What is the quantum nature of light?
Table for Five: Bereshit
In partnership with the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles
Edited by Salvador Litvak, the Accidental Talmudist
God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
Gen. 1:3
Nili Isenberg, Pressman Academy Judaics Faculty
In his commentary on our verse, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808 – 1888) connected the Hebrew word “Or” (light), spelled with an aleph, to the similar-sounding words “Er” (awake) and “Or” (skin), both spelled with an ayin. He explained that the connection is about being receptive to external impressions: Light is the awakening element, and skin is the organ of feeling.
What would it be like to be underground, denied external impressions, without light, or kind human touch, in darkness for days on end? This is the nightmare condition of the hostages that remain alive somewhere in the miles upon miles of tunnels underground in Gaza. Surely they have lost their sense of direction and their sense of time, hidden in claustrophobic surroundings, lacking air and basic necessities. Perhaps they have also lost their sense of hope, like poor Job who cried out, “I hoped for good and was met with evil; for light, and was met with darkness” (Job 30:26).
When IDF troops recently used heavy machinery to enter one such tunnel, they found the bodies of six murdered hostages behind a locked blast door. Among those killed was Ori Danino z”l, whose name means light. Last year I baked Ori’s favorite apple cake with a recipe from the “Tastes Like Home” website. While Ori met a tragic end, we must not lose hope that others will come home alive.
May we begin this year with good news: Let there be light at the end of the tunnel.
Sara Blau, Prolific Author
If G-d were to desire the world to cease to exist, what would He have to do to destroy it? Burn it? Smash it into smithereens? Actually, all G-d would have to do would be to stop uttering it into existence.
In the beginning, G-d said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. According to the teachings of Kabbalah, the same speech—or revelation of energy—that G‑d used to create light in the world must be perpetually repeated by G-d in order for light to remain in existence. In other words, G‑d is constantly recreating. Just like a frisbee can only remain airborne as long as there’s lift, creation only exists as long as G‑d is “speaking” it into creation. “Let there be light” was not a one-time proclamation, but rather the first of a never-ending series of proclamations. This does not only apply to the creation of light, but to the creations of everything in existence.
As the Psalmist said “Forever, O G-d, Your word stands firm in the heavens.” (Psalms 119:89) This means the words G-d used to create the heavens are repeated forever to keep the heavens in existence. For were G-d to stop his perpetual repetition for even one moment, the entire world would go kaput.
Think about it. If you exist today, G-d is speaking you into existence. What might your purpose be?
Dr. Sheila Tuller Keiter, Judaic Studies Faculty, Shalhevet High School
God’s first act of creation is to bring forth light, forever inspiring us to bring light into this world in imitatio dei. One could simplify the Jewish mission in precisely these terms: Our duty is to spread God’s light to all of humanity.
But there is much to be learned from the beginning of this verse too. The words “And God said” are ubiquitous throughout the Torah, yet this verse provides the very first instance of God’s speech. Hashem uses words to create. Spoken words, like light, are ephemeral, impossible to grasp, but no less real. Sound and light emerge into this world simultaneously, allowing us to apprehend creation.
Yet despite our tendencies to valorize light, both sight and sound are ultimately morally neutral. Words can heal as well as hurt. Light can illuminate or it can mislead. Just as the lanternfish in the ocean depths uses its light to lure unsuspecting prey, learned men have used knowledge to claim the light of scholarship for abhorrent ideologies. So many shiny things compete for our attention while drawing us away from true clarity.
How, then, are we to discern true light from the false, good from evil? We merely need return to the beginning of our verse: “And God said.” True light shines forth from the Creator of light, and His words provide the lit path to goodness. God’s word is illuminated in the Torah, and the “Torah is light” (Prov 6:23). Let it shine.
Rabbi Gavriel Sanders, Content Creator – Jewish Year Abroad
Until recently, the quantum nature of light—both as a vibrating, diffracted wave and a particle (photon)—remained a hidden mystery. In ancient times, Plato’s emission theory posited that we see because our eyes emit light beams. The Greeks believed that light, including fire, was a divine gift (they weren’t far off.) In quantum theory, particles are seen as excitations or vibrations of underlying fields; for example, photons are excitations of the electromagnetic field. This suggests that what we perceive as particles are actually manifestations of these vibrating fields, produced by variable frequencies.
In Genesis 1:3, speech—vibration manifesting consciousness through articulation—creates light, which is both a particle and a wave. Light, with its spectrum of frequencies, and sound can create form. The Chladni plate experiments serve as an illustration of this concept.
When we examine Genesis 1:4, we find that the Creator saw the light and deemed it good. The phrase et ha’or is packed with meaning. Mystically intriguing as it is, how can we access this depth? The brilliant 14th-century commentator Ba’al Ha’Turim notes two profound derivatives from the gematria of these two words, which total 613—something that certainly raises an eyebrow. The first derivative is ba’Torah – “in the Torah”, and the second is the four letters of TaRYaG = the number of mitzvot in the Torah. The world of light we can access unfolds through learning Torah and applying its teachings through the mitzvot. For further insight, consider Rashi’s commentary on Proverbs 6:23.
Rabbi Brett Kopin– The Six11 Project, Base LA
Our daughter was born on a Friday morning in late August this year. As my wife made the final pushes and our daughter emerged, I was overwhelmed by the sense that this moment was the closest metaphor we can experience for God creating the Universe. In the opening lines of the Torah, it merely says that God spoke, and light came into being. Anyone who has birthed any creation into the world, whether a community project, a piece of writing, or a business, understands that most often, the first step to creation is its articulation, communicating the vision or intention out loud. God says “let there be light” in a world shrouded in chaos and darkness. Light comes first and serves as the guidepost to bring order and life into being. We might wonder what the actual experiences of laboring that light into being were like. The Spanish commentator Rabbeinu Bahya writes that God created everything in the world at once, and over the days of creation, the light from Day One illuminated each of the creations as they were set in their proper places. Rabbeinu Bahya would also know that the Spanish phrase for giving birth is “dar a luz,” which literally means “to give light.” We named our daughter Dahlia Meira, connoting the illumination that she, and every new life, brings into the world. May we all continue to birth new creations into being, adding to the holy work that began with those famous first words.
With thanks to Nili Isenberg, Sara Blau, Dr. Sheila Tuller Keiter, Rabbi Gavriel Sanders and Rabbi Brett Kopin
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