Ethics Informed by Awe
ROBERT POLLACK
SHMA.COM
Ipray from either of two different siddurim, depending on the minyan. The Conservative siddur, “Sim Shalom,” or the
Orthodox Artscroll siddur both open morning
prayers with a short prayer of gratitude for
being given another day:
“Modeh ani l’fanecha, Melech chai v’kayam,”
“I thank you eternal King, for returning my
soul to within me with compassion.”
Both siddurim follow with a short prayer to
be said after rinsing one’s fingers. The
Conservative siddur provides a blessing for having been given the commandment to wash
one’s hands. The Orthodox one says to pray,
“Reshit chochma yirat haShem,”
“The beginning of wisdom is Awe of
haShem.”
I prefer this second prayer, and say it every
morning, and often at other times, with or without a minyan. But awe of what, exactly, is the
beginning of wisdom?
At first I thought this awe was the internal
subjective emotional state instilled by contemplation of the incomprehensible grandeur of nature, as in Psalm 92, a psalm the Levitical
priests would recite in the Temple on Shabbat:
“Ma gad’lu ma’asecha haShem, me’od
am’ku mach’sh’votecha”
“How vast are Your works haShem, Your
designs are beyond our grasp.”
But soon I realized that in this age of science we no longer have the luxury of incomprehensibility. The natural world is all too
comprehensibly dependent upon death for novelty. In earlier times there were no humans, and
even earlier there were no mammals, nor vertebrates, nor any organism bigger than a single
cell. From those earliest times until now, all that
we might want to think of as progress has been
simply the selection of one subset of DNA sequences or another from a constantly refreshing
pool of copying errors. We can be fairly certain
that replacement or death will be the fate of all
humanity as a species, just as death is the certain fate of every person.
Worse, we also know — if we are honest
about the data of natural selection and cosmology — that nature is devoid of data suggesting
intentionality, direction, other than death, perfectibility, or purpose. The living world, ourselves included, is intrinsically imperfect and
intrinsically not perfectible. It changes, but even
the changes that make each of us individually
unique and interesting to each other are meaningless differences in DNA, creating the differences among us toward no purpose beyond the
possible improvement in survival of one or another particular version of DNA over time.
I am not exaggerating the seriousness of
this problem: scientific insight into the meaninglessness of DNA-based life is not simply
missing meaning. It is the demonstration that a
satisfactory, even elegant, explanation of the
workings of this aspect of nature actually conflicts with the assumption of purpose and
meaning. Poets seem to have an easier time accepting these facts than people less skilled at
self-awareness. Edna St. Vincent Millay, for example, explored the emptiness of the natural
world’s beauty, in her poem “Spring”:
“To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing
flowers.”
AMY POLLACK
Robert Pollack is a professor
of biological sciences and the
director of the Center for the
Study of Science and Religion
at Columbia University.
Amy Pollack is an artist whose
work has appeared in many
journals. This article and the
drawing comparing the nucleus
of a cell with its DNA to the
Temple in the city of Jerusalem,
are adapted from The Faith of
Biology and the Biology of
Faith, Columbia University
Press.
