Opinion: Rabbi Herschel Billet on The age of the Earth and Jewish tradition

In My View

By Rabbi Herschel Billet
Issue of Feb. 6, 2009 / 12 Shevat 5769

Recently a video circulated on the Internet in which a prominent Torah scholar responded impatiently when asked by a member of his audience to clarify the disparity between the traditional Jewish calendar year of 5769 and the scientific dating system, which speaks of the age of the earth in numbers exponentially higher than 5769. Essentially he went on to attack a prominent rabbi/author (without referencing his name) who suggested that indeed it is not contrary to traditional Jewish faith to maintain that both 5769 and scientific numbers are reasonable and can coexist.

When I went to high school there were several approaches as to how to deal with the section in the biology textbook that dealt with the age of the Earth. Suffice it to say that then, as now, the contradiction was there. One approach was the Scissors and Paste/Black Out Method. Essentially, this method excised the offending section from the book. It was efficient, but intellectually unsatisfactory.

There were several other, more intelligent ways that we were taught to resolve the question:

1. Hashem created the Earth old. When the world was created there were layers of rocks and trees with rings etc. This means that scientific dating was fooled by the reality of creation.

2. The method of scientific dating is based on the assumption that the half-life of radioactive carbon is a constant. But that is only an assumption. We have no way of knowing if it changed over the centuries since this data is a relatively recent discovery. This questions the validity of this scientific method of dating the earth.

3. The flood wreaked havoc on the natural world that was created 5769 years ago and changed the natural reality to such an extent that the earth that remained after the flood yielded different properties from the original created ones. That is what threw the scientists off base.

4. Each “day” of creation should not be seen in the context of a 24-hour-day as we are accustomed. Rather it should be seen within the framework of a divine time system that is quantitatively different from human time.

5. Before day four of creation there were none of the celestial bodies that enable us to count days by sunrise and sunset. Hence, before that day, there was no concept of time, as we know it.

The last two approaches take the simple meaning of the Biblical term “day” of creation and turn it into some undefined measure of time. We never considered the possibility that both the Torah and science were correct.

There is a phenomenal essay found in the Yachin U’Boaz edition of the Mishnah in Volume I of Seder Nezikin. It is called Drush Or HaChaim, written by the 19th century Torah scholar, Rav Yisrael Lipschutz, author of the Tiferes Yisrael commentary on the Mishnah. This essay is found in the Bais Midrash of every yeshiva in the world.

He suggests that indeed the world may be as old as science suggests because the Midrash, in Bereishit Rabba, says there were periods of time before our period of time, and that Hashem built worlds and destroyed them. This means that on the planet Earth, Hashem created pre-historic forms of existence like dinosaurs, mastodons etc. and destroyed those life forms. Each time He created a “new” world, He built it on top of the ruined one. Hence the layers and the millions of years of existence before the form of Earth that we live on. The Talmud (Shabbos 88; Chagiga 14) also speaks of 974 generations before Adam. This may account for the prehistoric humanoid remains that have been discovered hidden in caverns and layers of time.

He explains that the Torah in Genesis 1:1 tells us that an undetermined number of years ago Elokim created heaven and earth. It then skips the history of the previous forms of life on this globe and tells us how, in six days, the chaos that the Earth was in after the latest life forms were destroyed, was ordered into the Earth as we know it. On day six, Man was created.

When we speak of 5769 years, it is, as the Rambam says, from the creation of the homo sapien Adam who was bequeathed by Elokim with the unique gift of intelligence and speech.

This very rational approach enables us to accept scientific dating methods that indicate that previous worlds may have existed on Earth billions of years ago. At the same time, it affirms Jewish tradition that maintains 5769 years since the creation of Adam –– in the last world that Hashem created on this Earth.

The modern author who was criticized by the Torah scholar on the Internet video took a different approach than Rav Yisrael Lipschutz. But he had the same goal. His intention was to resolve the contradiction between the scientific dating method and the tradition of 5769. Everything that the author wrote was based on solid traditional Jewish sources and statements by great rabbonim of previous generations. He performed a great service to Jewish scholarship that believes that Torah and reality are one and the same.

A Jew must choose faith (emunah) above all else when there is no alternative. But where reason and faith can live together, that is ideal. Faith is greatly strengthened when scientific reality confirms the Torah reality that we all believe to be true. Rabbis, even great rabbis, should choose the moments where they must preach faith exclusively. At other times they should take a step back and think before they speak.

Rabbi  Herschel Billet is rav of the Young Israel of Woodmere.