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Yet I see grounds for awe in what we may
choose to do. Awe emerges not from nature’s
beauty but from the thought that despite the dismal facts of nature that allow such beauty to
emerge, right choices exist for me to make. And
what determines the right, the ethical choice? The
capacity to choose is necessary but not sufficient
for an ethical life. For that, one must choose to act
out of love as well as self-love, and to choose even
if it contradicts one’s own individual interest.
Hillel distilled three necessary questions to
shape ethical behavior.
“Im Ain ani li, mi li? Uch’she’ani l’atz’mi,
ma ani? V’im lo ach’shav, aymatai?”
“If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
And if I am but for myself, what am I? And if
not now, when?”
One must be willing to step outside of the
biological constraints of natural selection in
order to choose an action that confronts these
three questions. What is right according to
these questions is not merely to act in self-interest nor only for the preservation of DNA sequences found in oneself and one’s relatives,
but to act out of self-interest for the sake of another person of any heritage, even at the risk of
the survival of one’s DNA. That is what it takes
to be a serious religious person in awe of God.
It may also be a useful way for someone without religious convictions to construct a personal
ethical framework. It is the basis of creating an
ethics informed by awe.
A Revolution in Science and Religion
HOWARD SMITH
The New Year season, an annual opportu- nity for introspection, is not really over until after the story of the creation is read
again in the weekly Torah cycle: “In the beginning.” And so each year, in the waning moments of the Jewish calendar’s period of
self-reevaluation, we are asked to think about
Science has provided answers...to the fundamental
questions that used to be the sole domain of religion,
especially the two big ones: How was the universe created?
What is the nature of life?...This revolution means that
faith is not the result of being ignorant....
Howard Smith, the author of
Let There Be Light: Modern
Cosmology and Kabbalah, a
New Conversation between
Science and Religion (New
World Library), is a senior
astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics in Cambridge. He
was chairman of astronomy at
the Smithsonian’s National Air
and Space Museum in
Washington, and is an active
member of the Boston Jewish
community. His email address is
howardsmith@lettherebelightBOOK.com.
our origins and the mysteries of existence and to
wonder what to make of a Bible that seems to
address — and answer — questions of science.
While tradition assigns an age of 5770 years to
the world, the measurements that comprise the
“big bang” description find the universe is 13. 7
billion years old. What does this apparent conflict between science and religion mean, especially when the power and truth of science are
acknowledged by virtually everyone?
There is news for anyone committed to intellectual honesty: It’s no longer an issue. Here’s
why. The “god of the gaps” — the derogatory
term used to describe a divinity invoked when
we do not understand something — is now
dead. For centuries scientists could only speculate or brag about the possibility of deciphering
all the puzzles of nature, but just in the past 20
years — not earlier — has science provided answers with some confidence to the fundamental
questions that used to be the sole domain of religion, especially the two big ones: How was the
universe created? What is the nature of life?
In my field of physics and astronomy, the
big bang description has been resoundingly confirmed while other options have been rejected.
New instruments expect to achieve astonishing
accuracies of one percent in their measurement
of details in the unfolding of creation. Meanwhile, in biology, the human genome project
has successfully placed life and its complexity
under a microscope. This means that for the
very first time in human history we can plausi-bly, if timorously, respond “yes” on behalf of
Job, whom God challenges: “Speak up if you
can understand [the creation].” (Job 38: 4)
Sophisticated readers of Sh’ma may feel like
shrugging off my observation as old news.
Whatever the details of creation — billions or
millions of years — most people assumed that
science would find answers. But as the pieces
of the world puzzle come together, our relationships with God and Torah mature irrevocably. For those of us who are religious, this
revolution means that faith is not the result of
being ignorant but is an acknowledgment of a
sanctified relationship. It also means that attentiveness to Torah requires a deeper new understanding of its message. An example: We,
like Adam, are made of “adamah” — the dust
of the earth. But today we know that this is not
