התחלת הויה מחודשת; ולא תשאר בו השאלה למה המציאו בעת הזאת, למה שהחדוש בכל העתים יחס אחד.
ואם שנתיר לעצמנו מה שנמצא בקצת מאמרים לחכמינו ז"ל, הביאם הרב המורה, ולא ראינו חולק עליהם. אמרם (ב"ר פ"ג), "מלמד שהיה בונה עולמות ומחריבן". ומהם אמרם, "מלמד שהיה סדר זמנים קודם לכן". הכונה מהם לפי מה שיראה - החידוש התמידי; אלא שהיו הוים בעת ידוע ונפסדים בעת ידוע, [1] אם בהתהוות האישים והפסדם, [2] ואם להיות כל אחד מהם הולך מהאחר מדרגת השלמות. ואפשר שזה שאנחנו בו ישאר נצחי, ואפשר שיפסד ויבוא אחריו עולם אחר, הולך מזה מהלך השלמות, כמדרגת החי מהצומח. כי בזה דלתי החקירה נעולות, והדברים עתיקים למקבלי האמת.
It is however noteworthy that Rabbeynu Crescas’ own disciple, Rav Yosef Albo (Sefer Ikkarim 2:18) discusses the statement about a seder z’manim (program of time-periods) before Creation, but insists that the kind of time spoken of is only imaginary and conceptual, not actual. He is also conspicuously silent both about the statement of worlds being built and destroyed, and his teacher’s thesis, above.
In any case, as already mentioned, even taken literally, these statements about prior worlds do not conform to the model of processes over time espoused by current academia. For one thing, according to Crescas’ hypothesis, growth of vegetation and animals still began anew after creation of our stage of the world, not as descendants of previous beings. In whatever sense these talmudic passages can be taken to be envisioning this world as an “outgrowth “of a previous one, they still agree that the present plant life, animal life and human life were forms that began their development during the six days of the creation of this world—development immediately preceded by a tohu va-vohu period during which the earth was empty of all life—and are not biological offsprings of things whose existence stretched to eons before. So, even if one takes these midrashic passages literally, the resultant scenario in no way conforms to current academia’s portrayal of continuous evolutionary development of our present animal, vegetable and human species. They are hardly consistent with the current views of academia.) Constructing a scenario of prior worlds interrupted by empty periods—with the biological ancestors of earth’s current inhabitants first appearing less than 6,000 years ago—that would not be as ridiculed by academia as is a 6,000-year-old world, would be a daunting task, if at all possible. Also daunting and problematic for someone loyal to Torah methodology is the prospect of using the said maamarei Chazal to support such a hypothesis, in face of the overwhelming majority of rishonim who are most reluctant to take these sources literally, altogether. They see taking the sources as literally speaking of physical worlds and real time as a support of the thesis of eternal matter and/or other concepts foreign to the Torah’s presentation of Maasei Breishis. And they reject doing so.
The Rambam’s son, Avraham (Sefer Milchamos Hashem, ed. Margolios, Mosaad HaRav Kook, pp. 57-58 and 59) writes:
[Reason, which compels us to accept the tradition that G-d is not a physical entity, is a prerequisite to understanding Torah. Indeed, G-d created man with reason even millennia before He gave man the Torah.] The Torah was given to Israel twenty-four hundred years after the creation of the world12. And if anyone mumbles to you, “Haven't the Chachamim darshonned that the Torah was created a thousand years before the world?” ─you should answer him: That drash needs many payrushim to answer it (l'taretz osso), and it is impossible that it should be understood literally. And even if it were meant literally, the subject under discussion is when it [the Torah] was given [and not when it was created].
Now, accepting the thesis of the existence of prior worlds would leave open the possibility that Hashem did deliver the Torah to some seichel-less beings. This would demolish Avraham ben HaRambam’s proof that seichel is a prerequisite to understanding Torah. Yet, neither the Aggadta about the Torah being created before the world, nor the Aggadta about Hashem creating and destroying worlds, led the Rambam’s son to think that any of Chazal held that whatever was initially created ex-nihilo had physically existed in any form any longer than 2,488 years before Mattan Torah. He did not consider, as a viable explanation, the possibility that even a minority opinion could have posited the existence of any literal, physical world before ours within which the Torah could have existed. We also see that the Rambam’s son l’fi tumo—incidentally—spoke of the world’s creation ex-nihilo with the specific date of 2448 years before Mattan Torah. This incidentally illustrates that despite midrashic passages that indicate otherwise, he held fast to the idea that the creation ex nihilo occurred 2488 years before Mattan Torah. (I’m assuming that, like his father, he would insist on a non-literal meaning—or downright rejection—of Midrashim that speak of prior worlds and Time before Creation, just as he here insists on a non-literal meaning of the passage about Torah [and Time] existing before Creation ex-nihilo.) He later states:
Behold, their [the philosophers'] belief is that that world is old (yashan),13 and that it has no beginning. And we disagree with them, through the emunah of the Torah, and we can present teshuvos and establish many proofs to make the Torah emunah clear, that the world is new (chadash), and created; and nothing exists that is rishon and acharon except for HaKadosh Baruch Hu.
Note that Avraham ben HaRambam rejects not only the thesis that the universe is eternal (vs. created), but also that it is ancient (yashan vs. chadash). (“Behold, their [the philosophers'] belief is that that world is old (yashan), and that it has no beginning. And we [say]… that the world is new (chadash), and created”) One cannot claim that the meforshim were unaware of these sources, and had they been aware of them, would not have taken the stand they did. We see that, on the contrary, the Rambam’s son—and later, we shall see Rabbeynu Yehuda HaLevy as well—acknowledged the esoteric teaching that if taken literally would posit time and things preceding our world; but they both did so only reluctantly and went out of their way to hold themselves aloof from it as a mainstream mesorah literal, physical depiction of history.
Rabbaynu Saadia Gaon (Sefer Emunah V'Dei’os, end of first chapter) is very clear about his understanding of how long the universe has existed:
And the third opinion [is] the opinion of the fools... [who] say, 'How can the intellect accept that the world has existed for only 4,693 years?' And we will answer [in defense of that] that once we establish that the world was created, it is impossible for it not to have had a beginning...[be it 200 years ago or 4,693 years ago]."
Rabbeynu Yehudah HaLevy, in HaKuzari (Book One) as well, states clearly that Judaism has always considered the world to have existed merely thousands of years. We will repeat the short quote from the Kuzari we cited before, and continue with his further statements:
(43) The Rabbi: ... Our prophet ... revealed the hidden things, and told how the world was created...and the years of the world from Adam until now. (44) The Khazar King: It is astounding, too, if you have a clear counting from the creation of the world! (45) The Rabbi: With it we count, and no Jews exist from Hodu to Cush who contest this. (46) The Khazar King: And what is your count today? (47) The Rabbi: 4,500 years.... (60-62) The Khazar King: Does it not weaken your belief if you are told that the Indians have places and buildings which they consider to be millions of years old?....And what will you say of the philosophers (read: scientists--ZL) who, as a result of their careful researches, agree that the world is without beginning? This is not a matter of tens of thousands of years, nor even millions of years, but of something that has no beginning or end at all! (63) The Rabbi: The philosophers─we can’t blame them. Being Grecians, they inherited neither wisdom nor Torah.... (64) The Khazar King: Does this obligate us not to rely on Aristotle’s philosophy? (65-67) The Rabbi: Yes. Since he did not possess a kabbala through the reporting of a person he could trust, he exerted his mind, deliberated about the beginning and end of the world, and found it difficult to envision it [both as] having a beginning as well as it being infinite. However, through his unaided thought processes, he concluded by accepting his logical structures that inclined towards the theory of a world with an infinite past. He did not see fit to ask about the correct count of years from anyone who came before him, nor about the chronology of the human race. Had the philosopher lived among a people possessing widely known traditions, which he would be unable to dismiss, he would have applied himself with his logic to strengthen the viewpoint that the world came about through Creation.
...Heaven forbid that the Torah would contain anything that actual proof or demonstration would be able to contradict! But the Torah does record, in its account of Creation, the occurrence of miracles and different behaviors in nature, and the changing of one thing to another, to demonstrate that the Creator of the world is able to accomplish what He wants, when He wills it. The question of eternity and creation is deep; the [philosophical] arguments for both claims are of equal weight; but the prophetic tradition of Adam, Noah and Moses—which is undoubtedly more reliable than logical arguments—settles the issue in favor of Creation [vs. the eternal existence of the universe].
And if a Torah-person would find himself compelled to believe and concede that matter is eternal, and [to believe in] the existence of many worlds prior to this one, this would not be an impairment to his belief. For he would [still] believe that this world was created from a certain time, and that Adam and Eve were the first human beings.
Again, we see that Rabbeynu Yehuda HaLevy, similar to the Rambam’s son—acknowledged the esoteric teaching about time and worlds preceding our world; but both did so only reluctantly and went out of their way to hold themselves aloof from it as a mainstream mesorah literal, physical depiction of history. The last paragraph as translated from the Arabic by Rav Kapach even more clearly portrays Rav Yehuda Halevy as far from endorsing the idea of prior worlds:
ורחוק הוא שיזדקק הדתי להניח ולהודות בהיולי קדום ועולמות רבים לפני העולם הזה. ואין בכך פקפוק באמונתו שהעולם הזה מחודש מאז זמן מוגדר.ר
And it is far-fetched [to say] that a religious person would be forced to accept and concede to [the belief in] a past-eternal prime matter and many worlds [existing] prior to this world. And [anyway] there is nothing in this that should shake his belief that this world was created in the past at a certain, definite time.
Rabbeynu Saadia Gaon, the Rambam, (Moreh Nevuchim), the Ramban, and Rav Yosef Albo (Sefer Ikkarim), all make it clear that as a rule one must not interpret Aggadic statements in a sense that contradicts the p’shat and/or reason. When it comes to Aggadta whose simple sense assigns the concept of physical time to “before” Creation, the ba’alei mesorah all explain them in a way consistent with the simple understanding that all physical activity involved in our world’s formation, from the empty state of tohu va-vohu, began and ended within seven literal days.11 (And, as mentioned, the Rambam himself therefore even goes so far as to reject the statement altogether, without even attempting to give it a non-literal reading.)
Maharal (Gevuros Hashem, chap. 70, p. 322; Derech Chaim chap. 2, p. 76; Nesivos Olam II, p. 227; Chidushei Aggados, II, p. 14; III p. 76; IV p. 12), like the Rambam (MN 2:30) and many others, teaches that Time could not exist before creation. The reason he and they give is that Time is dependent upon the revolutionary motion of things that are themselves created. (The earth-centric view of academia in their times that they embraced envisioned celestial spheres; in the modern view, we envision the earth’s rotation relative to the sun). All this is of course referring to Time and things in the physical sense relevant to our issue—the sense in which they interacted in the original development of the physical world. One would therefore anticipate that the Maharal too explains that the talmudic and midrashic statements about things and worlds “existing” during “a time before Creation” are referring only to esoteric, conceptual types of Time and things. And one would be correct, as can be seen in Maharal’s Tifferes Yisroel p. 12a regarding the Torah’s “creation 974 generations before the world’s” [Zevachim 116a] and in Ba’er HaGolah, Amud 82-3, Ba’er HaR’vi’vi regarding Nedarim 39b’s list of things created before the world. In view of the above, it is not surprising that later authorities were quite vehement against understanding the statements about prior worlds to be speaking of physical worlds, and/or previous physical stages of this world, and/or a method to interpret the Torah as consistent with the theories of billions-of-years-exisitng earth accepted by modern academia. It is a questionable effort to reconcile the two. Perhaps it’s a clever kiruv tactic by which to calm down those not yet schooled in Torah methodology. It may be useful for kiruv personnel to use such approaches while winking at each other and hoping that their charges will outgrow their feelings of inferiority of the mesorah to current academia. However, when it turns into something that they themselves actually believe, it is tragic. (It is reminiscent of when heterodox movements begin as leniencies for those who find it hard to take regular halachic standards upon themselves, but end up insisting that the leniencies are the true ways, and criticizing those who avoid them.)
***
The mesorah we have is a reliable, historical transmission from Adam, Noach and Moses of the factual account of how the world came to be. It is more reliable than speculations based upon the assumption that nature always ruled, always acting as it does now. Indeed, Midrash Shemos Rabbah (30:9) records Onkelos’ marveling the fact that the youngest Jewish children know “how the Holy-One-Blessed-be-He created the world.─They know what was created the first day and what was created the second day, how much [time] there is since the world was created, and what [good deeds] sustain the world. And their Torah is true.” And the Ramban cites this Midrash to illustrate that “the Torah ‘opens one’s eyes,’ for it reveals to us the secret of the Formation, the subject of Maaseh Breishis, the Creation and Formation of the Universe.” May our eyes be opened to the truths taught by the Torah.
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ENDNOTES
1 The literature of Jewish Torah thought, including Rabbeynu Saadia Gaon’s Emunos V’dei’os and Rav Yosef Albo’s Sefer HaIkarrim, teaches us that a word’s primary conventional meaning is the proper way to initially understand a given word in the Torah. Only if contradicted by sensory perception, logic, or other verses—data available to the reader since the time of the Torah’s revelation—are we to understand the Torah’s intent by the word in a less conventional usage. Thus, as will be demonstrated in this article, Chazal and the commentaries all understood the word “yom” in our context to be a 24-hour type day.
2 Actually, the word “in” is omitted in the Hebrew, indicating the drash-level kabbalistic teaching that Hashem created the world to last beyond the moment of Creation for six millennia, with each future millennium’s history represented in the six 24-hour days of creation. Nevertheless, the commentaries (Ibn Ezra on Tehillim 45:5 and 3:8; Daas Zekeinim on B’midbar 10:33; Rabbeynu Bachaye on Sh’mos 20:11) explain that the peshat of the posuk teaches the fact that Hashem created the world in six days. The word “in” is to be understood, as is the case in other verses.
3 Note that the testimony we are commanded to declare is focused not on the implicit Creation-from-nothing, but on the time period of six days.
4 They fail to recognize the circular nature of their thinking: Evolutionary explanations of how the world came into existence are propelled by a discipline which, in principle and by self-definition, arbitrarily refuses to accept the possibility of a meta-natural (outside-of natural, i.e., miracle-based) explanation of the world’s origins. But meta-natural processes are the very bedrock of the six-day Creation our testimony, as explained by our mesorah.
5 And the mesorah is not beginning its count just from the time of Adam’s creation, a suggestion some have made in order to permit an insertion of millennia of our world’s existence before his creation. Nor, in a rather odd interpretation sometimes touted, is it beginning its count just from Adam’s “ensoulment,” after his having been a soul-less creature born from a millions-of-years-old line of creature ancestors. For “all of creation was created fully formed.”─At ma’aseh b’raishis the ox was created not as a calf but as an adult [Rashi in Rosh HaShonna 26a s.v. shor sheh-hu par]; and Adam was likewise created as an adult, the Talmud reports, within the same 24-hour period─standing erect.
6a Pirkei Ahvos (5:1). The Rambam, however, interprets this differently, as referring to the number of statements through which the Hashem depicted His step-by-step Creation.
6b See Brachos 12a and end of Rashi ד"ה אלא כיון דאמר וכו' on use of term מדת הלילה.
7 For example, Rashi on Hoshea 6:2 treats “the two days” (yomaim) and “the third day” (yom ha-shelishi “) period” as poetical references to eras in Jewish history. And on Tehillim 86:3, he cites an “Aggadas Tehillim” as identifying the word “yom” there as a reference to the Period of Jewish Exile.
Maimonides’ son, Avraham, comments on the verse (Breishis 2:4) reading “…the day Hashem fashioned the Heavens and the Earth.” He says that here the word “day” cannot be taken in its conventional way, because the fashioning of the Heavens and Earth took place over a period lasting six days, not just one. (Needless to say, if he thought the six days of Creation were themselves not meant as conventional days, the contradiction would not have arisen.) .
The Ralbag is an exception, in that he understands “days” of Creation to be “categories.” But one must bear in mind that by saying this he shortens the duration of Creation. And even more important, one must bear in mind that his interpretation is a result of loyalty to Chazal, who make specific statements he understands to mean that all of the creative acts (besides vegetation production) were performed at one moment simultaneously, and instantaneously produced the results in fully-developed form. It would be discombobulating to interpret “days” as categories whose events took eons.
However, the issue is not whether the word "yom" can be taken either poetically or as a homonym for "era," or any other unspecified time period. The issue is how the mesora (Chazal and rishonim) took it in the Breishis account of Creation.
8 The Ramban elaborates on the first created thing, the “tohu,” being the equivalent of the formless matter of Greek fame. He assigns no time frame to the phase of “tohu,” but there is no basis to suggest that he disagrees with the Gemora that explicitly includes the “tohu” phase among those things created within the first day (of 24 hours), as the poshut reading of the posuk implies.
9 The phrase in the Arabic is פי סנה בלא תאויל. My translation follows Rabbi Kapach’s. Ibn Tibbon renders the sentence, “If the person claiming to be a prophet says "He made it known to me that He created the heaven and earth in his sleep without consciousness," he is a false prophet.”
Rabbi Yaakov Winselberg of Miami (translator of Rabbeynu Avraham ben HaRambam’s Arabic ספר המספיק לעובדי ה') quoted by Rabbi Shapiro (JewsWithQuestions.com, (posted 24 November 2011 - 08:59 AM), writes:.
There are two phrases here: פי סנה and בלא תאויל. I will start with the second one, because it is a fairly common term. The word תאויל refers to an allegorical way of explaining a text, as opposed to the literal sense. Since it is בלא תאויל, that is the same thing as saying דברים כפשוטן. I don't read this as בלי מחשבה or "thoughtlessly," because that would refer to Hashem's thought. The word תאויל, though, is not used for thought in general, but about interpreting a text or a nevu'ah. So I think this can only be explained according to the first version you brought, which is "כפשוטן," or even better, the way he [Rabbi Kapach] writes it in footnote 58. The first phrase is not as simple. The word פי means "in." The word סנה is usually "a year," but it could also be "sleep." The Arabic is close to the Hebrew here, with both meanings שנה andשינה possible. I prefer "year," though, for two reasons: If it was "while He was sleeping," it should say something like “in His sleep," not "in sleep." In other words, it wouldn't say סנה alone, but סנתה, or something like that. Also, Rav Saadiah Gaon in Chumash for שינה doesn't use the word סנה but the word נום, related to the Hebrew תנומה. So here too, I prefer the first reading, במשך שנה, but I see why the one might write wrote [sic.—ZL] "while asleep" and the like.
I would add that the context of Rav Saadia’s statement is regarding claims that differ from points that biblical verses explicitly make. The other examples given are the claim to permit adultery or theft, and the claim there will be another [global] flood. Therefore, it is obvious that the “shana” refers to a "year-duration of Creation," a contrast to the explicitly stated six days, not to any notion of G-d sleeping during Creation as opposed to being awake—a weird issue not entertained in the verses at all. He means that a prophet who claims Hashem took a literal year to create the universe is as false as one who claims that Hashem will once again bring a global flood. Rabbeynu Saadia Gaon has a very entertaining passage where he ridicules allegorizing the mitzvos and narratives of the Torah by showing the absurd conclusions that one could reach by such methodology.
One should also note that the allegorizing RSG entertains regarding the professed prophet’s claim of a year-long duration of Creation is on the prophet's part. I.e., the alleged prophet would be safe if he makes it clear that his reference to a "year" is only an allegory, or a poetic flourish, in reference to what were actually six days. (Needless to say, if RSG thought six creation days can mean six epochs or six pairs of months, why would he accuse this poor man of being a false prophet?)
Also noteworthy is the comment in Sefer Tseyda LaDerech, cited above in our text.
10 Some have made much ado about Rashi’s comment on verse 1:1, where he states that we must say that the mikreh is not describing the chronological order of events. They translate “mikreh” as “Scripture [in general]” and take Rashi to mean that throughout the entire account of Creation, Scripture does not intend to describe the chronology. This posits the absurd idea that when Scripture says one thing happened on day two, and another on day one, it does not mean to tell us the order of occurrence, and it may really have happened in a different order. The Rashi on 1:14 shows this is wrong. “The light-bearers [sun, moon and stars] were created from the first day, but on the fourth He commanded them to be hung in the sky. Likewise, all the tolodos of the heavens and earth were created back on the first day, and each one was set in its permanent state on the day decreed for it. This is why [when describing their creation on the first day,] “ess” is written before the word shamayim and before the word “ha-aretz”— to include their “offsprings.”
Rashi’s comment about the mikreh not describing chronological order is in reference to the first verse (see Radak Breishis 1:1: "...וכן דעת רבינו שלמה ז"ל שלא בא לזכור סדר הבריאה בזה הפסוק"). The focus of this mikreh, this verse, is not to tell you the chronology of the creation of the earth in its narrow sense (i.e., sans water and the other elements) in relation to heaven or the elements. Rashi holds that, based upon grammar and information we have from Midrashim, the first verse must be read not, “The first thing G-d created [before water or fire or Light or the vegetation and creatures] was the heavens and the earth.” It must be read, in conjunction with the following verse, “During the start of G‑d’s creating heaven and earth…G-d said, ’Let there be Light!’”
11 As we noted in endnote 7, the Ralbag understood Chazal to be maintaining that Hashem created virtually everything simultaneously and instantaneously on the first day, all in their fully developed form, with the exception of the growth of vegetation of the fifth day. This means that—except for the vegetation—there was no creative or formative activity remaining to be done following the first day. Thus, he concludes, Chazal were telling us that the report of events on the ensuing days, until Shabbos, is not meant literally, but is meant to relay the hierarchical relationships between all created things. Some have understood the Ralbag to be saying that this was the Rambam’s view as well, but this is untenable. The Ralbag himself states that none of his fellow rishonim before him “realized” that this was what Chazal were saying. (And he demonstrates he was well acquainted with the Rambam’s writings on the subject.) We also noted in the text that the Rambam in Moreh Nevuchim (2:30), just as other rishonim [such as Rashi—see note 10], cites the Chazal teaching that most things created the first day still needed to be extracted, more fully formed and permanently positioned on the following days. There he also invokes the fact that Nature was not yet fixed on the sixth day, in order to defend the possibility of so many events occurring on that one day.) However, at any rate, the Ralbag’s position (dismissed by the Abarbanel and other commentators) would not be helpful to those who would like to extend the existence of the world to billions of years. On the contrary, according to the Ralbag the world and all its inhabitants were created in full form instantly and simultaneously, and have therefore existed six days less than the time stated by the other commentators! (Although he also maintains that the created vegetation did not begin to grow above ground until a chronological third day.) And, as just demonstrated, the approach of the Ralbag is to build the understanding through the teachings of Chazal, and not through rejecting them on the basis that they differ with the science of the day.
12 Rabbeynu Avraham ben HaRambam is talking about time since the beginning of Creation, not just from its climax with Adam HaRishon. Had R. Avraham ben HaRambam found it acceptable to think that thousands of years had passed between the initial creation of the world and the appearance of Adam, what would have been his problem with the idea that the Torah was created 2,400 years before Adam? Obviously, by "Creation," Rabbeynu Avraham is talking about the initial creation, and he understands that the Torah was given 2,400 years after that.
13 Note that, as in the Kuzari’s citing allegations of ancient civilizations and their buildings, combating the claim of the world’s being “yashan” (old—versus “chadash,” new/young) is an additional concern of the rishonim to that of the world’s being “kadum”(the philosophical term for “eternal,” versus “created”).
