Subatomic Doubt and Universal Faith: Parshat Mattot-Masei 5772 �" July 20, 2012

July 4th was a different kind of Independence Day this year. It was on July 4th that scientists from the CERN Laboratory beneath the mountains in France and Switzerland proved the existence of a subatomic particle called the Higgs Boson, named after Peter Higgs. In the 1990’s one physicist working on the nearly half-century quest, Leon Lederman, coined this elusive element, the “God Particle.” It was casually given this term because the particle is an essential building block that enables all energy to acquire a mass.

While Lederman was the only physicist to call the Higgs Boson “the God particle,” our popular understanding of these extremely complex matters is made more confusing by associating the scientific discovery and its metaphysical implications. “Is there a force that animates everything in existence?”

Beyond the sensationalism of the popular media on this subject, the scientific question and the metaphysical question are remarkably similar. Does it change our sense of wonder and awe for our existence when we can scientifically measure and mathematically deduce the forces that move through all that exists in our universe? Do we lose a sense of truth from our Torah when the “God Particle” is proven to exist?

This week’s Newsweek article on the subject left me a little unsettled. There, Lawrence Krauss, director of a trans-disciplinary program called the Origins Project at Arizona State University, writes:

Humans, with their remarkable tools and their remarkable brains, may have just taken a giant step toward replacing metaphysical speculation with empirically verifiable knowledge. The Higgs particle is now arguably more relevant than God. 
(Lawrence M. Krauss, “The Godless Particle” Newsweek, July 16, 2012)

What’s most unsettling here is not that some thing, that any thing can be more relevant than God. What is unsettling is that how certainty can so comfortably replace doubt. That our new understanding of existence has become a new foundation for certainty is short-sighted and sensational. It was the French Enlightenment philosopher, Voltaire, who posits, “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.”

The absurd experience of certainty is what has repulsed most physicists from ever calling the Higgs Boson, the “God Particle.” So when you read the small interest piece of news on the recent discovery, follow the physicists and not the newscaster. Even when this new discovery is completely verified and we learn all there is to know here, the certainty about the origins of our existence remain elusive. Krauss even points out in his article that this discovery could suggest that our entire human existence is an accidental consequence of the conditions that precipitated creation. Accidents are not usually associated with Certainty.

Amidst the excitement of this recent discovery, this week we witnessed the tragic consequences of our fragile human community. They were moments when our hearts dropped upon hearing the news in Bulgaria and in Aurora, Colorado. Our community is wracked with pain and anguish as innocent travelers lost their lives in a troubled and vengeful terrorist attack in Bulgaria. Our nation is shocked once again, by the senseless violence of a misguided and deranged man, who entered a movie theater and shot and killed 12 people and injured 59. Innocents. Murdered for reasons only known to the perpetrators. Their deliberate choices denied their victims ability to choose. Our recent scientific discovery simply cannot explain these crimes as an accidental part of our existence. Such acceptance is abhorrent.

Rather, this magnificent discovery of a subatomic particle as the essential force of all that exists only enables us to explore even further the quest for our purpose as human beings. A universe left to accident, is a universe where human chaos reigns. Krauss has it wrong, we aren’t looking for God’s relevance in this discovery, we are looking for ours. Discovering our origins brings clarity, and whether the conditions for life were accidental or perfectly deliberate, what matters most is what we make of our existence, how we act in the world towards others and ourselves.

I find the final chapters of the book of Bamidbar, of Numbers helpful to understand this. We read it earlier this morning:

Mattot 30:2-3 

[פרשת מטות] ב וַיְדַבּר משׁה אֶל־רָאשׁי הַמּטּוֹת לִבְנֵי יִשׂרָאֵל לֵאמר זֶה הַדּבָר אֲשׁר צִוּה יְהוֹה: ג אִישׁ כִּי־יִדּר נֶדֶר לה אוֹ־הִשּׁבַע שׁבֻעָה לֶאְסר אִסּר עַל־נַפְשׁוֹ לא יַחֵל דּבָרוֹ כּכָל־הַיּצֵא מִפּיו יַעֲשׂה:

Moses spoke to the heads of the Israelite tribes, saying: This is what the LORD has commanded. If a man makes a vow to the LORD or takes an oath imposing an obligation on himself, he shall not break his pledge, he must carry out all that has crossed his lips.

The placement of these rules about vows is not accidental. Moments before Moses commands the Israelite people to engage in a battle against the Midianites, the reminder of vows is apparent. It is as if Moses is saying. “You are about to step forth into the unknown. Before you go, what you say to another matters. What you promise to another matters. Take heed in what you pledge, so your words and your actions are whole.” It is as if to say, taking a vow of any magnitude is a measure of certainty you are not freely permitted to exercise. Certainty is not a truth you are permitted to attain, because there is so much that may very well be accidental.

The great Hasidic sage, Moshe Schreiber, known as the Hatam Sofer, explains this well. He writes, “[Zeh Ha’Davar Ahser Tzevah Adonai.] All of the Torah depends on, “this thing which the LORD has commanded,” this being the most fundamental of all principles, namely that a person should not violate that which he has accepted upon himself as a vow or oath. Without this, there is no basis for the entire Torah, which we accepted as a covenant.”

Staring in the face of a war as our ancestors, even a war in which our God promised victory, reminds us to choose our words carefully. What we say and do matters. We can understand the Higgs Boson, as the elementary particle that matters.

So what shall be our response to this week’s tragedies? We can pledge our support to offer comfort for the families, to pray, not for God’s intervention alone, but for our ability to focus our thoughts and act with purpose. We can pledge our support to Federation campaigns or organizations designed to help the families of the victims to attend to the needs of their loved ones with dignity. We can vow to be unrelenting in our quest to educate our community to denounce any behavior that undermines the dignity of any human being.

This brings us back to the Higgs Boson and our remarkable human brains. For all the certainty in identifying the nature of the most elementary building blocks of existence, we are permitted enough doubt to continue exploring. The great artist, Vincent Van Gogh said it best, “For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.”

It’s the dream that enabled us to discover the most intricate details of the universe as we know it. So may we continue to dream that our faithful doubt, bring truths of greater human care and concern in our days and in generations to come.

Keyn Yehi Ratzon.