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October 27, 2000/28 Tammuz 5760, Vol. 53, No.5
Did God create technology?
Torah Study
GREGG ALPERT
B'reisheet/Genesis 1:1-6:8
I am always struggling to be viewed as a Jewish educator and not as a technologist. B'reisheet has nothing to do with computers or the Internet. It tells two stories about Creation, the Garden of Eden, and Cain and Abel: What more could I ask for? And yet, one gnawing question keeps troubling me: Did God create technology?
This question goes to the very heart of what it means for us to be partners with God. If a partnership is to be successful, the partners need to know what their relationship is and what their responsibilities are.
There are silent partners, equal partners, and majority partners, just to name a few. And then there are those partnerships in which the relationship is built upon mutual trust, need, and interdependence.
I believe that such is the partnership of Creation. I hereby offer the following three arguments in favor of this position.
The first is the most obvious. Genesis 1:27 says: "And God created man in God's image, in the image of God Elohim created him; male and female God created them." This triple statement about Creation and double statement about "God's image" is more than mere poetic emphasis. Prof. Gutmann in "Dat U'mada" ("Religion and Science"), notes that "the personality of humans is placed vis-ˆ-vis the personality of God."
The forces of nature are not supernatural ones that are superior to humans. But humans stand on the side of God against nature." Thus, according to Gutmann, humans and God are equal partners and together face the problems that confront the world.
Second, humans receive two blessings in this portion. One is to "be fertile and multiply" (Genesis 1:28), and the other is to have dominion over or to "rule" the earth and all that moves on or is part of it. Why such power?
Perhaps these two blessings are coupled in verse 28 to demonstrate that the power of Creation has two parts: One is to be a partner in the actual creation of life and the other is to shape the environment in a way that will protect and nurture that life.
It is important for us to also realize that as responsible inhabitants of this planet, we must be responsible partners in the process of Creation and its management.
This is what we learn from Genesis 2:15, which says that humans are responsible l'avdahu l'shomrah, (to work/serve and to guard) the land. This is what it means to be a shuta, (partner) or "co-creator."
So what is the business parallel to all of this? It is God who provides the raw materials, but it is humans who "bring a successful product to the market."
Finally, Samson Raphael Hirsch in his commentary on B'reisheet explains that all the different Hebrew roots associated with the word for bara (created), share the meaning of "striving to get out" or "bringing something out into the open."
There is a "boldness" in humans, an intelligence and drive that supersede other beings on this earth and that may be one of the most important reflections of what being created "in the image of God" means. But there is also a danger from those who are so arrogant as to believe that we humans have the power to create ex nihilo, "something from nothing."
The Torah reinforces this point by using bara to refer only to divine Creation and not to what we humans make or form.
Hirsch suggests that a proper reading of the text teaches us that it is our job to discover and uncover, to help "bring into the open" that which is hidden.
In short, the B'reisheet model of Creation serves as the foundation for the very ideal that modern Jewish thinkers see at the core of Judaism, namely, our understanding of the covenant and relationship that we have with God today, that humanity is God's partner in completing creation.
Gregg Alpert is the national director of distance education for Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles. Torat Hayim, produced by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, is on the Internet at www.uahc.org/growth.
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