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The Reversal of Retrograde Rotation

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Moshe92:
I think Galilee Rat should put a bibliography at the end of each post.

muman613:

--- Quote from: Kahane-Was-Right BT on July 21, 2009, 09:45:03 PM ---Furthermore, I can't speak for the Lubavitcher rebbe, but given that he was educated, I highly doubt he would ever have said such a thing.   You are probably misquoting him or taking it out of context, or making it up entirely.   I would be shocked if the L. Rebbe believed such nonsense or would profess to such a belief in public.

As you so often fail to back up your statements and quotes here with sources, I challenge you to find me anything where R. Aryeh Kaplan ZT"L asserts that the universe is 6,000 years old.   Nonsense.  In fact, from what I have read about him, he asserted that the kabalah as he understands it allows for a much older universe and that this can fit with the science which he himself ACCEPTS, since he was a degreed and distinguished physicist.

--- End quote ---

Read this for an explanation of the 6000 year old world basis in Jewish belief:

http://www.askmoses.com/en/article/238,70148/How-can-you-say-the-world-is-only-5000-to-6000-years-old.html#articlepage

http://www.innernet.org.il/article.php?aid=165

--- Quote ---According to the Talmud, "The world as we know it will exist for 6,000 years (beginning with Adam and Eve). The first 2,000 years were defined as 'chaos.' The second 2,000 years marked the years of Torah. The final 2,000 years will include the Messianic Age."

Mystics explain this cryptic passage as a remarkably prescient script, for the past and for the future. The 2,000 years of chaos are the years before monotheism made its appearance on earth. Abraham was fifty-two years old when he intuited that there had to be one G-d responsible for the creation of a carefully designed and stunningly intricate world. The date on the Hebrew calendar marking this great discovery, an insight that would decidedly alter the history of civilization, was exactly two thousand. (As an intriguing aside, the year Abraham was born, fifty-two years earlier, was 1948 ― a year that many centuries later by the secular calendar would become the year of the establishment of the State of Israel.)

The years 2,000 to 4,000 represent the second period of two thousand years designated for Torah. In these years the children of Israel experienced Revelation at Mount Sinai and lived through the events recorded in the five books of Moses, as well as the later books of the Bible. It was a time of great intellectual and spiritual creativity, culminating in the codification of all of Jewish law in the massive work known as the Mishnah. It took all of the next two thousand years for the Jews to master the meaning of the words of G-d ― and become worthy of the profound gift for the millennia to follow.

From 4,000 to 6,000, according to this tradition, the world should be prepared for good news and bad news. The good news is that sometime within this time frame ― and, mind you, I'm well aware that we are drawing close to its outermost limit ― the Messianic Age will at long last arrive, bringing with it peace for all mankind, universal recognition of G-d, and indescribable blessings. The bad news is that if this is the year 5,760 on the Jewish calendar, we still have a maximum of 240 years left on the "warranty" for earthly redemption.
--- End quote ---

http://www.sinaicentral.com/UnitOneJewishReligion.dwt

muman613:
http://www.aish.com/ci/sam/48951136.html


--- Quote ---
One of the most obvious perceived contradictions between Torah and science is the age of the universe. Is it billions of years old, like scientific data, or is it thousands of years, like Biblical data? When we add up the generations of the Bible, we come to 5700-plus years. Whereas, data from the Hubbell telescope or from the land based telescopes in Hawaii, indicate the age at about 15 billion years.

Let me clarify right at the start. The world may be only some 6000 years old. God could have put the fossils in the ground and juggled the light arriving from distant galaxies to make the world appear to be billions of years old. There is absolutely no way to disprove this claim. God being infinite could have made the world that way. There is another possible approach that also agrees with the ancient commentators’ description of God and nature. The world may be young and old simultaneously. In the following I consider this latter option.

In trying to resolve this apparent conflict, it's interesting to look historically at trends in knowledge, because absolute proofs are not forthcoming. But what is available is to look at how science has changed its picture of the world, relative to the unchanging picture of the Torah. (I refuse to use modern Biblical commentary because it already knows modern science, and is always influenced by that knowledge. The trend becomes to bend the Bible to match the science.)

So the only data I use as far as Biblical commentary goes is ancient commentary. That means the text of the Bible itself (3300 years ago), the translation of the Torah into Aramaic by Onkelos (100 CE), the Talmud (redacted about the year 500 CE), and the three major Torah commentators. There are many, many commentators, but at the top of the mountain there are three, accepted by all: Rashi (11th century France), who brings the straight understanding of the text, Maimonides (12th century Egypt), who handles the philosophical concepts, and then Nachmanides (13th century Spain), the earliest of the Kabbalists.

This ancient commentary was finalized long before Hubbell was a gleam in his great-grandparent's eye. So there's no possibility of Hubbell or any other modern scientific data influencing these concepts.

...

Looking deeper into the text.

In trying to understand the flow of time here, you have to remember that the entire Six Days is described in 31 sentences. The Six Days of Genesis, which have given people so many headaches in trying to understand science vis-a-vis the Bible, are confined to 31 sentences! At MIT, in the Hayden library, we had about 50,000 books that deal with the development of the universe: cosmology, chemistry, thermodynamics, paleontology, archaeology, the high-energy physics of creation. At Harvard, at the Weidner library, they probably have 200,000 books on these same topics. The Bible gives us 31 sentences. Don't expect that by a simple reading of those sentences you'll know every detail that is held within the text. It's obvious that we have to dig deeper to get the information out.

The idea of having to dig deeper is not a rationalization. The Talmud (Chagiga, ch. 2) tells us that from the opening sentence of the Bible, through the beginning of Chapter Two, the entire text is given in parable form, a poem with a text and a subtext. Now, again, put yourself into the mindset of 1500 years ago, the time of the Talmud. Why would the Talmud think it was parable? You think that 1500 years ago they thought that G-d couldn't make it all in 6 days? It was a problem for them? We have a problem today with cosmology and scientific data. But 1500 years ago, what's the problem with 6 days for an infinitely powerful G-d? No problem.

So when the Sages excluded these six days from the calendar, and said that the entire text is parable, it wasn't because they were trying to apologize away what they'd seen in the local museum. There was no local museum. The fact is that a close reading of the text makes it clear that there's information hidden and folded into layers below the surface.

The idea of looking for a deeper meaning in Torah is no different than looking for deeper meaning in science. Just as we look for the deeper readings in science to learn the working of nature, so too we need to look for the deeper readings in Torah. King Solomon in Proverbs 25:11 alluded to this. “A word well spoken is like apples of Gold in a silver dish.” Maimonides in The Guide for the Perplexed interprets this proverb: The silver dish is the literal text of the Torah, as seen from a distance. The apples of gold are the secrets held within the silver dish of the Torah Text. Thousands of years ago we learned that there are subtleties in the Text that expand the meaning way beyond its simple reading. It's those subtleties I want to see.

Natural history and human history.

There are early Jewish sources that tell us that the Bible’s calendar is in two-parts (even predating Leviticus Rabba which goes back almost 1500 years and says it explicitly). In the closing speech that Moses makes to the people, he says if you want to see the fingerprint of G-d in the universe, "consider the days of old, the years of the many generations" (Deut. 32:7) Nachmanides, in the name of Kabbalah, says, "Why does Moses break the calendar into two parts -- 'The days of old, and the years of the many generations?' Because, 'Consider the days of old' is the Six Days of Genesis. 'The years of the many generations' is all the time from Adam forward."

Moses says you can see G-d's fingerprint on the universe in one of two ways. Look at the phenomenon of the Six Days, and the development of life in the universe which is mind-boggling. Or if that doesn't impress you, then just consider society from Adam forward -- the phenomenon of human history. Either way, you will find the imprint of G-d.

I recently met in Jerusalem with Professor Leon Lederman, Nobel Prize winning physicist. We were talking science, and as the conversation went on, I said, "What about spirituality, Leon?" And he said to me, "Schroeder, I'll talk science with you, but as far as spirituality, speak to the people across the street, the theologians." But then he continued, and he said, "But I do find something spooky about the people of Israel coming back to the Land of Israel."

Interesting. The first part of Moses' statement, "Consider the days of old" - about the Six Days of Genesis - that didn't impress Prof. Lederman. But the "Years of the many generations" - human history - that impressed him. Prof. Lederman found nothing spooky about the Eskimos eating fish at the Arctic circle. And he found nothing spooky about Greeks eating Musika in Athens. But he finds something real spooky about Jews eating falafel on Jaffa Street. Because it shouldn't have happened. It doesn't make sense historically that the Jews would come back to the Land of Israel. Yet that's what happened.

And that's one of the functions of the Jewish People in the world. To act as a demonstration. We just want people in the world to understand that there is some monkey business going on with history that makes it not all just random. That there's some direction to the flow of history. And the world has seen it through us. It's not by chance that Israel is on the front page of the New York Times more than anyone else.

...

Looking back in time, a scientist will view the universe as being 15 billion years old. But what is the Bible's view of time? Maybe it sees time differently. And that makes a big difference. Albert Einstein taught us that Big Bang cosmology brings not just space and matter into existence, but that time is part of the nitty gritty. Time is a dimension. Time is affected by your view of time. How you see time depends on where you're viewing it. A minute on the moon goes faster than a minute on the Earth. A minute on the sun goes slower. Time on the sun is actually stretched out so that if you could put a clock on the sun, it would tick more slowly. It's a small difference, but it's measurable and measured.

--- End quote ---

galileerat:
As a physicist who new his Relativity theory, R.Kaplan held by geocentricity, which is not surprising, since he was a Breslover, and Rav Nachman of Breslov wrote that Copernicus was wrong.

At http://www.yiddishkeit.org under "Torah and Science" you can see the Lubavitcher Rebbe quotes on geocentrism and a 6000 year universe, also in the Gutnick Chumash and in "Mind over Matter: The Lubavitcher Rebbe on science technology and medicine" (2003).

A choice one is:

“Those well meaning persons who felt impelled to interpret certain passages in the Torah differently from the time-honoured tradition, did so only in the mistaken belief that the Torah view on the age of the world was at variance with science; otherwise they would not have sought new interpretations in the Torah. There is no need to seek new reinterpretations in the Torah to 'reconcile' them with science” (Lubavitcher Rebbe, Gutnick Chumash Breishis p.5).

The learned B'Or HaTorah journal
http://www.borhatorah.org/home/index/cumul_index.html
has numerous pro-geocentric article written by top Orthodox Jewish scientists.

As can be seen from the tone of some of those above, the age of the earth is a big stumbling block for many even believers, some even becoming enraged at the possibility that the Torah might be literally correct! For them , Professor Gerald Schroeder http://www.geraldschroeder.com/ offers an assuaging solution in his Aish HaTorah and Discovery/Arachim lectutres by using  Relativity to show that the universe can be both 16 billion years and 6000 years old at the same time!

That's why with Einstein's Relativity, everyone is compelled to be simultaneously both happy and unhappy: Relativity is the great leveller of all scientific playing fields: the universe is simultaneously both geocentric, heliocentric and acentric; as well as being simultaneously 16 billion years and 6000 years old! And by very definition of Relativity, you cannot say otherwise!

If Relativity theory itself is ever shown to be wrong, and that Absolute Space and Absolute Time exist, then the evidence will have to be reappraised: and that evidence will favor the Torah and Chazal!

Kahane-Was-Right BT:

--- Quote ---“Those well meaning persons who felt impelled to interpret certain passages in the Torah differently from the time-honoured tradition, did so only in the mistaken belief that the Torah view on the age of the world was at variance with science; otherwise they would not have sought new interpretations in the Torah. There is no need to seek new reinterpretations in the Torah to 'reconcile' them with science” (Lubavitcher Rebbe, Gutnick Chumash Breishis p.5)."
--- End quote ---

You'll have to be more specific than this.   My rabbi suggests as do many others, that the TORAH VIEW allows for the possibility of a very old universe.   And that the deepest kabalah fits with this.   It is only the literalist reading of Chumash that compels one to say that Torah and science contradict.  But we are not forced to read it that way, and the Rambam would surely disagree.   

Science does not allow for a young 6000 year universe.   Sorry.   So if Torah insists that the world is 6,000 years old, then it does contradict science.   But I don't believe the Torah insists on that, neither does my rabbi, another of my rabbis whom I'm sure would disagree if I asked him, Rabbi Gil Student who runs the hirhurim blog (hirhurim.blogspot.com), and many others. 

What Muman cited is a midrash.  There are also other contradicting midrashim which suggest an old, very old, world.   But in Muman's other citation, in the Aish article, the author acknowledges right off the bat that scientific evidence such as Hubble telescope etc demonstrate the existence of a universe billions of years old.   The only question is what is the Torah point of view, can it fit with that, does it contradict, or is it agreeing.  And then he delves into that in the article.    To say that the scientific evidence does not exist is to live in denial.


--- Quote ---As a physicist who new his Relativity theory, R.Kaplan held by geocentricity, which is not surprising, since he was a Breslover, and Rav Nachman of Breslov wrote that Copernicus was wrong.
--- End quote ---

It's "knew," not "new" and you have not provided a citation like I asked.   I asked for a source by Rabbi Kaplan.  Not for you to reiterate your opinion about him.   

To say that R. Kaplan "held by geocentricity," and to say that this is not surprising is a total distortion.   R. Kaplan was a physicist living in the 1900's, so for any real 1900's physicist to hold of a disproven "geocentricity" is not just surprising it's downright shocking.   But then what you say after that is utter foolishness.   Whether Rav Nachman said that or not, R. Kaplan is not beholden to every thing ever said by every other rabbi.   So even if he was Nachman oriented, that does not mean he agrees with everything R Nachman ever wrote or has ever been quoted as saying.  But more importantly, R. Kaplan did not define his scientific views by what great rabbis had said!   That is to make a mockery of all of R. Kaplan's work as a scientist.   He based his scientific conclusions on observation and experimentation (or those that had come before him of which he could look at the results), not what some famous rabbi's opinion was.

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