The Light of Judaism

Judaism teaches that Creation emerged ex nihilo- from nothing. Modern science also proposes that there was a beginning point wherein there was nothing. Both positions are essentially the same but have a difficult time explaining how something could spontaneously arise from nothing.  The religious perspective generally asserts that the something came into existence by the act of a God. This assertion is unacceptable to Science as there is no evidence of such a thing nor can the concept of God ever be anything more than simply a concept. There is another difficulty in explaining where God came from. If one is to posit the beginning of something then would God not be something? I dealt with this is an earier post titled: Is there a God out there?

The Kabbalists assert that there is No-Thing but that doesnt mean nothing in a literal sense. No-Thing in Hebrew is called (Ain Sof) and means that outside of the exisstence of Some-Thing is a non-perceptual singularity which human sensory perception cannot conceive of. Thus it is No-Thing as it pertains to human experience. Subsequently in the study of Kabbalah we dont discuss this as it is pointless to discuss and we also avoid the tendency to ascribe any positive or negative attributes to No-Thing as it would then become conceptualized and ccease to be No-Thing. A theology or philosophy which attempts to define and identify the infinity of singular essence is a false ideology. This is what the Torah means when it states to not create and graven images; while this commandment applies to the formation of material idols it equally applies to any mental conceptions of infinity. Mental idols are dangerous as they lead one to false ideals of a subjective nature which is the seed of religiosity and finaticism.

Now back to our subject of Some-thing verses No-Thing... the question is often asked, "Why is there some-thing as opposed to no-thing?" OR "How can some-thing come from no-thing?"

The Kabbalists have always described Creation as a mental thought or imagining of the Infinite Mind and the some-thing of creation, including you and I are simply manifestations of this Consciousness. Modern Science is only beginning to scratch the surface of Consciousness as a non-local phenomena and there are many exciting discoveries being made within Quantum Physics which validate many ancient spiritual traditions.

The Kabbalah states that No-Thing can't exist as it has an imperative to generate Some-thing. In the realm of modern science Nobel Laureate Physicist Frank Wilczek states: "The answer to the ancient question, 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' would then be that 'nothing' is unstable." Wilczek specialty is in Quantum Chromodynamics and from this background states that 'no-thing' is actually a prearious state of affairs.

He states: "You can form a state that has no quarks or anti-quarks in it, and its totally unstable... It spontaneously starts producing quark-antiquark pairs." Therefore the state of no-thing cannot maintain symmetry. I find this fascinating as it lends credence to the Kabbalistic view that No-Thing had an imperative to generate Some-Thing. Another Physicist, Victor Stenger, says it this way: "something is the more natural state than nothing."

We can't truly define No-Thing but we may give it a non-defintion as a zero-radius with nothing around it. Once a quantum event occurs, and it will according to this view, the generation of some-thing would expand slightly causing a pressure ratio of an inside pressure to the outside pressure of the 0 radius. It would be an infinite pressure as any number divided by 0 is infinity. This infinite pressure would result in the Big Bang. According to metaphysical thought the infinite pressure building within the 0 radius of no-thing would be the plenum of all possibility.

It would seem that the age-old question has been answered.