This will never change, not even if the latest scientific notion that the genesis of all the multitudes of organic forms on earth can be traced back to one single, most primitive, primeval form of life should ever appear to be anything more than what it is today, a vague hypothesis still unsupported by fact. Even if this notion were ever to gain complete acceptance by the scientific world, Jewish thought, unlike the reasoning of the high priest of that notion, would nonetheless never summon us to revere a still extant representative of this primal form as the supposed ancestor of us all. Rather, Judaism in that case would call upon its adherents to give even greater reverence than ever before to the one, sole God Who, in His boundless creative wisdom and eternal omnipotence, needed to bring into existence no more than one single, amorphous nucleus and one single law of "adaptation and heredity" in order to bring forth, from what seemed chaos but was in fact a very definite order, the infinite variety of species we know today, each with its unique characteristics that sets it apart from all other creatures. (Collected Writings, vol. 7 pp. 263-264)

The evolutionary way of thinking... has caused considerable upheaval among many people whose thought had been wont to run in certain regular, well-defined paths. Not so, however, for the select, hard-thinking few who have always seen a gradual, evolutionary development in the world's most intimate spiritual essence. For them it is not difficult to apply, by analogy, the same principle to the physical development of the visible world.

When I was first struggling with the questions of our origins, I steeled my courage to ask the renowned biblical scholar, Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, if it was possible that Adam had an ancestor. Not knowing what to expect, I skirted the issue for a few awkward minutes. When I finally presented the question, his matter-of-fact reply almost bowled me over: "The text of Genesis and the ancient commentaries of Nahmanides on that text certainly [certainly, mind you!] leave the door open for that interpretation."

More recently, when Dr. Schroeder cites certain opinions regarding prehistoric man he has given me as his rabbinic source. A few months a go I received a phone call from a friend who would also be happy to be defined as someone who lives in the zealous camp. He heard Dr. Schroeder speak and quote me, my friend was incredulous. I told him of the following conversation which I had with Rav Yaakov Weinberg on another occasion. I asked Rav Yaakov if it was kefira to say that Adam had parents. He responded by saying that as long as you can show a spiritual difference between Adam and those preceding him then in terms of Hashkafa this would be fine. I could not tell if Rav Yaakov Weinberg himself accepted this approach or merely thought it was hashkafically acceptable (I later heard from a very close talmid of Rav Yaakov that he heard Rav Yaakov suggest this 40 years ago and was comfortable with it).

The gedolei hador at the time of Darwin found little to criticize in the theory or its scientific findings...

Neither the age of the earth, the fossil finds of strange creatures nor the evolution of man, posed any "threat" to Torah truth as understood by the Tifereth Yisroel. Indeed, data from carbon dating lead/uranium, and other radioactive time clocks affirm the great age of the earth...

Did Hashem make this last world in six days and rested on the seventh, or was it six millennia? Either assumption can be correct...

The Talmudic literature refers to prior worlds and earlier men before the present world that is dated 5748 years from the birth of Adam and his wife Eve. Some of our great Torah sages accept this literally and see in it a concurrence with the scientific claim for a very ancient world. No one dare label such a belief heretical, even if personal family tradition is to accept that the world was created ex nihilo 5748 years ago.