If I were to ask you if you thought Orthodox Jewish belief supports only a literal interpretation of the creation story in the Torah, you might be inclined to say yes. After all, don't Orthodox Jews believe that the Torah is an accurate historical account dictated by G-d to Moshe Rabbeinu on Har Sinai? I have a news flash for you--one that is from over ten years ago. In December of 2005, the Orthodox RCA (Rabbinical Council of America) issued a statement titled "Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design." According to the full article on the organization's website the statement was issued "in response to the public debate over Intelligent Design and Scientific theory....clarifying its view on this matter as it relates to Torah Judaism, and the biblical account of creation."
The statement affirms that belief in G-d and the Torah is not incompatible with evolutionary theory properly understood. The position piece explains that there is a diversity of interpretations among great sages available to inform how we understand the creation story today. To quote from the statement directly:
Some refer to the Midrash (Koheleth Rabbah 3:13) which speaks of God "developing and destroying many worlds" before our current epoch. Others explain that the word "yom" in Biblical Hebrew, usually translated as "day," can also refer to an undefined period of time, as in Isaiah 11:10-11. Maimonides stated that "what the Torah writes about the Account of Creation is not all to be taken literally, as believed by the masses" (Guide to the Perplexed II:29), and recent Rabbinic leaders who have discussed the topic of creation, such as Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch and Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, saw no difficulty in explaining Genesis as a theological text rather than a scientific account.I would be remiss in not mentioning that the Orthodox world is a wide one with many different streams, organizations, philosophies, and beliefs. The Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneersohn z"l famously wrote for example, that the world was fully created with fossils and bones buried deep within it. It's important to recognize, as the RCA statement points out, that there is a large range of Jewish belief on the matter.
I remember clearly when my daughter at age 4 asked if G-d really and truly made Adam out of soil, formed him into a man, and blew a soul in through his nostrils. I explained that we don't actually know what happened, but what we do know is true is that each one of us is a descendant of Adam, and because Adam's soul is made of G-d's breath that means that each one of us as well has a bit of G-d's breath within us. And that is the important part after all, isn't it?
In this time of division in our country and in our world, of great partisanship, of the right and the left drifting further and further apart, it seems sometimes we are all living in our own echo-chambers. I thought it was refreshing to come across this statement and remember that often times we have more in common than we realize, even on the most unlikely of topics. The most important thing we have in common though, is we each have a bit of G-d's breath within us.
Why the title about Steven Hawking? So as not to leave you hanging I will quote the passage from the statement:
Judaism has always preferred to see science and Torah as two aspects of the "Mind of God" (to borrow Stephen Hawking's phrase) that are ultimately unitary in the reality given to us by the Creator. As the Zohar says (Genesis 134a): "istakel be-'oraita u-vara 'alma," God looked into the Torah and used it as His blueprint for creating the Universe.
Well said, rabbinic colleagues, well said.
The statement from the RCA is one of four texts included in the Melton School of Adult Jewish Learning's lesson on "Creation," in the "Purposes of Jewish Living" curriculum. If you enjoyed this week's thoughts, please sign up for the full course which I am teaching online beginning Monday and meeting Oct.-May from 1:00-2:00pm.
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