Parshas Bereishis With a New Perspective - Part I

So, learning Parshas Bereishis this week was a completely new experience for me. Not because I've never learned it. Of course I have. I've lained it too (it's actually one of the easiest parshas to lain). No, it's because when you learn there are other, completely acceptable ways to learn this Parsha, ways we were taught as children were wrong and Apikorsus, you see the Universe, God, and Creation in a completely new light.

A few months ago, I posted about an article I read in Astronomy Magazine (May 2007 issue) that discusses the Big Bang, which wasn't a bang at all:

"It's [the Big Bang's] name implies a standard bang, such as a chemical explosion - think of firewords - and once we have this image in our mind, it's hard to imagine the Big Bang as anything else. But the universe's beginning wasn't an explosion. It was closer to (are you ready for this - from an "evil" scientist!!) an unfolding, OR CREATION, of matter, energy, time - and space itself." The article continues: "'What would actually have been a much better name is the expanding-universe theory, because it's really a theory of how the universe expands,' says David Spergel, a WMAP team member at Princeton University."

WOW! That was beautiful! The Big Bang was a CREATION of everything - a Yeish Me'Ayin - something from nothing! That's fantastic! So, because of an unfortunate choice of words, what is a working theory of the creation of the universe is debunked by religious fanatics who don't really know what they are talking about when the debunk that theory!

Feel free to follow the link above to that post. So here's what I get, now, when I learn Parshas Bereishis: A day, as mentioned even by commentaries, does NOT necessarily mean a day. I couldn't mean any given period of time, including an EPOCH - a very LONG period of time! And why not?! Why can't the universe be billions of years old? Sure, there's the "the universe is only 5768 years old and NO MORE!!" But that's silly. Certainly, I can accept that from the time of Adam coming along, whom I've no issue with God creating him Himself. In fact, I would even go so far as to say evolution ABSOLUTELY happened. It happened and FAILED! So, God decided to create human, not hominid, but HUMAN, Himself with an added ingredient: Nishmas Chayim - a little bit of God in Man.

Let's examine: First, as the Astronomy Magazine article mentions, there was nothing. Then there was something - Yesh Me'Ayin. The land, which we can also translate as the universe was "tohu va'vohu" - and as Artscroll so graciously, though I'm sure unintentionally translate - "astonishingly empty." Well, yes, when you've just a few molecules and atoms floating around, the Universe can be a pretty astonishingly empty place, can't it? I mean, even as it is now, with all the wonders and beautiful night skies, it's still a great big empty, isn't it? Then God created light - stars started to form. "Vayehi Erev, Vayehi Boker, Yom Echad." End of Epoch number one, which lasted however many billions of years it lasted.

To be continued...

See Part II here.