9 replies to this topic

[shaya]

The famous divrei chaim abt the star that circles the world 36000 years the answer he gives is that the world was different.
What do I tell to those who will say that this is the same as the athiest who adds more and more years to the age of the universe to fit his beliefs?
Also iv read your 37 page article of the first cause and it truly gives you a good logical understanding of the true nature of god, is there any good logical reason to believe in the truth of the torah.?

[Rabbi Shapiro]

It's not really so famous. So I'll review for those who don't know it.

The Divrei Chaim quotes an unnamed Godol who lived "in the days of the Arizal or perhaps earlier," that Adam's sin crippled the universe, so to speak, but before he sinned, things were able to happen in the world at a much faster pace. So for example, the Mazalos orbited much faster than they do now, so that what normally would take years happened before the sin in a matter of moments. This explains, he says the disagreement as to whether the world was created in Niisan or Tishri. Because of the rapid pace that the celestial bodies traveled at that time, the moon's orbit was sufficiently fast that Nisan and Tishri both happened during the 6 days of creation.

The difference between this and what you are suggesting, is that the Divrei Chaim still says there were six 24-hour days in creation. Its just that during that time, things went faster. Imagine for example, a video that is fast-forwarded. On your clock, 2 minutes pass. Now play that same video for 2 minutes at a slower speed. Less scenes pass in the same 2 minutes. The Divrei Chaim is saying that if Hashem had a watch, the 6 days took 6 days. Its just that more was able to happen in those 6 days then, than can happen in the same 6 days now. But the amount of time was the same.

You are suggesting, on the other hand, that the 6 days took longer than 6 days take today. The Divrei Chaim didn't say that.

[Rabbi Shapiro]

It's one of the first yaaros dvash

Yes, the Divrei Chaim says its also in the Yaaros Devash. It would be vol. 1 Drush 1 and also Drush 15.

[YReiner]

Are you familiar with Gerald Schroder's work on reconciling the "scientific" age of the universe with the Torah's age? Do you think it has merit from a Torah perspective?

[Rabbi Shapiro]

Are you familiar with Gerald Schroder's work on reconciling the "scientific" age of the universe with the Torah's age?

Yes.

Do you think it has merit from a Torah perspective?

No.

[Rabbi Shapiro]

Can you elaborate?

Sure. The entire idea of reading the Torah in such a way that nobody understood the Peshuto Shel Mikrah of Parshas Bereishis until he came along and explained that what we always thought it meant isn't what it means at all, is not a tenable position. We have a Mesorah from Neviim Chazal and Rishonim and he is wrenching the Peshuto shel Mikrah so far out of sync with that Mesorah that it cannot be taken as a serious pshat. But more importantly, he has no basis for it from the Torah itself, and the only motive to suggest such a thing is in order to reconcile the Torah with current scientific thought. That is unnecessary as there are easier ways to reconcile them without such contortions, or one can also just remain with a shverkeit. Either way, the problem is that he has insufficient Torah basis to say it, and given how radical the suggestion is, he would anyway need something much more substantial than even just "some basis" - and even that he doesn't have - for it to be acceptable.

[Chaim613]

ימים אלו (של ששת ימי בראשית) היו קודם גמר הבריאה שאז הבחנת הזמן היתה אחרת. אולם התורה ניתנה לנו לפי הבחנתנו אנו, שבא משה והורידה לארץ, וזה גדר "דברה תורה כלשון בני אדם", שמדברת לפי הבחנתנו בגשם וגדרי מקום וזמן שלנו. … הוא שכל גילויי ששת אלפי השנה כלולים בימי בראשית... שאילו לא חטא אדם הראשון היה העולם הזה נמשך רק ששה ימים... (אך כשחטא... והימים נתפרטו לששה אלפי שנין)


I assume this quotation from Michtav Eliyahu of Rav Dessler is the same thing as the Ya'aros Dvash mentioned above, the idea of accelerated creation. Does anyone else bring it?

thanks

[Rabbi Shapiro]

ימים אלו (של ששת ימי בראשית) היו קודם גמר הבריאה שאז הבחנת הזמן היתה אחרת. אולם התורה ניתנה לנו לפי הבחנתנו אנו, שבא משה והורידה לארץ, וזה גדר "דברה תורה כלשון בני אדם", שמדברת לפי הבחנתנו בגשם וגדרי מקום וזמן שלנו. … הוא שכל גילויי ששת אלפי השנה כלולים בימי בראשית... שאילו לא חטא אדם הראשון היה העולם הזה נמשך רק ששה ימים... (אך כשחטא... והימים נתפרטו לששה אלפי שנין)


I assume this quotation from Michtav Eliyahu of Rav Dessler is the same thing as the Ya'aros Dvash mentioned above, the idea of accelerated creation. Does anyone else bring it?

thanks

That is not the same as the Yaaros Dvash.

The Yaaros Dvash is not saying that time was any different during the days of creation than it is now. He is saying that the physical world was more energized so that more could happen within the same amount of time. But time itself was no different.

What you are quoting says something else entirely. It is saying that time itself was different during the 6 days of creation. Not that it was "faster" or "slower," but different.

Had Adam not done his sin, Moshiach would have come that day, and so all the revelations that were destined to happen during "Olam Hazeh," before Moshiach arrived, would have happened during that one day, the Erev Shabbos when Adam was made. When Adam sinned, time "split" into many days, and the revelations would have to wait many years before they would happen.

This does not mean that the days before creation were longer or shorter than they are now. It does not mean a day was comprised of more than 24 hours as we know it. Rather, time itself was different - in a qualitative way - so that all the things that needed to happen could have happened all in one day. Not because they needed less time to happen (which is what Rav Yonason is saying), and not because there was more time for them to happen, but rather because time itself had completely different properties than it does now. Events-within-time-as-we-know-it are bound by certain rules, such as the impossibility of more than one thing being in the same place at the same time. Time as we know it is consecutive - any two moments happen one after another - never at once. All this, and much more, is because the nature of time gives it certain properties and boundaries.

Rav Dessler is saying that until Adam did his sin, the nature of time was different. And so, the rules of time were different as well. The pre-חטא time was able to accommodate all the revelations that must happen in Olam Hazeh during the first week of creation. This is not because there was more time in a day then, but rather time itself was not what we know it to be today. After Adam did his sin, time changed, and given its new nature, it needs 6,000 years worth of consecutive moments to accommodate the required revelations.

This pre-חטא time was not necessarily slower or faster, or more compact or "spread out" - it was different. But none of this contradicts that there were six 24-hour days during creation. Rav Dessler is not coming here to contradict our Mesorah. He is not saying that there were more hours or faster hours during the 6 days of creation - just simply that time accommodated space and events differently than it does now.