Brian Thomas Swimme is a professor in the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness (PCC) Department at CIIS in San Francisco, CA. In this excerpt of his book Cosmogenesis, Swimme recounts a time one of his students asked him about the meaning of life. Swimme was surprised by his answer, especially since his own professor had once told him that "science doesn't deal with meaning."
[At the end of a lecture on physics, Swimme recalls:] I could have ended the class right there. My quota of chalk had already been transformed into the mathematical equations I had written out. I dropped the three leftover stubs into the wire-mesh holder at the corner of the blackboard and opened the class for questions. Oona Fitzgerald raised her hand, her round, freckled face beaming. “What’s the meaning of life?” she asked. This evoked some tentative laughter, and she smiled as if she might be joking. But after glancing around, she faced me again and waited. It would have been simple enough to avoid her question with a light remark, but I wanted to honor her sincerity. The bit of courage I needed came when I remembered Dr. Barker’s response to the same question I myself had asked a few years earlier in my quantum mechanics course. His irritated reply—“Science doesn’t deal with meaning”—left me feeling foolish. As if no real scientist would ask such a question. Only an amateurish pretender. Years later, and his words were still with me.
As I leaned back on my desk and reflected on Oona’s question, the strangest feeling arose. The students could see I had taken the question to heart. The mood in the room shifted. A tingling grew inside me. It was as if, unknown to me, I had been waiting for this, and yet I felt like a criminal faced with a forbidden act, something that should be avoided but that was too alluring to ignore.
I told the students what I thought was an important truth, that almost none of us knew our true identity. Just as amazing, we forgot that we did not know our true identity. This strange situation came from the tiny worlds in which we lived. We thought of ourselves as Americans or Chinese, as Republicans or Democrats, as believers or atheists. Each of those identities might be true, but each is secondary truth. There is a deeper truth. We are universe. The universe made us. In a most primordial way, we are cosmological beings.
Then I said it.
“To take this in, you need to ride inside the mathematical symbols.
Begin with the primal light discovered in 1964 by Penzias and Wilson. This light, this cosmic microwave background radiation, arrives here from all directions. We know that each of these photons comes from a place near the origin of the cosmos, so if we trace these particles of light backward we are led to the birthplace of the universe. Which means, since this light comes from all directions, that we have discovered our origin in a colossal sphere of light. This colossal sphere, fourteen billion light-years away from us in every direction, is the origin of our universe. And thus the origin of each of us.
[I held out my arms as if clutching a gigantic ball.]
We can speculate about what came before this colossal sphere, but I want to stick with the facts physicists have discovered. The empirical evidence points to a time fourteen billion years ago when our universe consisted of a colossal sphere made of light as well as the primal atoms of hydrogen and helium. That colossal sphere transformed itself into the stars and galaxies and everything else in the known universe.
As this sphere moves forward in time, it evolves under the action of expansion and contraction. That is, as the sphere continues to expand, particular subsets are pulled together via the attraction of gravity. This dual action of expansion and contraction set in motion the creativity that has given rise to every existing entity in the universe.
If you want to know the meaning of life, look at your hand. Energy flows through your skin and bones without which you would freeze to stone. That flow of energy in your hand came from the beginning of time. Your hand grew out of the colossal sphere like a flower rising up from topsoil. No one in the history of humanity knew that the expansion and contraction of the universe transformed primal atoms into stars and galaxies. Nor did any person know the quantum field theory and the general theory of relativity that govern this sphere of light. None of the sages or kings had the slightest notion of any of this, but now we know the mathematical dynamics by which the universe brought itself forth. Those same dynamics are coursing through us. The universe’s creativity is happening now. The exact same dynamics are at work. Our bodies churn with creativity rooted in the beginning of time.”
https://bigthink.com/thinking/cosmogenesis-meaning-of-life/
There is so much going on in this one physicist's take on the meaning of life that I find connects with some core Jewish imagery: the essential metaphor for Creation is light. That God made the Primordial light before doing anything else. That all of Creation is emanations from this primal energy, which essentially teaches that all things are one and the same: pulsing energy that goes back to the beginning of time.
And as Swimme notes, for most of humanity's history, as far as we know, no human being has had this kind of scientific knowledge, But the Rabbis think of Abraham someone who lived their life with this insight. Not in an intellectual way, but in an embodied almost visceral way. This approach to Abraham comes from the Netivot Shalom, the Slonimer Rebbe, who also lived through the insights that Swimme mentioned in his response to Oona.
Netivot Shalom
Chayei Sarah
The life of Sarah was one hundred years, and twenty years, and seven years - these were the years of Sarah’s life.
The Main Question
In Rashi: “the years of Sarah’s life” - They were are all equal in goodness. In the Sefer Irin Kadishin, from the holy Rabbi from Roszin, he raises the difficulty with the word va-yihyu, which is from the same root word as va’yehi, which for the rabbis is a term of distress. If they were are all equal in goodness, what is the matter of distress doing here? In general, why they were all equal in goodness requires explanation - because all of the days of Sarah’s life were filled with distress and suffering; how could they be all equal in goodness? The essence of the matter: for what basic purpose did the Torah write, “the years of Sarah’s life” to teach us that they were all equal in goodness, and we do not find anything like this in any other place where the Torah tells us that every single year in someone’s life was equal in goodness. Similarly this raises a question about what is written later in the portion, “And Abraham was old, advanced in days, and the Eternal blessed Abraham with all,” which is the highest level of blessing, which also we only find with regards to Abraham our Father, and not regarding anyone else.
All you need is (God’s) love
One can respond to this matter with the verse (Psalm 89): “I said a world of love shall be built,” which means that the construction of the world stands entirely on the dimension of chesed/love, and therefore the beginning of the world of tikkun was begun with Abraham our Father, who is the dimension of chesed/love - “I said a world of love shall be built." This is the topic of these portions - the portions about Abraham our Father - to teach us how by means of his chesed/love he began the world of tikkun. The unique topic of the dimension of chesed/love is as it says: God’s love is all day long (Psalm 52:3b), and like the teaching of the holy Maran from Kovrin: “Each and every day a Jew is obligated to do an act of love; not one day should pass without love, and a day that on which one does not do an act of love is not considered a day in their life.”
(ג) כִּֽי־אָמַ֗רְתִּי ע֭וֹלָם חֶ֣סֶד יִבָּנֶ֑ה שָׁמַ֓יִם ׀ תָּכִ֖ן אֱמוּנָתְךָ֣ בָהֶֽם׃
(3) I declare, “Your steadfast love is confirmed forever; there in the heavens You establish Your faithfulness.”
(3) Why do you boast of your evil, brave fellow? God’s faithfulness never ceases.
Love is like a waterfall
Like these teachings, there is in the holy Sh’la, at the end of tractate Pesachim, where he writes about the verse “I said a world of love shall be built” and “God’s love is all day long,” that the upper flow of divine energy flows through the dimension of chesed/love, and when a [person] is engaged in love, they draw down love from the heavens, and therefore he wrote that each and every day of one’s life, a [person] should be “awfully” mindful to do an act of love for their friend with their physical presence, or resources, or spiritual presence, such as learning some topic of Torah with them, or to strengthen them with a good word, and by means of that loving act, they enable God’s love to flow from the heavens.
This is why the dimension of chesed/love is unlike the other dimensions, which do not require engagement every day, because the upper flow of divine energy is “the shade of the Eternal” - when a [person] does an act of love, they drawn down to themselves love from the Heavens. This is the meaning of “God’s love is all day long,” because every day a human needs God’s love, and without God’s love, it is impossible to live or even to exist for one day; therefore one needs to be occupied with love every day in order to draw down God’s love upon themselves. This is what is written: “I said a world of love shall be built.” The dimension of love is the beginning of the world of tikkun, with both the generalities of the world and with the details of each human, who are a miniature world.
Abraham and Sarah as Sources of Love
This is the topic of the portions about Abraham our Father where the Torah tells about the greatness of Abraham our Father’s spreading out of love. (1) The beginning of Vayera, the Eternal appeared to him at Elonei Mamrei, while he was sitting at the entrance of the tent at the heat of the day. And his lifted up his eyes and saw, look, three men standing over him, and he saw and ran towards them. And like we explained this in another place, how each and every word in this portion emphasizes the greatness of Abraham our Father’s trial, for he was ill, and ignored it, and ran towards them, and even though they appeared to him as arabs, according to the Rabbis, and from here the Sages interpreted that the greatness of welcoming guests is more than welcoming the face of the Shechinah, for the holy Torah tells in this portion that this is the greatness of Abraham’s spreading out of love, for he passed on this world and the world to come for the sake of love.
(2) Afterwards, it was written in the section about Sodom how Abraham our Father risked his life to plead on behalf of the evil sinful people of Sodom.
(3) And afterwards is the portion about Sarah’s burial, whose topic is the love that Abraham our Father did for the dead, which is an act of true love, and how he immersed and tried to generate love with the purpose of glory. For the holy Torah tells all of this in these portions, the greatness of how Abraham our Father spread out love, and how from this he began to build the world of tikkun.
Rebecca/Chesed + Isaac/Gevurah = Jacob/Tiferet
Likewise this is the topic of the portion about Eliezer, Abraham’s servant, about whom the Sages said: The conversation of the servants of the ancestors is more beautiful in the presence of Ha-Makom than the Torah of sons. Apparently this is better than Torah, but the intent is to teach that we learn from this conversation of our ancestor’s servant, for Eliezer is Abraham’s servant, and if so, he is the essence of his dimension, which is the dimension of chesed/love, and one sees that the test that he sets up for Rebecca, who is also the dimension of chesed/love, as it says: “the young woman to whom he said, lower your pitcher that I may drink, and she said, drink, and also your camels I will water” - this proved to Isaac’s servant that she was the one.
The essence of this matter is that the test was all about the dimension of chesed/love, and no other matter, for he went to bring back a partner for Isaac and know that his intention was that Jacob would need to come out from them - Jacob whose dimension is tiferet/beauty, which includes chesed/love and gervurah/might, therefore he sought a partner for Isaac who would include the dimension of chesed/love, since Isaac was all gevurah/might, and when Rebecca would be all chesed/love, Jacob could come from them, who is tiferet/beauty, which includes chesed/love and gevurah/might, therefore he said, “lower your pitcher that I may drink” and she said, “drink, I also will water your camels,” which is she was completely in the dimension of chesed/love, which proved her to Isaac’s servant, that from them Jacob could come in the dimension of tiferet/beauty, which includes both chesed/love and gevurah/might.
Love Towards People vs Animals
But it is still difficult, because just as it says, “I will also water your camels,” he also could have asked to test her with watering his people, which is also an act of particular chesed/love, so why did her test her with the request to water his camels?
From this, one can learn a new pathway in the dimension of chesed/love, according the explanation of what they said in Be’er Mayim Chayim, that chesed/love and rachamim/compassion are two different levels; rachamim/compassion is awakened by the receiver [of the compassion], like when one sees a person suffering from distress and pains, this touches the heart and awakens them to help that person, and to lighten their suffering. This is a lower level than chesed/love, for truly, a loving person’s rachamim/compassion is awakened by their friend, and this is only rachamim/compassion.
Chesed/Love is about the Flow of Divine Energy
The matter of chesed/love is when a loving person, whose essence is love, always seeks to do loving acts; wherever they are, they seek only to do acts of chesed/love, and seek always those who need love in order to make things better for them. As Chazal say (B.R. 43:7) about Abraham our Father that he stood at the crossroads, and looked for guests that he could bestow chesed/love upon - this level is higher than the level of rachamim / compassion. This is similar to how the Holy Bountiful One created the nursing mother, for when she cannot bestow her divine energy flow to another, it makes her suffer, which is the way of the world, and thus a loving person cannot go out and do, causing the divine flow of love for others, suffers because of it, and then they pursue and seek out someone to whom they can bestow chesed/love. This is the level of chesed/love of Abraham our Father.
Animals arouse Love, while People arouse Compassion
Along this line of interpretation, one can say that Eliezer’s test is Rebecca’s test regarding “I will water your camels”, because people in general are compassionate, because when they see thirsty people, their compassion is awakened in them, but for animals, chesed/love is the appropriate dimension, not rachamim/compassion, for animal distress could not touch the heart more, and it is forbidden to cause animals distress, which is why there are some who say it is a Torah level prohibition connected to the dimension of chesed/love, therefore Eliezer tested her with the test of “also I will water your camels,” for this is the sign that she not only possessed rachamim/compassion but also chesed/love, and because she bestows love even upon animals, this proves she is meant for his servant Isaac. This is why the Sages say that the words of the servants of the ancestors are beautiful, for the renewal that Eliezer renewed with the quality of chesed/love.
Sarah
On the verse mentioned, one can say that the saying, “These were the lives of Sarah…the years of the lives of Sarah,” for in Rashi’s commentary they were all equal in goodness, which we have questioned, for she had lots of tribulations and suffering....
Sarah was an exemplar of Chesed like Abraham
Therefore the Holy Torah emphasized that [the years of life] were all equal in goodness applies specifically to Sarah, to teach us that the dimension of chesed/love is continued by chesed/love. For Sarah was like Abraham, and was a source of chesed/love, as the Sages say (B.R. 39:14): Abraham converted the men, and Sarah converted the women, that she was occupied with chesed/love together with Abraham. If one should ask, “Were not their lives filled with distress and suffering?” The Torah says: the years of Sarah’s life were all equal in goodness, for all of the suffering she experiences was at God’s advice and God’s knowledge to bring her to her purpose that they were all equal in goodness, that by means of them she came to a good end, that all of the House of Israel stand upon. The Torah comes to teach that a human who is immersed in chesed/love is assured chesed/love, and by means of this they continue chesed/love, for all of them are equal.
To do an daily act of love makes that day a blessing
This is also said about Abraham: “And Abraham was elderly, advanced in years, and the Eternal blessed Abraham with everything,” for after Abraham was elderly and advanced in years, every single days he did an act of love, thus he merited to be blessed in all ways, in the fullness of the blessing. This is also in the continuation of the portion, where it is written: And after Abraham died, God blessed Isaac his son,” and the Sages say (Sotah 4a): the Eternal comforted him as one would comfort a mourner, and we don’t find anywhere else God comforting a mourner, meaning because Abraham was all love, the heavens also acted towards him with special love, “God was his shade,” this is the matter of comforting mourners which is from the dimension of love. And the Torah teaches us in this portion that when a Jew does an act of love, they draw down love upon themselves, and even if they have trials and sufferings, that does not block love, all of this are the ways of the Compassionate One, in God’s goal of bringing us in the end to the purpose of Good, “and God blessed Abraham with all things.”