Rashi’s Torah Wisdom Outshines Google: Anticipating Modern Science

Did Rashi have access to Google?

It’s a ridiculous question, of course. But last week at my regular learning session, I almost thought he did.

We were learning the daf discussing the minimum distance that a tannery could be located from the city. Rashi pointed out that the tannery should not be located where it received the western winds, because these winds would carry the odors more regularly.

Now I had no idea that the direction of wind could have any baring on its regularity, so I consulted Rabbi Google.

This is what came up:

In the mid-latitudes, [which include the Middle East] the dominant wind pattern is the prevailing westerlies, which blow from west to east. This is due to the rotation of the Earth and the Coriolis effect, which deflects winds.

How could Rashi have known, centuries before there was even such a thing as meteorology, that western winds were the dominant wind in the region?

He knew because he knew the depths of the Torah.

I bring this up, because there’s a common misconception — which I admit I used to hold — that the Torah contradicts science.

But as I learn more of the Torah and the Gemorah, I have found that Judaism not only doesn’t contradict modern science, in many ways it confirms it.

Some more examples:

The Torah uses military metaphors of regiments , battalions, and the like to determine the vast numbers of stars in the Universe. If you do the math, it comes out to millions of stars.
Of course, we know today that there are actually billions upon billions of stars. But you have to put it into perspective. Observers in the ancient world only had the naked eye to look at the night sky. The number of visible stars was no more than a few hundred. How could the sages possibly have thought of stars as numbering in the millions?

Because they knew the Torah.

There are many such examples — like knowing that the moon merely reflected sunlight, rather than give off its own light as it seemed. Like realizing the Earth was round before it was commonly known.

So the next time you might hear someone say that the Torah and modern science are not compatible, tell him that he might want to study it a little more.

By DAVID J. GLENN