Modern science is, without a doubt, one of humanity’s greatest achievements. In just over three hundred years, humanity has uncovered a hidden intricate network of mathematical laws governing natural phenomena, and achieved wonders in the realms of transportation, industry, medicine, and communication that have transformed both the environment and us almost beyond recognition.
However, in recent decades, the clouds of scientific success have begun to dissipate, and cracks are appearing in the façade of its grandeur. The vision that reigned in the West at the end of the 19th century—that rationality and technological progress would solve human problems and bring enlightenment, prosperity, and happiness—shattered against the jagged rocks of the 20th century. We refer not only to the horrors of the two world wars this century saw, but also to the hollow materialism that marks its quieter years. Precisely because material abundance and prosperity were the fulfillment of science’s promise, they starkly highlight how scientific progress failed to resolve the fundamental mysteries and dilemmas of existence.
Attempts to redeem the lost assets of pre-scientific cultures have been made, notably the “New Age” movement and its variations. However, beyond reviving a sense of wonder toward creation and a variety of spiritual practices (many of them questionable), it too lacks the ability to truly complement science. An impressive worldview like that of science requires a more comprehensive repository of wisdom, one that could integrate both science and metaphysics, as well as provide an ethical toolbox to resolve the moral dilemmas science and, even more so, technology raises, issues that it itself cannot adjudicate.
Jewish tradition contains a worldview that acknowledges both the material realm and spiritual and Divine levels of existence, and additionally offers both a structured metaphysical system (Kabbalah) and a complex ethical system (Halachah). Yet, how far is traditional Judaism from fully embracing science. The Ultra-Orthodox, the most devout traditionalists, have largely chosen to reject the world of scientific inquiry, choosing instead to reinforce the focus on Torah study.
Not surprisingly, most of the Jewish world does not identify with this approach. Much of it has lost faith in the Torah path, raising instead the banner of enlightenment and science. It seems Judaism will be unable to contribute to science until it acknowledges that not only does science need it, but that it needs science.
A Flood of Wisdom
All this leads us to an intriguing passage in the Zohar, which addresses the tenuous relationship between faith and reason or Torah and science. It is found in the middle of a Kabbalistic reading of the story of the flood. Regarding the verse, “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life... all the springs of the great abyss burst forth and the windows of the heavens were opened,” the Zohar states:
And in the six hundredth year of the sixth [millennium], the gates of wisdom above and the springs of wisdom below will open, and the world will prepare to enter the seventh [millennium], just as a person prepares on Friday to enter Shabbat as the sun sets.
Here, the Zohar predicts a kind of future deluge that will inundate the world, not a destructive natural disaster, but a positive spiritual revolution—a flood of wisdom. The specified year here is the Hebrew calendar year of 5600 (1840 of the civil calendar), shortly after the midpoint of the sixth millennium, when the seventh millennium begins to loom near.
According to tradition, the world’s history is like a seven-thousand-year “week.” The first six millennia are akin to the six weekdays, and the seventh millennium resembles Shabbat. Based on this analogy, the year 5600 marks the “late morning” of “Friday,” the time when preparations for Shabbat begin. Just as one customarily immerses in a mikveh on Friday, so too will wisdom flood Creation in the sixth millennium serving as a spiritual immersion, purifying humanity, and preparing it for the Shabbat era.
This vision echoes the verse, “The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea,” which also uses the imagery of a flood in the context of Divine consciousness. The negative imagery of a deadly flood that leaves no dry land thus becomes a positive vision in which all areas of life are filled with recognition of the Creator and the connection to Him.
Note that the common denominator of the two floods is their two-directional structure: just as in the original flood, water flowed from the “windows of heaven” and the “fountains of the deep,” so too the waters of the wisdom flood are expected to flow from the “gates of wisdom above” and the “springs of wisdom below.” The idea of two distinct and separate sources of outflow is quite understandable in the case of a literal flood, but what does it mean when applied to spiritual abundance?
The image of upper and lower waters separated by the firmament is central to Kabbalistic writings and is used to describe two types of outpouring. The upper waters represent Divine abundance descending from above, and the lower waters represent human and earthly abundance rising from below. In our case, where the two sources of water refer to two sources of wisdom, the interpreters explain that they symbolize, respectively, the Torah descending from heaven and human wisdom rising as if from the soil of reality. At a certain point in history, prophecy states, Torah and human wisdom will burst forth to the surface and then merge into one united and all-encompassing wisdom.
Two Revolutions
The year mentioned by the Zohar is 1840. This period later emerged as a time when two parallel processes reached their peak. In Western culture, it was the era of the ascent of modern science. After hatching in the scientific revolution of the 17th century, and maturing throughout the 18th century, the new science finally burst forth into world in all its glory and fueled the industrial revolution of the 19th century. It soon transformed our world view and way of life completely.
At the same time, in Jewish towns far from the center stage of history, this was the period of the spread of Chasidut, the movement which began to reveal the hidden wisdom of Torah to many. Although Chasidut did not move mountains or build towers like the scientific and industrial revolutions, it was no less revolutionary. Like them, it offered new tools for thought and creativity capable of developing our intellectual and spiritual capacities, just as science developed our practical mind and our bodies.
If the scientific revolution was the opening of the fountains of the deep, Chasidut was the opening of the windows of the heavens.
Whatever our attitude towards prophecies may be, we cannot deny that the vision presented in the Zohar is revolutionary and challenging. In one brief statement, it challenged one of the most deeply rooted assumptions of modern consciousness, held by the majority of both believers and non-believers alike: that religion and science are inherently contradictory and cannot and should not coexist. Many devout religious figures take a hostile or dismissive approach towards scientific discoveries, and many scientists display a similar attitude of estrangement and arrogance towards religion, particularly the Torah. Even those who participate in both worlds generally strive only to reconcile some contradictions between them—a stance that only reinforces the notion that they are fundamentally opposing entities that need to be compartmentalized.
The vision laid out before us in the Zohar offers a different relationship between religion and science, or more precisely, between Torah and science. It suggests that although Torah and science are opposite in nature, and seemingly flow from opposite directions, they both equally express the unified wisdom of the One Creator. Furthermore, only through their fusion can one know the Creator completely. For this reason, they are meant to connect with greater intensity than merely reconciling contradictions; their purpose is to merge into a single wisdom.
Restoration of the Primordial Torah
The metaphor of upper and lower waters has far-reaching implications.
According to the account in Genesis, on the first day of creation all the water was a single unified entity. It was only on the second that the Creator separated them into higher and lower waters with the firmament. Since the water represents wisdom, this means that Torah and human wisdom should not be viewed as entirely separate forms of wisdom, but rather as a single wisdom that was split in two. Furthermore, the waters long to be reunited with one another—the wisdom of Torah (the higher waters) is destined to be reunited with mundane, human wisdom (the lower waters).
What is this primordial wisdom? The Talmud describes the Torah as “fallen wisdom from above” (מַ עְ לָה ֶל ׁ ש חָ כְ מָ ה בֶלֶת ֹ נו), like the low hanging fruit on a much larger tree, most of which is hidden from sight.
This supreme primordial wisdom (represented by the higher parts of the great tree) is also referred to as “Torah,” but in a broader sense of the word. It is a kind of meta-Torah, about which it is said in the Midrashim that it preceded the world, that it served as the architectural plan by which the Holy Blessed One created the world, and that in the future it will be revealed as the “new Torah” or the “Torah of Mashiach,” to which all known Torah pales in comparison.
This Torah encompasses all truths—including those hidden within the mundane and scientific realms outside Torah. A proper study of nature, which distills its Divine, eternal truths from the muddied waters of worldly fears, fantasies, and biases, thus reveals itself as nothing less than the study of the wisdom of God: every expansion of knowledge is an additional thread of insight that our intellect manages to draw from the infinite, hidden tapestry of the higher Torah, and integrate into human consciousness.
The unification of Torah and science is therefore meant to bring about a truly marvelous event: the revelation, from both heaven and earth, of the primordial Torah from which all the world’s myriad wisdoms—Divine (Torah) and mundane (science)—originated.
The vision of uniting Torah and science is reflected in a well-known verse from Daniel: “And those who are wise shall shine like the radiance [zohar] of the firmament.” The firmament is, of course, the invisible line joining the upper and lower waters, which, according to the verse, should inspire the establishment of a new enlightenment. However, the light of this enlightenment should not be of the cold light of intellect, but of the supra-intellectual zohar, a radiance that encompasses and integrates rational science with prophetic revelation—the two beacons which God sent to allow us to know Him.
