Torah vs. Science: Who Counted the Stars First?

In everyday life, when we want to know who is stronger, smarter, or more successful, we compare achievements under the same conditions. For example, if several contestants are given the same question, the one who solves it first is considered the smartest.

Some have tried to make a similar comparison between Torah wisdom and scientific knowledge. As science developed and accumulated achievements in research and technology, its successes gave rise to a social movement that carried the slogan warned about in the Torah: “My power and the strength of my hand have made me this wealth” (Devarim 8:17). This attitude led to the spread of disbelief in the Creator of the world and the Giver of the Torah to Israel.

Ironically, the very technology that gave scientists new tools for research — and led to new discoveries, has often turned against the spirit of denial. Modern discoveries have shown that science lags behind the Torah by thousands of years. Many so-called “new” scientific findings about natural phenomena are already recorded in the Torah with astonishing precision, known to the Sages for generations through the study of the four levels of Torah interpretation: Pshat (simple meaning), Remez (hints), Drush (homiletics), and Sod (mystical secrets).

The Stars: A Case Study

One of the most striking examples is in astronomy. Among science’s most impressive discoveries is the realization that the number of stars in the heavens is roughly a billion times a billion.

The invention of the telescope by Galileo Galilei about 500 years ago marked a turning point. As telescopes improved, more stars were observed, and as science progressed, the numbers became increasingly staggering. Only in recent generations did science arrive at the estimate of a billion times a billion stars.

But these achievements led to overconfidence. Many scientists began making sweeping claims — for example, that the universe is billions of years old, despite the fact that no “birth certificate” of any star has ever been found. Different scientists propose different ages: some say 50 billion years, others 15 billion, and many more theories abound, each side declaring the other wrong. From the Torah’s perspective, however, the world’s true age since Creation is 5,777 years (at the time of this writing).

A humorous story illustrates how faulty conclusions can arise from flawed assumptions: A boy once caught a fly and began “experimenting.” He pulled off one wing, ordered it to jump, and the fly jumped. He recorded: “A fly without one wing can jump.” Then he pulled off a leg, commanded it to jump, and again it jumped. He repeated this until all the wings and legs were gone. When he ordered the wingless, legless fly to jump, it remained still. After three attempts with no movement, the boy wrote in his research notes: “A fly with no wings and no legs cannot hear.”

Torah’s Ancient Knowledge

Even the discovery of the astronomical number of stars, impressive as it is, falls short. Science still has not reached the exact number.

In contrast, the Torah revealed this number thousands of years ago. The Talmud (Berachot 32b) records a teaching from the Oral Torah, transmitted since Sinai: God said, “My daughter, I created twelve constellations in the heavens. For each constellation I created thirty hosts, for each host thirty legions, for each legion thirty cohorts, for each cohort thirty divisions, for each division thirty camps, and upon each camp I suspended 365,000 myriads of stars — corresponding to the days of the solar year. And all of them I created only for your sake, and you say I have forgotten you?!”

When these numbers are multiplied, the total comes to 1,064,340,000,000,000,000 — more than a billion times a billion.

The Difference Between Torah and Science

Although modern science’s estimate is close to this number, two critical differences remain:

1. The Torah provides an exact figure, not an estimate.

2. The Torah’s knowledge came thousands of years earlier, when human science still believed there were only a few thousand stars visible in the sky.

The Torah’s number is not the product of human research but was given directly by the Creator of the world, who declared: “Thus I created.”

The superiority of the Torah over science extends across all areas of research. Beyond providing accurate knowledge, the Torah holds an even greater advantage of full mastery over nature and the future.

May we merit to reconnect with the source from which our ancestors drew their holiness, wisdom, and strength, and may we be granted complete return and a near redemption.