this explain your insatiable curiosity?

At times, you thought you'd found it, the solution that would free your soul. There was Pierre Simon Laplace in the 1700s, who developed a theory of an eternally stable solar system absent of a Divine force. Afterwards, you said, "I've got it: Evolution. Development through natural selection, aided by mutation." You found happiness in the embrace of evolution, your redeemer from the shackles of mystery. Paraphrasing the prophet Jeremiah, you triumphantly proclaimed, "They say to the ape, 'You are my father,' and to evolution, 'You gave birth to us.' "

But it seems that deep inside, something still troubled you. You persisted in thinking, despite the simple, ingenious solution you had found. You did not cease to be amazed at the mystery.

You asked questions; You pondered. You investigated, you researched, you analyzed your latest findings. You summarized them, and you came to the conclusion that they contradicted many of your previous assumptions --- assumptions that had been aggressively promoted as scientific fact and accepted for generations.

In fact, you went even further. After empirical proofs were found for theories of how the universe spread out from a hidden starting point, before which, according to the laws of nature, there was nothing, you bowed your head before Jewish concepts such as creation ex nihilo, chaos (tohu va'vohu), and more. You stopped mocking them, too.

Actually, you began using them, although for generations they had seemed utterly irrational to you. You even began using that taboo word, "creation." As Professor Alan Guth of MIT writes, "It seems clear that there was an absolute moment of creation."

And don't think that this conclusion came easily. Even when the Big Bang theory was first publicized, the scientific community rejected it because of the implicit conclusion that there must have been a creation. Astronomer Robert Jastrow of NASA described it as no less than traumatizing:

"There is a kind of religion in science; it is the religion of a person who believes there is order and harmony in the Universe. Every event can be explained in a rational way as the product of some previous event; every effect must have its cause, there is no First Cause... This religious faith of the scientist is violated by the discovery that the world had a beginning under conditions in which the known laws of physics are not valid, and as a product of forces or circumstances we cannot discover. When that happens, the scientist has lost control. If he really examined the implications, he would be traumatized."

Yes, you openly admitted your failure to crack the code of Creation --- evolution and other theories notwithstanding. With great humility, you accepted your limitations, even in an age when technology had almost fooled you into believing you were omnipotent. But this "failure," this humility, is the greatest of your triumphs, and in this, of all things, you can take pride. For it opened the gates before you to correctly evaluate everything that happened after that hidden moment, concealed behind the clouds of Genesis.

It also led you to reconsider the simple meaning of the first verse in the Bible: "In the beginning, G0D created..." Standing in wonder before the marvels of Creation, you sought the truth, and you learned a profound sense of modesty, for "the laws of nature all point to the existence of a lawmaker" (Oswald Heer, geologist).

Such admissions flowed from all branches of science: "Nature is the way to G0D. It allows us to see His greatness and splendor. It makes it possible for us to perceive the glory of His Kingdom. Without knowledge of the laws of nature and natural phenomena, man cannot describe the greatness and wisdom of the Creator" (Justus von Liebig, a chemist who made major contributions to agricultural and biological chemistry).

This following reflection came from Professor Aharon Katzir, head of the Israeli National Academy of Sciences, who perished in the Lod Airport Massacre in 1972:

"We recognize the phenomena, but not their cause. For example, a ray of light travels through the universe and reaches a certain point in the minimum span of time. But how does that ray of light know to choose a path that is minimal in terms of time? Is there someone who directs it that way --- or is it merely mechanical?

"These days, when science has made considerable progress, scientists in particular are tending to think that there is a Higher Power that organizes and controls the entire cosmos. It seems paradoxical, because science is built on formulas, not on faith, and the two are diametrically opposed. But apparently it is a parabola which, when it reaches its peak, returns in an arc almost parallel to the path it took." (From a speech at a microbiology conference, reported in Maariv, 20 Tishrei 5723.)

And according to Robert Jastrow, a who was a leading figure at NASA in the heyday of space travel: "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries" (G0D and the Astronomers).

Georges Lemaitre, a Belgian priest, astronomer and professor of physics, would regularly end his lectures with thanks to "the One Who gave a heart to know Him, to recognize something of His glory in His world, and Who wondrously matched the world to the power of our intellect."

In those words of Lemaitre lie the source of your tremendous curiosity, your bold aspiration to uncover the secret. It is the drive for the unknown that the Creator infused into you, so that you should seek and find Him in the midst of His creation, in an endless journey of discovery. And most of all, so that you should learn to be astounded and excited that each new discovery contains further mysteries. For "mystery is the most beautiful experience we can have. A person to whom this experience is foreign, and who cannot look upon it with enthusiasm, might as well be dead! His eyes are closed! To know that what cannot be grasped really does exist, and reveals itself through the supreme wisdom and the most radiant beauty" (attributed to Albert Einstein).

The Creator wishes for you to arrive at some inkling of His Essence, His Attribute of Oneness in the world. Oneness that is increasingly revealed, the more we discover the oneness of the cosmos, as Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (d. 1746) explains in Daas Tevunos.

And this awareness comes to your heart, and floods you with a deep sense of gratitude, in the joy and excitement of discovering one more little part of the great truth. And know that this joy and excitement, too, were made by G0D for your sake.

Rabbi Moshe Grylak is editor-in-chief of Mishpacha magazine, an international glossy, from where this article is reprinted. He is the author of several books on Judaic themes.