| Preface |
| Acknowledgments |
| CHAPTER 1. RELIGION AND SCIENCE IN HARMONY |
| Cosmology and Kabbalah |
6 |
Preconceptions and Prejudices |
12 |
Motivations and Questions |
15 |
The Path Ahead |
18 |
| |
| CHAPTER 2. TWO VIEWS OF COSMOLOGY |
| Disparate Views of Creation |
24 |
The Modern Scientific Picture |
27 |
The Expanding Universe |
27 |
Corroborating Evidence |
29 |
The Isotropic, Expanding, Homogeneous Universe |
33 |
| |
| CHAPTER 3. THE PARADOX OF “WITHOUT-LIMIT” |
| The Age and Shape of the Universe |
39 |
General Relativity: A Scientific Perspective on Unity |
42 |
Special Relativity: The Coupling of Space and Time |
50 |
| |
| CHAPTER 4. THE COSMIC CAST |
| The Four Forces |
57 |
The Particles and Their Forms |
63 |
The Bosons |
64 |
The Fermions |
66 |
Antimatter |
68 |
Dark Matter |
70 |
A Summary |
72 |
A Unified Description of Forces and Particles |
73 |
Strings |
77 |
The Inflationary Universe |
81 |
The Sefirot: Force and Substance in the Kabbalah |
87 |
One from Many: The Revelations of Symmetry |
92 |
| |
| CHAPTER 5. MOMENTS OF CREATION |
| The Sefirot in Creation |
100 |
Before the Big Bang: The World of Atzilut |
105 |
The Sefirah of Keter |
106 |
The Big Bang through the Great Inflation: The World of Briyah |
108 |
The Sefirot of Hokhmah and Binah |
110 |
From Inflation to Atoms: The World of Yetzirah |
112 |
The Epoch of Quarks |
112 |
The Epoch of Leptons |
116 |
The Epoch of Radiation |
118 |
The Sefirot of Hesed, Gevurah, and Tiferet |
122 |
The Parting of Radiation and Matter to the Formation of Galaxies, Stars, Planets, and Life: The World of Assiyah |
124 |
The Epoch of Matter |
124 |
The Sefirot of Netzah, Hod, Yesod, and Malkhut |
129 |
| |
| CHAPTER 6. COSMIC WISDOM |
The Awesome Universe |
135 |
Wisdom (Hokhmah) and the Universe |
141 |
The Anthropic Principle |
142 |
A Miraculous World? |
142 |
A Purposeful World? |
149 |
| |
| CHAPTER 7. A QUANTUM OF SENSE |
Quantum Mechanics and Awareness (Yirah) |
160 |
Purpose and the Kabbalah |
169 |
From Nothing, Everything: Creation ex Nihilo |
171 |
| |
| CHAPTER 8. MIRACULOUS WILL |
Intelligence and Self-Awareness |
175 |
Free Will |
177 |
Intelligent Life in the Universe |
183 |
Miracles |
190 |
| |
| CHAPTER 9. BEFORE AND AFTER |
The End |
195 |
Distant Horizons and Countless Universes |
200 |
| |
| CHAPTER 10. BRINGING TRUTH TO LIGHT |
Drawing Lessons |
209 |
Closing Meditation |
215 |
| |
| Figures: |
Schematic of the Evolution of the Cosmos |
217 |
Tree of Life — Ladder of Sefirot |
220 |
| |
| Notes and Comments |
221 |
| References |
253 |
| Index |
265 |
| About the Author |
279 |
