32. Who, Me? (cont'd.)

We live in a miraculous world.

Life is a miracle. Water is a miracle. Healing is a miracle. Paying the mortgage is a miracle. The fact that my wife still loves me is a miracle. We can all handle the little miracles that happen every day. In a good mood, we might even count our blessings and thank the One Above for them.

Where it gets tricky is when we get singled out. Jews never went around calling themselves the “Chosen People.” Instead they campaigned for equality. Jews did not invent their appellation as “People of the Book.” Instead, they prized literacy. They never said, “Yo guys! We’ve got the true religion. Follow us.” Instead they preached religious tolerance.

Of course, the observant Jews understood that, yes, we are indeed Chosen People, of the Book, and blessed with True Religion. For the observant Jew, equality, literacy, and tolerance are the order of the day because we are Chosen, and because of the Book and its Truth.

For the pre-observant majority of Jews, however, the promotion of those other values may have some compensatory psychological value, as well. As if to say to their fellow human, I am like you. I am not different. Our religions are no different, in truth. And that’s where the Sea comes in.

Believing in the Red Sea is a lot more loaded than just believing in miracles. It means believing in One G-d that gave One Torah to One People. It means that in some fundamental way, I am not like you, I am different, and so is my faith. It also means that deliverance is not a free lunch. After the sea, there was a mountain, and the Law we received.

Coming to terms with all this might not be so bad, if only we could relegate the tale to history and be done with it. But no chance of that. G-d has His way of sneaking out of the dusty pages and into our face, with both kisses and other things, all unmistakably imprinted with His signature.

When a Jew does something, he does it right. If he’s going to deny the Sea, he better deny modern miracles too[3], because one thing can lead to another and before you know it, the miracle train might lead him to a mitzvah train and for many that prospect is daunting.

But maybe that’s what it takes to get yourself a miracle – a firm march into your own Red Sea just because that’s what Moses prescribed.

And when we take an approach like that, says the Torah template, we may get wet, we may get scared, we may get in up to our nose, but at just the right time, that Sea will split. And when that happens, your personal exodus may pave the way for us all.

Moshiach Now!

* * * * *

[3] as cited on PBS, “There are those in every tradition who believe miracles still happen. While the NEWSWEEK poll found that American Jews are the least likely to believe in modern miracles, the tradition is still strong among Hassidic Jews. Members of [the] Chabad Lubavitch community believe their late Rebbe, Menachem Schneerson, intercedes with God. People bring their petitions to his grave site in Queens. If they can't make it in person, they fax or call Rabbi Abba Refson, who takes down requests on his palm computer.”

Rabbi Refson said: People do believe that there are miracles. They believe that, they see that their Rebbe has interceded on their behalf. I hear of quite a few miracles every single day that happen to different people. So, I can tell you that miracles do happen daily.”

31. Who, Me?

Miracles are one thing. Believing is quite another.

Take the Splitting of the Red Sea that we read about in this week’s Torah portion for example. You can’t get a bigger miracle than that.

But what really happened over there? It was a long time ago, after all, so who really knows? Of course we could ask around.. ..Of the 6.5 billion people parading the planet today, we’ve got over half who believe in scriptures[1] that say the Jews walked through walls of water on dry land while their oppressors drowned in pursuit.

So there you have it. A bonafide miracle that way over 3 billion people believe really happened. It probably happened just like that. Case closed. Or is it?

It turns out that although other faiths tend to take the wondrous walls of water at face value, the “People of the Book” are a little more reticent. Despite their having the most detailed and only first- hand account, Jews are the most skeptical about it. To illustrate, while 64% of Americans take the story literally, most Jews think of it as a parable.[2]

Does this, “Who, me?” posture strike you as odd?

It’s reminiscent of a story. A polltaker goes to a mosque on Friday and asks a worshipper if he believes in G-d. “Of course, That’s why I came. To pray.” When he asks the same question outside a church on Sunday, he gets a similar response, “Obviously. Why else would I be here?”

But when he visits a synagogue on Yom Kippur, he gets a different reaction. “Do I believe in G-d? Do I believe in G-d? What do you think I am, a philosopher?”

“So what are you doing here?”

“What do you mean, what am I doing here. It’s Yom Kippur. Where else is a Jew supposed to be on Yom Kippur?”

* * * * *

[1] Wikipedia on Religion
[2] Rutgers - Eagleton Poll (Apr.12/06)

30. Solar Flares (cont'd.)

Lately, I started to wonder: Could it be that all that focused consciousness directed at the sun affected it in some way? After all, in recent decades, dozens of ivy-league experiments have verified that focused human consciousness can affect objects and people in remote locations, up to thousands of miles away. If so, why not the sun?

Plenty other science developments point to the same possibility:

Ø Quantum physics teaches that human observership lies at the heart of the mechanics of the universe and that the whole cosmos is connected through some holistic unity beyond space and time;
Ø Chaos theory shows how minute perturbations in one part of a system can quickly change the state of the whole;
Ø The widely espoused Anthropic Principle says that the universe was geared to produce human life before time began, so the cosmos somehow depends on us.

Add this all together with a dash of Talmudic tradition (i.e., each person should say “the universe was made for me.”), and as crazy as it seems, there really is no reason why the sun couldn’t respond to our prayers about it.

Physicists these days speak of “the conscious universe,” so why not a conscious sun? Maimonides in his Book of Knowledge says that the sun has consciousness. A strange thought for those of us who are material realists, but scientists haven’t espoused material realism for nearly a century!

These ideas led me to an odd, but testable, hypothesis. Since the solar blessing event was not tied to solar activity, if the prayer did affect solar dynamics, it would probably show as a detectable elevation in solar flare activity – akin to how the Creator “calls to the sun and it shines,” to borrow a phrase from the Shabbat morning prayers.

To test the notion, I googled around and found the US Federal archives at the National Geophysical Data Center at Boulder Colorado. Just what I was looking for. Reams and reams of raw data all about the sun. The best data- set for this purpose was the monthly full-disk solar flare intensity values from 1966 through 2005, a total of 12 x 40 = 480 data points.

If my hypothesis was wrong, and the sun did not visibly respond, what kind of solar flare intensity would we expect to see for April 1981? Obviously somewhere in the middle, not very high and not very low. Statistically speaking somewhere in the lower 95% of the intensity values. Scientific convention says that anything in that range may be due to chance. Anything higher than that may be significant. Anything in the upper 1% of the intensity values could be highly significant.

What we do see is graphed above. Solar flare intensities over the last 40 years vary widely. Of the 480 months, April 1981 was the second most intense. Statistically speaking, this may be considered highly significant.

Divine Providence? Absolutely! Scientific proof of a prayer connection with solar flares? Not really! But it is support of my hypothesis, for whatever that’s worth.

Somebody may want to follow up on this, but it probably won’t be me. I already know that the whole universe hangs on our divine service. I know it from the Tanya and other holy texts of Jewish origin. I don’t need proof from science for that.

What we may want to consider is how all this relates to the Torah portion of this week, in order to “live with the time,” as the Alter Rebbe enjoined.

For one thing, our portion contains the very first command to the Jewish nation, to keep the Jewish calendar. That certainly is relevant to our discussion. For another thing, the blessing of creation is relevant this week as well, because according to one opinion discussed by Rashi on the first verse of Genesis, the Torah should have started with this week’s portion about keeping the Jewish calendar.

A third piece of providence here is that today, on a Wednesday, I happen to be writing about the creation of the sun on a Wednesday, while reading the Torah portion for Wednesday of “Parshas Bo” that establishes a calendar based on the sun and moon which were created on Wednesday.

And if all this is not enough, while wondering about this confluence, I glanced at the front page news of my Wednesday paper to see that President George W. Bush has proclaimed a renewable energy initiative to immunize America from oil politics.

“For too long our nation has been dependent of foreign oil. And this dependence leaves us more vulnerable to hostile regimes, and to terrorists.. ..It is in our vital interest to diversify America’s energy supply – and the way forward is through technology.”

President Bush’s State of the Union
address to Congress, Jan. 23, 2007.

The remarkable thing about the timing of this announcement was that it precisely echoed the same message in the words of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, also uttered on a Wednesday, a very special Wednesday 26 years ago.

“We see clearly that when this country needs oil it is forced to listen to others – even to concede matters that are the opposite of justice, fairness and goodness.. ..If the United States would invest in developing energy sources in its own land, they would have already long been freed of dependence on other nations.”

The Lubavitcher Rebbe’s public address
at the solar blessing, April 8, 1981.

Now if that’s not Divine Providence, what is?

(c) 2007 Arnie Gotfryd, Ph.D

29. Blueprints: Solar Flares

The sun.

What does it not do for us? It powers the global ecosystem, cycling water from seas to clouds to rain to rivers and back again. Through every green plant, it’s light gives life to animals and man. It drives the seasons, delivers us sight, signals us to awaken, makes the sky blue.

In an ever-changing world, the sun is our constant, always there, always shining, never changing. Or is it?

The face of the sun is a lot more dynamic than the man-in-the moon. That steady façade of blinding brilliance belies turmoil and tempest, bubbles and belches that blast proton storms millions of miles into space, jamming our frequencies, then collapsing to quiescence in a matter of minutes.

Even the solar cycle is not so cyclic. Eleven years on average, it actually ranges from 9 to 14, and is more unpredictable than earthly weather in terms of number, size, location and intensity of major events like sunspots and flares.

Contrasting these capricious dynamics, is the perfectly predictable and deterministic astronomical calculations that underlie Judaism’s calendar. While some cultures mark only solar dates and others track lunar cycles, the Jews have developed a unique system that does both: Solar and lunar cycles are reconciled to the minute using seven leap-months every nineteen years.

Among the myriad details of the Jewish calendar is this: Every 28 years, on the second Wednesday in April, the sun and earth are in about the same positions as they were at the moment they were created on the eve of the fourth day 5767 years ago. When that happens, the Jews make a blessing, the same one they make when they see natural wonders like lightning, oceans, and shooting stars. They bless G-d for “Doing the work of creation.”

On April 8, 1981, the last time this blessing was recited on the sun, I was in Jerusalem at the Western Wall with 200,000 other Jews all making the same blessing at the same time. That day, hundreds of thousands more the world over chimed in with the same prayer and the same intent.

What an impact that must have made in heaven.

28. Blueprints: Earthworms

Last week’s sextuplets got me thinking.

If you recall our previous issue, sextuplets in the weekly Torah portion corresponded to the live birth of sextuplets in Vancouver, a Canadian first.

Parallels like this illustrate how Torah concepts can unfold before our very eyes, and more. They also exemplify how we can follow the Chassidic dictum to “live with the time”[1], by celebrating the exquisitely timed correlation between worldly happenings and those in our Jewish calendar.

That brought to mind another classic convergence a few years back when the annual cycle of Torah readings was starting anew from “In the Beginning”. Every year at that time, Jews the world over scratch their heads over the astounding longevity of the Biblical personalities between Adam and Noah, most of whom are said to have lived for some 900 years.

How could a modern thinking person believe something like that? Okay, faith is faith. But 900 years?

Just then, on the very day when those venerable forebears were the ardent focus of study for so many, a proclamation issued forth from the very pinnacle of the Ivory Tower (the prestigious journal, Science 302:611, October 24, 2003), to the effect that researchers had achieved a six-fold life extension in worms with just a single gene manipulation and some hormonal tweaking. Their conclusion: The same technique used on people would yield similar results, sparking hopes that humans could soon realize healthy, active life spans of up to 500 years.

Perhaps you wax skeptical, thinking, “How could you compare a human being to a worm?” Well, it wouldn’t be the first time. After all, King David himself said, “I am a worm and not a man.”[2] Indeed the parallel is borne out by genetics as well, as Mr. Human Genome himself, Dr. Francis Collins, said, “Of the 5,000 best known human genes, 75% have matches in the worm.”[3]

On the science side, the parallels between man and worm go far beyond genetics. As simple and lowly as they look, worms work much like we do. They have a nervous system with brain, nerve cord, and ganglia; a digestive system with mouth, pharynx, esophagus, intestine, etc; a circulatory system with 5 pairs of aortic arches that work like a heart, pumping blood throughout the body; and a similarly complex reproductive system.

The Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Chassidic movement some 300 years ago, taught his followers humility by having them consider their likeness to our wriggly cousins. “A person should consider himself, the worm, and all creatures as friends in the universe, for we are all created beings whose abilities are God-given.”[4]

Launching from longevity musings such as these plus the completion of the human genome map, technology guru Arthur Kurzweil predicts we will soon master all the genetic controls of ageing. So great is his confidence, that when asked how long he thinks we could live, he replied, “Let’s just say I’m not planning on dying”[5]

Hmmm. Radical longevity.. Immortality.. If that’s science, what’s faith?

* * * * *

By the way, the icing on the coincidence cake is that the numerical equivalent of vol. 302 is shav, meaning “return” to one’s roots, while the issue number, 611, is numerically equivalent to the Hebrew word, Torah. I guess if Hashem is going to send us a message via the journal Science, he may as well sign it too ;-)

* * * * *

[1] Hayom Yom, 2 Cheshvan
[2] Psalms 22:7
[3] Michigan Daily, Dec. 11, 1998
[4] Tzava’at HaRivash12 (as cited in Ecology and Spirituality in Jewish Tradition by David Sears)
[5] New Scientist, April 9, 2005.

27. Sextuplets (cont'd.)

But here's some timing that the media did not pick up on. Those babies were born during the week that Jews the world over are studying "Parshas Shemos" – Exodus – the Torah portion that includes a narrative alluding to a sextuple rate of population growth that the Children of Israel had in Egypt. Indeed, Rashi’s commentary confirms that giving birth to sextuplets was normal among the Hebrew slaves at that time.

"So what?" You may ask discounting the timing as meaningless coincidence. "Coincidences happen all the time." Well that may be true, but it doesn't make them accidents. Random as things may seem, nothing happens by chance.

The first Lubavitcher Rebbe, whose anniversary of passing we celebrate this Sunday, said that "we have to live with the time," by which he meant living with the Torah portion of the week and even of the day.

What does it mean to ‘live’ with something? Studying and living are two different things. I could know everything about nutrition and still eat junk. Living with the Torah means going beyond just studying it. It demands seeing and engaging the events in your life from the perspective of Torah.

The dynamics of the world are rooted in the dynamics of Torah, as the Zohar states, “G-d looked into the Torah and created the world.” i.e., Torah is the blueprint of Creation. So it comes as no surprise that when the Torah ‘news’ is sextuplets, the world news says the same.

Two more cute little details are associated with this story. One is that the parents are members of the J - - - - - - 's Witnesses (Jewish law limits the writing or saying of the name of this group out of respect for the Divine Name that it represents). The lesson I took from this detail is, that although I don’t agree with their religion, I do agree that today they are G- d’s witnesses to the feasibility of miracles, whether current or ancient, within nature or above it.

The second cute detail to this story actually provides a clue as to why we should busy ourselves with looking at life through the lens of the weekly Torah portion. That clue is in the very name of the official spokesperson for the happy new parents, B.C. Women’s Hospital President, Dr. Liz Whynot.

* * * * * * *

[1] Rabbi Tzvi Freeman citing Chacham Tzvi Ashkenazi
- Photo above of the Dilley sextuplets at age 11.

by Arnie Gotfryd (c) 2007 - all rights reserved.

26. Blueprints: Sextuplets

Timing is everything.

There are those who say that the splitting of the Red Sea was due to the likes of tides, or Venus, or winds. Who knows? Maybe they all played roles in the event. But none of that detracts from the miracle, because the key thing was the timing. The waters parted just in time to save the Jews, and they closed again just in time to drown their oppressors.

Do miracles happen today? Let's take childbirth for instance. I remember like today the tears in Dr. Goldman's eyes when he told me about the safe and healthy delivery of our firstborn daughter.

"Doctor, I know it was a high-risk pregnancy but was it really so high-risk?"
"No, not at all. Everything went smoothly."
"So why were you crying?"
"Why was I crying?! What do you mean, why was I crying? A baby was born!"

Surprised by the seasoned obstetrician-gynecologist's emotional investment in his daily work, I asked him about it.

"Doc, how many babies have you delivered?"
"Hmm... That's a good question... About nine hundred."
"Don't you get used to it?"
"How could I? It's such a miracle every time."

We are not all on the level of Dr. Goldman, although we probably should be. To quote Fyodor Dostoevsky, “man is a creature who can get used to anything.” We can even get used to miracles, if they happen often enough.

Our Sages say that the only difference between a natural occurence and a miracle is how often it occurs.[1] And yes, I'll admit that when my sixth was born, as thrilled as I was, it didn't strike me as so miraculous as the first.

But what if all six of them had been born at once? That's precisely the size of miracle that took place this week for a Bible-believing couple at the B.C. Women's Hospital in Vancouver, Canada. The newspapers are awash with invocations of divine intervention for these incredible "gifts from G-d", that comprise what seem to be Canada's first successful birth of sextuplets.

Yes, I forgive the media for not lining up at my door for interviews even though my wife and I have been through birth and childrearing not once, but even more than six times, while that British Columbia couple are just rookies at miracles. But that's okay, we understand. It's all a matter of timing.

25. SkinSight

The BrainPort technology enabling a blind

patient to effectively process visual input.

Image courtesy of UofWisc. Med. School.

Scientists studying perception at the University of Wisconsin Medical School have come up with a new technology that allows blind people to "see" well enough to catch a ball, walk around obstacles, play rock-paper- scissors, and watch a video. The device, called a Brain Port, bypasses the eyes entirely and provides a clear representation of the outside world using gentle electric stimulation of the skin.

How does it work? A small video camera is strapped onto the forehead of the patient to record how the scene changes as he moves. The video output is wired to an image converter that translates the picture into a pattern of electrical charges on a flat patch of plastic which can be placed on the tongue, stomach or abdomen. At first it feels strange, but within 20 minutes, patients have learned to completely substitute the flesh stimulation for eyesight. This effect resembles vision so closely that the visual cortex of the brain is harnessed to process these tactile sensations.

One of the side benefits of this technology is that it helps us better understand a prophecy for the Days of Moshiach which we recite every Shabbat when we remove the Torah scroll from the Ark. The quote, from Isaiah 40:5 is, "And together all flesh shall see that the mouth of G-d has spoken."

The Lubavitcher Rebbe points out that this verse refers not to eyes of flesh but rather to the flesh itself seeing the word of G-d that creates and sustains each thing from nothing to something constantly. Of course, we cannot yet see the Divine life force in creation, but we do now have proof that flesh itself has the ability to see. We've already got the receiver to pick up the signal once the revelation occurs.

Another interesting lesson from this technology is how it has changed our understanding of how the senses work. People used to think that vision was about the eye and brain processing a sequence of pictures. Now, however, citing research such as this, scientists believe that perceiving is not so much about sights and sounds but actually about processing symbolic information, much like reading words in a book.

Here too, Torah has known for ages what the scientists are just now starting to discover--that symbolic information, "words," define reality. In Hebrew, the word for "thing" and the word for "word" are the same--davar. In effect, the thing and the word are one and the same! But Torah goes one step farther. While science can show that information defines reality, it is Torah that demonstrates and celebrates where that information comes from: the Divine speech that creates and sustains the world.

It is interesting to note that some 35 years before the Brain Port was invented, a science fiction writer, Don J. Fretland, dreamed up the very same device and wrote about it in his novel, The Persimmon Sequence. It would be safe to assume that Isaiah was not less wise nor less prescient than Mr. Fretland. The question is only one of timing.

* * * * *
(c) Arnie Gotfryd and Chabad.Org. See it in the current issue of Chabad's online magazine.

24. The Zohar's Bull's Eye

Zohar Prophecy Actualized? 1840 C.E. sees all-time high in global innovation and explosive growth in American technology.

Foresee or Prophecy?
Data’s the question.

Long before Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, in fact long before anything went rotten in the state of Denmark except logs, Judaism’s Kabbala was making specific, dated predictions about the state of world culture in the distant future. Well, that distant future has come to pass already and data published in the magazine New Scientist[1] seems to have vindicated one of the Zohar’s prophetic claims[2].

But before we explore, is it even feasible to consider using empirical data to test claims of divine revelation? Isn’t faith beyond containment in a test tube or measuring with a meter stick? Not according to the likes of the Amazing Randi, a magician turned science fraud buster. He believes that scientific means can, should, and even must be used to quash the claims of charlatans posing as scientists.

The Randi’s of the world are great for saving us from suckering for dumb or bogus claims masquerading as nature’s truths revealed. But who is out there to save us from missing out on other-worldly realities when true? What if there is such a thing as prophecy? How could we test it if we wanted to? Are there falsifiable hypotheses we could apply to prophetic claims?

If you do know of a litmus test for oracles, it may be time to dust it off and apply it to the Zohar- prediction / New Scientist-fulfillment question before us today.

The Zohar’s prediction, a full 1700 years in advance, says that a flood of higher and lower knowledge would inundate the world in the years around 1840 C.E., as a preparation for the Messianic Era. The Lubavitcher Rebbe explains in one of his talks[3] that this higher wisdom refers to the teachings of Chassidic philosophy which first became broadly accessible with Torah Ohr and Likkutei Torah published around then. And lower wisdom, according to the Rebbe, refers to science.

Now science has been around for a long time. We’ve had Egyptian science, Persian science, Greek science, Talmudic science, Roman science. Did anything special happen in the mid-nineteenth century as far as science is concerned?

The short answer is: Yes! A dizzying array of topics in mathematics, physics and chemistry were all developed around 1840, laying the firm foundations for modern science and technology.

The longer answer is this:

The great mid-nineteenth century mathematicians Cauchy, Gauss, Hamilton, Jacobi and Lobachevski developed complex analysis, partial differential equations, differential geometry, non-Euclidean geometry, linear algebra, quaternions, and analytical mechanics.

The great mid-nineteenth century physicists Fresnel, Carnot, Clausius, Faraday, Mayer, Joule, Kelvin and Maxwell developed the wave theory of light, thermodynamics, electromagnetic induction, conservation of energy, absolute scale of temperature, and electromagnetic equations.

The great mid-nineteenth century chemists von Liebig, Wohler, Frankland, Kekule, van’t Hoff, and Le Bel developed organic chemistry, theory of valency, molecular structure and stereochemistry.

Such a panorama of concurrent intellectual breakthroughs and milestones[4] has not been seen before or since.

Still, all this is qualitative and verbal. True, an expert in the history of science and technology will be able to interpret the unparalleled significance of these developments for our modern world. But is there some kind of quantitative analysis that we can do to compare the years around 1840 C.E. with prior or subsequent periods?

Once again the answer is yes. A Pentagon Physicist, Jonathan Huebner, has plotted major innovations and scientific advances over time compared to world population, using the 7200 key innovations listed in the authoritative text, The History of Science and Technology. The results surprised him. Rather than growing exponentially, or just keeping pace with population growth, innovation actually peaked in the year 1840 and has been declining ever since!

To take another perspective, Huebner charted the number of US patents registered per million people in the US and found that the year 1840 marked the onset of America’s most sudden, extreme and prolonged growth in technological progress ever.

Let’s review.
The prophecised date for the flood of scientific knowledge? 1840.
The observed date for the flood of scientific knowledge? 1840.
Was the history textbook written to conform to the Zohar? No.
Was Huebner’s analysis performed to conform to the Zohar? No.
Are we witness here to the Zohar prophecy’s fulfillment? .. .. ..

And if the Zohar prophecy is true, what relevance does science have to the utopian era it heralds? How can science ‘elevate’ the world? And why does the Zohar correlate it to Chassidic philosophy? And what is the relevance for us?

The very same Chassidic discourse that highlighted this Zohar for us, explains its significance as well. You can either await its unfolding in a later issue of this newsletter, or get a prescient vision online[4].

* * * * *

[1] New Scientist, July 2, 2005 and the journal Technological Forecasting and Social Change
[2] Zohar Vol.1, p.117A
[3] Likkutei Sichos, Vol.15, pp.42-48
[4] Mind Over Matter: The Rebbe on Science, pp.204-214

23. Inseparable

Torah is the spiritual DNA of the world. How does DNA work? It is a chemical code containing all the information the body needs to grow, develop and function. The same information is in every one of the body’s 100 trillion cells, and yet every organ, every tissue and even every cell functions differently. A singular code-- a nearly infinite variety of outcomes. So it is with Torah, the blueprint of the universe.

This week we read about Yaakov and Rachel, and their legendary love. From their love, the Jewish people were founded, and the ultimate redemption was planted. On a kabbalistic level, Yaakov and Rachel symbolize vowels and letters, light and vessels, soul and body. [see here for more]

The Torah itself is based on love, as Rabbi Akiva said, “‘Love your fellow as yourself.’ This is the great principle of the Torah.” As King David put it in Psalms 89:3, “the world is built on kindness.”

So it’s not surprising that when scientists conduct experiments exploring how minds can connect without any material medium, they find that close friends, relatives and colleagues top the charts for telepathic connections. As we all know, love knows no bounds. Not even the bounds of lead-lined concrete walls, or thousands of miles of ocean.

But wait, you may ask. Is there really such a thing? Isn’t telepathy the stuff of sci-fi pulp and Art Bell radio, etc., etc.? What self-respecting academic would dabble in something as marginal as remote thought transference?

Let’s take philosopher Prof. Ervin Laszlo for starters. He has written 69 books translated into 19 languages. He holds doctorates from the Sorbonne and the University of Paris, has researched at Harvard and Yale, has received four honorary doctorates, and has held visiting professorships at reputed universities throughout the US, Europe and the Far East. (Besides being a world class pianist.)

Ervin Laszlo elucidates the reality of the conscious universe, its scientific basis and its significance to global civilization. He sees telepathy as just part of this bigger picture. [see article]

The bulk of the scientific establishment still refuses to accept transcendent consciousness as a legitimate subject for investigation, but they are for the most part cognitive clones of 19th Century materialists whose paradigms have long been swept out from under them by solid scientific advancements like quantum physics and other integrative sciences.

As early as 1974, the numero uno scientific journal in the world, Nature, published Russel Targ and Harold Puthoff’s “Information transmission under conditions of sensory shielding.” That was soon followed by an article entitled, "A perceptual channel for information transfer over kilometer distances: historical perspective and recent research" in the premiere engineering journal, Proceedings of the IEEE. Spooky.

Since then literally hundreds of related studies have been done by bonafide scientists worldwide. Emblematic of the new science is the fact that last year, the world’s biggest gathering of neuroscientists (20,000 attendees) was opened by non other than the Dalai Lama. Why? For one thing, studies of meditating monks show that their brain states become so synchronized that random pulses of light shone into the eyes of one causes a simultaneous reaction in up to twelve synchronized meditators, even when they are physically separated in distant, radiation-shielded chambers.

In many such studies, the closer the personal relationship between the participants, the greater their capacity for mental transference. One particularly enraptured couple showed extremely high correlations in their brain states. Of course anecdotally we have all heard or seen examples of shared pain between twins and uncanny remote awareness of accidents and the like between parents and children.

According to Chassidic thought, the deepest of transcendent bonds is between Rebbe and Chassid. This relationship is compared to that of the head with the rest of the body. The following story exemplifies.

In the 1940s, R’ Mendel Futerfas was imprisoned and then exiled to Siberia by the Soviet government. His crime: teaching and practicing Judaism. On his birthday one year in Siberia, Reb Mendel longed to celebrate in the Chasidic manner by gathering with one's friends, making an account of the past year and good resolutions for the upcoming year, and by having a private audience with the Rebbe.

Reb Mendel's only "friends" in Siberia were the boorish Cossacks and political prisoners with whom he was exiled. A Chasidic gathering he could not make. But what he could do was to have a private audience with the Rebbe -- in his mind. Reb Mendel made the customary spiritual preparations for the communing of his soul with the Rebbe's.

He then pictured himself writing a note to the Rebbe with all of his requests for blessings for the coming year. He imagined himself giving the note to the Rebbe and the Rebbe reading the note. Then, in his mind's eye, the Rebbe assured him that everything would be well. Reb Mendel felt encouraged and strengthened.

Years later, when Reb Mendel was released from Siberia, he joined his wife and children who had meanwhile moved to England. One day, as Reb Mendel perused the correspondence that his wife had received from the Rebbe in his absence, he came across a telegram. The telegram's date was the day after Reb Mendel's birthday, years before. The Rebbe had sent Mrs. Futerfas a telegram to notify her that, "I received your husband's letter..."

No distance, physical or spiritual, can separate a Jew from the Rebbe. Like everything, achieving a consciousness connection with someone is a mix of talent and discipline. The following excerpts from Likkutei Dibburim (Vol.1, Ch.1) illumines the path to more meaningful relationships and a deeper consciousness connection with others.

“Love is manifested at many levels..

“The first level among the vehicles of love is extending one’s hand in offering or receiving the greeting of Shalom. This is only an external mannerism, to be sure; for around the whole world whenever people meet they shake hands as a mark of recognition which need not imply any feeling of love whatever..

“In days gone by the ordinary Shalom Aleichem was different: It was true and pure. Things used to be different. Truth used to be sound currency..

“When two friends meet and kiss each other one sees the manifestation of a greater light of love than that expressed in a handshake. A yet higher manifestation my be observed in the long conversation in which good friends love to tell each other of all their experiences.

“Beyond this there is a kind of love so intense that words are too dry to express it: two friends in this state can simply stand and gaze at each other without uttering a word..

“But there is also an inward bond, a bond of thought, through which one friend senses the other. Just as a person sees his friend who stands facing him near at hand, so it is with thought, which is not limited by distance. Through thought alone, one man is aware of his friend..

“.. through thought a person should be with his friend wherever he may be.. ..with a thought one can help a distant friend materially and spiritually.”

That unity is achievable through love and consciousness is no accident. It is part of nature. That science has finally discovered what faith has been teaching for centuries is also no accident. It is part of the new age unfolding, a world ready for the merging of absolute truth and relative truth. And that is what Moshiach is all about.

22. Excitement in the Air

Welcome to the global village.

A sports star writes a tell-all book about murdering his ex-wife and her boyfriend. The publisher pays 3.5 million dollars for the story. The launch date of November 30, 2006, is set. Suddenly, the prerelease buzz turns sour, as public outcry intensifies. Moral sensibilities are outraged at the thought of a villain making yet another killing and getting away with it. Instantly, the book launch is cancelled and values prevail. The global village emerges on high ground, this time.

This is not the first time there has been excitement in the air surrounding a special day in the life of OJ Simpson.

Long before OJ ever dreamed of writing If I Did It, in fact even before he was tried for the double murder, another controversial figure was preparing for OJ’s judgment day. That man was Dean Radin.

Dean Radin is a bonafide scientist who has spent several decades researching the direct impacts of human consciousness on material reality, aka psychokinesis or PK for short. With his masters degree in electrical engineering and his doctorate in psychology, he has worked at several mainstream universities and blue-chip technology companies. In short, as weird as his research is, Dean Radin is a hard guy to knock.

Dean knew that a huge viewing audience would be focused intently on the announcement of the verdict in the OJ trial. In fact an estimated one billion people were either watching or listening to the goings on at 10:00 am Pacific Standard Time on October 3, 1995, when the climactic moment arrived.

Dean theorized that the focused attention of many people would have a measurable impact on the physical environment, independent of any other measurable environmental factors. To test this, he set up electronic Random Number Generators, calibrated them, and protected them from electromagnetic fields and the like. There were three in Los Vegas at the University of Nevada, one at Princeton University in New Jersey, and a fifth at the University of Amsterdam.

The figure below is the combined signal for the five random number generators during the show. The first peak on the left was at 9:00am when the preshows began. The peak on the right coincides with 10:00 am when the verdict was announced. Those peaks are several hundred times higher than chance events should allow. In other words, the idea that mind impacts matter is not just about spoon benders and the like. It’s also about you and me, and even when we are not trying.

The excitement in the air affects the world as whole. That’s the theory today and it sounds mighty familiar to those who are awaiting Moshiach, the redeemer of the Jewish people and the world as a whole.

Over 800 years ago, Maimonides wrote that each individual is a 50/50 proposition and can be saved or destroyed by a single action. Since each individual should view himself this way, it turns out that the whole world hangs in the balance and could be either destroyed or saved by the single act of a lone individual. Chassidus extends this principle to the spoken word or even to a thought. Thus, one good thought can change the world, for good.

“Thinking is potent,” says the Previous Lubavitcher Rebbe in the opening words of his collected talks. “Not only is thought the first and innermost of the three garments of the soul, and united with it: Thinking produces results that extend into the realm of action.”

The extent to which thought is potent depends on the thinker and the one thought about. The stronger the connection between the two parties the more effective is the thought. So while our thoughts and prayers are effective, they are more so with those close to us, i.e., love knows no bounds.

As the Rebbe continues there, “There is an inward bond of thought through which one friend senses the other. Just as a person sees his friend who stands facing him near at hand, so it is with thought, which is not limited by distance.”

The great Chassidic masters, by virtue of their love for their fellow Jews, are able to sense their followers just by thinking about them.

And what about us as individuals? Do you know someone who can recognize a caller before picking up the phone? Have you ever felt someone staring at you from behind? Is there a special friend or relative with whom you are inexplicably in synch? Psi energy is real. It’s a part of life, of nature, recognized by science, and integral to our spiritual lives.

What Torah explained long ago, science is catching up to today – including the idea of thought actualizing Moshiach.

A sage known as the Chida has a kind of psi commentary on this blessing recited by Jews in all their weekday prayers: “May the scion of David [Moshiach} your servant speedily flourish because I await your salvation all the day.” The Chida asks what could this possibly help? If the Jews deserve redemption, it will come without waiting, and if they don’t what good could awaiting it possibly do? From this he concludes that if one has nothing else to his credit except a sincere longing for Moshiach to come, that itself is enough to make it happen.

And if an individual can effect this, how much more so a group. Or put a little differently, if OJ oglers can impose order in a chaotic world, how much more so Jews united to bring Moshiach now.

21. Cutting Edge Religion

Mazal tov.

Once again, science is discovering that Jewish observance is good for your health. And the timing couldn’t be more perfect. For just as millions of Jews the world are reading anew about the first infant circumcision in the weekly Torah portion[1], scientists the world over are poring over the latest circumcision research in the November 2006 issue of Pediatrics. That major study proves there’s gain with the pain, because it shows that the procedure cuts STD risk by up to 50%.

Over 500 New Zealand boys were studied over 25 years and compared for the incidence of sexually transmitted infections. The results: Uncircumcised boys have over 2.5 times the risk of infection between the ages of 18 and 25, even after controlling for confounding factors like number of partners and other precautions.[2]

Of course, Jews don’t practice circumcision because it’s healthy, just as they don’t fast on Yom Kippur to cleanse the digestive system. They do it because that’s the sign of the covenant since Abraham. The health benefits are just an added bonus, but those benefits can really add up.

For example, out of 50,000 American cases of penile cancer reported since 1935, only 10 have occurred in circumcised men.[3] That’s a factor of 5,000 to 1 in favor of the practice (in addition to the infinite benefit of having done a mitzvah). Combine all this with a one-tenth incidence of urinary tract infections, plus reduced fungal, bacterial and parasitic infections related to hygiene, and you’ve got one multi-purpose high-potency recipe for wellness.

What’s the lesson from all this? Well, let’s start with what it’s not. Years ago, my wife and I had a Shabbos dinner guest who was the director of the burn unit at a major hospital. She was the one who first told us about one of the most amazing medical wonders associated with the mitzvah of circumcision. She explained how infant surgery can be very risky until about the eighth day at which time the major blood clotting factors are at their highest levels in the life of a person.

She asked, “It’s amazing how advanced those ancient Hebrews were in Biblical times. How did they know to wait until the eighth day to circumcise? How did they know about the peaks in Vitamin K and prothrombin?”

The question surprised me. Of course they didn’t know the likes of biochemistry or haemotology. Why should they? Those things were taken care of by Someone else: The One who designed the mitzvos, designed the body to go with it. As the Torah says, “And you shall live with them”, meaning that the commandments are intended for life, and a healthy life at that.

Now if only someone would come up with some health benefits for such customary delicacies as potato latkes and jelly doughnuts. It seems that the only miracle of oil in those foods is that we survive the holiday fare. But who knows? Maybe the higher cholesterol is offset by the lower blood pressure associated with celebrating one’s faith.

Mazal tov. Mazal tov. Pass the schmaltz herring?

[1] Genesis 21:4
[2] Reuters Nov. 6, 2006
[3] British Medical Journal 313:46

20. Astrology and Judaism

Dear readers, please share your knowledge on this issue! I'll print some of your responses next week. Is there a kosher astrology website out there in the e-universe? How about sending me your best link on the subject? All this will help Henny and the rest of us too.

Hello Dr. Gotfryd -

As a thinking person and Jew I enjoy reading your articles and I like the way you incorporate science and Torah.

I actually have a very strong interest in Astrology. I began reading books on it and really began studying it like one would study any science. I'm not into the finding out the future stuff at all, its more like understanding the different horoscopes and how they make up one's personality. I originally got interested in it to help understand myself better and eventually it helped me understand others as well.

I was wondering if Astrology is something you have studied and what advice you would give to someone who does have an interest in it. I understand very well that it must be taken with a grain of salt, and I don't put people in a box once I know their birthday, because there is so much more to it then just one's sun sign, not to mention one's upbringing, environment, life experiences that all contribute to the makeup of one's personality.

Anyhow, if you can get back to me with some advice on how an observant Jew can or cannot incorporate astrology into Judaism, I would appreciate it. Thank you and all the best.
- Henny

Dear Henny,
Scientists, in general, frown on astrology as ancient mythology or new age fluff with no relevance to any forces in nature that could affect people or anything else. For them, astronomy is a science; astrology is a joke. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the stars have the last laugh on that one.

Astrology, like everything else, has its source in the Torah, as the sages say, “G-d looked into the Torah and created the world.”[1] So to understand the power of the stars properly, we should explore them from the Torah’s perspective. The Hebrew word mazal refers to the unique spiritual forces that influence natural phenomena great and small.

Our Sages teach, "There is no blade of grass in the world below that does not have a spiritual life-force (mazal) above striking it and telling it to grow"[2]. Another definition of mazal is constellation, or more specifically, the spiritual influences associated with the signs of the Zodiac.[3]

The patriarch Abraham was expert in astrology and used it to determine that he was destined to remain childless. G-d, however, had other plans, and blessed him with offspring as numerous as the sand and.. ..stars!. He told him, “Get out of your astrology! There is no astrological power over Israel.”[4]

Thus instead of Abraham conforming to his mazal, G- d made his mazal conform to him. G-d channeled higher energies to him through visiting him on Passover, sending him to the Holy Land, and changing his name. To this day, Judaism recognizes that changes in time, space, and soul affect one’s mazal. Weddings are often set for Tuesday, a day of good mazal. Also, when people move into a new home, the traditional blessing is “when you change your residency, you change your mazal, for good and blessing” To improve their mazal, seriously ill people will add a name.

None of this is superstitious, idolatrous, or occult. All those things are both foolish and forbidden by Torah. What we are doing is acknowledging that spiritual forces are at the beck and call of the Creator just as physical forces are.

My personal view? Once you’ve got G-d, who needs astrology? - AG

[1] Zohar (1:161b)
[2] Genesis Rabba 10:7, Cf. Zohar I:251a, Zohar Chadash 4b
[3] Sefer Yetzirah 5:4
[4] Genesis Rabba 44:12

19. Monkey See

One of the classic arguments against Rabbinic Judaism is that we just don’t have it right, so why pretend we do?

What’s the problem? According to most people, all those myriad details of Orthodox Jewish life could not possibly have been retained correctly over all these years. Cultural transmission of rituals is never exact and over so many generations, the ‘broken-telephone’ effect would have kicked in big time. The presumed result? With even minor variations at each step, today’s Judaism would bear little resemblance to that of our forebears.

Enter Victoria Horner. She has just published research demonstrating that chimpanzees do get the message, with very high fidelity, even down six generations of cultural transmission. She chose two chimps and taught each one a different way of opening a box to gain a food reward. The food, tucked away in a box, could be fetched by either lifting a flap or sliding a door. In a chain of instruction, each chimp taught another chimp his learned method. Then each of those chimps taught another student and so on.

Instead of the expected degradation over time to 50% accuracy, the chimps retained their learned methods with virtually 100% accuracy over 6 generations.

True we’ve had longer to mess up than they had. But it’s only been about 100 generations since Sinai, and we have a few big advantages over our cousins the apes. We’ve documented the procedures, we’re a little smarter, and we refer not only to our immediate forebears but to our entire historical record to maintain accuracy.

Does all this prove we’ve got it right after all these years? No. But if chimps can do it...

New Scientist, Sept. 2, 2006