The God Particle (Rosh Hashanah Sermon 5773…9/17)
Fri, September 28, 2012
On July 4th, Gary and I celebrated our 36th anniversary, our nation celebrated its 236th birthday, our new grandson, Micah Ariel Perlin, the joy of our lives, celebrated the 51st day of his life, and … according to all news reports, the Higgs Boson Particle, affectionately named “The God Particle,” was announced to the world.
Since we are celebrating Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish official celebration of ‘the birthday of the world’ this morning, marked by the reading of Genesis 1, I felt compelled to address the finding of this “God particle,” as your rabbi, a practicing and believing Jew, a devoted science lover, and in my newest, greatest, and most treasured role as Savta, grandma in Hebrew.
In what is called the Standard Model of Particle Physics, scientists wrote down a mathematical ingredients list of all the particles thought to exist in nature and their properties. But when it came to mass, there was a problem. Most particles in nature have mass. But there are other particles that travel at the speed of light, which have no mass. So, the only way to explain the existence of mass was to assume that there was something that contained the particle responsible for mass.
Since the 1980s, that something was called the Higgs field, named after Peter Higgs, who worked with other brilliant men, to posit that when excited, this field would yield a particle that would be the source of mass. The Higgs Boson is that particle that results after the Higgs field is excited by a huge machine called a Large Hadron Collider.
If you imagine the pieces of the Standard Model of Particle Physics as pieces in a huge puzzle that has been completed over decades, then imagine that there was only one piece, the last piece, of the puzzle still missing, or better described — one piece that was “believed to have existed, but needed to be scientifically confirmed.”
We all know that for the entirety of human existence, God has been believed to exist, but some people believe we need confirmation, scientific proof, that God actually does exist, in order for God to be real or proven true. This summer, they announced that the final piece was finally found and they called it the “God Particle,” because it too was believed to have existed, but needed to be proven beyond any reasonable doubt. For science, it was the equivalent of a scientific Torah saying, “In the beginning there was the Higgs, and now we have been able to prove the Higgs boson particle exists, so Creation and everything we have told you about particle physics is TRUE. TaDa!
Now that I have attempted to explain the science of the God particle to you from my tragically rabbinic and limited understanding, thanks to Google and some neat YouTube tutorials, it behooves me to share with you why I care about this particle, and why I think it is important to you, today of all days.
The relatively young world of science has bred a class of humans who discount the Torah’s creation story as a myth irrelevant to the truth of the universe. Scientific reasoning divides the world into those things that are TRUE, and therefore deemed to be real, and those things that are FALSE, and therefore deemed to be non-existent. For many who may have never experienced God, reducing our world into quantifiable particles seems the more logical, rational, reasonable, and truthful way to describe how and why we exist on this planet to procreate, promulgate, and procrastinate.
For the scientifically-minded, religiously skeptical members of our species, the Higgs Boson Particle, is the closest proof that God does not exist in Torah, but resides in the Large Hadron Collider, proving that mass comes from a particle which results from asking the right questions to ascertain the TRUTH about our universe, and from working scientifically for over 40 years to get the answer to the question, “Where does mass come from?”
Scientists will confess that this miraculous particle cannot tell you anything about gravity or dark matter, but that is because they have longed to complete the Standard Model of Particle Physics, knowing full well that someday, it too, will be replaced with a new and improved theory of how the universe came to be.
Scientists will also admit that they cannot answer the eternal questions humanity has been asking for millennia like “What pre-existed The Beginning? What pre-existed our planet and every particle in the Encyclopedia of Particles? They can’t explain the source of love, the soul, and the other important questions humanity has been asking since the beginning of time:
Why are we here? How did it all begin?
What is our purpose? Why do we love?
Why is there evil? good? heartache? joy?
How can I achieve happiness? fulfillment?
a sense of purpose and a feeling of worth?
Science lives in a true-false world, asking true-false questions. I love that world, but recognize the limitations of the questions it asks. Religion, faith, and belief ask a different set of questions, which, in my opinion, are equally as valid and important to our human existence. In fact, for some of us, these existential questions are more important.
We know we have weight, lots of it, while on too many days faith, happiness, and hope elude us. In essence, religion and science are two worlds, equally valuable, living side by side. And I will tell you that the discovery of the Higgs Boson, the “God” particle, confirms my faith in a Creator God, contrary to what the exclusively scientifically-minded might say.
On page B2 of the Washington Post’s Faith Page on July 14th, Rick Wingrove, Chief Executive of Beltway Athiests, Inc., extolled the victory for science with the finding of “the God particle.” He stated,
“The discovery is yet another demonstration of scientific methodology as the scrupulous process by which humankind acquires and authenticates all knowledge. The importance of this becomes more obvious when contrasted against the current resurgence of rabid religionism, especially the unabashed and exuberant anti-intellectualism of those who assert that they hold special knowledge, supplied by talkative deities, and who strive to supplant Science with bronze age origin fables.”
He continues, “The illiterate sheep herders of the Middle East, upon whose wisdom many people base their worldview, were wrong about the size, shape, structure, location, formation, behavior, age and relative importance of Earth. In the absence of science, they operated on superstition. It’s not that they didn’t know the right answers, they didn’t even know the questions. Rather than real knowledge, they produced urban legends and destructive cultural behaviors that plague mankind to this day.
The discovery of the Higgs boson is new high ground in that struggle and pushes our understanding of the universe out to a new horizon. Higgs is a big win for science and for the smart people who know more than just answers, they know the right questions to ask.”
Mr. Wingrove, thank you for your words, as I consider myself one of those smart people. I have been asking wonderful questions for my entire life. In fact, asking questions is the foundation of Jewish thought, Torah, Talmud, and philosophy. I am not sure what you consider the “right” question to be, but I can assure you that for me, the right question deepens our understanding of not only how we got here, and who we are, and what we are made of, but even more importantly for me, WHY we are here.
I love science. I’d love to be the first grandma/rabbi in space. And I love this Rosh Hashanah day, called, Yom Harat HaOlam, the day of the Creation of the World for us to be inspired by Creation’s complexity, and its predictability. Imagine knowing a God particle exists and spending decades to prove it! I love the God particle, I love God, and this God’s holy day of Rosh Hashanah, as they all fit into the perfect and Divinely natural order of my universe.
Our Torah portion teaches us at its core, beyond the metaphor, that the world has order and that all of the elements of creation are intertwined into a magnificently balanced network of unbelievable precision and awe-inspiring wonder. For that reason, I marvel at the discovery of the latest God particle, to explain God’s creative genius.
This Rosh Hashanah day is a day for each one of us, as we come into this sanctuary, leaving our daily lives filled with questions (and answers) that confound us, and make demands upon us, to take stock of who we are as human beings, examining our actions and feelings, our deeds and our demons, in ways that no microscope could ever accomplish.
Whether we believe that God has a Book of Life and sits in judgment as fact or metaphor, we know, with absolute certainty, that human beings who are accountable for their actions and repentant for their misdeeds are asking important questions that will result in answers and actions that will benefit themselves and humankind. For even in our most scientific moments, we know, we need, we label the foundational part of our existence with the word “God.” We need and want to know that at our core is a miraculous particle of existence that makes us special and offers us answers. This day is our day to discover, reclaim, rediscover, or uncover the God particle within all of us.
We have witnessed the godless Hitlers and Hamans who answered to no One and who played God, rather than find that “God particle within” that makes us more than mass, weight, protons, neutrons and bosons — that makes us human, breathing beings who love and hate, capable of good and evil; life-givers when we activate the God particle with in us, and tragically life-takers when we ignore the God particle within that teaches us to sanctify life, cherish differences, and embrace the “other” who is also created in God’s image. Throughout history, and even in recent days, there are those who murder in the name of what they call ‘God,’ distorting the word of God in order to perpetuate their hate, ignorance, bigotry, and self-interest in God’s name. They don’t answer to God or activate the God particle within, they use their take on religion or politics to put forth their own agenda, not God’s.
We are more complex than any MRI or X-ray can reveal. And we are each so unique in the way we are made and the unique way in which we respond to the stimuli of our world. This Rosh Hashanah day evokes every sense of our carbon-based, water-filled bodies, as we stand to hear the shofar and feel its notes reside deep within us, causing the ultimate stimulation of our religious or spiritual field. For whether it is what we see, or hear, or say, or pray at this service which moves us to be better, kinder, gentler, more compassionate beings, the shofar calls us to reckoning, accountability, and a life of truth and justice for all people. Humans cannot be placed in Large Hadron Colliders to discover our component parts. But, the shofar calls us to reveal the God particle within us.
Knowing that there is a particle that completes the Standard Model of physics is a wonder and testimony to modern science and should inspire our society to fund scientific research and exploration with more than the pittance we offer to the great minds dedicated to uncovering new worlds, as God has endowed us to do.
(Pause)
For all my lifelong study and knowledge, for the tens of thousands of books I have read in the past 50+ years, nothing prepared me for the moment of holding my grandson in my arms for the first time. In that one moment, my life’s work, my faith, my love for my husband and children, my capacity for love, my passion for living, my reason for being, all came together in an emotion greater than the sum of any component particles in any super-collider. And I have no doubt whatsoever, that God wanted this child to be born. I have no doubt that our lives will forever be changed by his existence.
I have felt that amazing power of life with every baby I have named, every baby you have brought into your lives, with every Bar or Bat Mitzvah child I have blessed, with every Mi Shebeirach I have recited … and yes, with every person I have laid to rest after a life lived with love and caring. We Jews have shouted “L’chaim!” – “To Life!” for thousands of years, in the face of hardship and adversity. And this day of all days, celebrates that affirmation of the God particle in all of us that calls us to be so very grateful for life and love, and the wonders of creation.
On those days when you have doubts about life, or love, or work, or friendship, … at those moments when your path seems uncertain, life seems so unfair, and the future seems bleak, … when you look back and feel that the best has been and hope is lost, THIS DAY, is a day that calls upon you to find that “God particle” deep within you, the reason and source of your being, to say that whatever moments are left and whatever the future holds, yesterday, today, and tomorrow are sacred moments of life, even when pain and sorrow fill our souls. “L’chaim!”
For each day of creation, we are told that “God saw that it was good.” But, when human beings were created, we are taught that God responded that “it was VERY GOOD.” We were created special in this miraculous and complex universe. How can we not believe in God when we who went to school only knowing protons, neutrons and electrons, now live in a world with particles much smaller and technology much greater than many of us could ever have imagined?
How can I not believe in God, when I have the privilege of standing at the Torah with Ethan Pedlikin, who will have his Bar Mitzvah on this bimah in a few weeks? Ethan is loved and cherished by his family and his temple family. He learned Hebrew and reads the actual words of our sacred scroll with devotion, just as every one of our children has done. Ethan may have been born with Down’s Syndrome, but as he read the Torah last week practicing for his big day, he revealed the God particle within him and the Jewish soul he has been given, and God saw that it was VERY GOOD.
In those critical moments of life, when we witness miracles of modern science or old-fashioned love and courage, when new life comes into our world, or when we are on the precipice of life or death, we know and feel and sense something greater than all the particles in the laboratories, and all the answers of modern science. It is in those moments that we find the wisdom of our tradition embraced by those ancient sheepherders of the Middle East who looked into the heavens seeking answers (and finding them), just as we do today. For no matter how many facts are at hand, we control so much of our destiny and our happiness. And I do know in my heart that the greatest truths the world has and will ever know reside within the Torah, within traditions, within us, not in some laboratory of concrete and steel.
When I held my grandson, Micah, for the first time, I was overcome with emotions and feelings that no scientist could ever explain. When Micah smiles at me, my heart fills with joy and wonder, and the world is perfect. Every child deserves the best we can offer from this world. Every child deserves food, health care, shelter, and peace. Every living, breathing child deserves to be loved, cherished, and cared for as a gift from God. Every living person deserves dignity and respect. We are each children of God and B’nai Shalom, children of peace.
Torah has never been in our lives to teach us scientific truths, nor does it exist to compete or contradict those truths. Torah teaches us to marvel at the awesome power of nature, science, and this cosmos. Our Jewish tradition and wisdom has sought to guide our lives to honor creation, creative genius, creativity of thought and action, and yes, our Creator.
Our faith inspires us to be the best human beings we can be, to ask the important questions in every age. When a child sits at a seder and asks “Mah Nishtana halaila hazeh?” – “Why is this night different from all other nights?” – that is the most important question of our universe, at that moment in time. For in asking that question, in preserving the age-old traditions l’dor vador, all of us continue to have greater meaning and purpose. As Tevya wisely said, “Without our traditions our lives would be as shaky.. as a Fiddler on the Roof!”
Judaism has and must always continue to inspire and challenge us to be the best we can be. Not every Jew will be Einstein or uncover the next “God particle,” but we can all aspire to activate the “God particle” that always resides within us. We know it is there, to complete our personal puzzle. And since July 4th there is just a little more proof that it is.
May this New Year help you to reveal the God particle within you. May your heart be filled with love, your life be filled with healing and hope, wonder and possibility. And may your mind enable you to ask all the questions of life, so that you can discover the answers you seek, as the wonders of God’s creation are revealed. L’chaim!