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?

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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 ;-)

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[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.

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[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.

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(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].

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[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