Tsuyoku Naritai; does science contradict Torah?

Guest Post: Rebbetzin Devorah Fastag

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Edit for title: the title should have been Tsuyoku Naritai; does science contradict Torah?

This was my mistakes, and I apologize. -Isha Yiras Hashem

On May 7, 2007, there was a post on Less Wrong titled “Tsuyoku Naritai, I want to become stronger”.¹ The post expressed the author’s disenchantment with orthodox Judaism. Among other things, it says:

Thus, modern rabbis are not allowed to overrule ancient rabbis. Crawly things are ordinarily unkosher, but it is permissible to eat a worm found in an apple—the ancient rabbis believed the worm was spontaneously generated inside the apple, and therefore was part of the apple. A modern rabbi cannot say, “Yeah, well, the ancient rabbis knew diddly-squat about biology. Overruled!” A modern rabbi cannot possibly know a halachic principle the ancient rabbis did not, because how could the ancient rabbis have passed down the answer from Mount Sinai to him? Knowledge derives from authority, and therefore is only ever lost, not gained, as time passes.

First, there is a technical inaccuracy in the explanation of the Jewish law: It is not always permitted to eat a worm found in an apple. If the worm had contact with the air, the ground, or the water of the world, it is forbidden. As Rabbi Ari Enkin writing for the OU put it²

It is permitted to eat a worm which grew in a fruit that had been detached from its source of growth and had never been exposed to the air. However, worms and other insects which grew in a fruit while it was still attached to the tree are forbidden to be eaten. If one is in doubt whether or not a worm which is found in a fruit is of the permitted or forbidden species, the fruit may not be eaten.

Now to the main point: 

There are two ways of explaining why we would still keep the halacha even though the reason the sages gave for it is not scientifically correct.  One is the mystical reason and the other is the non-mystical reason. 

The Mystical Reason

According to the mystics, everything included in the Talmud is true, but not necessarily on the literal level. The rabbis of the Talmud had to use codes, so to speak, to convey mystical truths. This is because after the destruction of the Second Temple, the sages were afraid that if they revealed mystical teachings to the public, they would reach unworthy people and cause much harm.  They therefore hid their mystical teachings by couching them in simple terms, which were actually codes for deeper meanings.

To give one very simple example: we often speak of the moon getting “larger” and “smaller”, but is that scientifically true? On the literal physical level, of course not, but on the deeper level, yes. The moon represents the Jewish People. Sometimes it seemed as if they would disappear, but just like the moon, they would be “reborn”.

The history of the Jewish People started with Abraham and Sarah and from thereon kept growing. David was the 14th generation after Abraham and David’s son Solomon was the 15th. The 14th and 15th of the lunar month are its pinnacle, called the full moon. At this time the Jewish People were, historically, at their “full” glory.

After this point, they started descending, becoming less and less powerful and illustrious until the destruction and exile in the time of King Zedekiah, who was the 30th generation after Abraham. This parallels the 30th day of the lunar month, when the moon seems to disappear. But after that the moon is "reborn", and so is the Jewish People.

So now that we have seen the principle of how statements can be representative of ideas even when they are not literally true, we can understand that when the rabbis said that the worm had been formed inside the fruit and therefore was not forbidden like other worms connected to the ground, water or air, they were referring to something very deep. The physical parallels the spiritual, at least in outward appearances, and according to outside appearances it looks as if the worm had been formed from the fruit, because the egg it was formed from was too small to see. 

The appearance of physical reality, even if not actually correct, was created for a reason.  That appearance is there to teach us something about spiritual reality. So the fact that it is not scientifically true is irrelevant, because we are not dealing here with scientific truths, we are dealing with spiritual truths, and those spiritual truths represented by natural appearances, are real.       

The Non- Mystical Explanation

The halacha that one may eat a worm that grew in a fruit that had been detached from its source of growth is what is called “halacha liMoshe miSinai”, meaning that this halacha was passed down to us from the time of the giving of the Torah.³ It is totally independent of the reason which was later given for it.

In other words, spontaneous generation is not the reason behind the halacha. 

The Sages gave spontaneous generation as a reason only to help people who felt they needed some explanation, and to do so they used what was believed at that time to be true. According to many views, such as the Rambam and the Ramchal, scientific statements of the Sages are not in the category of Torah.⁴ 

The Jewish laws mentioned in the Talmud are Torah, as are matters of faith and ethics, but science is not. Science is called “wisdom”, and it could be incorrect. The incorrect scientific explanation in no way affects the halacha, because the halacha preceded the attempted explanation for it and is not dependent on it.⁵ 

To sum up, according to both the mystical and the non-mystical view, the mistaken 'scientific" reason given is not the actual basis of the halacha.

But what about laws instituted by the Sages? For example, what about the law that those living outside of the land of Israel must keep an extra day for the Biblical holidays?⁶ The reason for this was that originally there was no set calendar. The new month was determined through witnesses who saw the emergence of the new moon. Because of this each month might have either 29 days or 30 days. Since they could not know in advance which it would be, and since there was no time to inform people abroad which day would be the holiday, the sages said one must keep both possible days as the holiday. But what does this have to do with us? People living outside of the land of Israel today do know when the holiday will fall out, so why is it necessary today to keep two days?

Some people see it as safeguarding the Torah. People often point out that one cannot begin to make changes because by doing so one would be shaking the very foundations of Torah observance. They reason that, if people would start changing the rules, there would be no end to the changes that could be made. There have to be unchangeable rules, or whatever would seem inconvenient would be discarded and the true Torah would be lost.

Although this is probably true, there must still be deeper reasons. Why would G-d want us to keep laws that no longer help us? The answer is that they still do help us, but in other ways.

The Sfas Emes⁷ says that the holiness which those who dwell in the land of Israel acquire from place (i.e. from the land), must be acquired by those who live outside the land through time. To explain this further:

The land of Israel has special holiness to it which does not exist outside of it. It is called the land upon which G-d's eyes rest from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.⁸ The sages made many very strong statements about the spirituality in the land of Israel vs. spirituality outside of it, such as saying that if one lives in the land of Israel it is as if he has a G-d, and if he lives outside the land of Israel it is as if he does not have a G-d.⁹ In other words, one can see G-d's providence and feel a connection with Him so much more in the land of Israel that it is necessary to give those who do not have this means of connecting with G-d some other source of spiritual support, and this is done through the extra time given for the holiness of the holidays.¹⁰

The point here is, that even when the practical physically explanatory reason mentioned in the Talmud would no longer apply, there are still other reasons that do apply in the spiritual dimension. Therefore, if one would change the halacha, they would be losing out on that spiritual reason.

To sum up, the Torah is multi-dimensional and full of essential matters that don't appear on the surface. When one is aware of only the outermost layer of Torah, then things don't make sense. When one begins to see the great hidden depths, one realizes that there are explanations that we can't even begin to imagine.

1. https://www.readthesequences.com/Tsuyoku-Naritai-I-Want-To-Become-Stronger

On Less Wrong: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DoLQN5ryZ9XkZjq5h/tsuyoku-naritai-i-want-to-become-stronger

2. https://outorah.org/p/40439/

3. Many, many sources. One is Mishnah, Peah 2:6

4. Hilchos Kiddush Hachodesh 17:24

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/947935/jewish/Kiddush-HaChodesh-Chapter-Seventeen.htm#lt=primary

The rationales for all these calculations, and the reasons why this number is added, and why that subtraction is made, and how all these concepts are known, and the proofs for each of these principles are [the subject] of the wisdom of astronomy and geometry, concerning which the Greeks wrote many books.

These texts are presently in the hands of the sages. The texts written by the Sages of Israel in the age of the prophets from the tribe of Yissachar have not been transmitted to us. Nevertheless, since these concepts can be proven in an unshakable manner, leaving no room for question, the identity of the author, be he a prophet or a gentile, is of no concern. For a matter whose rationale has been revealed and has proven truthful in an unshakable manner, we do not rely on [the personal authority of] the individual who made these statements or taught these concepts, but on the proofs he presented and the reasons he made known.

5. Michtav MeEliyahu Pp. 355-356, footnote 4

6. https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14556&pgnum=382

7. Frequently quoted; could not find exact citation.

8. Deuteronomy 11:12

9. Tractate Kesubot, 100 2

10. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/extra-festival-days-in-the-diaspora/