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I have often noticed the anthropocentric view held by the Jewish creation story when, in my Reform synagogue, we read from Chapter 1 of Genesis on the second day of Rosh HaShanah. I have often wondered how God talks to other intelligent creatures besides humans. If we could approach God the way God might be approached by a parrot or octopus, would we understand creation in a way that helps us better preserve our current world?
First, our Bible’s portrayal of God is relentlessly hierarchical, with some of this power over nature passing onto the humans in Genesis 1:26-28. The High Holidays reproduce this hierarchical view of God, where Avinu Malkeinu reflects the age of unquestioned patriarchy and monarchy. The Rosh Hashanah 34b section of the Babylonian Talmud proclaims: "Recite before Me on New Year…kingship verses to declare Me king over you."
In contrast, a few cephalopods, such as octopuses and cuttlefish, are extremely intelligent and sometimes aggressive, but do not form hierarchical societies. (In fact, they don’t form societies at all, although occasional loose colonies have been found, as reported in Peter Godfrey-Smith’s book Other Minds.) Would they interact with the creator of the universe as curious, exploratory, and respectful equals, just as they do with humans? Or perhaps they would fail to perceive any distinction between themselves and God, sensing a unity expressed through the mystical branch of every religion (Kabbalah, Sufism, Buddhism, etc.). This feeling of oneness has been called the "oceanic feeling" and was ascribed by Freud to vestiges of the baby’s undifferentiated perception of things around her. Cephalopods may be privileged to experience it all the time.
Land ownership is also central to the Bible. Like many other intelligent creatures, we are territorial. This is reflected by the Tanakh on many levels. First, we thank God for taking land from other peoples and giving it to the Israelites. Secondly, the Israelites divided land both inside and outside the traditional Canaanite region among tribes. (Remember that the daughters of Zelophehad were instructed not to marry outside their tribe, because doing so would give the land to another tribe.) Finally, within each tribe, families jealously guarded their plots of land, which is why the Tanakh repeatedly enjoins us not to move border stones. (Deuteronomy 19:14, 27:17; Proverbs 22:28; etc.) Thus, our territoriality goes even beyond those of other creatures, because we expect it to last for generations.
Although octopuses and cuttlefish can chase rivals away from nests and females, they do not display territoriality. They graze freely and change nests frequently. Their children do not honor either their father or their mother (who usually die shortly after their children’s eggs hatch), but drift off after emerging from the egg. Perhaps their vision of God is one who guards the entire environment, because it is obviously shared symbiotically by many individuals and species.
Finally, humans anxiously count our petty seventy years of life (Psalms 90:10) and lament that the wicked grow like grass (Psalms 92:7) while the honest are persecuted (Job 9:20-22). Octopuses may regard their life spans differently. As Godfrey-Smith points out, they live only about two years in the wild. And although they suffer at the hands of predators (including their fellow octopuses), it is not due to injustice and betrayal, but simple evolutionary necessity. Perhaps they can accept the natural succession of generations and a world that is cruel but just.
I myself am happy that humans have brought notions of mercy to the discussion. But even the Tanakh recognizes a fiercer form of protection by comparing God to eagles, lionesses, or bears who guard their young (Exodus 19:4; Deuteronomy 32:11; Ezekiel 19:2; Hosea 13:8). These metaphors show God simultaneously as a fierce, ruthless creature but in a gentle and implicitly female role.
Godfrey-Smith treats communication as a key element of consciousness. He points out that some species express themselves demonstratively; others derive sophisticated information from very limited signals. Many birds, mammals, and cuttlefish are intelligent and can communicate with humans—even comfort and joke around with humans, as suggested by Sy Montgomery’s book, The Soul of the Octopus.
They cannot, however, challenge our destruction of the environment that keeps them as well as ourselves alive. The creatures certainly do their best to communicate their stress: birds migrate away from the equator from year to year and forests alter their growth patterns, as reported in Peter Wohlleben’s book The Hidden Life of Trees. Bees and frogs die off, while storms pummel our shores and droughts deplete our reservoirs.
In these catastrophes one can detect the word of God: "Today I call upon you the heaven and the earth as witness" (Deuteronomy 4:26). When we disrupt ground waters through fracking, God "looks to the Earth and it shudders" (Psalms 104:32). But the level of consciousness that can respond to these signals remains human. Our ability to appreciate creation the way it is experienced by other beings will determine our continued existence.
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