By the Grace of G-d Erev Chag haSucos, 5737 Brooklyn, N.Y.

Blessing and Greeting:

I am in receipt of your letter, which you begin by stating that after you read a reprinted letter of mine, you "wanted modern scientific interpretations of our holy Torah."

I am surprised that you should have come to that conclusion since it is entirely contrary to what I wrote, though it was only a brief discourse on the subject, and in reply to only one point of a letter written to me, to the effect that the writer found it difficult to observe the mitzvot because he found that science contradicted the Torah. The gist of my reply was that basically it is impossible for modern science to be in conflict with the Torah. Anyone familiar with the development of science from medieval times to the present day, knows that science has undergone a cardinal change - from the belief that science speaks in categorical terms of reality, as was commonly held in medieval times, to the new concept of modern science which recognizes that science can speak only in terms of probability and cannot possibly claim to speak in terms of certainty. Hence, modern science, in principle, cannot be in conflict with the Torah which speaks in terms of absolute truth.

Incidentally, you also mention Darwin’s theory and others but you fail to mention that precisely recent findings have uncovered so many flaws and so many improbabilities in the general theory of evolution that - to mention but one point - it would require hundreds of billions of years to create the fortuitous circumstances to produce our Solar System according to said theory - something most highly improbable.

As for the attempt to reinterpret the Biblical account of Creation to mean not six ordinary days, according to our time, but according to G-d's "time" - this is not acceptable for the simple reason that Shabbos is clearly specified as the seventh day, following the six days of Creation and the Torah repeats elsewhere, "For in six days G-d made heaven and earth, and rested on the seventh day” - clearly speaking in terms of our days.

With blessing,