Thoughts on the Slifkin Issue
by Rabbi David Eidensohn
I had not commented on the Slifkin issue, but someone asked me for a comment, and I obliged. The Slifkin issue is interesting for many elements that combine to make it a hot potato. Yet, even if it is a hot potato, it offers a fascinating opportunity to examine certain Torah issues, tenets crucial to our understanding of Torah in the modern world.
Rabbi Slifkin, a young man, has a talent for inspiring lost Jews to consider Orthodoxy. He is known as the "Zoo Rabbi," for his great knowledge of animals and biology. Interesting lectures and books about animals and life lead to discussions of Torah. For many years, Rabbi Slifkin was the darling of outreach professionals, who utilized his books and material with great effect. These book featured approbations from senior rabbis.
Then, storm clouds gathered. Some major rabbis felt that Rabbi Slifkin ascribed to scientific ideas that denied certain Torah teachings. Other rabbis did not feel that way, but as time went on, more and more rabbis joined the chorus of condemnation, and those who backed him retreated. Today, he still has some rabbinical backers, but the tide has turned, in the Haredi world, against him. Meanwhile, many who don't love the Haredi world, especially those with bones to pick with the Gedolim, the major Haredi rabbis, rejoice in the discomfit of the Haredi world in this turmoil, and openly display their relish for someone who can tweak the ear of the bears and lions of the parochial Torah community. The Internet, especially, has become a place where people can vent their feelings on the rabbis who oppose Rabbi Slifkin.
So far, despite the turmoil, there is no big deal. Someone has said something, some agree with his right to say it, some disagree. Rabbis, after all, do have a right, indeed, an obligation, to speak out on matters affecting their communities. If they feel that a book contains objectionable ideas, they should say so. The problem is, that some rabbis began to explain, in English, their reasons for opposing Rabbi Slifkin. They expounded in public or on the Internet what they felt was the Torah opinion of science and the various issues raised by Rabbi Slifkin, including the very sensitive issue of whether rabbis and the Talmud can err about science. This provoked an uproar, as people tried to show how wrong the rabbis were who made these statements. A great divide opened up as a result of the Slifkin affair, and it will not easily be mended. But we must keep our perspectives clear.
The Slifkin affair was an opportunity for enemies of the senior Haredi rabbinate to do their thing. All of this has nothing to do with Rabbi Slifkin. All accept that Rabbi Slifkin meant well, and he has his rabbinical backers, and therefore, the major issue is whether or not rabbis allow their followers to read his books. However, in the process of the Slifkin Affair, important issues came to the fore. We will now turn to the issues, and leave the Slifkin affair to fend for itself.
What are the issues?
1) What is the age of the world?
2) If the Torah says the world is not yet six thousand years old, and science says it is billions of years old, what shall we do?
3) Can rabbis of the Talmud make mistakes?
Let us answer these questions from sources. According to Ramban on Ber. 1.3, the six days of Creation "were, in the Creation of the heaven and the earth, real days, made of hours and minutes, and they were six days of Creation just as the plain meaning of the passage suggests." Having said this, Ramban states that Kabbalistically the story of Creation has many deep ideas, even though the basic meaning is that six days are six days of 24 hours, each hour with 60 minutes.
A major tenet of the Talmud is that the rabbis interpret passages according to the Code of Torah given at Sinai. Often, these interpretations fly far from the simple meaning of the text. And yet, as the Talmud states in various places, "no passage is without a simple meaning." When we read the Torah, and when we read the Talmud, we try to stay with the PESHAT, or simple meaning. The Vilna Gaon taught, "What is close to PESHAT is close to truth."
Therefore, Ramban tells us that the PESHAT of the Torah is that the Creation was in six days of 24 hours. This is what we believe. The Talmud in Mas. Avodo Zoro tells us, in the name of the Yeshiva of Eliyohu HaNovi, "This world will last six thousand years." The PESHAT of the gemora is thus that. If one would come with ingenious ideas of how to twist this and make six thousand into six trillion, we would not debate him on the merits of his argument necessarily, but rather we would says, "That what is closer to PESHAT is closer to truth." Once you start bending PESHAT, there is no end. Thus, don't bend it without a proof from Talmudists who found a Torah reason to do so.
The second issue raised by the furor surrounding Rabbi Slifkin is what to do when the Torah tells us the world is less than six thousand years old, and science says it is billions of years old. One way to deal with this is to read what scientists say and argue with them. I have taken this approach elsewhere on this and other websites and in print publications, and don't want to get into it here. Another way is to recognize that although 40% of scientists believe that G-d participated in Creation, (even if they accept evolution, which is another topic), in biology, only five percent of scientists believe this. Thus, biology is a science, more so than others, opposed to religion. Religious people may take what biologists say with a grain of salt.
Still another approach, which I use but requires a long discussion, is to go directly into the philosophy and efficacy of science, quoting Einstein and other greats. However, in this article, I want to keep to the Torah teachings involved in the Slifkin case.
Such issues have always existed, and as Rabbeinu Chananel tells us, we follow the teachings of the sages rather than the teachings of the secular savants. However, there is another issue raised by the Slifkin furor, whether or not rabbis of the Talmud can be deemed to have erred in science, or whether what the Talmudists say is sacred, even when they talk about secular matters.
There are greats, such as the Geonim and Rambam and the son of the Rambam, who tell us that the Talmudists were not necessarily scientists, and therefore, we cannot ascribe to them, in their scientific ideas, the same respect we accord them when they speak about Torah. There is no question from many places in the Talmud that this is correct. However, some zealous opponents of Rabbi Slifkin have invented an opinion opposed to the Geonim and Rambam, namely, that the Talmudists had a holy spirit that taught them everything about science. They therefore had no need to study science, it just came to them in illumination. This is contradicted by a gemora that asks, "How did the rabbis know about the laws of diverse plants, that is, how did they know the science of botany?" The gemora answers, they learned it from the pagan farmers in Canaan. This doesn't sound like rabbis who know everything by holy inspiration. Another gemora asks, "How did Moses know that the Ketoress saved from death?" It answers that he heard it from an angel. If Moses knew everything with the holy spirit, what is the gemora's question?
Tosfose Taanis 7z d"h aff - quotes a Medrash of Talmudists whereby someone asks Shmuel how he had mastered astronomy, after all, there is a teaching that those who delve deep into astronomy cannot be Torah scholars, because they devote so much time to the stars. Shmuel answered that he picked up his astronomy only when he went outside for his needs, and he looked up and saw the plants and stars. According to the opinion that the sages were granted science with divine illumination, what is the question how Shmuel knew astronomy? Obviously, the sages did not know science, and when they did, people asked them, how did you learn this? Did you stop learning?
Thus, the questions posed by the Slifkin affair have a clear answer. The world is less than six thousand years old, the rabbis are to be followed when they conflict with secular teachings, and rabbis are not necessarily experts in science.
None of this, however, deals with a very crucial and germane issue. What does science say about evolution? The senior evolutionist, Steven Gould, said that nature does not produce more complex life forms. If he said that, why should we bend the Torah to disagree? We should also keep in mind that Hitler came to power precisely because people believed in Darwinian ideas, applied to society, through the disciple of Darwin, Haeckel. Why then should Orthodox Jews go out of their way to support Darwinian ideas?
Rabbi Slifkin has shown how to bring Jews back to the Torah with biology and evolution. But Jews can be brought back to the Torah by teaching Torah, as millions have proven. Let us keep the PESHAT of our religion, and not bend it, for any reason.