Im sharing this stupid post in order to comment on it and articulate something important to me. First read the blurb below, then come back here for my commentary, if youve got the patience. Initially, I thought, Cheap shot, God. Then it became more clear to me what bothered me in this: its the Prometheus myth. Except the Prometheus myth is right, or at least deep, in a certain sense, and this is not. (Ok, so maybe Im just taking this way to seriously, but, well, Eitan, you know me and you know my intellectual history, so just roll with me if you can enjoy it, because i was glad to be able to articulate this point to myself.) when humans write Prometheus, were articulating our sense that we arent the ultimate source of our accomplishments, or even ourselves, so anything in which we pride ourselves is really glorified theft. this blurb, by contrast, makes as if that existential problem is really a problem of science or scientists. So, remember, science - including resurrecting people and generating life from simple chemical components - could be part of the process of creation. In other words, theres no dichotomy between Gods creation and human action - אשר ברא אלקים לעשות. The problem with the blurb is that it sets up one whos involved in creation in this way as a competitor - or to say it more strongly: an enemy - of God. Thats stupid. And the only reason that the move makes sense is that it tropes out the standard history/narrative in which Christianity opposes science because science is playing God or making war on God or Nimrodian in some other way (a history which seems true to some extent - Ive certainly taken it for granted since i read Inherit the Wind as a kid - but which certainly doesnt give the whole picture, which includes some significant Churchmen in pre-Enlightenment - or para-Enlightenment - Europe doing science). Ok, but Prometheus has the same problem, so what makes that any better? Just that it doesnt specifically implicate scientists? Prometheus is better, IMO, because it articulates a real aspect of human experience. (The blurb isnt about that experience, its about a false dichotomy pf religion versus science.) that is, in the language of our tradition, the bread of embarrassment, or as we see it in Exodus: the need to escape Sinai - the being killed by the voice, the mountains hanging over our heads, the carving out a niche for ourselves with the golden calf, and even after Yom Kippur, the second tablets, and eventually the making of the Mishkan (which, not coincidentally, defines Melakha - human creative labor), our running away from Sinai like kids fleeing from school into summer vacation. We do have a real sense of living *in spite of* God. This is the reason that the golden calf is a re-enactment of Adams primal transgression: ואוכל - I ate and I would do it again; what the hell do you expect from me?! To live in the hell of a perfect little garden you made just for me? I cant be myself here because I cant become myself here. There is no man if hes not a self-made man. What do you want, a robot? That sort of creation would be enjoyable for you? (...... What would be enjoyable? ישמח ה במעשיו is understood as a response to the קל וחומר of the עשבים. ......) Of course Prometheus just gives us the problem, it doesnt envision what humanity could become beyond that dichotomy; it doesnt envision, in other words, Torah. I mean, Torah is the space in which sharing creation becomes possible. Or to say it another way, the klal gedol is that the cause of existence (read: מצוי ראשון) is the cause of freedom and love (hence the לשון of אנוכי, not אני, in the first articulation of the Decalogue: ה defines himself אנוכי - not in term of Creation - but rather in terms of יציאת מצרים). And so we can say what is otherwise totally nonsensical, that Shabbat, זיכרון למעשי בראשית , is a זכר ליציאת מצרים. How can the creation of the universe recall what only occurs in the future, and how can the creation of the cosmos become a sticky note reminder of a bump in the road of the history of one people on one planet in one possible universe? Because באהבה וברצון . Creation receives its value in Our being together. That entails our achieving consciousness and freedom, which is what the exile-redemption cycles are all about (as defined in the ברית בין הבתרים). (I hope all that made sense.)
Posted on: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 07:12:42 +0000
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