Customer Reviews

Thinking about Creation: Eternal Torah and Modern Physics

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Thinking About Creation : Eternal Torah and Modern Physics is very enjoyable and enlightening book. It explores both the Torah and the intricacies of modern physics, and demonstrates their convergence. While both of these topics potentially can be heavy reading, the author keeps them light without sacrificing a lot of technical content. I recommend the book for people who are interested in the topic and want to have fun at the same time.

The writing style is light and enjoyable and the author reveals a lot of interesting concepts being generated by contemporary physics. There are also some interestting incites into Torah; but, as far as unifying Torah with modern physics there is still a bit of a way to go at the present time. Dr. Goldfinger does give it a good try though.

In my opinion the definitive work in this area remains Gerald Schroeder's Genesis and the Big Bang.

My general view is that Science and Religion are different ways of seeing the world. And that in some sense they relate to different kinds of questions.
Religion I would want to say relates to questions of life's ultimate meaning , of the human relation to God. And science explores through methods of observation and verification whatever can be addressed by its methods.
In 'Thinking about Creation 'Andrew Goldfinger tries to tell the story of creation from both points-of -view. His aim is to see the parallels between the two accounts, and in a sense to reconcile the contradictions. He does in a sense the same kind of connecting task that Natan Aviezer and Gerald Schroeder do in their books.
Goldfinger conducts his inquiry with modesty and sense. In his concluding chapter he gives the following words of caution in regard to what he himself has done.

"We know that tomorrow the next generation of telescopes may tell us that our ideas of the cosmos need massive reworking. The behavior of a subatomic particle may violate the most deeply held theories of physics , and Nobel Prizes will be awarded to a new generation of young physicists who again will 'work things out'. Doubtlessly some of them will think that they have finally achieved the ultimate understanding, but we know otherwise. We know that 'Hashem 'has created a universe that can be understood only approximately, both in the physical and spiritual dimensions."

I recommend this book to whoever has an interest in the relation between Torah and Science.

This is one of many good books currently out that shows that Torah true Judaism and science can and do in fact live side by side with no contradiction. Actually, Jews have always been active in science (Rambam, otherwise known as Maimonedies, one of the best minds in Judaism in the Common Era was a doctor and scientist) and Dr. Goldfinger is simply participating in a long and proud tradition.

He is well able to comment on both Torah and science. He is a practicing Orthodox Jew (Chassidic actually) and lives Judaism every minute of his life (ours is not a religion that allows you to compartmentalize your religious convictions and the rest of your life). He is also an accomplished physicist (he works at Johns Hopkins as a researcher).

This book is a joy to read. A book that is heavy on physics has the potential to be very dry and boring (at least for me), good bedtime reading, but I find this one to be very interesting. No surprise since I've heard Dr. Goldfinger lecture and I've met him (I sometimes attend the same synagogue as he) and found him to be an extememly warm person. I am looking forward to his next book whenever it comes out.

It's simply a bunch of hocus pocus. Creationism by any other name is not based in science. Kaballah and numerology also have no scientific basis, except the observation that people overall want to make connections and "sense" of things where there are no connections. Meanwhile, there is overwhelming empirical evidence for theories of evolution.