The Place of Man in the Universe

Steven Hawking, A Brief History of Time

A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's tortoises all the way down!"

Sophocles, Antigone

Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man; the power that crosses the white sea, driven by the stormy south-wind, making a path under surges that threaten to engulf him; and Earth, the eldest of the gods, the immortal, the unwearied, doth he wear, turning the soil with the offspring of horses, as the ploughs go to and fro from year to year. And the light-hearted race of birds, and the tribes of savage beasts, and the sea-brood of the deep, he snares in the meshes of his woven toils, he leads captive, man excellent in wit... And speech, and wind-swift thought, and all the moods that mould a state, hath he taught himself.

Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man

At long last, however, I feel that I have come to some understanding of why man is the most fortunate of living things and, consequently, deserving of all admiration; of what may be the condition in the hierarchy of beings assigned to him, which draws upon him the envy, not of the brutes alone, but of the astral beings and of the very intelligences which dwell beyond the confines of the world...

[And so God said to man:] We have given you, O Adam, no visage proper to yourself, nor endowment properly your own, in order that whatever place, whatever form, whatever gifts you may, with premeditation, select, these same you may have and possess through your own judgement and decision. The nature of all other creatures is defined and restricted within laws which We have laid down; you, by contrast, impeded by no such restrictions, may, by your own free will, to whose custody We have assigned you, trace for yourself the lineaments of your own nature.

R. Sa'adya Gaon, Emunot ve-De'ot, IV

When we see that the creatures are many in number, nevertheless, we need not be confused in regard to which of them constitutes the goal of creation. For there exists a natural criterion by means of which we can determine which one of all the creatures is the end. When, then, we make our investigation with this criterion [as a guide], we find that the goal is man. We arrive at this conclusion in the following manner: Habit and nature place whatever is most highly prized in the center of things which are themselves not so highly prized... When, therefore, we see that this situation appertains to many things and then find the earth in the center of heaven with the heavenly spheres surrounding it on all sides, it becomes clear to us that the thing which was the subject of creation must be on the earth.[1] Upon further investigation of all its parts we note that the earth and water are both inanimate, whereas we find that the beasts are irrational. Hence only man is left, which gives us the certainty that he must unquestionably have been the intended purpose of creation. When we examine the Scriptures, we likewise find in them a statement by God to the effect that "I, even I, have made the earth, and created man upon it" (Yeshaya 45:12). In fact, at the very beginning of the Torah God listed all classes of creation. Then, when He had completed them all, He said: "Let us make man" (Bereishit 1:26), like a person who builds a palace and, after having furnished and decorated it, brings its owner into it.

Maharal, Tiferet Yisrael, chap. 4

Just as the sun reigns, so is man a king, for everything is subject to him. Man’s royalty expresses itself in that he brings perfection to all earthly creatures, for everything was created in order to serve man and minister to him. In this way he is the form for all earthly creatures, bringing perfection to everything, like a king, who perfects everything.

Rambam, Guide to the Perplexed, III, 13

To my mind, the correct view according to the beliefs of the Law - a view that corresponds likewise to the speculative views - is as follows: It should not be believed that all the beings exist for the sake of the existence of man. On the contrary, all the other beings too have been intended for their own sakes and not for the sake of something else... Just as He has willed that the human species should come to exist, He also has willed that the spheres and their stars should come to exist... This view too has been expressed in the prophetic books. Thus it says: "The Lord has made everything lema'anehu [for His sake or for its sake]" (Mishlei 16:4), where the third person [i.e., 'His' or 'its'] may refer to the complement [i.e., to 'everything']. If, however, it refers to the subject, the interpretation of the word [lema'anehu] would be: for the sake of His essence, may He be exalted - that is, for the sake of His will...

If you consider the book which guides all those who seek guidance toward what is correct and therefore is called the Torah, the notion that we have in view will become manifest to you from the commencement of the account of creation till the end. For with reference to none of them is the statement made in any way that it exists for the sake of some other thing. He only says that He brought every part of the world into existence and that its existence confirmed to its purpose. This is the meaning of the his saying: "And God saw that it was good" (Bereishit 1)...

Hence be not misled in your soul to think that the spheres and the angels have been brought into existence for our sake. For it has explained to us what we are worth: "Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket" (Yeshaya 40:15). Consider accordingly your substance and that of the spheres, the stars, and the separate intellects; then the truth will become manifest to you, and you will know that man and nothing else is the most perfect and the most noble thing that has been generated from this [inferior] matter; but that if his being is compared to that of the spheres and all the more to that of the separate beings, it is very, very contemptible.

Nefesh Ha-hayyim 1:4

And this is the law of man. No man of Israel should say in his heart, who am I and what is my ability to effect with my insignificant actions any impact on the world? Rather, he should understand, know and establish in the thoughts of his heart that the details of all his actions, words and thoughts at all moments are not lost, God-forbid. For each one ascends in accordance with its root to effects its impacts in the upper spheres… And in truth, an intelligent and wise individual who truly understands this - his heart will stammer inside him with fear and trembling, when he places upon his heart that his evil acts God forbid to what extent reach, that they ruin and destroy through even a minor sin, far worse than the destruction wrought by Nevuchadnezar and Titus…

Majesty and Humility

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik

pp. 32-33

As we have stated above, cosmic man beholds the vision of God in infinity, in the endlessness of the distance which separates him from God, while origin-minded man experiences God in His closeness to man. As a rule, in times of joy and elation, one finds God’s footsteps in the majesty and grandeur of the cosmos, in its vastness and its stupendous dynamics. When man is drunk with life, when he feels that living is a dignified affair, then man beholds God in infinity. In moments of ecstasy God addresses Himself to man through the twinkling stars and the roar of the endlessly distant heavens:

ברכי נפשי את ד’, ד’ אלקים, גדלת מאד, הוד והדר לבשת

"0 Lord my God Thou are very great, Thou are clothed with glory and majesty." In such moments, majestas Dei, which not even the vast universe is large enough to accommodate, addresses itself to happy man. .

However, with the arrival of the dark night of the soul, in moments of agony and black despair, when living becomes ugly and absurd; plainly nauseating, when man loses his sense of beauty and majesty, God addresses him, not from infinity but from the infinitesimal, not from the vast stretches of the universe but from a single spot in the darkness which surrounds suffering man, from within the black despair itself. Eleven years ago my wife lay on her deathbed and I watched her dying, day by day, hour by hour; medically, I could do very little for her, all I could do was to pray. However, I could not pray in the hospital; somehow I could not find God in the whitewashed, long corridors among the interns and the nurses. However, the need for prayer was great; I could not live without gratifying this need. The moment I returned home I would rush to my room, fall on my knees and pray fervently. God, in those moments, appeared not as the exalted, majestic King, but rather as a humble, close friend, brother, father: in such moments of black despair, He was not far from me; He was right there in the dark room; I felt His warm hand, כביכול. on my shoulder, I hugged His knees, כביכול. He was with me in the narrow confines of a small room, taking up no space at all. God’s abiding in a fenced-in finite locus manifests His humility and love for man. In such moments humilitas Dei, which resides in the humblest and tiniest of places, addresses itself to man.

Avot de-Rabbi Natan 8

It once occurred that the donkey of R. Hanina ben Dosa was stolen by robbers, who hid it in a courtyard, and left it straw and barley and wa­ter—but it would not eat or drink. They said: Why should we leave it, that it may die and stink up the courtyard? They stood up and opened the gate and sent it out; and it wandered until it reached the home of R. Hanina ben Dosa. When it reached him his son heard its voice. He said to [his father]: Father, that sounds like the voice of our animal. He said to him, My son, open the door, for it is dying of hunger. He stood and opened the door, and left it straw and barley and water and it ate and drank. They [the Sages] therefore said: Just as the righteous of generations past were pious, so were their animals as pious as they.

Chulin 7b

R. Pinhas ben Yair was once traveling. He stayed at an inn, and they gave barley to his donkey—but it did not eat. They shelled it—but it did not eat.... Said he to them: Perhaps it is untithed. They tithed [the barley] and it ate. He said: This poor beast attempts to perform the will of its Crea­tor and you feed it untithed food! His students said to him: But did our master not teach us that animal feed is exempt from tithing? Said he to them: And what shall I do with this poor fool [i.e., the donkey], that it is stringent on itself!

Pesikta Rabati 14

There once was a pious man who had a cow for plowing. After sometime the man became poor and sold the cow to a Gentile. The Gentile plowed with it for six weekdays; on the Sabbath he took it out to plow, and it chafed under the yoke and did not want to work. He hit it but it refused to budge. When he saw this, he went to the pious man and said: “Come take your cow, for six days I have worked with it, and on the seventh I have taken it out and it refused to do any work at all, and no matter how much I hit it, it refuses to budge.” When he said this, the pious man understood why it did not do work, for it had been trained not to work on the Sab­bath. Said the pious man: “Come, and I will make it plow.” When he reached it, he said in its ear, “Cow, cow! When you were in my keep you would rest on the Sabbath; now that my sins have caused [my poverty] I have sold you to a non-Jew, please stand and perform the will of your master.” It immediately stood and sought to work. The Gentile said to the pious man, “I will not let you go until you tell me what you did, and what you said in its ear; maybe you bewitched it!” Said the pious man, “Such and such is what I said to him.” When the Gentile heard this, he paled, and shook, and judged to himself: If this [animal] that has no speech, intellect, or understanding recognizes its Creator, I whom God created in his image and gave intellect and understanding, shall I not recognize my Creator? He immediately converted and merited to study Torah, and he was called R. Yohanan the Son of a Cow.