Q:
Someone told me that there’s a basis for the idea that the world is really much older than 5,000 years because there’s a Medrash that says Hashem created other worlds before He made this one. What do you say about that?
A:
Now here is a Medrash that bothers some people unnecessarily. The Medrash states that before this world Hakadosh Baruch Hu was creating and destroying worlds.
Now, that doesn’t mean He was creating physical worlds and destroying them but even if it did mean that, if He destroyed those worlds then Hakadosh Baruch Hu did a good job on destroying the world, which means that nothing remained of it. Just as He created the world, He destroyed it. Nothing remained.
And so when He created this world, even if you’ll take it in a material sense that there were actually worlds before this world, but this world is the world, and therefore this world is only as old as it is. You can’t add to this world the age of worlds that didn’t exist when this world came into existence. You understand that.
So if He made worlds – I don’t believe that the ma’amar means that at all; I think it refers to olamos elyonim of ruchniyus – but even if you’ll say it meant physical worlds then the worlds are finished already and nothing remains of them. No stars, no planets. Nothing remains. And then when He said “Yehi” this universe came into being as it is. And therefore the universe is only taf shin lamed tes. That’s all.
TAPE # 279 (August 1979)
