It should come as no surprise that my father invariably saw the world through a rabbinical filter (although I was constantly in awe of his constant fixation in this regard). When, on October 4, 1957 the world was dramatically changed by the Soviet Union’s successful launch of the first man-made object to circle the earth in space—Sputnik, most Americans responded to this with fears of Soviet domination, criticisms of American science education, and other political concerns. For Sidney Ballon this was just another occasion to remind his flock of the supremacy of God and moral law above all else, especially above the highest orbit of a satellite hurtling through the heavens.
...the future of mankind depends not on the intercontinental missile or the rocket to the moon, but rather on the weapon mentioned by our rabbis, the weapon of Torah, the force of moral law.
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It was just two weeks ago that Mr. Sputnik[i] made his unexpected appearance and the world passed into a new age, an age in which man may soon see himself freed from the boundaries of this Earth and able to pass into interplanetary space. Of all the achievements of man this is certainly the most fantastic. The scientific age has produced many marvels—the steam engine and the gasoline engine, the submarine by which we dive beneath the sea, and the planes which span the continents and the oceans in the air, atomic energy with its unlimited possibilities of providing power, but surely the creation of a satellite that flies steadily about the earth miles above us, the intimation that it gives us of soon being able to reach other planets, this is the most astounding, the greatest miracle man has achieved, the nearest we have come to encroaching upon the powers of the divine.
The average man probably is conscious mostly of the destructive potential of the satellite and rather than to be worried about it tries either to shut it out of his mind altogether or says, as I heard one man say, “Mr. Sputnik is above us. Let's all have fun."
The politicians are all confused and contradict each other at every moment. The outs find it a convenient opportunity to criticize the defense policies of the ins and the ins say that what has happened will very shortly be surpassed by experiments in America still in preparation.
The scientists had yet another reaction. They are rightly quick to point out how a stupid governmental policy of harassing scientists working for the government can throw our nation back in scientific development and they now stress all the more the necessity of our youth to saturate themselves with scientific study for the sake of future survival. Dr. Elmer Hutchisson, the director of the American Institute of Physics, is quoted in the [New York] Times as having said that the nation’s youth must be taught to appreciate the importance of science or the American way of life is doomed to rapid extinction.
And yet another kind of reaction was quoted in the press as coming from such a man as Will Durrant.[iii] He admitted to not being too excited about the new satellite and said with a philosophical shrug,
I suppose it's
something of importance from a national defense point of view. But to a
philosopher these physical changes aren't too interesting. People will
go on living about the same way as they have before. Food and sex are
basic and the most important human goals, whether we live in this world
or some other one.
Thus the average man, the politician, the scientist and the philosopher and what each has to contribute to the situation is possibly deserving of some thought, but there is I think a religious reaction to Mr. Sputnik that is far more significant for mankind than any of these.
Abraham Heschel,[iv] whom you have heard of on other occasions, wrote a book on the Sabbath several years ago, but it is amazing how some of his remarks in that book seem to fit the very situation we now speak of. Judaism, he says, is a religion of time aimed at the sanctification of time, and what we do with time, he suggests, is more important than what we do with space. Heschel says,
Technical civilization is man's conquest of space…. To enhance our power in the world of space is certainly one of our tasks. The danger begins when in gaining power in the realm of space we forfeit all aspirations in the realm of time. There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord. Life goes wrong when the control of space becomes our sole concern.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was not the mystic theologian that Professor Heschel is but in a different way he expressed somewhat the same thought also about time. When the first railroad successfully spanned the continent he was asked what he thought of it and he said, "It will certainly help man travel faster, but will it make him better." Mr. Sputnik may be more dramatic than a railroad, but for religion Mr. Sputnik, like the first railroad, merely accentuates the question of, “How is man to handle the power and the knowledge that he acquires?” Speed and distance are exhilarating and desirable but does not life indeed go wrong when the control of space becomes our sole concern?
The question is not a new one brought to our attention only in the modern world of science. The question is one that is as old as man. In the Torah portion of this week the first in the Torah[v] which speaks of the creation of the world, it is already alluded to. We read of the creation of the world and then of the creation of man. Man is then placed in the garden of Eden where life is perfect and there are no problems, but man ignores the command of God and so is driven out of the garden. To prevent his return a revolving sword of flame is placed at the entrance. The writer of the story does not, of course, use the word "utopia," but he nevertheless has written the story to explain the problems of society, the presence of pain and toil and conflict, and in his own unsophisticated way he has suggested that man has deprived himself of the pleasure of living in a utopian society because of his own disobedience of God's law. The rabbis later on, in their own reading and interpretation of this chapter, underscored this meaning. In the Midrash they speak of Adam standing by the entrance to the Garden of Eden and when he noticed a revolving sword guarding it, they say he cried out, "What will save my children from this revolving weapon of flame?" The answer came back to him, they said—the weapon of Torah. Man's future and man salvation, they thus pointed out in a truth that remains valid, depends not on anything physical or spatial but upon his intelligent use of the weapon of moral law.
The revolving sword of flame is now a revolving satellite moving about the earth, but if we are wondering how to cope with it, the answer is the same now as it was in ancient times. Its challenge is no different than that which man has faced all through the ages. If there is a difference it is only that the challenge is more crucial and more immediate because of the greater power and speeds and distances that man now finds himself involved with, and the energies that he can loose but not necessarily control. And the answer is not in rivalries which produce competition among nations in scientific research, competition in the ability to manipulate great forces and in directing great missiles, but in broader cooperation, in the reduction of national pride, in the realization that the future of mankind depends not on the intercontinental missile or the rocket to the moon, but rather on the weapon mentioned by our rabbis, the weapon of Torah, the force of moral law.
We need not be altogether pessimistic. We are now in the midst of an international geophysical year. The scientists of the world with the blessing of their governments have joined in mutual cooperation to explore the secrets of the universe, to search out new knowledge and are pledged to share what they find. If we can achieve such cooperation in the finding of knowledge why should it not be possible to carry on similar cooperation in the application of this knowledge for the good of humanity and not its hurt? We have been banded in a United Nations where many political problems have been discussed and at least some shooting wars avoided. If only this process can continue until the habit is sufficiently fixed that there shall always be discussion and the shooting become altogether obsolete. The surface signs of cooperation however do exist and we need to exert ourselves earnestly to expand them. Standing as we do on the threshold of amazing new adventures for mankind, it seems hardly likely that anyone will run the risk of ending it all by intentionally calling down destruction.
Let us pray only that we may be spared the effect of unintentional blunders that get out of control. In next week's portion of the Torah there is another story which has bearing on our situation today. In next week's story[vi] we are told of the very first venture of mankind into space. Man united their efforts in order to build themselves a tower which would penetrate into the heavens, and they failed, and God scattered them—we are told—over the face of the earth. But why did they fail? In uniting their efforts and resources surely mankind was doing something worthwhile, something we are desperately trying to achieve today. But we are told man failed because of the motives that were involved. Man wanted to penetrate space in order to get himself a name. It was the spirit of arrogance that move them, and of rebellion against God.
Our penetration of space today is not by means of a tower, but by means of rockets and satellites, yet the same moral applies to us today. If there is arrogance involved in our achievements, then destruction will result and we shall be scattered. Above all, today we need to remain humble in our accomplishments. We must yet remember if Mr. Sputnik is above us, God is also above him and us together. Indeed, the more we venture forth into the unknown, the vaster and the more unknown the rest of the universe becomes and the more humble ought man to be. If we put our triumph over space in proper perspective, and if our achievements make us more conscious of the mystery of the universal and divine law which makes such a thing as a satellite possible and predictable, if this be what Mr. Sputnik will define, then what we do shall possibly be for the benefit of man and his ultimate glory. May it be our will and the will of God that it shall be so.
[i] Sputnik 1 was the first artificial satellite to be put into Earth's orbit. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October, 1957. The unanticipated announcement of Sputnik 1's success precipitated the Sputnik crisis in the United States and ignited the Space Race, a part of the larger Cold War. The launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments. While the Sputnik launch was a single event, it marked the start of the Space Age.
[ii] The 1957 World Series featured the defending champions, the New York Yankees playing against the Milwaukee Braves. The Braves won the Series in seven games. Of the previous ten World Series, the Yankees had participated in eight of them and won seven. This was also the first World Series since 1948 that a team from New York did not win.
[iii] William James Durant (1885 – 1981) was a prolific American writer, historian, and philosopher. He is best known for The Story of Civilization, 11 volumes written in collaboration with his wife Ariel Durant and published between 1935 and 1975. He was earlier noted for The Story of Philosophy, written in 1926, which one observer described as "a groundbreaking work that helped to popularize philosophy."
[iv] Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907 – 1972) was a Polish-born American rabbi and one of the leading Jewish theologians and Jewish philosophers of the 20th century.
[v] Parashat Bereishit, Genesis 1-6:8
[vi] Parashat Noach, Genesis 6:9-11:32 After recounting the familiar story of Noah the weekly portion describes how the earth was repopulated through Noah's three sons. The descendants of Noah remained a single people with a single language for ten generations. They eventually returned to evil ways by uniting in an idolatrous religion that led them to build a “tower with its top in the heavens"—the so-called tower of Babel.
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