Kabbalah, Evolution and Intelligent Design

BS"D

Chanukah, 5766 - The Israeli Center, Jerusalem

Lecture 5

Transcript of seminar by Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh Shlita

 

As we mentioned yesterday and the day before, the conclusion now, we’re reaching the climax, is to discuss what biology calls the yet unsolved riddle of evolutionary biology, which is why nature, why G-d created sex and didn’t create things asexually and according to the biologists, according to genetics, it would have been much better if there were only females. The birth rate would have been twice as much, meaning that there is a 50% “cost,” for the fact that almost all organisms are sexual rather than asexual. That’s the problem. So there are five different hypotheses that are presently researched. None of them are solid, water-proof proofs, and that’s why even after all these five different hypotheses the scientists still say that this is yet the unsolved problem of evolution. So we’ll presently go through all five of them and try to give them some form, as we always attempt to do.

But first, we’ll start by reading a Midrash. As we have alluded to in the previous talks, the Midrash is the tikkun koach hamedameh. Biology is the koach hamedameh which is not yet rectified and the Midrash is the rectified koach hamedameh.

Asexual reproduction is called cloning. This is now a very shtark, a strong ethical question, whether genetic engineers should start to clone human beings. So yesterday we learned that Adam Harishon was created achor vakedem tzartani, back and front - that is the verse that is quoted, we didn’t actually mention it last night. Achor vakedem tzartan. and since the achor appears before the kedem it means there is something more primary about the back, so if any of the women were offended that the woman is the back and the man is the face, so we see that the verse actually precedes the back before the face. And even though we said that all of evolution is a female phenomenon, or a female syndrome, even, that part of evolution, a spiritual evolution which is not dealt with by the scientists, that the worlds first descend in an evolutionary manner and then what evolution talks about is the beginning of the ascent. So we said that also, we said that’s relative male and female. Even the male part is also just the male part of the female cycle, because the whole cycle is in general a female phenomenon. As soon as the heavens descend to earth, then the earth, which is called adamah...

[This is also a very simple point that we didn’t explicitly state yesterday.]

Adam was created afar min ha’adamah. Adam is the only creature that is named after the earth (his name reflects his essence). Adam comes from the same root as adamah. He also has something red about him, because adam also means red, redness. So Adam is afar min ha’adamah. [The dust that we were talking about in the previous classes, also, its dust from the earth.]

The difference between the Creation of adam and the other animals in the second account of Creation is that Adam is created afar min ha’adamah and all of the other animals are just created min ha’adamah, it says, but not afar min ha’adamah. That’s the difference in the phraseology of the Torah between the creation of adam. But all of them come from adamah, and adamah is actually the feminine form of adam. I might have even expected that Eve should have been called Adamah. As we said yesterday, the idiom, it’s a common idiom in all languages, ‘mother earth’, just like ‘mother nature’. In the normal terminology of the Zohar, we could theoretically find, ihu adam, ihi adamah. He is man and she is earth. Actually Chazal say this explicitly, there’s an idiom throughout the Talmud, many times in the Talmud, that the woman is called karka olam, the essence of the earth. Now, another simple point that’s made throughout Chassidut, quoted also in previous sources, is that the very word adam, besides being a derivative form of ‘earth”, means edameh l’elyon. Edameh l’elyon means “I will become similar to the One on High”, meaning I strive and aspire to be like G-d. So that’s exactly the interpretation that we said previously in the name of the Malbim especially, that the tzelem elokim, the image of G-d, means the aspiration, the or chozer, to return to G-d, that’s the meaning of the tzelem elokim. So once more, that thought is explicit in his name, he’s the high point of creation, yet he is named after the earth out of which all creation sprouts, all life forms sprout, so he’s there in the essence of the earth in a feminine mode because adamah is the feminine mode of adam and he means aspiration, from the Earth up, edameh l’elyon. Again that’s exactly the motivating force we’ve been speaking about that carries all of evolution upwards until ultimately reaching the Creator.

The Midrash continues the thought that we also said yesterday, that Adam was initially created androgynous, because only by Adam does it say zachar unkeivah bara otam, that he was created male and female and Chazal say that male and female means in the very same body. There was one body but the body had two aspects, it was bi-sexual, as we said the verse for this is achor v’kedem tzartani and we see that there’s an advantage to the achor because achor appears in the phraseology of the verse before kedem. Back and face, You formed me, You created me. Another important thing, to clarify a point of yesterday, we said that if male energy would be isolated from female energy, then the male energy would have no relationship whatsoever to time and to cycles, it would be purely abstract, purely in the world of Atzilut, but fortunately, this actually comes from the fact that G-d consulted with His heart, with His own heart as we quoted last night, also from the Midrash. Fortunately, G-d has a desire, a passion to dwell below, and the fact that G-d the Creator Himself has the passion to dwell below and that we create for Him a dwelling place below, that gives a male also the passion to leave his isolated state, of transcendent... as we’ll go on to explain much more, darcho shel ish l’chazer acher haisha, he voluntarily, with tremendous volition and will, puts himself, thrusts himself into the cycle of evolution or into the cycle of time, and into the female mode. In other words, the male, who otherwise would be in a totally different mode, nonetheless desires, it’s called ???bo yavo tzaddik v’niskra???, to thrust himself, to become part, and to identify himself and unify himself with the female.

Okay, so first Adam was created as an androgynous and then G-d had to create, to split apart, its called the n’sira, but here we’re going to read a Midrash that doesn’t talk about the n’sira, the Torah says that Eve was created from Adam and the Torah, the verse, the famous verse in the Torah reads Vayiven Hashem Elokhim et hatzela … That Hashem constructed, the normal translation of the word vayiven means to construct, to build, that Hashem constructed the woman, from the tzela. What does the tzela mean? So, it’s usually translated into English as his rib. That’s one interpretation, that’s actually the interpretation of the Midrash that we’re going to read. Rashi quotes another opinion that it doesn’t mean a rib, it means just a side, as we said before that she was one side of him so there had to be a “sawing” process, to saw off a side. But according to another opinion in Chazal it really does mean a rib. (Some people think that the rib interpretation is only a goyish interpretation. That’s not true.) The rib is one of two opinions in Chazal what the word tzela means. If she was created from the rib it means there was an operation that had to take place. That not only did Hashem have to saw off a part or a side (a tzela can mean a side), He had to operate. He had to take out the rib. Now to take out a rib lends itself very well to the next verse that Adam says “Zot hapa’am etzem me’atzamai ubasar mibsari”. When you take out a rib or even part of a rib you have bone and flesh covering the bone. Afterwards, Adam says “This time a bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh. This is my wife to be.”

So once more, that lends itself very well to the rib interpretation. When you take out a rib you take it out with a little bit of the flesh covering the rib. How, nowadays, would we call taking out a part of the body and then creating from that part of the body a whole body? I would call that cloning.

So now we have a Midrash here in front of us that very very clearly says that the creation of Eve was a cloning process from man, from Adam. Meaning, that first they were together but then rather than a sawing process, a dissection (the normal vision is that its simply a dissection) but here we’re going to see that there’s a tremendously (once more this is called tikkun koach hamedameh), strong support that Eve was created by a cloning process, and Chazal were so insightful here that they say that she could have been cloned from any cell of his body. Why? Because every cell has DNA, has the genetic code of the whole body. Once more, what do we know now? We know that every cell in the body possesses the genetic code of the entire body. So, if you want to clone someone from an existing body, you can take any cell. So then the question is: why did G-d choose this particular place? He could have cloned her from any place.

So now after this let’s read the Midrash. Reb Yehoshua the sichnin b’shem Reb Levi amar, vayiven k’tiv…The Midrash here interprets the word vayiven not to ‘construct’ but to ‘contemplate’. We know that from the word vayiven in a different Midrash, in the Midrash just before this Midrash, the word vayiven’s also taken to mean “understanding,” milashon binah, rather than construction, building, in the physical sense but the first Midrash says that it means understanding because the woman was given a greater measure of understanding than the man.

The very fact that a woman has more understanding than a man, the Midrash, the previous Midrash, just before this, also there are 3 different ways to explain how a woman has more understanding than a man.

One very important way that is not usually quoted but that is worth saying, is that a woman, and it also relates to what we’re going to read now, is that a woman stays at home and knows everything by herself, whereas a man, he only learns... a man goes out, goes to work, has contact with other people, has contact with the world, so the Midrash says that a man’s understanding... (here there’s no distinction between wisdom and understanding, its just talking about native intelligence) ..it says that the native intelligence of male requires a lot of contact with environment but female wisdom, native intelligence, requires no contact with environment. What’s the word I would use for that? I would call that intuition, that’s called women’s intuition. Women know things by intuition. Men don’t know things by intuition, they only know things by experience. So we see also the whole concept of the rectified koach ham’demeh, that’s definitely a mother intuitive concept so that was the way that Chazal read the word vayiven in the previous Midrash, that vayiven comes from Binah and binah yeteirah nitna la’isha. The woman was given more native understanding, or native intelligence, than the male. Now, this Midrash says the same thought, that vayiven rather than meaning construction means understanding, but in a different way. Vayiven, the literal verb is not going on, it doesn’t say G-d gave Binah. It says vayiven, that G-d vayiven, the subject of the verb is the Creator.

If we’re going to translate the word v’yiven, that it comes from the word to understand, or to contemplate, so the more literal pshat is that it is referring to the Creator. So what did G-d have to contemplate?

That’s what it says there, it says He had to contemplate, hitbonen me’ayin livrotah, He had to contemplate where to clone her from, that was His contemplation. We can clone her from anyplace in the body, we can take any cell, but I have to now make a decision, where am I going to clone her from? Hitbonen, meaning that that’s the deep understanding that’s involved in the creation (which means the very essence) of Eve. Where is the best place to create Eve from? So obviously that depends upon what is the objective in her creation?

So now, let’s now continue our thought. According to the modern scientists, since the genetic code exists in every cell, what difference does it make? It’ll all come out the same. So we’ll see here from Chazal that that’s not exactly the case, that it will be almost, again there’s an amazing, a dramatic, amazing knowledge here, that is known that the truth is, that Chazal will say that it really, in a certain external sense will come out all the same, but in a much more inner sense, if you clone from a certain particular cell of one of the limbs of the body that there’s going to be a predominant influence of that part of the body that you took the cell from.

Alright, so now let’s read it.

So Hashem had to contemplate, vayiven Hashem Elokim et hatzela. He had to contemplate where to clone her from and He decided that the best place is a rib with a little bit of bone and a little bit of flesh. So He said like this amar lo evra otah min harosh shelo tehei meyakeret rosha.

First G-d said, His first thought ‘maybe I’ll clone her from Adam’s head’. Then He said to Himself, “no I’m not going to clone her from Adam’s head because she’ll be too high fluted, too high-headed.” It’s called meyakeret rosha. She’ll be too haughty if I create her from his head.

Lo min haayin shelo tehei sakranit. “I’m not going to take a cell out of Adam’s eye, and create her from the cell from the eye because if I create her from the eye she’s going to be too curious. We’ll have to explain this.

Velo min ha’ozen shelo tehei tzaitanit. I’m not going to create her from a cell from the ear, because if I create her from the ear she’s going to be too “listening,” too much listening to what’s going on, tzaitanit.

Velo min hapeh she lo tehei dabranit. I’m certainly not going to create her from a cell from the mouth, she already talks enough. If I create her from the mouth, chaval al hazman(!!!), shelo tehei dabranit.

Velo min halev. “I’m also not going to create her from Adam’s heart, she lo tehei kitanit,” so she won’t be overly jealous. Jealousy is in the heart. So in order that she not be jealous, I’m not going to create her from the heart.

Velo min hayad she lo tehei meshamshanit. I’m not going to create her from a cell from the hand, because then she’s going to go around feeling everything.

V’lo min haregel. I’m not going to create her from the foot because then she’s going to be yatzonit, parsanit, then she’s going to walk, to just like to walk, to walk around, to go out of the house …

Alright, so how many things did He say? How many things did G-d have to first have a hava amina and deny? This is G-d’s contemplation in creating Eve and each one, if He says I’m not going to create her from this place, it means that He had a hava amina, a thought that this is a good place to create her from. There must also be pesukim for the hava amina, like if the woman is intended to be an eishet chayil ateret ba’alah so He should maybe create her from the skull - that’s her intention.

If she’s intended to have a good eye, not an ayin hara, so create her from there and so forth and so on.

Certainly to have a hava amina to create her, there are good things about eyes and ears and mouth and heart, certainly heart. We said even last night that woman is very often called the heart, like the heart of G-d. That we said yesterday. If her function is also to implement things like we said Aba amar v’Ima osa. So then she could be created from the hand or from the foot. Certainly there’s a hava amina for each of them, but G-d negates them one after the other.

How many are there? Seven. Kol hashviin chavivin.

1. I’m not going to create her from the head.

2. I’m not going to create her from the eye.

3. I’m not going to create her from the ear.

4. I’m not going to create her from the mouth.

5. Not create her from the heart.

6. Not create her from the hand.

7. Not create her from the foot.

You can figure out how much that all equals together. It’s a very beautiful gematria. Seven things G-d has a hava amina and then He denies, and then He says: Where am I going to create her from? From the rib. I have to operate, to take out a little bit of the rib. Why? Why is the rib the optimal place to clone Eve from? Ella mimakom tzanua baadam.. I’ll take her from the most modest place in the anatomy of man. The most modest place is the rib, the rib is inside, you don’t see it at all. That’s why I have to operate to get it, but the rib symbolizes tzniut and since of all the things that you can say about a woman, the most important thng is tzniut. Because of this tzniut... that itself goes back to what we said in the previous Midrash because tzniut goes together with her native intuition. That she doesn’t have to look around and hear and come into too much contact with... that could even affect the intuition negatively. It could damage her sense of intuition. Her greatness is her ability to intuit without anything. That’s part and parcel, or interdependent, on her modesty. So I’m going to create her from the most modest part of the body which is a rib. Afilu b’shaah sheadam omed eirom  hamakom mechuse, “even if a person stands naked you don’t see the rib.” The rib is covered up because it’s inside the body so it’s the most modest part of the body.

So now, what does it say? So what did G-d do? He took a cell, we’ll call it, a little bit piece. Obviously He didn’t damage Adam. He took a little piece of his rib - bone and flesh - and He created a woman from it. He has to create the whole partzuf, the whole figure, all of the limbs of the body from this little rib cell, so that’s what He did. V’hakol eiver v’eiver shehaya  borei ba...

Now this is also called creation. Cloning or taking a cell, that a cell develops into a whole body, that’s a creative process so it says that every limb that He created in her from this cell, He said, G-d said, (we said that bichlal man is someone that G-d speaks to, also He wants to hear response). In any event, G-d, to every limb that He created in her hayah omer lah tehei isha tzenua, tehei isha tzenua, “please be a modest woman, be a modest woman” because I’m creating you from the rib, from the most modest part in the body. What does the Midrash conclude?  Af al pi chen, vatifreu kol atzati. With all of the caution and all of the contemplation that G-d went to, it didn’t work. It didn’t work. Lo azar klum. It quotes a verse in Mishlei, vatifreu kol atzati, lo barati otah min harosh, I didn’t create her from the head in order that she shouldn’t be haughty. V’harei hi meyakaret et roshah, shene’emar, vatelchu benot tzion netuot garon that the, it’s talking about the Daughters of Zion, the not good Daughters of Zion that went with a haughty, uplifted head.

Velo min haayin v’harei hi mesakranit. I didn’t create her from the ayin in order that she shouldn’t be overly curious, to go around looking at things. She n’amar mesakrot einayim. But then the verses says about, in the same verse that they go around mesachrot einayim which is here interpreted as sakranut.

So these first two things, its actually talking about bnot tzion that are not necessarily tzadikot, it appears to be just the opposite. But now the last five things, this is what’s amazing, in the last five examples of how it didn’t work the women there are explicit women that are quoted and they’re all some of the greatest women of all times. velo min haozen veharei Sara m’hapetach   ohel I didn’t create Eve from the ear in order that she shouldn’t go around listening to gossip and what’s going on and here it says in the Torah that Sarah Imeinu, the first Jewish woman, the greatest tzaddeikes of all times, was listening to what the malachim were talking with Avraham. She was inside the tent and she was paying attention to, she was listening to what her husband and the guests were talking about, so bichlal it didn’t work.

Velo min hapeh, I didn’t create her from the mouth that she shouldn’t overly talk. V’harei hi dabranit sheneemarvatedaber Miryam. Besides the fact that in a different place it says that she has 9/10 of speech, but here dabranit means negative, lashon hara. And who do we find that by, that she’s a dabranit? By Miriam, it says that, vatedaber Miryam, that she spoke against her own brother, against Moshe Rabbeinu. So it didn’t work.

And then it says, I didn’t create her from the heart so that she shouldn’t be jealous, but it didn’t work. Sheneemar vatkanei Rachel b’achota. We find that Rachel was jealous of her sister.

I didn’t create her  from the hand in order that she shouldn’t go around touching things, sheneemar vatignov Rachel et haterafim here we have two, Rachel comes up twice, it says that she was a mishomshonit and even Rashi quotes this in the Torah. Before they ran away from Lavan so she took the, his idols, his traphim.

Velo min haregel vehari hi parsanit. I didn’t create her from the foot in order that she shouldn’t go out, sheneemar vateitzei Dinah, but Dinah was a parsanit. V’teitzei Dina. Again this is an amazing thing, even the commentaries have a hard time explaining this. First of all because Chazal, in another place, say that all these exceptions were l’sheim shamoyim. Of these five ones that come from great women. so the only way to get around that problem is, is that even though it was l’sheim shamoyim nonetheless it reflects a certain characteristic or, once more in biology they call it a certain character that that relates to these negative things even though it was l’sheim shamoyim.

So again what do we learn now from this whole Midrash all together? That no matter what cell you’re going to clone from you’re going to get the genetic code and have everything there. So the deep lesson is that you can’t avoid all the properties of the eye, and all the properties of the ear and of the head, of all the other limbs if you take out the cell from the rib. Even though you’re taking it because you want her to be isha tzenua, and G-d knows that it’s a problem because He took it from there because it’s the most modest place, but knowing that it’s a problem every limb that He created He had to say tehei isha tzenua, tehei isha tzenua and at the end no matter how much He first contemplated, no matter much He first addressed her and begged her tehei isha tzenua, tehei isha tzenua, it didn’t work 100% even in the greatest the tzadkaniot of all times. Because, once more, because every cell has the genetic code of all the cells.

Okay, so this is a very beautiful and deep Midrash about cloning. We can find all of the present understanding of genetics, and genetic engineering in this, in this Midrash that we just now read.

Okay so now we’re going to explain what are the five hypotheses. Once more, according to the scientists you lose 50% of the population, of the potential population by sexual reproduction. So again, what did we now read? We read first there was a bisexual state, the original state of Adam, then there was an asexual process, which is the creation of Eve, cloning, and then for all time after, and that’s exactly what the Torah emphasizes, al cen, ya’azov ish et aviv ve’et imo v’davak b’ishto vehayu l’basar echad, from that moment of time on reproduction was sexual.

So actually the Torah outlines three stages, first a bisexual being, then an asexual reproduction, but just one time, and then for all time to come, sexual reproduction. So the question is why does nature, as we said, we can always replace ‘nature’ by G-d, why does nature select sexual reproduction over the very, very possible asexual reproduction that would give twice as many offspring according to a simple genetic calculation.

Alright, so the five hypotheses: the way we’re going to first order them is not the way we’re going to order them according to Kabbalah and Chassidut, we’re going to give them a model, but its very, very important to order them in the way they’re presented in the textbook, because the textbook has its scientific logic to it so first we’ll state these five hypotheses and none of them are solid as the scientists themselves recognize, and the textbook quotes them in a certain order and that’s the order we’re going to quote.

Hypothesis 1 Hypothesis 2 Hypothesis 3	Genetic Constraint. Evolutionary Rate of Increase. Group Selection.
Hypothesis 4 Hypothesis 5	The Mutational Theory of Sex. Co-Evolution and Rapid Environmental Change.

So now we’ll explain what these five things mean. Once more this is the order that’s presented in the textbook. Between Group Selection, between the first three and the last two, there’s a line to be drawn because the first three have something in common and the last two have something in common.

Genetic Constraint means that after there has been a mutation that results in sexual reproduction there’s a constraint, it’s hard to mutate back because everything begins asexually. It means that in order for things to become sexual there had to be a mutation, that all of a sudden sex arose. Once that mutation is present there is a certain constraint that it is hard genetically to go back to an asexual state. That’s called, that thought, it’s all dimayon, once more, as we explained. Somebody thought up that “maybe it’s hard,” there’s another simpler phrase they use, that “when sex arises you’re stuck with it!” It means there’s something about sex that you can’t do away with it. So as soon as the mutation arises, that’s it. Even though you could have done better without it, and once more, nature does away with negative mutations, nonetheless there’s something special about this particular mutation that its hard to do away with it. It’s called ‘you’re stuck with it’. Now of all the hypotheses, this hypothesis is the most unliked. Nonetheless we do like this as we’ll explain al pi pnimiut. This is a hypothesis, but more than all the others, it has been rejected. On what grounds has it been rejected? For the simple reason that, mah pitom? Who says it is hard to mutate back to an asexual state? Its easy, its just one gene that needs to change. It’s not a hard process at all. You’re not stuck with sex, you can just mutate out of it, really simple. So that’s what they think now. This is all based upon genetics, upon a certain amount of basic knowledge of genetics that we believe the professors know about. So even though there was this hypothesis that maybe there’s something about sex that you can’t mutate out of it, or its hard to mutate out of it, that is more or less rejected nowadays, nonetheless it is retained even in a simple textbook as the first of the five hypotheses about the reason for sex in nature.

Before we start identifying these with the sefirot, let’s try just to understand what this means abstractly. Each one of these can be given meaning in our service of Hashem.

This hypotheses is saying that  is something atzmi that when you reach this stage of al ken ya’azov  ish et aviv ve’et imo v’davak b’ishto vehayu l’basar echad, that’s such an essential property, that you become [“stuck” with it.] To be stuck with something can mean several things. It can either have a bad connotation, like you’re addicted to it. There’s something genetically that if a person, once more, as soon as there’s sex, the genes are addicted to it, and you just can’t get over it.

There is something much deeper than that - and this has to do with what we’ve been talking about - that if there’s something tachlis, and again Adam, edameh elyon, if there’s something really atzmi about sexual reproduction more than asexual reproduction so when you’ve hit it, you’ve hit onto a gold mine and you do not [give up on it], as we said, deep down what we believe in is that all of genetic evolution is motivated by desire. There is desire in the organism. There’s desire, there’s choice, to a certain extent. As soon as you have this, certainly you’re not going to get rid of it. Alright, so that’s, that’s the thought behind this hypothesis which is called genetic constraint.

Number 2. Hypothesis number 2 says that, that sex is good for promoting evolution, evolution goes faster, and this is all based upon genetic understanding, to a certain extent, it says that sexual reproduction advances evolution faster and since nature… again, what is the assumption here? The scientists themselves say that there is an assumption. We’re making an assumption that we can never prove. The assumption is that nature likes evolution and nature likes evolution the faster the better. And there’s something about sex that sex promotes evolution. What do we mean promotes evolution? It promotes positive mutations. That asexual reproduction does not promote positive mutations. But sexual reproduction does promote positive mutations. So that makes the evolutionary process go quicker. And nature likes that. That’s hypothesis number 2. Now this mathematically is based upon a factor that has not yet proved at all, that there has to be a certain level of good mutations, a certain percentage for even this postulate, for this hypothesis to make sense, to work, there has to be a certain measure of positive mutations. If we would see in the world that there are enough, this, again, even to check this for one species is a tremendous, tremendous task. If the rate, if the measure is met or not. They try it on fruit flies and all kinds of different things, insects and so forth but it has to be, in order to prove this hypothesis it would have to be throughout nature, throughout all species that there’s a certain level of positive mutation. And then sex would be good, would promote it even more. If not, it doesn’t make any difference if it’s sexual or asexual.

Alright now obviously what this, at this point what the scientist does not believe, he can only believe one direction that if there are enough positive mutations, then sex is good, and he can never say that sex itself will make more positive mutations. Just if there’s a certain amount of positive mutations that take place by random chance, because that’s what they think, what they believe in, so then sex will promote it even more. We have to see the mathematics in order to understand this. They will never say the other thing, that just because of sex that will increase the amount of positive mutations. We don’t have to believe that.

Once more, the biologists have these five hypothese and each of them has a weakness to it. That’s why we can’t prove anything. Now, what we’re trying to do right now is spiritually, by adding a little spiritual input, a dimension to actually strengthen these hypotheses. Strengthening the second hypotheses, number two, is trying to see that there’s something about sexual reproduction that it itself incites positive change.

In a simple way, if you have…, parents always want their children to be better than themselves. That very simple thing that a parent (especially Jewish parents, because Jews are at the top of the evolutionary ladder), if parents want their children to be better than themselves, what would it be if there wouldn’t be two parents, there would just be one parent? One parent couldn’t say this - this is just a simple [example of] koach hamedameh. One parent would just want... asexual reproduction is called replication. Once more, it’s cloning. One parent just wants his child to be exactly like himself. He doesn’t want his child to be better than himself. He can’t be better than himself, it’s a cloning process, its replication. It’s not really pru urevu, that one of the readings of pru urevu is only when you have two. That one of the readings of pru urevu, Rashi says that pru is one. If I would just say pru it would just be one offspring, but when you say pru urevu it means many offspring. One of the understandings of that is that its quality and quantity. That pru is be fruitful qualitatively, which actually means that your offspring should be better than yourself and revu means quantity, vos mer vos beser, the more the better.

Alright, so there’s something about a marriage, there’s something inherent in marriage that motivates positive mutation, that my children should be better than myself. If there would just be a one parent situation that would not be the case. That’s our hypothesis number 2.

Hypothesis number 3 is even more interesting. (Each of these are very, very interesting and to do this right and to write it up right you have to do it with all of the calculations that appear in the book). Hypothesis number 3 is called Group Selection. Group Selection says basically one simple postulate, that asexual reproduction, replication goes extinct faster than a population which reproduces sexually. Once more, any group is called a population. A population that is reproduced sexually even though they lose 50% of the quantity, but their chances to survive as a group and not to go extinct are much better. And that’s why nature “chooses” sexual reproduction, because the consequence is a klaliusdic consequence. Even the scientists themselves use this idiom. Again, the one who is reproducing is the female. (As we said yesterday, for the scientist if reproduction would be asexual there would just be females there would not be males at all so the question is why are there males in the first place?) The phraseology that they put it is, according to group selection theory, each female sacrifices herself for the klal, for the community. What does it mean that she sacrifices herself? (a female wants as many children as possible). She sacrifices her potential to bear twice as many children in order to ensure the survival of the group. It has to understand what the calculations are, these are all genetic calculations. It’s mamash mesirius nefesh. So this hypothesis says that a woman in essence is mesirus nefesh for the klal. This would explain very well why a woman doesn’t have to be commanded [pru urevu]. Although the scientists talk about little organisms, we’re talking about human beings, and about Jews. This hypothesis says that there’s innate mesirus nefesh in the female for the klal, to give up on herself, that she is mufshetet from herself. It’s a real ideal state of being. That she’s not self-centered and she has innate mesirut nefesh for the klal. She doesn’t have to be commanded.

What’s wrong with this? Like before, why do the biologists not accept this as the best one? I mean, this sounds like really a Chassidishe thing, mesirus nefesh for the klal, nothing could sound better than that. This is, again, a perfect example of the fact that the secular scientists in general, especially the biologists, and especially the evolutionary biologists, are totally placed in the world of Asiyah. And the basic assumption that every evolutionary biologist has - not only in this case, explaining the reason for sex, but every question – is that evolution is primarily, in Hebrew the phrase is the tovat haprat litvach hakatzar. That evolutionary considerations are for the good of the individual on a short term basis. And that evolution and natural selection does not take into account the klal, and does not take into account long term ramifications and obviously biologists have their proofs for this in nature. But where is their headspace? The headspace is coming from pure pragmatics. So even though it’s a mysterious thing, evolution, but the assumption is that nature itself is…, pulling down nature all the way down to the world of Asiyah, that the only thing that matters for every individual creature is himself on a short term basis. Now a short term basis, it could mean not just himself, it could be his children and grandchildren. That’s also called short term for himself.  first of all there’s support for this pragmatic understanding. There are two supports, one support is that Chazal tell us about the blessing on good things that happen and bad things happen, that if something bad happens now that you know for sure that its going to have good ramifications in the future, you don’t bless hatov umeitiv on the good of the future you bless dayan haemet on the bad of the present, meaning that you relate to G-d in the short term not in the long term.

As far as what biology says, that the changes in natural selection is always for the good of the prat, but the good of the prat, of the individual includes his children and his grandchildren and not any more than that so that’s exactly, that’s a maamar Chazal. Ad kan rachamey ha’av al haben. It says that a person, the nature of a human being is that he has natural, innate mercy and compassion on his children and on his grandchildren and that’s it. Ad kan rachamey ha’av al haben.

Alright, so again, there is definite support for this idea, nonetheless the general hypothesis of all biology does not take into account what this hypothesis says. So it means that the hypothesis is really somebody, a recognized secular biologist, and he knows that he’s saying something which is revolutionary. Because to posit this group selection which [states] that the prat sacrifices itself for the klal, that’s against the normal thought process of secular evolutionary biology.

What is the basic genetic basis for this whole thing? The basic genetic statement is that in asexual reproduction there’s a greater chance for deleterious - which means negative - mutations. So in the long term it can be bad for the species, whereas in sexual reproduction there’s less chance for bad mutations. How do we see this also in the Torah? That this is a general thing, not only can asexual reproduction give birth to bad mutations, but we find that even two close relatives, if they marry, also is not good for the progeny, for the children. We find that over time, families that always marry, even cousins, which is permissible, go extinct. Like even great rebbes, like even our Rebbe. When many generations of marriage takes place very close in the family so it doesn’t necessarily mean that there are bad offspring but it gives rise to extinction. According to genetics it is even much more so if reproduction is asexual. So you get many, many at the beginning, but then you get hit at a certain point with a lot of negative mutations, and then all at once, as we said, there’s a sudden disappearance,  the whole species can go extinct. So again, it’s as though every female knows this some place deep down in her unconscious psychology, and she gives up on her present, on the short term good for herself, exactly the opposite of the general tenet of biology, that the short term individual good she sacrifices for the long term good of the community.

Another point is that this is related also to the previous hypothesis that since asexual cloning is basically just replication, it doesn’t keep up with the environmental changes of the world and since it doesn’t keep up so at a certain point the environment can be so not suited to that species that even though the species is just as good as it was before but the environment has changed and asexual cloning does not keep up with the changes, so it just goes extinct. So that’s another reason, that the female understands this in some mysterious way and she sacrifices herself for the klal realizing that sexual reproduction will help. One of the words that is most used in evolutionary biology is adaption, that sexual reproduction is good for adapting to the environment and on the whole, there are less negative mutations in the offspring on a long term basis. Okay, this is hypothesis number 3.

So now, actually, all of these hypotheses have either some long term element in them or some klal element in them which the biologists don’t like. Nonetheless the hypotheses were presented so that’s why in the textbook there’s a line here. That all of these have some common property which they want to reject, because they’re not sufficiently egocentric. So in order to overcome that, the secular biologists now will come up with another two hypotheses.

Hypothesis number 4 is that sexual reproduction does away with negative mutations on the spot. Why? Because if, let’s say the male has one negative gene and one positive gene which is called O-1, and the female has also in place of the negative gene, she has a positive one and a negative one for the other. She’s 1-O. Once more, O is a bad gene, and 1 is a good gene so the male is O-1 and the female is 1-O. So in that case, in the offspring there will be certain offspring that will be 1-1, and there will be certain offspring that will be O-O. What then happens? The offspring that are O-O, that possess two negative genes, two bad genes, will die out very quickly, and the offspring that are 1-1 they will be supported by natural selection and they will continue to survive. What happens when, in an asexual community? O-1 just repeats itself, O-1 forever and you’re never going to get 1-1. Now if O-1 or 1-O dies, so you’re just eliminating one negative gene at one time.  The way its expressed, the formulas, in an asexual community, one death can only eliminate one bad gene. Whereas in a sexual reproduction community one death can eliminate two bad genes at the same time. That’s called “killing two birds with one stone.” So there’s something about sexual reproduction that is good to eliminate bad genes. It’s better than asexual reproduction.

Alright, now, this hypothesis works only on the condition that bad mutations are very common. We know of course that bad mutations are much more common than bad mutations. Once more there is a mathematical limit that, in order for this to make sense, to work in general there have to be many many bad mutations, they would have to be very common and it’s improvable for the whole globe, for millions of species, if that number has been reached, that amount of bad mutations.

So actually, as we’ll soon see, this one is closely related to hypothesis number two, because for hypothesis number 2 to make sense, there would have to be a great number of good mutations. For hypothesis number 4 to work there has to be a great number of bad mutations. Then that would be an explanation why nature prefers sex over asexual reproduction.

The last hypothesis, number 5, is called Co-Evolution. What is Co-Evolution? Co-Evolution is that two species evolve together, and the two species that evolve together are called a host and a parasite. Now throughout nature we have hosts and parasites, and the parasites are always developing new mechanisms to parasite on the host, and the hosts are always developing new defense mechanisms against the parasite. So when you have a relation of host and parasite, so first of all that’s very good for evolution. The fight, however much flies, you don’t like flies and mosquitoes, but there’s something about parasites that promotes evolution. In fact, sometimes the host himself even likes parasites and evolves in such a way to make it even easier for the parasite to suck on him. Those are extreme cases. But now we’re talking about the normal cases that there really is a conflict between the host and the parasite. But that co-evolution, once more they evolve together, in relation to one another.

Evolving together means that for each one, his environment is changing rapidly. Now when the environment is changing rapidly due to co-evolution, so what happens for the biologist, he says that in this particular case, sexual reproduction is a big advantage. Why? Because sexual reproduction has genetic memory to it. there can be a genotype that was given up, that wasn’t good at a certain point in history but at a later point in history it can be brought back. And since, say the host is always developing mechanisms to defend himself against the parasite, in sexual reproduction there is a genetic store of genotypes that can always be brought back, if necessary, that does not exist in asexual reproduction.

So therefore, this is called co-evolution together with rapid environmental change. That in such a situation, the sexual reproduction is much more advantageous than the asexual reproduction. All of these are based on statistics, if this really is an explanation across the board, that can be used to explain throughout nature, why nature likes sex.

What is the Chassidic point? Again, each one of these things has a Chassidic point to it. This is that hisnagdus brings out first of all, a person is mitatzem, through hitnagudut, through co-evolution, the co-evolutionary process is that every Rebbe has his, every Jew has his misnaged. There’s always misnagdim. And misnagdim serve a tremendously important purpose, they help you evolve. But they help you evolve only when you yourself are not alone. When a rebbe has chassidim, or when a man is married to a woman, the reproduction that comes through partnership helps give rise to the proper defense mechanisms which promote positive evolution.

Now after all these points, this is the way they are presented in the textbook. None of them are as we said water proof in any way. That’s why this is still called the unsolved riddle of evolutionary biology.

So now we’ll try to understand how this works, how all these work in the terminology of Kabbalah. There are two, one from the first group and one from the second group that we said are related to one another. Because they both are based upon a condition, either a condition that there are enough good mutations in nature or that there are enough bad mutations in nature. Number 2, which is that evolution, the rate of evolution is better when there is sexual reproduction. We’ll call that chesed. First of all let’s make a general statement that the biologists will never accept because they just don’t believe in ruchnious. If someone would ask me or you or anybody why is there sexual reproduction in the world, why is cloning not the best way to reproduce? So I would immediately answer what we actually said yesterday that the whole world is based on two principles: attraction and repulsion. And, all of life is attraction, is love, and all of non-life is repulsion.

Someone mentioned yesterday and it’s true, that  even in an inanimate object like a rock there is life, according to the AriZal, and as we said that the first mention of creation goes both for the domem and for the tzomeach.

So, and once more, the life element, life is basically the love element in the world. All life. So my simple answer, without knowing all of these hypotheses of the scientists, I would simply say that love is the creative power, G-d created the world through love, eleh toldos hashamayim veha’aretz behibaram... be’Avraham. He created them with the soul root of Avraham. The soul root of Avraham Avinu is love, Chesed, Avrohom. Avraham ohavi. And sexual reproduction is love. All good things come from love. So that’s why that’s the ideal way. Love is ingrained in the world. And a cellular organism also has love. That’s the simple answer to any of these five hypotheses. The answer is very simple, that without male and female there’s no love. If all things would be [reproduced through] cloning, not only would it be not true love it would turn into idol worship.

Let’s say we could clone the Rebbe. So that’s not what Hashem wants, to clone a tzaddik.

Even Moshe Rabbeinu, the biggest tzaddik in the world. Although there definitely is a concept, a spiritual concept that a great tzaddik who’s a neshama klalit, so a spark of his soul is shayach, belongs to every individual and is shayach to every individual .

The famous vision of the Noam Elimelech, Reb Elimelech of Lizensk, he had a vision of the Ba’al Shem Tov that he split into 600,000 little Ba’al Shem Tovs. A holistic vision that every little Ba’al Shem Tov belongs to one of the 600,000 soul roots of the Jewish People.

Nonetheless, physical cloning of the Ba’al Shem Tov, I don’t think that’s what HaKadosh Baruch Hu and what the Ba’al Shem Tov had in mind or would like, because you would lose the ikar.

The common denominator, each one of these has weaknesses, each one of these hypotheses, the reason for all of these weaknesses, there’s no motivation bichlal without love. Without love things become stagnant; without love, things go extinct, just like one of them says, that if you don’t have partnership and love so the species is condemned to extinction. Even though in the short term you get twice as much but its very soon going to become extinct because there’s nothing to it. The only thing to it is idol worship.

Even Chazal say that why did man have to have a soul mate? Otherwise he himself would have become an idol. That just like G-d is One above, so he would think of himself, that “I am one below”, in place of G-d.

So the common thing here is love. Of all of these five hypotheses the one that most reflects the love principle is hypothesis number 2. Because it says very simply that pairing advances the rate of positive evolution; it’s not static. Without pairing things would just be stagnant. Number 4 is the opposite, it says that pairing eliminates bad mutations. Once more the pnimius of number 2 was that pairing promotes good mutations, even though they say it the opposite direction. Number four is that pairing eliminates bad mutations. Et laledet, et lamut …So these two, number 2 and number 4 I would place k’neged chesed and gevurah. Promoting good mutations by goodness and by love, that’s chesed, olam chesed yibaneh. The ability to kill two bad birds with one stone that’s gevurah.

What about number three? Number three is Group Selection. That the woman has mesirus nefesh for the klal, self-sacrifice for the klal. The klal, in Kabbalah is either tiferet or malchut. So actually I’m now going to put them together. That the Group Selection hypothesis is k’neged Tiferet and Malchut, the zivug of Tiferet and Malchut, those are the two places where the klal is represented. Hitchashvut baklal.

Then comes hypothesis, the, we’ll do the fifth one. The fifth hypothesis is, in Co-Evolution where you have to always be creating new defense mechanisms and having to recall past genotypes in order to lehitatzem. Once more, the misnaged makes the person mitatzem yoter v’yoter so that reminds us very, very strongly of the immune system. Where do we have host/parasite relation in the body? That’s called the immune system. But as we know the immune system is supported by the endocrine system, by the hormones. Now those two systems as explained in another place are netzach and hod. We can even call the host vs. the parasite in co-evolution, these two always go together, they’re called trein palgei gufa, two sides of the same body.

The fact that sometimes it’s even a liked battle - the host/parasite battle is sometimes even preferable in nature, that they like this game, this play. It also supports positive evolution in a way of always hitatzmut. We’ll place that k’neged two sefirot, but primarily Hod, but also the two sefirot of Netzach/Hod.

Then acharon acharon is the very first one, which is the easiest one for the scientists to reject, the hypothesis that there is some essential genetic constraint, that there is some addiction to sex, that once you got it, you can’t get rid of it. So that obviously, that one belongs to Yesod, the sefirah of Yesod in a positive sense, when you know it. Yesod and even Da’at, because we’re connecting sefirot together. When you know, its called knowing love, and when you know what love is, then you’re addicted to it. And there’s no way of getting out of that. And who knows love? It’s either Da’at or Yesod, the sefirah of Yesod.

So now let’s, you can write this as a partzuf.

Question:

What was the reason that they rejected hypotheses number four, the mutational theory of sex?

Answer:

It’s based upon a mathematical number, an equation that can’t be proven so easily, that there are enough, that there are, that bad mutations are very, very common.

Just like number 2 was based on the fact that good mutations are very, very common. So Chesed is Increased Rate of Evolution Theory. Gevurah is called the Mutational Theory of Sex. Tiferet and Malchut is Group Selection. Netzach and Hod is Co-evolution, and Yesod is Genetic Constraint.

But it’s all, again, the bottom line is that the real answer is that love is a reality. That’s the real answer.

We could have said that in one second, but we, it took… when you have to da mah l’hashiv so it takes a certain period of time to get the point across. Once more, love is attraction. Let’s just say it a little bit more, love stimulates, love makes you want to be better, and makes you want your offspring to be better.

Once more, we said all of life is anti-entropy, it’s swimming upstream, that’s the good thing about all of evolution. So if pairing, in other words marriage, increases the rate of evolution, so it means the world is getting closer to Mashiach, closer to its tachlis. The power to bring the world closer to its tachlis is love, and therefore al ken, ya’azov ish et aviv v’et imo v’davak b’ishto.

Some people get married because they think that marriage is good to overcome fears. Some people have psychological fears, they have a hard time. So I’ll get married, to live together, you can overcome fears. That’s getting married for a Gevurah reason. Some people have in mind to get married, I have to get married for the sake of Klal Yisroel- so that’s our Tiferet.

Some people think that marriage, it says aizer kenegdo, zacha, eizer, lo zacha k’negdo, that marriage is good for ongoing fights. Some people like a fight. Ihu b’netzach ihi b’hod. Without getting married, it’s a boring life, there’s no action, no host and parasite. It’s boring. So that’s a good reason to get married.

Some people just know the essence of love and that knowing the essence of love, that’s Yesod and Da’at. That’s also Da’at.

Alright, so these are our, that’s our chapter on solving the unsolved problem of evolutionary biology.