It also states in the Torah that there was “darkness upon the face of the deep”. Ramban explains that this darkness is the primordial fire which is called darkness because the essential fire is dark. This correlates closely with the early universe: with such high temperatures atomic nuclei and electrons could not combine to form neutral atoms, therefore leaving the gas ionised (no bound electrons). This ionised gas is opaque to electromagnetic radiation (as will be discussed), so no light could penetrate this dense cloud of matter; essentially there was darkness even with such high temperatures of over 3000 K.
Ramban explains that the wind from Hashem was blowing and entering the darkness and hovering over the water. I would like to reflect this with the most modern theory of the big bang called “inflation theory” postulated by Alan Guth in the 1980’s. Inflation theory is essentially a very brief period of rapid expansion 10-35 seconds after the big bang and only lasted 10-30 seconds, see Fig.1.3. The universe expanded by at least a factor of 1025 and then expansion merges smoothly with the Big bang model. The Inflation model shows how all the mass could evolve from an initial seed weighing only about an ounce, with a diameter more than a billion times smaller than a proton.
The inflation model will be discussed in more detail in later chapters. But any explanation of wind could have a deeper meaning of air, or breath, which like the property of all gases expands rapidly. This may be an allusion to this very rapid expansion in the first moments of creation.
“Hashem said ‘let there be light’ and there was light….and Hashem separated between the light and the darkness.”
Ramban explains that the term Ô×éÚ )hachoshech - darkness) in this verse is not the same as the darkness referred to as À×éÚ (vachoshech) in the earlier verse. The first refers to elemental fire and here it represents the absence of light. Also, whenever Hashem is bringing things from a potential state into actual, this is stated in the text as "Hashem said.
Let us move back to the big bang model. Until radiation fell to 30000K the hydrogen/helium gas was so hot that atoms could not form. The gas remained ionised, electrons and protons moved independently through space forming a plasma (gas of electrons and ions). Photons of light interact strongly with charged particles, especially ones with small mass such as electrons (1/2000 mass of proton). Therefore the photons are constantly scattered by collisions with the electrons and could not penetrate the plasma. After 300,000 years the universe cooled enough for ionised gas to convert to neutral atoms. The light at this point could now travel unhindered through the universe, in other words “darkness to light”. The cosmic microwave background radiation is the result of the initial escape of these photons from matter, which permeate all of the universe, see Fig.1.4.
This can be paralleled with the words of Rabbi Elazar the son of Shimon Bar Yochai the famous author of the Zohar. Rabbi Elazar states “The light which Gd created on the first day, a man could see with it from one end of the universe to the other”2.
Cosmologists in France and the US have recently suggested that space is finite and shaped like a dodecahedron. They claim that a universe with the same shape as the twelve-sided polygon can explain measurements of the cosmic microwave background3 (Fig 1.4). Jean-Pierre Luminet and colleagues of the Observatoire de Paris believe that the finite size of the universe itself is responsible for this behaviour. Moreover, they show that the predictions of a model in which space consists of 12 curved pentagons joined together in a sphere (Fig 1.5) agrees with the WMAP observations. Their ‘small’, closed universe should be about 30 billion light years across.
A dodecahedron consists of 12 faces, 20 points and 30 sides. The dodecahedron has many connections symbolically with Torah, such as the 12 “mazelot” or signs of the zodiac, the 12 months, the 12 tribes. Also the dodecahedron was one of the perfect, symmetrical platonic solids with each of the twelve faces of a dodecahedron as a pentagon, the proportions of which are based on the infinitely self-replicating Golden Ratio Æ.
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1The Bahir Illumination, part II commentary, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, p.90
2Talmud Chagigah 12:A
3J-P Luminet et al. 2003 Nature 425 593
Day 2
“Hasham said ‘let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters’ and let it separate between water and water. So Hashem made the firmament and separated between the waters which were beneath the firmament and the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. Hashem called the firmament heaven”
Ramban comments concerning the matter that came into being initially, which Hashem created out of nothing. Hashem said that it should become a firmament “stretched” out like a tent in the middle of the water. The word ÚçÙâ (rakiyah - firmament) literally translated means “that which is stretched out”. Ramban also states that Hashem called the heavens by this name on the second day when he invested tohu with the form of the firmament. On the first day the heavens were in a state called ÑÀÙÐÔ (beriyah) “coming into creation”, but a name could not be applied to them until they acquired this form. Ramban elaborates that the heavens were pulled and stretched out like a tent in the middle of the lower and upper waters. The language used here by Ramban and in Bereshis clearly reflects a universe that is “being stretched out” or expanding as depicted by the big bang theory. Both the Ramban and the Rambam write that the matter of the upper and lower waters cannot be understood in its literal sense, but refers to an underlying profound concept.
Ramban asserts that the heavens were made from water and the word éÞÙÝ (shemayim - heavens) can be broken down into éÝ (shem - the name of), ÞÙÝ (mayim - water). Also Rashi states that the word éÞÙÝ can be seen as a pair of words such as éÐ ÞÙÝ (sha mayim - carry water), éÝ ÞÙÝ (water is there). An interesting allusion pointed out by Rashi’s1 commentary on the Talmud, is the word pair generated from éÞÙÝ of ÀÞÙÝ Ðé (aish vermayim - fire and water) because Hashem mixed them with one another and made out of them the heavens. The very early universe as stated before was a mixture of very high energy even though it was darkness alluding to the primordial fire and the forming of basic matter consisting of hydrogen/helium plasma alluding to the water.
The Babylonian Talmudic founder Rav (Abba Arika) states that the heavens were in liquid form on the first day; on the second day they coagulated. Ramban explains that when Rav said “liquid form” he meant rudimentary amorphous form (basic, fundamental, homogenous and uniform). There are many other sources that indicate that water also refers to primeval or primordial matter2.
Also in the name of Rabbi Chananiah or Rabbi Pinchas and Rabbi Yaakov say in the name of Rabbi Shmuel “the middle drop of water congealed and the lower heavens and the upper heavens were made.”
The rabbi’s language above is very close to the language of cosmology in the early universe. During the expansion of the universe amorphous rudimentary gases consisting of hydrogen and helium collapsed under gravity forming the early galaxies and eventually the first generation of stars.
The “water” referred to in Bereshis from the words of the Rav may refer to the initial rudimentary amorphous fluid which condensed or congealed into galaxies and stars, the hydrogen gas. A side note from a purely chemical point of view is that water molecules H2O (two hydrogens, one oxygen) contain the atoms of a hydrogen molecule, H2 (two hydrogens).
A basic principle of the Torah is that it is compared to a multifaceted jewel (of 70 faces), which can be viewed in many different ways and still hold true. Therefore when I do use the deeper understanding of the waters of creation to mean primordial matter I do not intend to delete the much simpler explanation. The more literal interpretation of this part of Genesis would be that the oceans on Earth were gathered together and the dry land was then revealed. Therefore both the literal and the deeper understanding both hold true without contradicting each other, they both represent different levels of understanding or two different faces of the Torah.
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1Talmud
Chagigah 12a
2Kuzari (4:25), Bereshit Rabbah (4:1), Sh’mot Rabbah (15:22), Midrash Tehillim (104:7) and Yerushalmi Chaggigah (2:1)
Day 3
“Hashem said ‘let the waters be gathered from beneath the heaven to one area and let the dry land appear’ and it was so. Hashem called the dry land earth and the gathering of the waters he called yammim.”
Ramban states that Hashem called the gathering of water “yammim” which is compounded by the two words yam ÙÝ(sea) and mayim ÞÙÝ (water). Again I will refer to the waters as an amorphous rudimentary fluid, alluded to by Rav. These initial gases of hydrogen collapsed to form the first generation of stars, Fig 3.1. Ramban explains that the light should come into existence out of the primary matter and now decrees that the light should take on physical form.
“The sphere of the sun is a miniature version of the upper light”1. This is clear allusion to the formation of the sun and stars, which generate electromagnetic radiation (light) just the same as that produced during the initial big bang.
I mentioned previously that no elements heavier than lithium existed before the first generation of stars due to the five-particle gap in the production of atomic nuclei. In 1952 Edwin E. Salpeter found that under the conditions of a dying star, an unstable intermediate nucleus could exist long enough for nuclear fusion to proceed to heavier elements.
The stars undergo nuclear fusion of deuterium and tritium to form helium. Once all hydrogen isotopes are used up, then helium undergoes fusion to produce heavier elements in a stepwise process. These heavier elements crucially include carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, the building blocks of life and the full periodic table of the elements. The star dies in a spectacular explosion called a supernova and the heavier elements are expelled into space as dust and gas. Our sun formed within such a cloud of dust, shrinking in on itself by gravitational compaction and began to undergo nuclear fusion. The surrounding particles began to coalesce by gravity into larger lumps or planetesimals that continued to aggregate into planets and our earth 4.5 billion years ago. The standard model holds that a core of solid matter congeals from the swirling disk, called a protoplanetary disk around young stars, a process thought to take a million years or so, see Fig. 3.2.
This alludes to the statement that the “waters” are gathered together to form stars. The first generation of stars form under gravity, undergo nuclear fusion and die expelling gases of heavier elements into space. These expelled gases contract once again forming a second generation of stars, but a few of these will have a ring of dust containing heavier elements in orbit around the new star. This dust then contracts forming the seeds for new planetesimals and gradually forms planets including the Earth, “and let the dry land appear”.
“Hashem said ‘let the earth sprout forth sprouts of plants yielding seed, fruit trees yielding fruit each after its kind’.”
I will now shift perspective from a cosmological point of view to a more evolutionary view. The founder of the theory of evolution was Charles Darwin who wrote On the Origin of the Species in 1859. Darwin speculated that all animal life evolves into new forms over millions of years as they adapt to new environmental pressures. All species originated through evolutionary change and Darwin proposed that the scientific theory of natural selection is the mechanism by which such change occurs.
Biological evolution is genetic change in a population from one generation to another. The speed and direction of change is variable with different species and at different times. Continuous evolution over many generations can result in the development of new varieties and eventually new species. Likewise, failure to evolve in response to environmental changes can, and often does, lead to extinction.
Darwin himself proposed a slow and gradual evolution over many millions of years of a biological species progressively evolving into another, known as phyletic gradualism. The current fossil record generally does not reveal such a pattern. The fossil record reveals over many millions of years species that remaining relatively unchanged until quite suddenly over a very short time span in evolutionary terms a whole new repertoire of organisms appear. This pattern of evolution is known as punctuated equilibria.
The sudden appearance and lack of substantial gradual change of most species in the geologic record, from their initial appearance until their extinction, has long been noted, including by Charles Darwin.
I would like to point out that although I am discussing the theory of evolution and its parallels with the account of creation I would like to emphasise that it is a ‘theory’. However there is a huge amount of supporting evidence for a process of evolution from common ancestors. This is a controversial aspect of the book since it is generally deemed that evolution runs counter to the account of Genesis and religion in general. I believe this is not the case and the theory of evolution can only go as far to explain the physical manifestation of life on earth through physical principles, which can never be used to prove or disprove the existence of Gd, who is beyond the physical.
I am also not trying to follow an Intelligent Design point of view which states that the world (the designed) has a designer (Hashem), this seperates G-d from the physical world. On a deeper level Hashem is not seperated from physical existence and in Torah thought the universe is essentially a direct manifestation of His will. On an even deeper level Hashem is not separate from the physical reality at all and are one and the same, however there is a danger that this can be mis-interpreted so one has to be very careful with these ideas. So Hashem and his creation are one, but it appears to us that they are separate and this is the paradox. Not necessarily a designer and a designed.
The theory of evolution states that all contemporary organisms on earth are related to each other through common descent, the products of cumulative evolutionary changes over billions of years. Evolution is thus the source of the vast diversity of life on Earth, including the many extinct species attested to in the fossil record. According to the theory of evolution, the basic mechanisms that produce evolutionary change are natural selection (which includes ecological, sexual, and kin selection) and genetic drift; these two mechanisms act on the genetic variation created by DNA mutations, genetic recombination, and gene flow.
The earth has now formed and the events described from this point on are from the point of view of our planet. Life developed very quickly once conditions on the earth’s surface were hospitable, and there was a process of waxes and wanes of life with extinctions and explosions of species. The earth’s history is split into 19 eras, which contain 10 mass extinctions, see Fig.3.3.
With regards to these mass extinctions, it is interesting to note that a similar idea has been expressed in Torah stating that orders of time existed before creation. Rabbi Abahu said
“God went on creating worlds and destroying them, until He created this world and said that it was very good.”2.
During the Hadean era the solar system was forming, within a large cloud of gas and dust around the sun, called an accretion disc. The relative abundance of heavier elements in the solar system suggests that this gas and dust derived from a supernova. Due to impacts of asteroids and other planetesimals a lot of heat was generated and the earth would have been molten at the beginning of its history. During the first 800 million years the surface of earth changed from a liquid to solid and its geological history began. The forming of the earth from a planetesimal, a small rock of dust, which was the seed of aggregation for more dust by gravity, alludes closely to the concept of the ‘foundation stone’, in tradition this is where the creation of the world began.
During the Archaean era the earth’s atmosphere is theorised to have been a reducing atmosphere that is opaque containing methane, ammonia, CO2, H2O. Oxygen rapidly degrades the majority of organic compounds and inhibits many of the metabolic reactions in living systems, and therefore the primitive earth must have had a reducing atmosphere devoid of oxygen, to allow the appearance of the first basic forms of life. No direct light can penetrate this
kind of atmosphere, only diffuse light from the sun. For example, the planet Venus and Saturn’s moon Titan have similar atmospheres that are impenetrable to visible light and most satellite cameras and sensors. Some other theories also postulate an atmosphere as being the product of gas released from volcanoes as the earth cooled. Studies of volcanic gases have shown that H2O and CO2 are the major volatiles. However, a significant amount of H2 is usually found in volcanic gas and this raises the reducing potential of the mixture with very high water content; again this would produce an opaque atmosphere. Therefore even though sunlight did reach the surface it would not have been possible to see clearly beyond the atmosphere.
Life first appeared around 3.5 billion years ago, almost as soon as conditions were permissible; there seems to have been no incubation or waiting time for life to begin. All fossils found from this period are microfossils of bacteria and photosynthetic bacteria. The Proterozoic era began 2.5 billion years ago and hailed in the formation of stable continents. About 1.8 billion years ago eukaryotic cells appear as fossils and are the precursor to first plant life and then animal life. Eukaryotic cells are more complex than bacteria with the DNA packaged into a cell nucleus unlike prokaryotic cells (bacteria, archea).
The First Six Days Page 3