Reliable sources in Israel tell me that one of the kannaim, part of the group behind the Slifkin ban and intent on delegitimizing the Kamenetzky family (which is what the drive behind the Slifkin ban was actually all about), has been showing people a Foxtel documentary proving that astronauts never landed on the moon and it was all faked by NASA!
What the heck??
Well, this is in reference to the famous account of Reb Yaakov Kamenetzky z"l who watched the moon landing and concluded that Rambam was not correct in describing the moon as a spiritual being. The kannoim hope to show that Hollywood fooled Reb Yaakov into being a kofer. Evidently they will go to any lengths to try and prove this. What a bunch of maniacs. How can the Gedolim be so stupid as to listen to these people?
In fact the kannaim are not even following their own retarded ideology. I blogged about the fake moon landing months ago. The kannoim are forgetting the obvious peshat: The moon used to be a spiritual body, but then nishtaneh hatevah (actually nishtaneh hayareach) and now it's made of granite. So the Rambam wasn't actually wrong (in his time) at all. And why not? You think that's any more ridiculous than using nishtaneh hatevah to explain why lice have babies, whereas 2000 years ago they spontaneously generated?
Sometimes, I can understand why the skeptics just want the heck out of here. How much stupidity do we have to endure? Even otherwise sensible people have been spouting nonsense recently, in reference to my mythology post. Here is a sampling:
1. You have too much faith in science. You have more emunah in science
than in Torah.
(No, I have emunah in proven facts.)
2. Science changes all the time. All this will change too.
(Right. Ultimately scientists will realize that the world is exactly 5765 years old after all! Sure.)
3. The scientists disagree between themselves, so why should we listen to them.
(Right. One scientist says the world is 10 billion years old and another says 20 billion. So you see they can be wrong by billions of years! Maybe they are wrong by 10 to 20 billion years and the world is 5765 years old after all. Sure.)
4. Science can only document the present, it cannot 'predict' the past.
(Nonsense. Unless you invoke bizarre miracles.)
5. Science by definition can't accept G-d, so obviously they don't agree to Breishis.
(Nonsense.)
Other people kvetch and kvetch and kvetch. Well day doesn't mean day. And vegetation (created before the sun) doesn't really mean vegetation. It just means the potential for vegetation. And the sun didn't fully form until after earth was created, so maybe that's what the pasuk means when it talks about the creation of earth before the sun. And maybe Adam & Eve were just two special people. And maybe the flood was just a local flood. And when it says 'all the animals' it just means all the local animals. And maybe in the tower of bavel story everyone knew different languages already but they spoke a common one too, and then G-d made them forget the common one. And on and on and on.
I think it would be useful for the kvetchers to stop and rethink what they just turned Breishis into. A story about 2 people with slightly different neshamas? A story about a small flood and one guy who survived it? And a failed building project?!. What's the big deal?
I think the problem is that people don't understand what Mythology is. Mythology doesn't mean bube mayses. Mythology doesn't mean fairy tales for children. Mythology doesn't mean urban myths.
Mythology means great truths encoded in the form of an easy to remember story. Myths typcially formed before writing was invented, and hence had to survive oral transmission for hundreds or even thousands of years. Even Mythology created after writing was invented still had to be easy to remember and interesting and exciting to hear, guaranteeing that it would be passed down from generation to generation without being forgotten.
Breishis being Mythology does not mean it is all a waste of time. There are great and serious lessons in Breishis. But this does not mean Breishis is literally true, nor does it mean you should twist and bastardize basic peshat to try and get it to fit with current Science. The stories told in Breishis do not fit with the Scientific explanation of the world. Period. Making them fit by twisting the Science or by twisting the Torah is the wrong mehalech.
