What is one to make of Albert Einstein’s statement that “The Jewish God is simply a negation of superstition”?
Ask the rabbi.
AGNOTICISM & EINSTEIN
Rabbi Raymond Apple
Q. What is one to make of Albert Einstein’s statement that “The Jewish God is simply a negation of superstition”?
A. Einstein was certainly a loyal Jew, and he was good for the Jews. His Jewishness focussed on the Jewish moral instinct.
His book, “Ideas and Opinions”, explains that he believed Judaism to be “concerned almost exclusively with the moral attitude to life”, which he called “the foundations of happiness and of civilised communities”.
A telling illustration is a statement he heard from Walter Rathenau, “When a Jew says he is going hunting to amuse himself, he is lying”.
Einstein did not, however, accept the traditional idea of God. For him, “The Jewish God is simply a negation of superstition”. To him, “God” meant the animating force in the universe, not a personal Deity who could be worshipped.
Nonetheless, his life as a scientist was not without a sense of spirituality. “The most beautiful thing we can experience,” he said, “is the mysterious… He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as much as dead”.
Einstein valued the intellectual dimension of Jews and Judaism. The Jewish contribution to civilisation, he believed, derived from the tradition of study and commitment to social justice. Both aspects offended totalitarian regimes like Nazism, for whom Jews and Judaism had to be eradicated.
Einstein was a man of the world, but he was a fervent supporter of Jewish identity and nationalism. Hence though he said he would have preferred a quiet life of research and contemplation, he openly identified with Zionism and lent his name and reputation to Zionist fundraising efforts.
He believed that Zionism not only gave “our sorely oppressed Jewish nation” a place to be, but the opportunity to create a moral society.
“AT-BASH” & THE JEWISH CALENDAR
Q. I see that the second day of Pesach is the same day of the week as the first day of Shavu’ot. Is this just a co-incidence?
A. Not at all. It is part of a well-known mnemonic device known as “at-bash” whereby the first and last seven letters of the Hebrew alphabet are matched up (thus alef = tav and bet = shin).
Since every Hebrew letter has a numerical value, you take the letters alef to zayin, representing the first seven days of Pesach, and you can link them with the letters tav to ayin, the last seven letters taken in reverse order, to indicate which day of the week seven other festivals will fall.
Thus you get the following pattern:
Alef (1st day of Pesach) = Tav, Tishah B’Av
Bet (2nd day) = Shin, Shavu’ot
Gimel (3rd day) = Resh, Rosh HaShanah
Dalet (4th day) = Kof, “K‘riat HaTorah” (“Torah reading”, i.e. Simchat Torah)
Hay (5th day) = Tzaddi, “Tzom” (“Fast”, i.e. Yom Kippur)
Vav (6th day) = Pay (Purim)
Zayin (7th day) = Ayin, (Yom) Atzma’ut.
Whilst the general concept of at-bash as applied to the first six days of Pesach was well known for centuries, it was not until the creation of the State of Israel and the institution of Yom Atzma’ut that it was recognised that the 7th day of Pesach, represented by zayin, now had a calendrical partner. This was pointed out in a publication called “Tikkun Yom HaAtzma’ut”, issued by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate early in the history of the Jewish State.
Rabbi Raymond Apple served for 32 years as the chief minister of the Great Synagogue, Sydney, Australia’s oldest and most prestigious congregation. He is now retired and lives in Jerusalem where he answers interesting questions.
