To begin that elaboration, I would like to quote from another portion of
Aryeh Kaplan's book, "Immortality, Resurrection, and the Age of the
Universe", p. 116. This is a translation taken from the speech of Rabbi
Yisroel Lipshitz, author of the "Tiferet Yisroel" commentary on Mishne, and
published in the back of the first volume of Seder Nezikin (drush Ohr
Hachaim). "That is why the Torah informs us, 'At the beginning', that is
the beginning of all beginnings, 'G-D created the heavens...and the
earth'...After that the Torah skips over the happenings which took place in
that primeval world...Rather, the Torah tells us that 'the earth was empty
and desolate...',that is, the emptiness and desolation were created
anew...The intent of the verse is not that it was made totally desolate and
emptied of existence entirely, but rather that...the earth received a
blow...and the primeval order of creation became a confused mixture of fire
and water, and darkness came into existence above the deep."
The above quote from the Tiferet Yisroel is a fair description of the state
of the earth 65 million years ago when a 10 kilometer(km) asteroid struck
the Yucatan peninsula on Mexico's Gulf coast. That impact left a 200 km
wide crater, 40 km deep, and had an energy equivalent far, far greater than
the total nuclear inventories of all the nations. The ultrafine dust and
mist created by that impact was spread throughout the world and blocked out
the sunlight for a significant period. The larger, molten droplets from
the impact rained down on the earth soon after the impact and started fires
everywhere. The impact also generated enormous tsunamis (tidal waves)
since it struck just offshore. This is not merely a story. There is
physical evidence for all of the above events. The consequences of this
impact on the history of the earth were enormous. The dominant life forms
preceding the impact died out totally, such as the dinosaurs, or partly,
such as gymnosperms (evergreens). Their position in the new earth was
taken by mammals, birds, and angiosperms (flowering plants and trees). This
event was only the latest of a series of destructions for the sake of new
creations. As Rabbi Avahu, in B'reishis Rabbah expressed it, "He (G-D) is
the creater and destroyer of worlds". Consider that we and all living
things are made of elements that are not part of a new sun. Our sun
'burns' hydrogen in a vast fusion reaction to produce helium, but we are
made more of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and heavier elements. Such elements
are created in more massive stars, and in supernovae (exploding stars). Our
sun and the entire solar system is thus a secondary creation deriving from
earlier 'burnt out' stars and supernovae.
In any event, the Torah proceeds to deal in a poetic fashion with the
aftermath of the above collision. First there was light, when the dust
finally settled out; then the destroyed ozone layer that protects us from
the higher energy rays of the sun (ultra-violet) was reformed; then
movements of the continents (tectonic plates) expanded the atlantic ocean
and produced the high mountains (Rockies, Himalayas, and Alps); then
grasses appeared and flowering trees (both angiosperms); then the new shape
of the continental coast lines changed the tidal friction interaction with
the moon, and produced new constant orbital periods for the earth and moon,
which regulates our time and calendar. Thus, all the materials
constituting the earth were refashioned to create the present scene. The
original creation of all these materials is briefly alluded to in the first
sentence, which can be translated as, "In the beginning of time, the source
of all the energy and forces (Elokim) created space (shamayim) and matter
in motion (eretz)." The destruction visited on that primeval world is
alluded to in the second sentence, as the Tiferet Yisrael had stated earlier.
There is more that can be said about the above events and those of the
subsequent creation "days". Let the above suffice, however, to give a
flavor of one possible approach to our topic, and to illustrate how the
Torah can be made consistent with the most modern and established findings
of science.
Yitzchok Zlochower