Chosen Few: Renaissance
By
Marshall Onellion Ph.D. Physics and David Ramati
Preface
Why have Jews contributed disproportionately to intellectual
achievement during several periods of history? What has been the significance
to humanity of this Jewish intellectual achievement? For almost 2,000 years,
Jews have developed both a high value to education that emphasizes questioning. Jews have a long tradition of mystic-
questioning- of epistemology and of what constitutes "knowledge."
Such questioning turns out to be highly relevant to understanding 21st century
physics, and particularly quantum mechanics and cosmology. Kabbalah- the main
part of Jewish mysticism- actually has nothing directly to do with religion nor
does not attempt to identify God or Gods beyond an unknown and possibly
unknowable physical force. Some of the ideas in science and particularly
quantum mechanics connect questions posed at the beginning of quantum theory
that are outside of where our everyday experience can be used as a guide. It is
this questioning tradition, combined with a strong scholarly work ethic and
willingness to sacrifice for scholarship which distinguishes the Jewish
accomplishments.
In the beginning there
were no Jews. In fact there were no
gentiles either. Thinking rational beings make these distinctions and there
were none. There was only a pea sized object
made up of a super condensed bit of something waiting to explode into an
infinity of darkness.
Book One
Chapter one: Cosmology &
Kabbalah
Kabbalah is very specific about the earliest universe, and
remarkably close in ideas to current physics cosmology. As an example of Jewish
intellectual achievement it ranks near the top. Kabbalistic analysis of the early
universe also stands as a stark contrast to the belief in magic that
characterizes so much of mysticism.
Kabbalah and other Jewish intellectual achievements began
with how rabbis were educated. Starting
approximately during the Babylonian Captivity (597- 538 BC) and continuing to
the present, rabbinical education differed in several significant ways from
education practiced in Western universities. Most importantly is the attitude
toward the sciences. If we look at Jewish education, particularly after the
second destruction of the Temple (70 AD), we find that Jews are much more
literate and numerate than their gentile counterparts. In a typical
Diaspora Jewish community, rabbis were the teachers (rabbi originally meant
teacher).
A second factor is that a rabbi had a "day job,"
in addition to his role as a leader of the Jewish community. As a teacher, the
rabbi also led Jewish “home schooling” in Europe where, for many centuries,
Jews were forbidden to attend Christian universities or medical schools. Thus
Jewish doctors were taught by other Jewish doctors, who were typically also rabbis.
Most Jewish communities viewed science as having practical
benefit. The view went beyond medicine; for over a thousand years Jews were
viewed as the best alchemists in both Christian and Muslim parts of the world.
Unlike today, where alchemy has been supplanted by chemistry and is discredited,
up until the 1700s alchemy was regarded as an entirely reputable profession. It
included not only what we would call transmutation of elements but much of
early chemistry, metallurgy, and pharmacy. Christian and Muslim alchemy
students sought out Jewish 'masters' in alchemy and learned from them. This
eminence meant that the natural sciences were part of the curriculum of well-educated
Jews for at least 1,700 years.
A further factor unique to Judaism among the Abrahamic
faiths is the relation between mysticism and science. While myth was actually
the first science- here science meant an organized activity attempting to make
sense of a complex and bewildering world. For millenia the stars were taken as
static, not changing in time- as all scientific measurements until the early
1900s confirmed. There developed the idea that the universe was 'forever' and
the heavens perfect and unchanging. Starting
in the 1920s with the work of Edwin Hubble and his colleagues, physics
cosmology has developed the idea of a "Big Bang" and the consequences
thereof. Remarkably, Kabbalahic ideas
are almost exactly the same. For over 1,000 years Jewish thinkers persisted in
stubbornly disagreeing with the dominant cosmology of the world- and had their
stubbornness brilliantly vindicated in the last 100 years, It was the well-educated
Jews who were instrumental in developing and exploring Jewish mysticism- the
Kabbalah.
Starting with the Big Bang we find that energy is divided
into 4 general areas: Temperature,
Symmetry, Phase Transitions, and forces.
Interestingly the Kabbalah also divides creation into four general areas:
Atzilut (Emanation), Beriah (creation), Yetzirah (Formation) and Assiuah
(action).
The Kabbalah teaches the existence of four levels of
reality. These four levels, perhaps
coincidentally, are thought by many believers in the Kabbalah to be analogous
to the four forces mentioned previously and are called Atzilut
(Emanation), Briyah (Creation) Yetzirah (Formation) and Assiuah (Doing or
action).
To understand the basic motivation of physics to unify
forces, which some call the "Theory of Everything", we must weave
together four ideas. Two ideas involves the words "energy" and
"temperature," the third involves the word "symmetry," and
the last introduces the term “phase transition.” Consider these by comparing Physics
to Kabbalah.
Energy or Atzilut
Energy measures effort; how much
effort, is needed to run one mile, to pick up a bag of dog food, to walk up a
flight of stairs and so forth.
The stars in the sky
(often called heaven) puzzled people for at least 5,000 years. People found that the stars & star clusters
moved across the sky in an orderly, predictable, repetitive fashion. These
three qualities- order, predictability, and repetitiveness- formed the basis of
human thinking in regards to the universe (cosmology).
Then, in the 1920s, a remarkable set of observations made by
several scientists, including Dr. Erwin Hubble at the Palomar observatory in
California, brought about a revolution in thinking about cosmology. Dr. Hubble
and his colleagues reported that distant stars and galaxies were moving away
from the Earth. Also, the further away a galaxy is, the faster it was moving. This
differed completely from the orderly, predictable, repetitive star patterns
that had previously formed the basis for cosmology for millennium. Suddenly,
the picture emerged of galaxies explosively hurtling away from some center, which
came to be called the "Big Bang."
Both the Kabbalah and current astrophysics teach that in the
beginning the Universe was created when an extremely hot and dense dot for some
reason exploded into a void; filling that void with light and heat. How did the
students of the Kabbalah, without tools or measurements, reach the same
qualitative conclusion?
Let us start with Energy. The Kabbalah breaks this stage,
called Atzilut into sub stages. The
similarity between Kabbalah and modern cosmology is amazing. The Kabbalah teaches that the Universe was
not created instantly, but rather via a series of stages evolving over
time. This is illustrated in the
Kabbalah as the expansion of the ten sefirot.
The first three sefirot contailed within Atzilut are: Keter (crown), Hokhmah (Thought, wisdom) and
Bina (understanding) are considered as existing in a pre-creation state. In the Kabbalah we learn that these three
sefirot are beyond our comprehension; however they represent energies which are
necessary for the creation of matter.
Temperature
This is where the ideas of energy and temperature become
interwoven. From the 1920s until the 1950s, there was the vague idea of an
explosion, but only the distant galaxies moving away were strong evidence.
Then, in the 1950s, two American physicists, Drs. Penzias and Wilson at Bell
Laboratories, found direct evidence for the remnant of such an explosion. After
an explosion in space, the energy moves further and further away from the explosion
site, so the energy per volume becomes smaller and smaller. Similarly in
Kabbalah, the second group of three called Beriah in the Kabbalah deals with
the transfer energy into matter: Hesed
(Grace) representing unity, Gevurah (rigor) which represents the separation of
this unity into different parts and then, in combination, producing Tiferet
(Beauty) which brings them into a harmony.
Symmetry
In order to explain this, one type of idea scientists tried
out involves the word symmetry. In trying to understand the Big Bang,
scientists were led to the idea that as the hot pea cooled, the universe
repeatedly changed symmetry, going from higher to lower and still lower
symmetry. In this respect physics and Kabbalah arrived at very similar conclusion.
The Kabbalah teaches that three more stages are necessary
for the creation of our world. These
stages are found within Yetzirah: Netzah
(Victory) representing the unity of all possibilities followed by Hod (Glory),
representing the ability of all potentials to separate one from another, and
Yesod (foundation) which is the balance between all possibilities. The final
and last is Malkhut (Kingdom), the world as we know it, with all the
possibilities of creation filled with complex life and beauty and
symmetry.
According to the Kabbalah, the symmetry of all things is
found in the Divine Name YHVH, the name of perfect symmetry comprising both the
male and female aspects of creation.
This can be seen outwardly as a square but inwardly it forms an endless
tetrahedron:
Phase Transition
The reason the idea of symmetry creeps into thinking about
the early universe is due to something called a phase transition. When we put
liquid water in the freezer and get ice cubes, this is a phase transition. A
phase transition is any change in the overall properties of a material.
Some phase
transitions, such as ice-to-liquid water or liquid water-to-steam, involve
changes in the total energy of the water, and are called first order
phase transitions. Now these would not apply to the Big Bang, because the total
energy of the universe did not change during the Big Bang. We want phase
transitions in which the energy remains constant across the phase transition,
what are called second order phase transitions.
As best we can tell, when the Big Bang occurred the Universe
was small (smaller than the size of an atomic nucleus), hot (1035 K)
and dense, since all the mass & energy we find in our present Universe was
packed into this incredibly small volume. What scientists did was to try out
different possibilities as this small, hot ‘pea’ expanded and cooled during the
Big Bang. One set of possibilities involved changes of symmetry- that is,
second order phase transitions.
To understand we need to remind ourselves of what we see now
in our present-day, comparatively cool Universe. We have found four forces- a
‘force’ being any way that enable objects to influence one another. These four
forces, which are separate and distinct in our present-day Universe, include:
* Electromagnetism: The force involved with magnets and with
electrical charges. This force decreases gradually when objects are further and
further apart; for that reason electromagnetism is described as a “long-range”
force;
* Gravity: The force that attracts objects with mass toward
each other. This force also decreases with distance, in the same way as
electromagnetism, but although gravity affects all objects with mass it is much
weaker than gravity. A simple example is that a tiny refrigerator magnet will
stick to the refrigerator door and not fall to the floor, even though it is
attracted by all the mass of the Earth;
* Strong interaction: Atomic nuclei include protons (all
positively charged and thus electrostatically repelling each other) and
neutrons (no electrical charge). In spite of this electrical repulsion nuclei
are stable. What keeps the nuclei together? Today we call this the “strong”
interaction, which is very short ranged but much stronger than
electromagnetism;
* Weak interaction: Sometimes particles- neutrons are one
example- decay with the emission of very light particles called neutrinos. The
weak interaction is also responsible for fusion in stars; what causes stars to
shine.
This is what we see in today’s Universe. The question that
cosmologists have posed is how the hot pea changed to what we observe today.
All the models developed, although they differ in some details, include the
idea that the physical creation of our present-day universe occurred in a
series of constructive stages, each stage defined by its temperature. The
models predict that the hot pea was so hot and dense that all four forces
merged together to make a single force. So what happened when the Big Bang
exploded? The models predict the following sequence of four changes:
* First, gravity separated from the other three forces. This
means a change of symmetry- that is, a second order phase transition.
Physicists say this occurred on the Planck time scale, named after Max Planck,
an early 20th physicist and a pioneer in developing quantum mechanics;
* Next, the strong force becomes distinct from the weak and
electromagnetic forces, which means another second order phase transition. This
occurred very quickly after the Big Bang explosion; around 10-35
seconds. Scientists call these phase transitions “symmetry breaking” and the
universe expands rapidly once this occurs. The expansion of the universe during
this period is called inflation.
* Inflation ends and a third period, lasting about 300,000
years, ensues, during which matter as we know it today is gradually formed. The
weak interaction and electromagnetism become separate forces, so there is yet
another second order phase transition;
* The final period is characterized by neutral matter and
started when temperatures in the universe had cooled to a few thousand degrees,
cool enough to allow neutral atoms to exist.
This era has lasted approximately 13.7 billion years and has led to
galaxies, stars, and life.
This current thinking in astrophysics cosmology as to the
initial development of the universe is in remarkable agreement with the
Kabbalah which teaches that the Universe and all that is in it goes through a
process of expansion and contraction.
The point of maximum density is called in Hebrew the nikoda Ha Emtzae
or the one contracted point of absolute density formed as a result of
contraction which is the term of the Kabbalah is called Tzim Tzom. When this absolute density happens there
follows a rapid exploding expansion until a maximum is reached as this process
of contraction and expansion is repeated over and over again. The Kabballic theory of expanding and
contracting universes goes as far back as the origins of the Kabbalah can be
traced. In this respect the Kabbalah is inconsistent with current cosmology,
which does not postulate any such cyclical theory. However the Kabbalah stipulates the final
edition of the Universe will not contract but continue to expand forever.
So how did this study of Jewish mysticism, this Kabbalah,
turn to ideas of the origin of the universe? In part it was the same impulse
people have had for thousands of years, to answer big questions such as where
we and the universe come from. The original creators of Kabbalah looked for hints
that can be found in the Hebrew Language.
The Hebrew “bible” doesn’t begin with the letter A or Aleph
as one might think, but begins with the letter Bayt of B which is the
equivalent of the Greek Beta. It is
written thus: ב and later, when vowel sounds needed to be added we see
the addition of a small dot inside the curved part of the letter: בְּרֵאשִׁית
which means, “In the Beginning” and the Bayt has a small dot inside of it
signifying that the world started from a single point and that it had happened
before.
The fact that the letter bayt started the creation story and
all it signified was also the beginning of an idea of a continuing cycle. Hebrew is both a picture of the world and a
form of mathematics. The Kabbalah
neither describes a creator nor limits the forces of the universe to physical
manifestations. It was a way to reason
and observe, within the then limited scope of mechanical devises available at
that time. The very first idea of an expanding and contracting universe is
attributed to Shemon Bar Yohai around 100 AD, and was certainly later published
when the printing press became available to scholars in the 14th and 15th
centuries.
Let us assume that
there was a ‘hot pea,’ a certain point that the Kabbalah student calls the
central dot and which physics cannot explain.
For some reason something set it off. Science has yet come up with an
answer as to what caused it. In this
aspect the world of physics is just as speculative as the world of
Kabbalah. For want of a better
explanation the Kabbalah describes the happening in this way:
“Darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the spirit
of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”
The key to this is the forms of the name for god. This god is plural which means the natural
forces focused on the “darkness” that we understand in the Kabbalah is the
negative or black energy (unseen) and caused a natural ignition of the
compressed universe, striking it and producing the explosion the Kabbalah
called light, expanding and filling the universe. This was, of course, not very scientific. On
the other hand, given it was developed around 100 AD, it was definitely ahead
of its time, since modern cosmology leading to the Big Bang did not develop for
another 1,800 years.
The premise that the Kabbalah would suggest to us is
that because all things were created by
the one undefined and unknowable event then it follows that all things are related and the imprint of that event must exist
in all the elements that were created by it, both matter and energy. The Kabbalah
declares that that since everything is expanding from a common point then
everything is a part of God (or everything else, the precursor of the Unity
Theory).
The Kabbalah also suggests that this expansion may finally
stop accelerating and then, if this is so, there will come a time when the
process will reverse itself and all things will again (having reached the
maximum) contract into a maximum density plasma point in which no “light” can
escape until another catalyst will naturally cause this unexplainable rapid
expansion we call, in Kabbalah, the light of the unending (Or Ain Sof)
to rebuild the Universe. The basic law of the Kabbalah is that if and when
maximum expansion is reached, all things implode, and then are “blasted” or
“shattered” and the process begins anew.
In the terms of the Kabbalah when the desire to receive is only to
receive, the light (energy of expansion) leaves the vessel and all things
contract into a central point. At this
point the light (energy) fills the vessel and it shatters into stars, worlds,
and so forth, harnessing this light (the desire to create and influence) in a
physical universe. Again, the Kabbalah
masters had no way of physically proving the theory and based everything on
observation and intellectual extrapolation, analysis and synthesis. In this sense, “god” (in singular form) would
seem to be endlessly creating, un-creating, and re-creating itself. The physicist can feel free to replace the
word “god” with any concept he chooses, but the outcome seems to be the same
when we re-engineer the big bang.
Something caused it.
Today many scientists believe that, based on new
information, the Universe is accelerating and will do so forever. This concept is also quite acceptable to the Kabbalah
student since it suggests that creation has no boundaries and no end and this
concept is in complete harmony with what they call the “Ain Sof” which is
another of the names of the G-d concept.
In order to further explain this, the student of the Kabbalah takes it
as a given that the Universe was explosively created. He also believes that this process had been
done before, therefore the premise that it could be done again (the expanding
and contracting Universe). However,
since the entire purpose of the creation of a Universe is to obtain perfection
(which in the terms of the Kabbalah is the desire to receive in order to
influence or pass on) the possibility of a perfect constantly expanding
Universe is not only possible, but desirable.
A Universe only collapses when that desire to receive is only for the
purpose of receiving, at which point the light of the Ain Sof is withdrawn and
matter collapses to the primordial dot.
The Big Bang theory depends on two major assumptions: the
universality of physical laws, and the cosmological principle. The cosmological principle states that on large scales the
Universe is homogeneous and isotropic.
It also assumes (physical cosmology) that the “Big Crunch” is one
possible scenario for the ultimate fate of the universe, in which the expansion
of space eventually reverses and the universe re-collapses until it ultimately
ends as a singularity. Recent evidence
based on the observation of supernova and cosmic microwave background would
lead one to speculate that the expansion of the universe is not being slowed
down by gravity, but it is rather constantly accelerating. We have yet to understand the nature of this
dark energy that provides the acceleration of the Universe, but the Kabbalah
teaches that “The Spirit of G-d (plural form) hovered over the face of the
waters (which the Kabbalah understands to be a dark void). And G-d (again the plural form) said let
there be light and there was light”. The Torah, or the Bible, has always had a
problem with the idea that God filled a void, as if the void predated God in
some way and was not a part of G-d’s self.
The Zohar explains this when discussing Tzimtzum. The Kabbalah describes how, at the beginning of
time, God’s presence filled the universe. Therefore there was no room for
creation, and God had to contract Himself (a process known as Tzimtzum)
in order to create a space for creation. Implicit in this understanding of Tzimtzum
is the existence of a covenant between God and the future creations which he
made possible by contracting Himself.
“And the Lord G-d (for the first time the singular YHVH
appears in Genesis) formed man out of the dust and breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life; and man became a living soul (here man is the generic term
for sentient beings which evolved from the building blocks found in the
creation).
It is interesting to
note that the Hebrew Divine Name, of YHVH is a singular name comprised of four
distinct letters, each one representing a different flow of time in the
creation. We see four distinct periods
of time defined, essentially, by heat (which the Kabbalah would define as
light).
If we look at the Hebrew YHVH in its geometric form we see that the
name forms a series of four
tetrahedrons. The ancient Hebrews had a
very good grasp of geometry and especially the tetrahedron (and this was
probably due to the fact that they spent a prolonged time in Egypt working in
the building industry).
The Human DNA also forms similar geometric shapes, based on
this building block of life or, in terms of the Kabbalah, the world of Asiya
(which is the physical).:
Rabbi Yitzchak
Ginsburgh (a renowned Kabbalah student
and teacher residing in Israel) provides
a particularly interesting way to view the relation between Kabbalah and
science. To paraphrase Rabbi Ginsburgh:
Science, in its quest to reveal the underlying unity within
nature, constantly finds itself returning to the origins of the universe -- to
the primordial "day one" (yom echad) of Creation. The universe, in
its present state, is too cool and solid for one to find within it an
intimation of such unity. Only amid the energy and heat that reigned at the
very inception of time and space, could all the forces and elements of nature
meld into one. Such are the premises that underlie the unified field and
"big bang" theories. Should one seek the even deeper unity that binds
"existence" to "non-existence," then it becomes necessary
to propose even more obscure theories -- such as string theory -- which exude
an almost meta-physical character.
The assumption of an
underlying unity within Creation brings with it the concomitant belief in a
consummate state of symmetry having characterized the incipient universe. As the stages of creation progress, this
initial state of symmetry in the universe appears to break down. Thus, any
return to the primordial unity of creation would seem to imply a corresponding
return to maximal symmetry.
The uncertainty principle is a good example of how the
fundamentals of modern physics can contradict the axioms of common sense.
Before the advent of quantum physics, science believed that determinism ruled
the universe. Now, with the principle of uncertainty, it has become clear that
nature cannot be explained in purely causal mechanistic terms. The most we
could talk about is "probability.”
We paraphrase Rabbi Ginsburgh
for several reasons. His description corresponds remarkably well to both the
ideas of creation contained in Kabbalah and our current thinking of the Big
Bang era of cosmology. Clearly, the authors who contributed, and still
contribute, to Kabbalistic thinking used the Hebrew language, which is a
mathematical language unlike anything else in the world, to develop their
ideas. Scientists have found mathematics particularly useful for developing
quantitative, testable ideas, values that they feel no written language can
match. On the other hand, the qualitative agreement between Kabbalah and
several aspects of astrophysical cosmology is surprisingly good. The ideas
developed in the Kabbalah have influenced thinking of both Jews and gentiles
for centuries and illustrates the synergy and value of Jewish mystical
thinking, in addition to more ‘mainstream’ Jewish intellectual contributions.
