At the center of the Milky Way, a supermassive black hole known as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A* ) lurks, influencing observable things like light and planets due to its massive gravitational pull.
Scientists have known that something was present at the center of our galaxy since the 1930’s when Karl Jansky recorded radio signals coming from that location. Recently, scientists were able to determine that the mass of Sgr A* equals four million suns. In 2019, The Guardian reported that a planet, S5-HVS1, was captured by the velocity of Sgr A* and kicked out of our solar system. Jack Hills, for whom the mechanism was named, claimed this could have happen as long ago as 1988, but this was the first time evidence of the phenomenon was found.
From the Jewish perspective, the darkness of a black hole, which pulls light into it and is ergo unseen, can be understood in biblical terms as the “darkness over the surface” mentioned in the creation story in Genesis 1:1-2, Director of the Tzfat Kabbalah Center Rabbi Eyal Riess told Breaking Israel News.
Riess argued that as the black hole is a “pre-creative ‘dark’ space empty of everything except possibility” it connects with the Jewish mystical concept of God "engraving" – carving out an empty space in divine reality – so that a universe could be formed and eventually produce a consciousness.
Reiss is giving a Shavuot lecture online on Wednesday at 6.30 p.m. (Israel time) on the Tzfat Kabbalah Center Facebook page.