Dear Friends,
The big picture of the Creation Story in Genesis is not that God created the world in seven days. That is nice mythology. And, it does not conflict with science, because Genesis’s story is entirely a mythic fable, whereas science is based on research and empirical data.
Rather, the Creation Story in Genesis is designed to convey the deepest value system of Jewish life: that our world is to be orderly, safe, and Godly, and we are part of those values.
And, that ethos can square with science. The laws of physics, the epochs of geologic time, the phylogenetic trees of evolution, and the spinning of planetary and universal rotations are each marvels of science, and conform to the values of our Torah narrative: the world is orderly, we can be safe within it, and it reflects a majestic Divinity.
This week, as we concluded reading the Torah’s ending in Deuteronomy and rolled the scroll back to Genesis on Simchat Torah, the mythology of Genesis is our focus. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)
How simple! And, how nicely ordered!
Each successive day of the Creation narrative in Genesis, God added new elements, just like a painter beginning with stretching a canvas over the frame, then adding undercoat, sketches, initial coats and then subsequent layers of color, and finally a finishing coat.
The orderliness of Creation is intentional: it asserts by its example that the world should be orderly. And, we humans who were crafted last in the sequence of the narrative, both benefit from the preconstructed elements, and bear an ultimate responsibility for that which we inherit. Yes, this is a philosophical ethos – a foundational moral charge – but it also is a statement on the moral nature of humanity. To be human, we must live in the orderly, safe, and Godly system of the cosmos, the planet, and our little corner of the earth.
To be anything less is to abrogate our place in the Divine narrative.
Hence, as we encounter the Genesis mythology this week of Torah, we are called to renew our dedication to the loftiest values of Genesis’ narrative, itself: that in the world’s order, safety and Divinity, we are responsible for the same.
Rabbi Doug Kohn
The big picture of the Creation Story in Genesis is not that God created the world in seven days. That is nice mythology. And, it does not conflict with science, because Genesis’s story is entirely a mythic fable, whereas science is based on research and empirical data.
Rather, the Creation Story in Genesis is designed to convey the deepest value system of Jewish life: that our world is to be orderly, safe, and Godly, and we are part of those values.
And, that ethos can square with science. The laws of physics, the epochs of geologic time, the phylogenetic trees of evolution, and the spinning of planetary and universal rotations are each marvels of science, and conform to the values of our Torah narrative: the world is orderly, we can be safe within it, and it reflects a majestic Divinity.
This week, as we concluded reading the Torah’s ending in Deuteronomy and rolled the scroll back to Genesis on Simchat Torah, the mythology of Genesis is our focus. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)
How simple! And, how nicely ordered!
Each successive day of the Creation narrative in Genesis, God added new elements, just like a painter beginning with stretching a canvas over the frame, then adding undercoat, sketches, initial coats and then subsequent layers of color, and finally a finishing coat.
The orderliness of Creation is intentional: it asserts by its example that the world should be orderly. And, we humans who were crafted last in the sequence of the narrative, both benefit from the preconstructed elements, and bear an ultimate responsibility for that which we inherit. Yes, this is a philosophical ethos – a foundational moral charge – but it also is a statement on the moral nature of humanity. To be human, we must live in the orderly, safe, and Godly system of the cosmos, the planet, and our little corner of the earth.
To be anything less is to abrogate our place in the Divine narrative.
Hence, as we encounter the Genesis mythology this week of Torah, we are called to renew our dedication to the loftiest values of Genesis’ narrative, itself: that in the world’s order, safety and Divinity, we are responsible for the same.
Rabbi Doug Kohn
