Reconciling Torah's view of age of universe and science

Ribbie Danzinger

Wed, Feb 13 2008, 7:49 am

Introduction:
In Kabbalah and Chassidut we are taught that there are four worlds: the world of emanation; the world of creation; the world of formation; and our own world, the world of action. These are explained to be four different levels of consciousness. By understanding the differences between these worlds, we can gain some amazing new insights into our understanding of science:

Quote:

How can we estimate how differently time elapses in the worlds of Action, Formation and Creation? There is a story about the Ba'al Shem Tov, the founder of the Chassidic movement, related by the Tzemach Tzedek, the 3rd Chabad Rebbe in his book, “Derech Mitzvotecha.” The Tzemach Tzedek relates that the Ba'al Shem Tov had a vision and, after that experience, wrote a letter describing an event as though it had already happened even though at the time of the vision it had not yet happened. The Tzemach Tzedek explains that when a tzadik, living here in the World of Action, has a vision, he ascends in his consciousness for a rega (a moment, "eye-wink") to the World of Formation. A rega is a measure of time described in the Torah which is approximately 1/23 of a second. The Tzemech Tzedek explains that a rega in the World of Formation corresponds to 15 years in the World of Action, which we inhabit, a ratio of about 1:1010. This would mean that an event that lasts 1 day in the World Formation would last 1010 days in the world of Action. If we further take into account the quantum leap in the extent of yeshut [physical existence] between the worlds of Creation and Formation then clearly one day up there is equivalent to billions of years down here!

[try and calculate: if one moment in the world of emanation is fifteen years in the world of creation and one moment in the world of creation is fifteen years in the world of formation and one moment of the world of formation is fifteen years in the world of action, how much time elapses in the world of action during one moment of the world of emanation?]

And so, we may say that the Torah description of the 6 days of creation belongs literally to the higher created worlds, whereas a scientist making measurements related to the age of the observable physical universe relates exclusively to the consciousness of the World of Action. The perceptions of time emerging from the text of Genesis and from scientific measurements will relate to each other by ratios qualitative similar to those described above. There is therefore no qualitative contradiction between the age of the universe inferred from Genesis and that measured by scientific means, the two perceptions of time represent different states of consciousness defined by the worlds in which they originate.

Based on Rav Ginsburgh's teachings
From http://www.torahscience.org/na.....n.htm

Read the whole article for a new understanding of evolution too.