The universe is inconceivably big. It has a diameter of 91 billion light years. In miles, that is approximately 54, followed by 22 zeros. The universe is comprised of between 100 and 200 billion galaxies. Our Milky Way Galaxy has about 100 billion stars. The closest star to the earth is a little bit more than four light years away.
Planet Earth has a number of rare features that have made the development of life possible. Moving tectonic plates enable the formation and maintenance of an atmosphere. The climate is not too hot and not too cold. The moon is unusually large, blocking just enough solar radiation to allow genetic mutation to occur at a reasonable pace. Earth’s orbit around the sun is pretty close to circular. The sun itself is larger than most stars, and smaller than others. In so many ways, the earth is “just right.”
The earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago. Life came into existence around 4 billion years ago. More than 99% of all species that ever lived on Earth are now extinct. Homo Sapiens emerged about 300,000 years ago. Our ancestors began to develop modern ways of thinking, reflected by the use of complex tools, cave painting, big game hunting, and ritual burial.
3,800 years ago, Abraham heard the voice of God blessing him with the promise of land and offspring. 3,300 years ago, Moses led our people out of slavery in Egypt to the land of Israel. Solomon built the Temple. It was destroyed, rebuilt, and destroyed again over the next thousand years, sending our ancestors into exile. That exile ended in 1948, and here we are…
…residing in the most prosperous country in the history of the planet, and for all we know, the universe. Here in Silicon Valley, we have a perfect climate. We have air conditioning. In about 45 minutes, we will sit down to have lunch together, and there will probably be enough food for us to go back for seconds and thirds.
How incredibly unlikely it is that each one of us is here right now.
Is there an appropriate response to the unfathomably minute possibility of my existence?
If such a response exists, I am not sure what it is.
We humans have a built-in tendency to take our lives for granted. This is one of Moses’ concerns as he prepares to make his final goodbyes to the Israelites, whom he has led for the previous forty years. Over the course of Deuteronomy, he has been delivering his final series of instructions to those who will be entering the Promised Land without him.
In this morning’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo, Moses lays out a few ritual ceremonies that the Israelites will have to observe.
The first of those ceremonies will not be performed by the generation that stands before him. True, they will enter the land, but it will take several more generations until their descendants complete its conquest, and even longer before they build the Temple.
That is the time to which Moses refers. Israelite farmers will plant their seeds and harvest their crops. When the first fruits of those crops come in, the farmer will place it in a basket and bring it to the Temple in Jerusalem, identified by Moses as “the place where the Lord your God will choose to establish His name.” The farmer will present the fruit to the priest on duty and make a declaration:
I acknowledge this day before the Lord your God that I have entered the land that the Lord swore to our fathers to assign us.” (Deut. 26:3)
The priest will take the basket from him, and the farmer will continue:
My father was a fugitive Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation. The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us; they imposed heavy labor upon us . . . and the LORD heard our plea and saw our plight, our misery, and our oppression. The LORD freed us from Egypt . . . He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Wherefore I now bring the first fruits of the soil which You, O Lord, have given me. (Deut. 26: 5–10)
This speech integrates themes of agriculture with history. This is one of the great theological innovations of the Torah: God is both the Creator of the natural world, as well as the God of history.
We see this throughout the Torah, as the various agricultural holidays are infused with historical significance. Passover, the Spring festival to celebrate the beginning of the agricultural season, is also the holiday celebrating freedom from slavery. Succot, the Fall harvest festival, also commemorates the booths that our ancestors dwelt in while they were in the wilderness.
This is what Moses wants to ensure that future Israelites will remember. He wants future Israelites to know: My ancestors were once slaves in Egypt. God brought them out, enabling me to be born in freedom. I am here now because of God’s promise to my ancestors. Without them, I would not be in this land, this land that is so prosperous that it flows with milk and honey.
Notice that the farmer never makes any reference to all of his hard work: the early mornings planting and weeding; the backbreaking labor; the difficult journey from his home to the Temple. That is not the point. The point is for him to acknowledge everything that has happened to bring him to this blessed moment.
Moses knows that future Israelites will have a tendency to take two things for granted. One, that he lives in a fortuitous time period. Two, that he lives in a fertile place.
In other words, Moses worries that the farmer will take time and space for granted.
It is not just ancient Israelite farmers who tended to take their existence in time and space for granted. We all do. When we are successful, we tend to overweight the impact of our own hard work and underweight the countless factors outside of our control that made our success possible.
The purpose of much of Jewish ritual is to alert us to the many blessings that we enjoy. In our daily prayers, we acknowledge God as the Creator of the universe, the heavenly bodies, and the daily rising and setting of the sun and moon.
We acknowledge the incredible way in which the human body is put together. We give thanks for knowledge and understanding. We praise God for moments of our ancestors’ redemption, without which we would not be alive.
Before eating a piece of bread, we recite a blessing indicating that it is God who “brings forth bread from the earth.” Even though this is not literally where bread comes from, we remind ourselves of the many natural miracles that must occur so that human beings can produce food that is delicious and nutritious.
People who express gratitude are happier, and experience life as more meaningful. I suspect, as well, that those who are conscious of how undeservedly blessed they are tend to behave towards others with more generosity and compassion.
So, is there an appropriate response to the unfathomably minute possibility of our existence? Let’s start with simply trying to acknowledge it:
The universe has conspired to bring me to this moment in time and space. And for that I am grateful.