Amaze. Amaze. Amaze. Project Hail Mary and God: A Rabbinic Perspective

The film Project Hail Mary is deeply rooted in science and in the infinite possibility of scientific discovery.

It delights in chemistry, biology, mathematics, engineering, astrophysics. It trusts that the universe yields itself, piece by piece, to curiosity, discipline, experimentation, and courage.

It is, in many ways, a love song to the human mind.

And yet.

The movie leaves another set of questions untouched.

It does not really ask where love comes from. It does not try to explain the source of personality, mutual care, hope, or the mysterious impulse toward individual sacrifice. It stays focused on the science of matter. It does not attempt to answer the God question.

That restraint is part of what makes the film so powerful.

Because while Grace and Rocky are solving scientific problems, what blossoms between them is something else entirely.

Friendship.

Trust.

Delight.

Gratitude.

They are, both of them, profoundly relieved not to be alone.

Not Meant to Be Alone

That longing not to be alone is one of the oldest truths in Torah.

“Lo tov heyot ha-adam levado” —

It is not good for the human being to be alone (Genesis 2:18).

Before covenant. Before law. Before peoplehood.

This truth comes first.

And so God creates an ezer k’negdo.

Not a subordinate.

Not a helper in the small sense.

An ezer — a word often used for God’s own help.

K’negdo — one who stands facing, corresponding, alongside.

A partner.

A presence.

Someone to lean on, and someone who leans back.

That is what Grace and Rocky become for one another.

Two utterly different beings.

Different biology. Different worlds. Different ways of sensing and knowing.

And still:

They become companions.

They become each other’s support.

They become, in the deepest sense, not alone.

Creation and the Impulse Toward Relationship

I want to name something deeper that sits just beneath the surface of this story.

In Jewish tradition, we are taught clearly that human beings are not meant for isolation.

And many Jewish theologians take this one step further.

Thinkers like Abraham Joshua Heschel and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks suggest that this human truth reflects something even more fundamental about reality itself: that creation emerges from a divine impulse toward relationship. That God creates not out of lack of power, but out of a kind of longing — a desire for encounter, for partnership, for presence in the world.

God creates out of the impulse not to be alone.

Not loneliness as deficiency, but aloneness that gives rise to relationship.

A movement from singularity toward connection.

A world brought into being so that there might be meeting.

Between God and humanity.

Between human beings.

Between all forms of life.

And if that is true, then the ache we see in Grace and Rocky — that profound relief at no longer being alone — is not incidental.

It is woven into the fabric of creation itself.

I–Thou

Martin Buber helps name what is happening.

Buber taught that we live in two kinds of relationships.

In an I-It world, the other is something to analyze, use, solve, or understand.

In an I-Thou moment, the other becomes fully present. Irreducible. Real.

That meeting becomes holy.

That is what happens between Grace and Rocky.

At first, each is a problem.

Then each is a collaborator.

And finally, each becomes a Thou.

They learn each other’s language.

They protect one another.

They change for one another.

Across every imaginable difference, they enter into relationship.

And in that space — that fragile, courageous, growing space between them —

There is holiness.

God in Relationship

For me, God is as real as rock.

Not because I can measure God.

Not because I can prove God in the way I can prove a chemical reaction.

But because I know, in the deepest way I know anything, that life connects to life.

I know it through people.

Through animals.

Through trees and flowers.

Through moments of encounter that are so alive, so mutual, so present, that they open into something larger than themselves.

The world is not only matter.

Life addresses life.

We are met.

That is what Project Hail Mary reveals so beautifully.

Beneath all the science, beneath all the equations and problem-solving, is something ancient and holy:

The desire not to be alone.

And the miracle of finding one another.

Yirah — Amazement

Jewish tradition gives us a word for this:

Yirah.

Often translated as “fear,” but more truly:

Awe.

Wonder.

Amazement.

“The beginning of wisdom is yirat Hashem” (Proverbs 9:10).

“Serve with awe” (Psalm 2:11).

Not fear as shrinking.

But awe as expansion.

As trembling wonder.

As the gasp that comes when reality exceeds our understanding.

Amaze

That is what I feel at the heart of this film.

Amaze at science.

Amaze at discovery.

Amaze at the vastness of the universe.

And amaze, above all, that in such a vast universe, life still reaches for life.

Amaze that Grace and Rocky find one another.

Amaze that care can cross worlds.

Amaze that friendship can become salvation.

Amaze that even in a story so committed to science, what ultimately sustains life is not knowledge alone, but relationship.

Amaze. Amaze. Amaze.