There are constant discussions on the theory of evolution and religious believes. Sometimes it even reaches a full blown war where certain school decides to ban either the religious teaching or the teachings of Darwin.

Kabbalah offers another perspective that doesn’t negate any of Darwin’s findings but rather offer a different explanation to them.

It is not the claim that men evolved from monkeys that is rejected by the kabbalah it is the explanation that the evolution and the changes of the species is blind, i.e has no plan.

You might enjoy reading the explanation that Rabi Leitman offers to the evolution question it is clear and easy to understand. His answer is here.

I read his blog regularly but I missed this post and only reached it after checking the Kabbalah for women and seeing the link there.

The higher explanation is that there is a divine plan. Even that first monkey was bound to evolve over time and become a human been.

There are no blind accidents in nature. Each thing carries its own specific light by what Rabi Leitman calls the spiritual gene (Rashimo is the common kabalic term).

It is the ability to evolve as written in our structure from the start that causes us to evolve and not just the absence of food, mere chance or other random circumstances.

Found this interesting explanation in a lecture of Michael Berg.

You can view the entire lecture here.

The ever present process of bringing the shadows and the dark into the surface so we can better recognize it and transform it into light is a very deep process that teaches us not to be afraid or to run away from the dark but rather observe it and connect it to the light.

If you are interested in reading a fascinating discussion on the ways we think of god now in relation to the way our forefathers used to think on god then I really recommend joining the debate that John Hobbins hosts at his blog.

There are many discussions that link the scientific thought to the religious one, one of this attempts that I happened to read recently is a doctoral work exposing the religious cosmological setting of Newton.

I never knew that Newton has writings other than the strictly scientific ones but I guess that each scientist can have a separate set of moral, spiritual or religious believes that co-exists with his scientific work.

I believe that there is a basic bridge between both ways of thinking that we find at the individual scientist and in the society as a whole as the expansion of science co-exists with the expansion of moral, spiritual and religious thought.

Can we create a balanced middle? I guess we’ll have to to avoid expanding the split between our rational part - in kabbalah terms the masculine part and the spiritual part - the feminine part.

They are both important, they are both wise and they are both in a state of separation and in desperate need of the sacred marriage of the masculine and feminine so they can give birth to something new the balanced embodiment of our divine qualities.

You can see it in the tree of life with the right and left side merging in a balanced way in the Malchuth

I write a lot about faith and in particular about Jewish faith and as part of the deal I deal with behaviors of strictly religious communities such as the Haredis, personally I can’t say that I understand them.

With my knowledge in Judaism and Kabbalah I’m probably supposed to be able to explain much more than I really can about these unique communities, all I can really say is that they are a mystery to me.

I can understand some part the typical daily schedule, the practice of the Mitzva’s even if I disagree at the close conservative ways they are interpreted most of the time. There are many other things that I don’t get for example denying the children the chance of a real education just so they won’t have to be exposed to what other people know, think or believe it. As I see it there is a lot to gain from a dialogue and seclusion is something you choose when you can’t really defend yourself or when you feel that under open discussion you might realize that stagnation is not really the way to go.

There are many things that I can’t understand such as Haredi’s communities around the world that would shelter criminals that are escaping justice such as in this story.

Why would a community offer shelter to someone that can put it at risk not because they want to judge him themselves but because they want to help him escape the law.

There is nothing in Judaism or in Kabbalah that can justify such behavior, so there must be other explanations.

Sometimes it is really hard to see how people that are supposedly spiritual and in contact with their divine part are acting in ways that would destruct them at the end by taking away their purity and moral justification.

Sure we all do it from time to time doing the wrong things from the wrong reasons but exercising the power of resistance is the way to enable us some growth, development and light all these require us to be fully aware to what we are doing and for the reasons we are doing it for. When we are in full awareness the healing can occur.

I can only hope that people of all convictions would stop running from the simple but important task of looking at themselves and work with what they see instead of saying it is not there and if it is there I better hide it. No gain comes from running away from reality only a spiral of detachment from yourself and the world around you.

I couldn’t help but bring this book cover to emphasize the point I’m trying to make.

I’ve been exposed to all kind of discussions regarding the existence of God, the creation of the world and the importance of science and I found myself facing the academic world as just another aspect of the continued discussion that people love to have.

The belief that science describes reality has never contradicted the belief in the world being a result of God creation in Judaism unlike many Christians we were never in a competition.

In fact you are going to find many more orthodox Jews in the life sciences departments in universities around the world than devout Christians the reason is simple, we believe that God love science that the sharpness of our minds and our ability to see and understand our world in new perspective is a gift to be savored.

Many of the challenges that science sets for religion for example evolution and the age of the universe are really hardly a problem. The cosmic days were never claimed to last 24 human hours they can easily co relate to eons and evolution only make us more aware of the processes of growth and development and are appreciated for the wisdom and beauty of all lives that is revealed through them.

Knowledge doesn’t have to be used to replace or cancel the importance of love. Sometimes it seems that the stronger we feel the more we feel the need to “put others in their place”. The competition between ID, creationist and all the other forms of explanation as they are shown here to name just the last example for such a discussion is just an example of asking the wrong questions and overlooking the complexity of the answers which are always much more complex and multileveled then some  of usare willing to acknowledge.