Summer Tanager : Science and Belief

This is a Summer Tanager. As its name implies, it’s generally a warm-weather resident. A few late stragglers and early arrivals notwithstanding, we see it only in the center of the year. So now, in spring, there’s a certain expectation that builds. Intellectually I know the bird is coming, but there is also just a tinge of “What if?” Part of me, a deep-seated part, needs to put aside the migratory pattern charts, and just believe that he’ll be back. This gorgeous migrant reflects both the science and faith that inform our lives.

Talmud is a massive compendium of Jewish wisdom. In so many areas of religion and spiritual relations, the Sages’ insights millennia ago are just as relevant today. Their understanding of the human condition and our relationship to HaShem and each other was inspired, and the lessons and approaches they’ve bequeathed are time-tested, valuable tools applicable in the modern age. Talmud also includes a wide-ranging discussion of science: astronomy, agriculture, medicine, etc. Here, though, ancient observations have been supplanted by the accretive and on-going discovery of factual knowledge.

There are things that are amenable to being believed and things that are amenable to being known. Both are valuable, critical even, but different. To “believe in Science” is oxymoronic. Science is a process of discovery guided by hypotheses and confirmed by observation. Belief is a contented surety in one’s bones and one’s soul that something is so. Belief deals with eternal verities, while Science is a march of progress. Talmud, like the Tanager’s seasonal return, reminds us of the role that both kinds of knowledge play in our lives - and illustratively cautions us to understand each in its own appropriate way.