Why Are There Contradictions Between Science and Judaism?

Today, Torah and science are often perceived like oil and water, completely contradictory. [music] Science represents the rational, that which is factual and proven, while faith, [music] many people look at it as something blind, lacking foundation. In the modern world, we've become accustomed to thinking that a scientific fact is an absolute truth that can't be disputed. But wait, is science really immune to mistakes? And does it tell us the full picture? [music] It wasn't always like this at all. The greatest scientists explored the world out of deep faith. For them, studying nature was simply a way to trace the wisdom of the creator. As long as scientists maintained humility and understood that science provides only [music] one perspective on reality, religion and science lived in peace side by side. The explosion [music] began about 300 years ago. Suddenly, a new approach emerged called scientism. This approach claimed that the scientific method is the only and exclusive path to truth. At the same time, science began to formulate theories about [music] events from the distant past, such as the formation of the universe. Theories that relied on hypotheses, not on 100% [music] proven facts. And that is where the real conflict began. To understand the limits of science, you need to understand how it works. Science collects data, measures, and analyzes observable phenomena. It's a champion at answering technical questions. What happened? Or how does gravity work? But science has a clear limit. It is incapable of dealing with questions of essence. It wasn't designed to explain why the universe exists, what the purpose of our lives is, or what morality [music] even is. These are questions of meaning and quantitative science can't measure meaning. Beyond that, every scientific theory rest on axioms, fundamental [music] assumptions that can't be proven. Even the idea causality, that one action causes another, is ultimately a philosophical assumption. Add to that the [music] fact that scientific history is full of errors by researchers who tried, even if unintentionally, to interpret [music] findings just to make them fit what they expected to see in advance. To be clear, there is no intention here to disparage science. Its achievements are amazing and have advanced humanity by light years. But when there is an apparent contradiction between science and the Torah Israel, one must remember that science is not the beall [music] and endall. Sometimes it simply has to reach the truth that will be revealed later. And history proves this. In ancient times, astronomers estimated that there were only a few thousand individual stars in the universe. At that exact same time, the sages of the Taloo [music] described the universe and organized systems of galaxies and clusters and cited enormous numbers. Numbers that today overlap with NASA's estimates. Or take continental [music] drift. Only in the 20th century did science confirm that all the continents were once one large [music] continent that split apart. But in the book of Zohar, which was written 2,000 years ago, it is explicitly written, "The [music] waters brought forth one land, and from it seven lands were formed." Ultimately, the Torah and science are not rivals. Science deciphers the laws of the material world, the way things work. [music] And the Torah provides the full picture, the meaning and purpose for which this world was created in the first place.