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לזכות שבע חיה מושקא בת נעטל תחי’ לרפואה שלימה

By Prof. Shimon Silman, RYAL Institute

Remember the story (משל) of the Mountain of Faith? The scientists struggled and climbed up the mountain for years, falling and getting up and finally reaching the top where they excitedly informed the believers who were sitting there that they, the scientists, finally reached the top of the mountain where they can announce that they too have come to believe in G-d. The believers responded to them, saying, “Yeah? Well, we’ve been here all the time!”

So, this is the sequel to that story (or, if you like, it’s version 2.0):

A group of scientists approach the Mountain of Creation. Some of them decide that they are going to climb the mountain and get to the top. For years they struggle with the cliffs and the sharp drop-offs, the snow and the slippery slopes. Finally, they reach the top. They find a group of chassidim sitting at the top. The chief scientist calls out, “We made it, we’re here. We came to tell you that we have come to know that the world was created from nothing. We know it just like you do!”

The Rav of the chassidim responds, “Not so fast…We have to hear about what you know. Is it the same thing that we know and believe?”

Creation From Nothing

A long discussion between the Rav and the chief scientist ensues. The Rav explains to the scientist that there may be a big difference between what the scientists know and what the chassidim believe. “You see,” the Rav tells him “it is explained in Chassidus that the human mind can comprehend that the world was created from nothing. In fact, the human mind must reach the conclusion that the world, in fact, was created from nothing. But the human mind cannot possibly comprehend how something was created from nothing.

“In other words,” the Rav continued “the fact that the world was created from nothing can be understood, but how something can be created from nothing cannot be understood by the human mind. It is in the realm of G-d alone. In fact, the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya (שער היחוד והאמונה פ”ד):

‘There is no ability in the intellect of any creation to understand and comprehend this attribute and ability [of G-d] to create something from nothing and maintain its existence. Creation of something from nothing is higher than the intellect of the creations. It is an attribute of the greatness of G-d.’

“So we have to see what you have concluded and what we believe, and see if we are on the same page.”

The scientist understood what the Rav was saying and started by explaining his background…

“We were all taught in school that the universe started from nothing with a bang—the ‘Big Bang’ theory. But none of us believed this because it didn’t make any sense. There must have been something there before that triggered the big bang. Where did that thing come from? So we were back where we started from.

“As time went on, a group of us went on to study physics at the university to get to the bottom of this, but we still didn’t get there…Then one day we heard of a new thing called digital physics. We started looking into that and things began to change…”

“Before you go any further,” the Rav said, “I should tell you about a very fundamental sicha that the Rebbe MHM said explaining the purpose of modern science.

Torah and Science

“In the sicha (לקו”ש חט”ו, עמוד 42), the Rebbe MHM quotes the Zohar which says that just like in the 600^th year of the life of Noach the fountains of water below opened and water came up, and the windows of heaven opened up and water came down resulting in the flood, similarly in the 600^th year of the 6^th millennium (1840 c.e.), the windows of heaven will open up and wisdom will come down from above, and the fountains below will break open and wisdom will come up from below—resulting in a flood of knowledge.

“The wisdom from above was the writings of the Alter Rebbe’s Chassidus which were then published, and the wisdom from below was the discoveries of modern science. The two of these together were to prepare the world for Moshiach.

“In the sicha, the Rebbe MHM discusses 3 ways in which modern science prepares the world for Moshiach. The deepest way is that modern science discovered unity in the physical world [such as Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism which unifies electricity and magnetism.] This prepares the world for the revelation of the absolute unity of G-d which will be revealed in the time of Moshiach.

“The Rebbe MHM states a very important introduction to all this. At the beginning of section 2 of the sicha he writes:

‘The whole world, with everything that’s in it, was created “for the Torah and for the Jewish people” (Rashi), and “everything that Hashem created in His world, He created only [to reveal] His glory” (Mishneh Avos). From this it’s clear that the purpose and ultimate intention of every creation is in the extent to which it is used by the Jews for the service of Hashem.

‘The same thing applies to the sciences: The intention in the development of the sciences is “to use them for the service of Hashem or His Torah.” (Tanya)

Then the Rav looked at the scientist and said, “Now, can you tell me that this new digital physics that you are going to describe can be used for the service of Hashem or His Torah?”

Digital Physics

“Well,” the scientist replied, “First let me tell you what digital physics is. It’s a theoretical framework suggesting that the universe operates like a digital computer, with physical processes fundamentally rooted in discrete, computational rules rather than continuous laws. It proposes that reality is composed of finite, quantized units of information, akin to bits in a computer, and that its fundamental building blocks are bits of information rather than traditional physical particles or fields…

“Wow! Let me stop you right there…We may be on the same page after all. Let me talk it over with some of the other chassidim. I’ll be right back…”

A short time later the Rav came back and said to the scientist, “My friends and I think that what you said may be the perfect follow-up to what the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya, but we need more detail.

“You see, in Tanya, the Alter Rebbe has a section called שער היחוד והאמונה where he talks about the creation of the world from nothing. Let me tell you some of the things that he says in chapter 1. Maybe it goes hand-in-hand with your digital physics:

“There is a posuk in Tehillim that says, לעולם ה’ דברך ניצב בשמים which means, ‘Your words, G-d, stand in the heavens forever (Tehillim 119:89). The Baal Shem Tov explains this to mean that the words and letters of the 10 statements of creation that G-d used to create the universe remain standing forever to maintain the existence of the universe. (If G-d would withdraw those letters, the universe would cease to exist and return to nothing.)

“The Alter Rebbe continues to explain that even an inanimate object like a stone needs the life from those letters to maintain its existence. This is the case even though the word for ‘stone’ (אבן) doesn’t appear in the 10 creative statements, because some things don’t get their existence directly from the words of the 10 statements, but rather through the permutation of the letters of those creative words, or even from the numerical values (גימטריאות) of those words.

“Now, this sounds a little like your digital physics…”

Unity Achieved

The scientist took a deep breath. He was getting ready to try to explain something complex, requiring a little mathematical notation…

“OK, this might be a little technical, but I’ll do my best. You see, honorable Rav, you explained to me before that creation from nothing is something that the human mind cannot comprehend. So we’re not even going to try to do it. What we will do is pick up where the Alter Rebbe left off. He explained that G-d created the world using the words of the 10 statements—their letters and numerical values. But letters are also numbers. For example, א = 1, ב = 2, etc.

“So digital physics—which is digital, it uses numbers—will take those numbers and use them to build a science to describe the created universe. To emphasize, we are not talking about the act of creation, which is above our ability to understand. We are talking about the created universe—after it was created—and describing it. We are using the same language that G-d used to create the world in the first place, letters and numbers…

“But what are numbers? Modern mathematics has discovered a logical definition of numbers, using one simple definition, that of a ‘set.’ A set is just a collection of things…

“We start with nothing, which is represented by the ‘empty set’—the set with nothing in it. The symbol for it is ∅ (it looks like a zero with a line through it, deliberately). From this—from nothing—we define the numbers:

0 = ∅

1 = {∅}, the set whose only member is the empty set; it’s a set with 1 member.

2 = {∅, {∅}}, a set with 2 members

3 = {∅, {∅}, {∅, {∅}}}, a set with 3 members

And so on…(it gets too complicated to write).”

“To be clear, we are not trying to explain creation of the universe. After all, even the empty set is ‘something.’ Rather, we are taking the created universe, as presented by the Alter Rebbe, and showing that even within the creation, we can start with ‘nothing’—the thing closest to nothing that we have—and build up the rest of creation from there.

“In conclusion,” the scientist said, “just like the universe was created from nothing, our description of the created universe starts from ‘nothing.’ We are using the same language as you are.”

Well, needless to say, the Rav was excited. He said to the scientist, “I like this. There’s just one more thing we should check out to be sure we did the best job possible…”

“What’s that,” the scientist asked.

“There’s an important principle in the sicha, that we quoted above, that we should check. In section 8, the Rebbe MHM writes:

‘The true unity between the sciences and the Torah occurs when we see matters of the inner levels of the Torah in the sciences themselves.’

Have we done that? the Rav asked.

The Rav and the scientist thought about it and concluded that since they were using the same terms to talk about the created universe as the Alter Rebbe had used to talk about creation from nothing, they had done the best they could. So the Rav said to the scientist, “We’re on the same page, using the same terms. We did the best possible…let’s go have a big farbrengen…”

The Purpose of Creation

At the farbrengen all the scientists and all the chassidim sat down together to say L’Chaim. The Rav got up and spoke. He said, “The scientists and us are on the same page when it comes to discussing creation from nothing. Now we just have to figure out why Hashem created the world—for what purpose?”

One of the young chassidim jumped up and said, “That’s easy. The Gemara in Sanhedrin says that לא איברי עלמא אלא למשיח—‘the world was created only for Moshiach!’ “

Man, I wish that I had been at that farbrengen…

This paper is part of our ongoing research. Please send any comments or questions to [email protected]. 

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