Read the Torah
Does it say anything about being created looking old? No. Therefore, such a pshat is against our Mesorah. QED.
(This post will only make sense if one was following the back and forth on Irrational Modoxism. If not, feel free to read, but you might be confused.) There’s a podcast out there called Jewish Thoughtflow. I have listened to two of their episodes - the techeiles ones - and while I strongly disagree with their conclusions and method of thinking, they are clearly thought out intelligent guys who do research and can think.
Which is why I was surprised to see a comment like this by them to me:
….you do not need a tagline "writes not Daas Torah". Your lack of intellectual cohesiveness and comfortability already makes that point explicit.
I find that insult gratuitous and meaningless, as well as untrue. I have argued with many people many times. happygolucky and Dovid both strongly disagree with me. But I don’t think my points are incohesive. They certainly make people uncomfortable, though!
Anyways - Jewish thoughtflow - I am happy to respond to any intellectual argument fairly, and without insult. Are you?
Here’s my response to yours, ignoring your snide comments:
If your argument is against the divine origin of the Torah, than you are in the wrong conversation as you have a complete different premise than the one going on here.
It is not. I strongly believe in the divine origin of the Torah. Otherwise, I wouldn’t feel a need to defend it. I’d just mark up the Torah as wrong and move on with my life.
If you are suggesting the verses may be taken not literally in this case than you are misinformed of our Mesorah. (Please do not quote some out of context, vague passages from Moreh Nevuchim that are explicitly contradicted by the Rambam in numerous other places.)
I am both suggesting and not suggesting this. I believe the Torah was speaking in a genre called myth. Bereishes was always understood to be a moshol by its earliest readers - the mekablei hatorah. Therefore, it depends on how one defines literally. The literal pshat of 6 days I think means 6 days mamash, not billions of years. But I do not think it literally happened though. I explicitly disregard what the supposed mesorah says though - I will concede the point.
So you are suggesting it is more deceiving of Hashem to make a young world appear "old" and tell us it is young, than to tell us it is young and really have it be old, but only discoverable after the most important parts of the Mesorah have passed?
I am not suggesting it. I am stating it outright. There are many parts of the Torah that were not understandable to many of the baalei mesorah, simply because they lacked the relevant facts. (A good example is todays mistaken kezayis and the baalei mesorah from tosfos to the mishna berurah who all accepted that). BTW, if you look through my old comments with happygolucky, I strongly believe that the first generation who received the Torah knew it wasn’t literal, as it fell into a different genre called myth. Only once that genre fell into oblivion did the Torah’s intention became unclear.
The proof is in the pudding. In my scenario, none of the Baalei Mesorah were fooled. In yours, Hashem duped everybody outside of the heretic in the 20th century.
In your scenario, every scientist and every person in the world except for Jewish Christian creationists are lying liars and only the Torah has the true story. You might believe that, but most people won’t. I personally think it is not a good idea to make the authorized pshat in Torah against obvious scientific fact. YMMV.
Furthermore, every single one of the Baalei Mesorah was duped about the sun going around the earth. They all thought the Nes with Yehoshua was literal. Are you also a geocentrist? This is worse than my pshat of bereishis, because I believe the makablei torah knew the truth originally and was later forgotten.
Additionally, this is precisely why the question of the hare and the hyrax is so important. EVERY SINGLE MEFORASH until contemporary times learnt they chew the cud literally. EVERY ONE. There is no question that they were wrong. The pasuk in the Torah has to have another pshat hidden from the baalei mesorah (however you choose to interpret. Or the Torah is wrong.) This is why it is so relevant - because you see that the true pshat in the Torah has to wait at times.
I know you don’t know the sugya, but learn it. (Some guy named Slifkin wrote a phenomenal book on the subject).
How, with our current form of nature, could Hashem have made a 6000 year old looking earth. If Adam needed starlight, should we assume the speed of light goes way quicker? Should Mountains form every 2 days? Should the duration from Big Bang to Modern Man occur every six days? How exactly do you imagine the universe as we know it being able to occur in 6 days for the arrival of man, without looking older than 6 day? If the premise is that Hashem wanted everything to be natural, and he did not want cataclysmic changes every couple hours than it seems the only possible solution would be to make the natural order of universe creating to take longer than 6 days.
Really!!!??? Is Hashem that unpowerful in your eyes? He couldn’t figure out a way???He is bound by the rules of nature? I know I am trying to avoid insults, but this is a bit much. At the very least, he could have included a pasuk pointing it out that he made the world old. Unless you agree that the Torah isn’t coming to teach us history, which then you may as well say my pshat.
And again, how are you answering your own question? If Hashem could create a world in 6000 years (which of course he could, just not our world), than why didn't he? Let's pretend the world actually is billions of years old. Why would he do that, and then wait until creation of man which is the purpose. Be careful with your answer, because whatever you say can quite easily work for me.
The same reason he made billions of galaxies all over the world - to show how beautiful it is. BTW, Rav Kook asks this question outright and answers it that it shows how important man is that Hashem spend billions of years waiting just for the pinnacle to evolve. (Rav Kook felt evolution was a very good and appropriate way for Hashem to create the world for kabbalistic reasons.)
Also - just curious - why would Hashem make 6 days? Just make one (like the second story in bereishis!)
Here’s my question to you guys, Jewish Thoughtflow: Why are you so caught up in the accuracy of the Mesorah to its last detail? While I believe in the Mesorah, I believe it in the general sense - we have a mesorah we left mitzrayim, received the Torah, 13 middos of how the Torah was darshaned etc. But there are certainly many mistakes in the Mesorah. Every machlokes proves it! There may be a mesorah of how we pasken, but there is no such hashkafic mesorah on these subjects simply because these questions didn’t exist before modern science! You are additionally very caught up in the supposed issur of creating a new pshat outside the Mesorah, which doesn’t exist. Our job is to find the best pshat in the Torah. 99% of the time it will be in the baalei mesorah. But there’s no question that when we have new information the baalei mesorah never knew, we will have a better pshat than them simply because of that! Many questions of realia and girsos come to mind where we do know better than the baalei mesorah.
(This is my main criticism of your podcast’s approach to Techeiles as well - you mainly use quotes from Rishonim WHO NEVER SAW TECHEILES to ask questions on the Murex, which most matches the evidence. You can’t ask a question like that, simply because they never saw it and were giving it their best guess. Later achronim who did see it did assume it was the murex.)
I also have one more criticism of your mehalech: You criticized in other comments Rav Hirsch and Rav Kook as outside the Mesorah. I will grant that Rav Kook was untraditional. But Rav Hirsch was accepted by EVERYBODY. He was 100% part of the so-called mesorah. If he thought that evolution was an acceptable pshat in bereshis, there is no question that it is. He was also far more familiar with the mesorah than you - having written the sefer defending the mesorah from the reform - and would not have suggested such a pshat if in any way it was assur.
I look forward to your response. You have said you are willing to respond to anyone seeking the truth. I am. And I am waiting.
BTW, it's pretty funny what's happening on this little kofer's blog that you commented on https://dovber.substack.com/p/defending-the-indefensible/comments
He has a whole long essay pontificating on all those people who believe in nonsense that will go to any lengths to defend it (of course, everything HE believes is true and rational), and then you drop one little comment about the atheists who will deny the obvious design of the world, and he writes another whole essay in the comments trying to defend his ridiculous atheism! Lol.
Just wanted to share that I appreciate hearing diverse perspectives (so long as they're honest) and I find your ideas to be quite valuable. I plan to address many of the points you've raised in my upcoming post, and I'm eager to hear your thoughts. I hope we can engage in open and honest discussions after I publish my next post. I'd like to emphasize though, that despite my Yeshivish perspective, I believe these ideas can be discussed in an open and inclusive manner, but there may be a LOT of prior assumptions that we'd have to sift through, perhaps from both sides. Already in this post, I've noticed plenty of underlying assumptions that I don't share that will complicate the discussion.
Also, one more thing - I'm not here to change anyone's mind to adopt my specific viewpoint. Most people have their Mehalech that resonates with them, as do I. I, as anyone else, believe that mine happens to be right. But as long as we are both within the pale of caring about Hashem and His Torah, I don't care just so much about the particulars.
At the same time, I do believe I have a perspective to offer and hope we can discuss. Looking forward!