Excerpt from this day’s program:
…In his book Moreh Nevukhim/Guide for the Perplexed Rambam/Maimonides who was born in 1135, spends many words refuting Aristotle over this very question. Guide for the Perplexed is the book Maimonides wrote for a disciple faced with problem of wanting to study Aristotle just like the Muslims in that period. Rambam said there was much to learn from him but not to study with the Muslims who were all mixed up. And, in particular, not to accept the Greek vision of the universe as beyond time. HaShem is beyond time. The universe was not just there but created by the G-d of Israel. It has a beginning and for the next eight centuries the scientific community agreed with Aristotle that the universe was just there. Not until the mid- 20th century did that change until astrophysicists in our time came across evidence of the Big Bang, the initial burst of the creation of everything that is. Sort of like a computer zip file, an unbelievably microscopic point that exploded and out came enough light, the basic building block of everything that is, for everything that is. Only yesterday, so to speak, science proved Aristotle wrong and the Rambam – the Torah miSinai — right… |