Rabbi Eliezer Melamed on Torah and Science

Rabbi Eliezer Melamed (Arutz Sheva)

Unfortunately, there are a lot of young people raised in strictly observant homes that are losing the faith. There seems to be as many reasons for this as there are people losing it.  But one of the most frequent reasons I hear is from young people that have discovered that science contradicts many of the things they were taught by their religious teachers.  If we are going to do anything about the phenomenon of young people from observant homes leaving the faith this issue cannot be ignored.

l used to be more eager to discuss the conflict between science and Torah. However, I’ve become more reluctant to do so in recent years - not because my views have changed. I still believe that science and Torah are compatible. But I’ve found that these discussions often devolve into endless challenges from atheists whose mission is to disabuse people of their faith.

There are a lot of people like that out there - many of whom are closet atheists hiding behind the anonymity of a blog commentary, using it as a platform to present what they believe is incontrovertible evidence that religious beliefs are based on lies or outdated misconceptions of reality now clarified by modern science.

Debating with such individuals is of no avail. They persist in promoting their views as legitimate while ridiculing believers with arguments such as ‘science is based on observable truth’, which they claim contradicts ancient and outmoded ideas about God. Ideas that are now easily ‘refuted’ by science.

Back when I had more enthusiasm for discussing this topic, I explained in great detail why I believe in God and in Judaism. The short version is this: belief in a Creator does not contradict science, nor does Judaism - when properly understood - contradict it either.

Some may find this hard to accept, pointing to many statements in the Gemara about the nature of the universe that are clearly at odds with what we know today. But these can be explained in a variety of acceptable ways that do not contradict the fundamentals of nature as we understand them today. The sages of the Talmud were truth-seekers. They even declared, ‘If one tells you there is wisdom among the nations, believe them.’ In other words, seek truth wherever it is found. It may not necessarily come from a Jewish rabbi or any Jew at all.

I mention all this because of a fascinating Arutz Sheva article by Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, who addressed this very topic in the final chapter of his new book Faith and Its Commandments. He tackles many of these issues in ways similar to how I and many others - who have struggled with the perceived conflicts between science and Torah - have. This includes highly respected figures such as the late Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, a man revered in both scientific and religious circles. Revered even within the Charedi world to this day - decades after his death.

Rav Melamed makes a very important point about what appears to be the ever-increasing tension between science and Torah - a conflict he correctly identifies as a major source of the erosion of faith among our people today.

Here, for example, is one salient point he makes:

"One of the things that changed in the modern era is that many natural phenomena that were not understood by humans have been researched and have become understandable and explainable. In the process, the value of some explanations about faith that were accepted in previous generations has been nullified."

How true. Diseases once thought incurable now have common cures. The invention of microscopes led to the discovery of harmful bacteria, which in turn led to medications and treatments. The discovery of anesthesia made life-saving surgeries possible—procedures that were unthinkable even just 200 years ago. Science has explained many phenomena that used to be attributed to spiritual causes. So instead of prayer being the only recourse to a medical problem, science has provided solutions—thus, in many people’s eyes, removing the need for prayer and, ultimately, weakening the need to believe in God as the simplistic answer to the mysteries of the universe.

This has weakened the faith many people once had in God, reasoning that science will eventually solve all our problems. That, in turn, led to a religious backlash against science. As Rabbi Melamed notes:

… instead of appreciating the fruits of scientific achievements and blessing God for them, many religious figures believed that one should distance oneself from science and doubt its reliability. Meanwhile, many people who appreciated science felt that religion was not beneficial to their lives or to the world…

Some religious leaders viewed the scientists’ challenge to older concepts as an affront to the honor of religion. They believed it inconceivable that scientists could know more than the great Torah scholars of the past, whose views often reflected the science of their own time. Not only that, but since our sages often used the scientific concepts of their era to illustrate spiritual ideas, the refutation of those scientific notions was seen by some as an attack on Torah itself - because they misunderstood the analogies as being Torah rather than pedagogical tools.

This is where some of the more prominent religious leaders have in my view failed. Out of fear that the study of science might uproot long-held beliefs, many have banned books that attempt to reconcile Torah and science. And this has surely alienated many scientifically-minded Jews who might otherwise have remained people of faith.

When religious leaders reject the kind of science that led Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan to declare the age of the universe to be approximately 15 billion years old - a conclusion he based both on modern science and on deep, informed Torah analysis - then we are bound to lose many Jews. Especially those who have studied the same science that Rabbi Kaplan drew upon to reach his conclusion.

Rabbi Kaplan even ridiculed the belief in a 5,000-year-old universe, insisting that his view was a perfectly acceptable Torah view.

Until it wasn’t. It was later declared apikorsus by a Gadol who also banned Rabbi Natan Slifkin’s books, which attempted to make similar reconciliations.

I recall the Chicago Community Kollel hosting a talk by Rav Shalom Kamenetsky on this very topic to a group of Lakewood avreichim in their own Beis Medrash. The Kollel was caught flat-footed when those views were later banned.

It is refreshing to see someone of Rabbi Melamed’s stature stand up for the possibility of reconciling Torah and science. Sadly, my guess is that his book will soon be banned by the current Charedi Gedolim.  In fact Rabbi Melamed may be entirely ostracized if he hasn’t already been.