The Soul of Science

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

2007-02-01T21:12:00.000-05:00

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?

2007-02-01T21:06:00.000-05:00

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.)

2007-02-01T20:56:00.000-05:00

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?

29. Blueprints: Solar Flares

2007-02-01T20:51:00.000-05:00

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

2007-01-22T20:13:00.000-05:00

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.)

2007-01-22T20:02:00.000-05:00

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.

26. Blueprints: Sextuplets

2007-01-22T19:40:00.000-05:00

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

2007-01-22T18:47:00.000-05:00

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

2007-01-22T18:15:00.000-05:00

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

2006-12-10T18:17:00.000-05:00

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

2006-12-10T13:15:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-15T22:31:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-15T22:20:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-15T22:11:00.000-05:00

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

18. Six Days, Six Thousand Years

2006-11-15T22:01:00.000-05:00

Man towards Heaven: “Master of the Universe! is it not true that one of your days is like a thousand years?”
Voice from Above: “That’s right.”
Man: “So wouldn’t one of Your pennies be like a million dollars?”
Voice: “Pretty much.”
Man: “So could I please have a penny?”
Voice: “Sure.. ..tomorrow.”In the Jewish concept of time, patterns of time repeat at different scales. Among these timeless patterns in time, sevens figure prominently. Thus the seventh day is a special day of rest, and similarly, the seventh year is observed by resting from agriculture and allowing fields to lie fallow. So too at the scale of millennia.

The Sages say, “the world is to exist six thousand years: 2000 of chaos, 2000 of Torah, and 2000 of the days of Moshiach.” Following this is the seventh millennium, a time beyond time during which the world will achieve its ultimate perfection and G d will be openly revealed to all.

During the first 2000 years, mankind suffered original sin, murder, robbery, and idolatry. The flood took place in this period, and ethnic conflicts multiplied. during the second 2000 years, the Patriarchs lived, and the exodus and the stand at Sinai took place. The written Torah developed and expanded to include the entire 24 books of the Hebrew Bible. During the third period of 2000 years, the Jews were exiled from their land and dispersed throughout the world. Through their suffering and Divine service over this period, they have spiritually prepared the world for the true and complete redemption by Moshiach.

How can these latter 2000 years be called “the days of Moshiach” if the world is in such a sorry state? The Sages explain that before the third 2000-year period, Moshiach could not have come even if the world would have merited it. However during the third 2000, Moshiach will certainly come, whether or not the world is deserving. if so, why don’t we just sit back and wait because by doing more goodness and kindness during this period we can cause Moshiach and the ultimate redemption to come earlier, even today!

Let’s say that it’s within your grasp to accelerate the redemption by one minute. accelerating the redemption by one minute will relieve over 5 billion people of one minute’s suffering. That’s 10,000 man- years of trouble that you can save the world for every minute you bring the redemption closer! Bringing the redemption before its latest scheduled time is comparable to the Jewish custom of welcoming the Shabbos on Friday afternoon, before the seventh day actually starts.

Each millennium is comparable to one of the days of the week. as the Jewish year at the time of writing is 5759, we are in the latter part of the sixth millennium, comparable to Friday afternoon, when the radiance of the Shabbos starts to shine. This period is called the footsteps of Moshiach, because just as you can hear the approaching footsteps of a person when he is very close but not yet in sight, so too can we notice unmistakable signs that Moshiach is very near.

One of these signs is the modern convergence of science and faith. The Torah, while describing the Noahide Flood, is simultaneously referring to something else entirely: It's posting a prophecy and pegging a date for its fulfillment.

The Zohar, some 1900 years ago, predicts a downpour of higher wisdom and an upwelling of lower wisdom starting around 5600 (1840 CE). The Rebbe explains that the higher wisdom is Chabad Chassidus, and the lower wisdom is science. He shows how both prepare the world for the seventh millenium, the sabbath of creation.

Judaism does not reject scientific discovery. It celebrates it as both a harbinger and essential component of the ultimate revelation of the Creator, the soul, and the significance of human life.

17. Rebooting Cosmology - Part 2

2006-11-15T21:50:00.000-05:00

The science of cosmology suffers from one insurmountable problem more than any other: We will never be able to travel back in time to find out what really did happen. So when a cosmological theory does make a testable prediction, scientists grandly celebrate when confirming observations are made. This is exactly what happened in 1965 when Penzias and Wilson discovered a weak field of microwave energy visible in all directions. The find was immediately hailed as the much-sought-after Cosmic Background Radiation, i.e., the faint reverberation of the Big Bang.

But now, after decades of study, cosmologists are not so sure. Astrophysicist Glen Starkman is one of many who have shown that the microwave picture is not as smooth as predicted by theory. Instead it is decidedly uneven and strongly aligned to nearby stars and galaxies. To Starkman, that looks a lot more like a microwave “fog” caused by the scattering of local starlight than a muffled echo from the dawn of time.

At the Crisis in Cosmology Conference, astronomer Tom Van Flandern’s summed things up with his presentation emphasizing red-shift conundrums, entitled The Top 50 Problems with the Big Bang. In conclusion he remarked, “It should be evident to objective minds that nothing about the universe interpreted with the Big Bang theory is necessarily right.” Van Flandern even goes so far as to question basic idea that the universe is expanding, suggesting alternative explanations for the Hubble red-shift.

Cosmology may be in the process of a wholesale paradigm shift. That prospect positively rankles an elder generation of scientists who are now in key policy and funding positions internationally.

Resistance to change, even well-warranted change, among scientists would not surprise students of the history and philosophy of science. Thomas Kuhn, in his modern classic, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, explains why old ideas die hard even in the light of compelling evidence. “Under normal conditions the research scientist is not an innovator but a solver of puzzles, and the puzzles upon which he concentrates are just those which he believes can be both stated and solved within the existing scientific tradition.”

Ever since George Gamow popularized the Big Bang theory in the 1950’s, research organized itself around finding confirmation and filling in the details of the theory. What was no longer up for discussion was whether or not the theory itself is correct.

The upshot of the new crisis in cosmology is that the more we know, the more we realize that we don’t know. Humility is inherent to true science. In the words of Nobel physicist, Max Planck, “Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.” How do we transcend nature to address those big questions on which science is necessarily mute? Who or What created the universe? Is belief in the Creator consistent with modern science? What about a six-day creation? And if the prevailing cosmology is equivalent to myth, on what basis can the Genesis account rejected?

Even anti-Creationist lobbyists like the National Academy of Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science are silent on these questions, agreeing that science can neither verify nor refute the claims of believers. Similarly the National Association of Biology Teachers has published their view that “. . .all of science is necessarily silent on religion and neither refutes nor supports the existence of a deity. . .”

Whatever your answers to the big questions, you would not be alone in contemplating them, as evidenced by skyrocketing sales of books bridging religion and science (som 30,000 titles answering to a “science and religion” search on amazon.com). Moreover the vast majority of these titles are not science-versus-religion books but rather reflective of a pervasive trend towards synergizing the spiritual with the scientific.

This spirit of reconciliation is not only evident in popular books and articles but in scholarly venues as well. For instance, relativity guru and Nobel commissioner Moshe Carmeli has published research demonstrating that the age of the universe is a physical constant that hasn’t changed since the first cosmological day. That, says Carmeli, renders the Genesis account scientifically valid.

Ultimate questions need ultimate answers, and those by definition cannot be found within the purview of science. Periodic shakeups, like the current crisis in cosmology, serve a dual purpose: They refresh our awareness that scientific knowledge is always tentative, while impelling us to seek the truth from wherever it may be found.

16. Rebooting Cosmology

2006-11-15T21:26:00.000-05:00

For those who trust the Genesis account of creation, the universe was created in 6 days, less than 6,000 years ago. While these time frames sit well with a few billion adherents to various religions, there are others, including most cosmologists, who believe that the universe was created in an inexplicable explosion of primordial plasma, some 10 to 20 billion years ago, and gradually evolved from there.

Science is based on a “bottom-up” approach, constructing theoretical models that are constantly being modified and regularly replaced as observations and analytical methods improve. Religion, on the other hand, is based on a “top-down” disclosure or revelation. While science evolves, revelation doesn’t. It originates from an unchanging, eternal source, the very same source that created the universe in the first place. Not surprisingly, believers in the Bible haven’t changed their tune for thousands of years, while scientific opinion has been more dynamic.

For over half-a-century, the Big Bang has enjoyed most-favored status among the numerous models developed by scientists to describe how today’s cosmos may have come into being. The theory evolved in the process of trying to explain why the wavelengths of light from distant galaxies were longer than expected. Longer wavelengths are at the red end of the visible spectrum, and astronomers coined the term “redshift” to describe the phenomenon. In 1929, American astronomer Edwin Hubble proposed that these “redshifts” could result from the motion of the galaxies receding rapidly away from us. He reasoned that since light is a wave, it could behave like sound which is also a wave.

Sound waves shift to higher or lower frequencies as the sound source moves towards or away from the listener. For example, when a speeding police siren approaches, it sounds higher pitched but immediately after it passes, its pitch sounds much lower. For light, higher frequencies are more bluish and lower ones are reddish. Over the decades, the Hubble redshifts were interpreted as evidence that the universe may be expanding. Extrapolating back over time, scientists calculated that the expansion process began with an explosion of immense force in a tiny space at the beginning of time. Hence the term “Big Bang.”

Now, however, the whole theory is coming under fire from a groundswell of astrophysicists who point to a whole slew of recent (and not so recent) observations that are completely at odds with the theory’s predictions.

In 2004, thirty reputable scientists from ten countries banded together and launched a position paper into the blogosphere which made a big bang of its own, especially when it landed in the pages of New Scientist magazine in May 2004. The group objects to the stranglehold of the Big Bang theory on cosmological research and funding and claims that the Big Bang explanation of the universe is scientifically untenable, patently illogical and without any solid observational support.

The letter blasted the stifling of research challenging the existence of such hypotheticals as “dark matter” and “dark energy.” If these don’t in fact exist, the theory won’t work. And that would leave Big Bang theorists with no way to account for conundrums of their own making: Missing gravity, gross violations of thermodynamics, and galaxies that are younger than the stars within them.

Despite decades of experiments and observations, there is no sign yet of the elusive dark matter and dark energy, believed to be the major components of the cosmos. “What is more,” claim the signatories, “the big bang theory can boast of no quantitative predictions that have subsequently been validated by observation.”

The newly formed Alternative Cosmology Group quickly attracted hundreds of sympathetic researchers to join their ranks. With momentum mounting, the group convened their First International Crisis in Cosmology Conference, held in Moncao, Portugal in June 2005. The American Institute of Physics published informal proceedings in the December 2005 issue of its journal, Progress in Physics. Here are some highlights.

Conferee Dr. Riccardo Scarpa, of Santiago, Chile, used the most sophisticated optical-infrared observatory in the world to demonstrate 100% predictive accuracy of his alternative model of gravitational effects on spinning galaxies. The result: There is no need to invoke Dark Matter. According to Scarpa, “Dark Matter is the craziest idea we’ve ever had in astronomy. It can appear when you need it, do what you like, and be distributed in any way you like. It is the fairy tale of astronomy.”

Russian astronomer Yuriy Baryshev, author of The Discovery of Cosmic Fractals, has identified nested, hierarchical structures at every scale of study, throughout the observable universe. This violates the Cosmological Principle, one of the Big Bang’s central assumptions. According to that principle, large scale observations should be homogeneous, meaning they should look the same for any observer at any place, and this is not the case.
Another conference participant, physicist Mike Disney of Cardiff University, noted that while the Big Bang model contains 14 measured paramaters, it also contains 17 free variables, making it virtually impossible to test, since the variables can easily be moulded to fit any observation.

So where do we go from here?

15. The Soul of the Matter

2006-10-19T18:12:00.000-04:00

The father and son in the following narrative are Rebbes, or Hasidic masters, of a previous generation.

One day in the summer of 5656 (1896) I was strolling with my father in a field in the country resort of Bolivke, near Lubavitch. The crops were almost ripe, and the grain and the grass were nodding in a gentle breeze. “Behold G-dliness!” said my father. “Each movement of every single ear of grain and blade of grass was included in the Primal Thought of the partzuf of Adam Kadmon, in Him Who watches and gazes until the end of all generations; and Divine Providence brings this thought to realization for the sake of a certain divine intention.”

As we walked on we found ourselves in a forest. Deep in contemplation of what I had now been told concerning Divine Providence, and overwhelmed by the gentleness of my father's explanation, I plucked a leaf from a tree that I passed by, and held it for a while in my hand. As people often do and without taking particular notice, I tore off little pieces from the leaf every so often as I walked on, ensconced in thought, and tossed them to the ground.

My father now said: “..not only is every leaf of a tree a creature with divine vitality, which the Almighty created with a certain end as part of the ultimate purpose of Creation; but, moreover, every single leaf contains the spark of a soul that descends to This World for the sake of a tikkun – in order to become spiritually restored. . . Just now we discussed the subject of Divine Providence – and quite without thinking you plucked a leaf, held it in your hand, played with it, turned it around, squashed it, tore it up into little pieces, and scattered it in various places.

“How can a person be so light-minded in relation to a creature of the Almighty? This leaf is something created by the Almighty for a particular reason. It has a G-d-given vitality, it has a body, and it has a life. In what way is the leaf's ‘I’ smaller than your ‘I’? True, the difference is a big one. The leaf is a plant and you are human, and there is a great difference between the two categories. Nevertheless, one should always remember the mission and the divine intention of every created thing – what is the task the plant has to fulfill in this world, and what is the task that the human has to fulfill in this world.”

It was on this occasion that my father expounded the Talmudic phrase “The gnat has precedence over you,” explaining that there is a way in which creatures belonging to the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms are superior to man, in that each of them fulfills the mission assigned to it be the divine intention. Whenever we went strolling together throughout the following several days my father discussed this theme, until he arrived at the subject of divine knowledge and mortal free will – how the course of action which a man will choose is revealed and known Above, yet this divine foreknowledge does not direct the choice, for a man is granted free will to choose good and spurn evil.

From Likkutei Dibburim Vol. 1, p.179. (Kehot Publications) by the Previous Lubavitcher Rebbe.

14. Follow Your Heart?

2006-10-19T18:01:00.000-04:00

Or follow your head?

The old view was, let your feelings guide your actions. If it feels good, do it. Don’t repress, express.

But times are changing; there is a consciousness revolution afoot. What used to be called new age spirituality is now an overarching theme in, well, everything. Be conscious in what you eat, in the environmental impacts of what you drive, in the meaningfulness of your employment, in the socioeconomic impact of what you wear, and in the lyrics of the songs you listen to. Indeed according to the experts, ‘conscious consumers’ are a 70 million member ‘enlightened’ market force that by and large dominates the decision making elite of North America.

Whether or not they are truly enlightened is another question. For now, suffice it to say that this loud and persistent social force is a movement that enshrines consciousness as its spiritual core and raison d’etre.

In principle what we have is an organic morality, a natural ethic that in some ways is pretty close to the universal ideals of Torah, in terms of sustainability, wellness, equality, freedom, justice. . . and consciousness.

Drilling down into the mindset of the Bourgeois Bohemian[1] of Y2K+ we find the flower power idealist of the ‘60’s, for that’s when all these boomers incubated their personal mission statements.

Aside from the social dimensions, consciousness is a matter of personal growth. Millions are seeking inner peace, harmony and wellness like never before, and the training of the mind to experience higher reality is integral to the journey.

For decades, the children of the west searched in every kind of spirituality tradition for mantras, meditations and masters of consciousness to fill the gaping void left by a materialistic western culture. Ironically, the Jews among them have most passionately embraced every “ism” in the book, except their own – until recently.

Increasingly, the mystical, spiritual, intellectual and passionate dimensions of Torah Judaism have started to trickle into modern culture thanks to a host of outreach organizations, especially Chabad, whose special brand of consciousness comes coupled with a well grounded practicality infusing every mundane moment with cosmic significance.

After looking to gurus near and far, hundreds of thousands of Jews have whole-heartedly returned to their hitherto unexplored heritage of Judaic, and especially Chassidic, wisdom and spirituality. And lo and behold they have discovered in their very own back yard, an incomparable treasure trove of spirituality, replete with kosher mantras, meditations, and masters of higher consciousness from whom to learn.

For example see the story in the next post.

[1] or BOBO, a term coined in David Brooks’ entertaining and informative book, BOBO’s in Paradise.

13. Mind Matters

2006-09-28T18:29:00.000-04:00

Thought is powerful.

Living in a materialistic society, this may not sound too convincing at first, but thanks to recent advances in science, technology and medicine even the most hard-nosed among us are starting to think about thinking more seriously.

Take health for example. What is the number one risk factor for sickness and death? Stress. And where does stress start? With thought, an ephemeral, non- physical concoction of the mind. From there, it hits the physical brain, then the hormones and then the immune system, causing a cascade of biochemical changes that ultimately spell the difference between wellness and disease for millions of people every day.

In fact an entire medical discipline, called psychoneuroimmunology, has grown up around this understanding in recent years, and there are even several medical (as well as alternative wellness) journals dedicated exclusively to understanding and managing health from the top down, mind first.

And lest one think that mind-based medicine is just for flakes, hypochondriacs and the like, the consensus of medical opinion today is that some 60 to 90 percent of all doctor’s visits are really mind- body problems, according to Prof. Herbert Benson, MD, founding president of Harvard University’s Mind/Body Medical Institute in Boston. For some the fix is counseling, for others, it’s spirituality, meditation or yoga. Not surprisingly, the biggest boosts in wellness often come from prayer, faith and religious observance, as documented in such resources as Oxford University’s Handbook of Religion and Medicine, a fat tome that rivals Gray’s Anatomy, both in weight and in authority.

The buzzword for all this is integrative medicine. The philosophy behind it is that when spirit, mind, emotions, and lifestyle are all in harmony, wellness is maximized. When any of these or unaligned, stress and dysfunction intrude, and mental and physical wellness are compromised.

But how new is all this really? For mainstream medicine, very; for Judaism, not at all. Maimonides, the renowned medieval rabbinic scholar and court doctor, writes in his Regime of Health that his outlook is based on “a healthy soul in a healthy body.” The integrative approach is fundamental to Chassidism specifically, as the following dialogue illustrates:

In the winter of 1902-1903, the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, known as the RaShaB, met in Vienna with Sigmund Freund who asked the RaShaB to define Chassidus, ie, the core teachings of the Chassidic movement.
The RaShaB explained to Freud that Chassidus requires that "the mind explains to the heart what the person should want, and that the heart implements in the person's life that which the brain understands."
Freud then asked, “How do you do this? Are not the head and heart two continents completely separated? Does not a great sea divide them?"
To this, the RaShaB replied, "The task is to build a bridge that will span these two continents, or at least to connect them with telephone lines and electric wires so that the light of the mind, the light of the brain, should reach the heart as well."

Similarly, about a century earlier, the first Chassidic text, the Tanya, established the integration of thought, speech and action in its mission statement. Emblazoned on the frontispiece is the Biblical verse (Deut. 30:14) that serves as the spiritual DNA for the work as a whole, “For this thing is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it.”

In a world whose motto for centuries had been follow your heart, it is refreshing to find that the new focus on mindfulness and health is but another example of scientific wisdom converging to the timeless truths of Torah. And that gives pause for thought.

Rebbe Rayyatz - Likkutei Dibburim, Vol. 1

12. Global Ark: Who's at the Helm?

2006-09-25T14:16:00.000-04:00

UN Statistics Showing Number of Natural Disasters in the World per Decade.

Hurricanes, tsunamis, floods and fires. Are environmental disasters really on the rise or is it just hype? According to a century of United Nations statistics, natural catastrophes of all kinds are whalloping us at an ever-increasing rate. And climbing fastest are disasters related to global climate change.

What can be done? And who is actually responsible for the future of the global ecosystem? Is it the heads of state? Legislators? Scientists? Consumers? Investors? Ecological accountability does not depend on knowledge or power. It doesn't depend on economics, politics or pragmatics. It depends on values. And for many people, values are a relative affair.

Every motive to conserve the environment can be compromised by some form of rational argument or another, except for one: that it is our Divinely ordained mandate to care for this planet and its inhabitants. This is the reasoned conclusion of Rutgers Professor of Ecology, David Ehrenfeld, a pioneer and world leader in environmental conservation.

And yet, the origin of this notion in Western society is not scientific, but in fact Biblical. The father of environmental conservation was Noah, and there are a number of parallels between our situation and his, as discussed by the classic rabbinic commentators cited in the Torah Anthology, a Moznaim Press translation of the Me'Am Lo'ez compiled by Rabbi Yakov Culi.

First, according to tradition, the Noahide flood itself was hot water, indicating a climatic component to the event. Second, the global flood was preceded by several periods of coastal flooding over a number of decades. Third, the flood was accompanied by widespread social ills, especially violence and corruption.

The sages illustrated the ethical roots of global environmental risk with the following archetypal incident that happened shortly before the flood some 4,100 years ago. In a market town, a small fruit vendor sued his regular "clients" for bankrupting him. They had come by daily, sampling this and that, buying nothing, and then returning later for more "tastes". The court did not convict because "it was just a little bit and everyone was doing it."

Does this sound familiar? Today, we see the same factors at work. A little wasteful emission, a little warmer, a little more melting, the waters rise.. ..A little violence, a little robbery, the earth shakes, people die. One need not be overtly religious to recognize that "what goes around, comes around." Indeed it is widely accepted among experts, as Ehrenfeld writes, that "most of today's really intractable problems of radioactive wastes, energy and pesticides are not technical but ethical and social."

Noah, with his compassion and integrity, did his small part and tipped the balance towards survival for the world's folk and fauna. Acting alone, he was a prime example of an environmental activist with a motto of "Act local and think global." Some 825 years ago, this concept was codified in Jewish law by Maimonides who stated that each individual must view himself and the entire world as delicately balanced such that his very next act will tip the scales either to world destruction or global salvation.

Historically, such an approach was taken on faith alone. In previous generations, no one could really see or understand how this vast world could possibly respond to the small local deeds of a single person.

It is really only in our generation that this principle has become a practical and evident reality in our daily lives. Planet earth has become one global village where the part can easily and instantly affect the whole. Already chaos theory has developed models that demonstrate how a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can initiate a tornado in Texas. And since good and evil are but two sides of one moral coin, positive impacts are at least as far reaching as negative ones.

In our time, philosophy and fact have fused to demonstrate that in all one's actions, words and thoughts, one is free to choose among alternative paths leading either to personal failures and ecological disaster or to personal integrity and global remedy.

Every creature has its niche. Ours is an ethical one, based on the unity of G-d, man and the environment. Let's stick to it.

For good.

Ehrenfeld, David W. (1985). The Arrogance of Humanism. Oxford University Press.
Culi, Yakov. (1730). Me'Am Lo'ez. Parshat Noach. Aryeh Kaplan transl. (1977) Moznaim Press. NY
Maimonides, Laws of Repentance, Ch.3, Par.4

11. Beyond Description - Part 2

2006-09-14T17:08:00.000-04:00

So why do leaves change color? Is it chlorophyll breakdown or Divine artistry?

Science addresses the question of leaf color by breaking the leaf down into its component parts and processes.

The first level of analysis seeks to explain leaf color in terms of chlorophyll. Essentially we want to say that a leaf is green because chlorophyll is green. But all this does is transfer the question from the leaf to the chlorophyll. To explain chlorophyll’s coloration, we study what it does: photosynthesis. We want to say that chlorophyll is green because of how light is used in the manufacture of sugar by plants. When the chlorophyll breaks down and other pigments take over, the green fades and other colors get reflected.

Problem solved. Or is it? After all, one may yet ask why photosynthesis uses some colors and not others. The plant physiologist will acknowledge the validity of the question, but will tell you that the answer is not found in physiology but in the branch of science which underlies it – biochemistry, the study of how complex molecules carry out life’s processes.

Many volumes have been published on the molecular intricacies of photosynthesis. It is among the best documented of chemical processes. The mechanism is also quite well agreed upon by the experts. Thus it is reasonable to expect that here we could find out why leaves are green. But with all the details of the hundreds of different molecules and their chain reactions, biochemistry has still not explained one whit why only those wavelengths are usable, and therefore we have not yet answered the question of why chlorophyll is green or why leaves are green. If we can’t understand one color, two is surely beyond us, so we still do not have an explanation of why leaves change color either.

In addition to all this, there remains the mystery of visual perception altogether, which leaves unanswered how vision takes place in a light tight box of a skull where light neither penetrates nor is generated.

Another major question emerges form this whole story. The entire biochemical system involved in photosynthesis is an incredibly ordered process. Hundreds of chemical types, each comprised of a multitude of atoms, are matched and linked together with remarkable precision, and all these parts continually interact in a marvelously integrated fashion. Far from random, the entire ‘machinery’ is geared toward a single function – the transformation of light energy into chemical energy in the form of sugar.

The question is: What is organizing this system? What is keeping all these parts working together? Is it sugar? Obviously not. Is it light? Impossible.

It is unreasonable to think that any single part of the system can organize the behavior of all the other parts. For a while, many scientists thought to explain the control of cells and organs in terms of DNA. However, this view too has become passe as leading biologists continue to discover more basic life processes that are quite beyond the control of the cell nucleus.

The chemical components are by nature independent, without power over each other, and quite unaware of their role in manufacturing sugar. Hence, it must be that the controlling factor is outside the chemical system and more powerful than any of its parts, since it guides the behavior of each part. The greatness of the “mystery factor” controlling photosynthesis is emphasized when one considers that the chemistry of photosynthesis in a leaf is just one aspect of a much larger, integrated picture. The behavior of these molecules is thoroughly interwoven with the rest of the plant as well as with sunlight, air, water, soil, other plants, animals and people. After all, photosynthesis provides food for virtually all life on this planet.

From the Torah perspective the identity of the “mystery factor” is obvious. There is only one factor that can be beyond every system and yet control all the parts. But the hard-nosed reductionist keeps searching, hoping that maybe, when we take those molecules apart, the explanations to all these questions will surface. But alas, they do not.

The most basic of the exact sciences is particle physics. In fact, it is not nearly so exact as it used to be. There was a time when matter was hard, when space and time were fixed, and when there were only three basic particles: protons, neutrons and electrons. But with our refined instrumentation and experiments, many strange results have shaken our materialistic view of nature.

Now matter is just a special form of energy, space is curved and time passes at different rates in different reference frames. Matter is now made up of a multitude of unknowable particles (or waves, depending on how you look at them), including leptons, muons, gluons, mesons and quarks, having odd properties like spin, flavor and charm. Even more surprising, these “particles,” which are the basis of everything physical, have the remarkable habit of continually disappearing and coming into existence at random locations and at random times.

Has particle physics answered why leaves are green or any of our other questions? No. Furthermore, we now have the new question of how atoms can be stable (and they do seem to be) while their parts are so ephemeral. Such problems led Paul Davies, a prominent physicist who is a self-avowed atheist, to remark in a New Scientist article that “the new physics. . . seems to demand some guiding influence located, as it were, above nature, sustaining all of existence.”

It is here that science and Torah really converge. There is no difference between what Davies is saying in the name of physics and what Jews have been saying since Abraham. . . There is a Divine Providence that continually sustains and orders the entire universe, and not just at the cosmic level, or on the grand general scale. Modern physics sees supernatural guidance operating at the most minuscule subatomic level. Moreover many physicists believe in the anthropic principle which maintains that human awareness is actually the goal and reason for creating an orderly universe in the first place.

But beyond this point physics cannot probe, because no science is able to address why this awareness was desired.

Faith can.

For example, when one sees the precisely timed emergence of beautiful colors in autumn leaves, and when one considers all the microscopic and submicroscopic levels and processes that underlie this display, and that all the parts and processes are meticulously organized and integrated, and that no team of scientists could duplicate one iota of any of it. . . all this adds to the realization of the greatness and power of the One who could create, sustain, and coordinate all those zillions of parts.

Still the complexity is finite. How much greater, then, is the Almighty G‑d, before whom supernovae and atoms are equally minuscule and governed with equal skill and care. This awareness enhances our awe and appreciation of the Creator.

Modern science and traditional faith are both leading us to a Creator who cares for His creation. But it is specifically the Torah that takes the next step and explains why we were created: To reveal G-dliness in the world through our well-chosen thoughts, words and deeds, that give purpose and meaning to our own lives and the world as a whole.

10. Beyond Description - Part 1

2006-09-11T15:29:00.001-04:00

During an autumn stroll, a mother and her school-aged daughter were admiring the beautiful array of colored leaves. They were discussing what lay behind this quietly spectacular transformation.

“Mom, why do the leaves change color?”

“Well, dear, in the spring and summer, the leaves make food for the tree. Inside each leaf, there are millions of tiny green molecules called chlorophyll. The chlorophyll makes the food by collecting light from the sun, carbon dioxide from the air, and water from the ground. Then it puts them all together to make sugar and starch. In the autumn, the tree stops making food because it doesn’t need any in the winter. When that happens, the chlorophyll breaks down, and with it goes the green color. By that time, the other molecules in the leaf become more obvious and they give off the red, orange and yellow colors that we see today.”

“That’s not what Grandma says,” commented the little girl.

“No? What does she say?”

“She says G‑d paints them. . . one at a time.”

Whom should the child believe? Mom? Grandma? Both? Neither?

Those who side with Grandma are to be admired for their piety. Still, it is unfair to totally reject Mother out of hand. Is it not possible that the scientific explanation has some truth and some value? If so, it is unwise to reject it out of ignorance. It would amount to saying, “Religion, I know and like; but science, I don’t really understand. Therefore religion is better.”

Sometimes people reject a scientific explanation because it seems to conflict with the religious view. True, there is nothing wrong with accepting one view over another, but on what basis? Can one rule out an explanation based on direct observations and plain logic? After all, one trusts observations and sound reasoning in other areas of life; why not here? Faith is fine, but here is a problem with “blind faith” that ignores the observed facts and rational deductions of science.

Those who side with Mother are to be praised for their sophistication. Still there may be more to Grandma than meets the eye. One should at least know whether religion provides insights into the natural world, before rejecting it. It is unfair to say, “Science, I know and like; religion, I don’t really care to understand. Therefore science is better.”

Rejecting religion out of ignorance is no better than rejecting science out of ignorance. It’s like the story of the rabbi and the scientist who wound up seated together on an airplane.

“You must be a rabbi,” opened the scientist.
“Yes, I am,” confirmed his neighbor.
“I know all about Judaism,” quipped the scientist.
“Do you really?” the rabbi responded, a little piqued.
“Sure: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
“I see. And vhat, may I ask, is your occupation?”
“I am an astrophysicist.”
“Oh, really?” The rabbi paused a moment, then countered, “I know all about astronomy.”
“Come now, Rabbi. What do you know about astronomy?”
“Tvinkle, tvinkle little stah.”

Some would reject the religious view in the leaf color debate because they imagine G‑d to have human dimensions and features. They envision Him as an invisible, bearded baritone holding a nylon paintbrush, a tin of latex paint and a stopwatch to make sure all those leaves get done on time. Of course they reject the religious explanation of natural events as a childish fantasy. On those terms, who wouldn’t?

But what if “He” is an Absolutely Infinite Being using the brush of photoperiodically-induced cellular physiology dipped into pigments like chlorophyll and carotene? Surely if the Creator is capable of making something from nothing, He can also regulate existing chemicals and processes.

Neither science nor religion is as stiff and boxed-in as many people think. Science has room for the Creator, and religion has room for science. Individual scientist or theologians, or even whole sects of them, may be too biased or uninformed to recognize this, but authentic science and authentic religion are quite compatible and even complementary.

What is the basic difference between scientific and religious explanations of events? Followers of either system accept the validity of our sensory experiences. So too will they agree pretty much on what they observe in terms of temperature, weight, volume, brightness, duration, etc. They should also agree on the validity of sound, logical proofs and deductions. Where they differ is in the questions they answer.

Essentially science is concerned with how the world works, while religion addresses why the world works that way. Without knowing what for, what good is the what?

9. Sky Hooks

2006-09-11T15:29:00.000-04:00

Ever feel overwhelmed?

And then some well-meaning soul comes over to you, reads your brow furrows, and sympathetically asks how you are doing? And then, after you mutter a perfunctory reply, gazes dolefully into your anxious eyes and adds, “Don’t worry. Think positive.”?

"Think positive!" you nearly blurt out, "You jerk. What will that help? If only you knew how miserable things were for me right now, you’d never..” but maybe, just maybe 'think positive' is more than just a trite expression.

Indeed that’s a view supported by the concensus of no less than 225 psychological studies analyzing attitude and outcomes for a whopping 275,000 people. Try to defend a bad mood in the face of those findings. The review paper, published in the Psychological Bulletin, analyzed the relationship between attitude and many measures of success in life and ascertained that it is generally happiness that brings success, rather than success bringing happiness.

Lead researcher, Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph.D., of the University of California, Riverside, said “Happy individuals are more likely than their less happy peers to have fulfilling marriages and relationships, high incomes, superior work performance, community involvement, robust health and even a long life.”

This is but one more example of modern science catching up with timeless teachings. The Torah, the Talmud and the Chassidic Masters have all advocated serving the Creator with joy, promising worldly benefits for those who do. As the third Chabad Rebbe, Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch, put it: “Tracht goot, vet zayn goot. – Think good and it will be good.”

This approach to life is classic “bitachon”, the highest level of trust that G-d will take care of you. A basic level of faith is “emunah” where whatever G-d does is good in your eyes, since even if He punishes (G-d forbid!), it’s all for the best as He sees it. A higher level is the trust that He will do good in a revealed way, granting you all your needs as you see it.

But this seems very naïve! How can one trust he will merit overt goodness, when even great and saintly people were fearful of Divine retribution?

The answer lies in the littlest things, in the nature of the quantum. At this most basic level of physical reality, people count. Science used to teach that the world is “out there” with people being separate from nature, and insignificant overall. That whole picture has been overthrown by quantum physics which shows us how each individual can actualize his choice of the potentials that exist in the world. Thus positive attitudes actualize positive potentials.

To illustrate, there’s a story about a fellow who was always anxious and overwhelmed. He went to seek counsel with the Ba’al Shem Tov who sent him to observe the conduct of a certain innkeeper in a far away village. The innkeeper welcomed him warmly and they were speaking one morning when suddenly a gruff, burly lackey of the landlord burst in with a fist-pounding demand for the back rent that was owed, a monumental sum of 3,000 rubles, to be delivered to the landlord by 5:00pm. The innkeeper reassured him that he would take care of it and the servant left.
The visitor was still quaking in the wake of this rude home invasion, as he stammered a sympathetic query to the innkeeper about the requisite funds. But despite the fact that the innkeeper had barely a few rubles to his name and not the faintest inkling where he could find more, his demeanor was serene as he replied “G-d will provide,” and he set up refreshments for the visitor.
Again at 2:00 pm the servant burst in, slammed his fist on the innkeeper’s counter and bellowed, “Don’t forget. 5:00 pm. The whole rent. Don’t be late. . . or else!” By now the visitor was beside himself with fear, trembling over what grim future lay in store for the hapless innkeeper and his family. But the innkeeper kept his cool. “It’s all up to the One Above. Everything will work out fine,” he said, as he continued on with his work, humming away, apparently mindless of the impending deadline.
Shortly before 5:00pm, the inkeeper picked himself up, took his leave and headed out the door emptyhanded, while the visitor looked on aghast. Part way to the mansion, he encountered a wagon which slowed and then stopped while the innkeeper apparently exchanged words with a passenger inside. After a moment the wagon and the innkeeper head off their separate ways, but only briefly because the wagon suddenly did an about face and headed back to meet up with the innkeeper. A longer conversation apparently ensued, and once again they resumed their respective journeys and a little while later the innkeeper disappeared through the gate to the landlord’s estate.
The poor visitor, fearing the worst, picked up a book of Psalms and started praying fervently, hoping against hope for a miracle. He was thus engaged when not long after the innkeeper returned and without fanfare returned to his work about the inn.
“What are you doing here!?” exclaimed the visitor. “How did you escape? What’s going to be now?”
“Calm down. Let me explain. Along the way I met a local businessman who asked me how much I want for this year’s grape harvest. Without a second thought I told him 3,000 roubles. He was shocked saying it’s ridiculously overpriced but I told him that’s my price and I’m not budging. We parted company with no deal, but a minute later he changed his mind, caught up with me, and paid me in full on the spot. As I told you, it’s all up to the One Above.”

What the Baal Shem Tov was trying to teach the visitor by sending him to the innkeeper was not how to rely on miracles, for who can rely on miracles? The lesson was in positive thinking. “Think good and it will be good.” When we trust in the One Above to take care of all our needs, without any second thoughts, then, as they say, what goes around comes around, and G-d responds in like manner, taking care of all our needs, without any second thoughts on His part.

The science of positive thinking shows the practical value of an optimistic attitude and how that works to improve your life. The ultimate art of positive thinking is “bitachon”, a trust in G-d so total, that you’ll hang in there fearlessly, without even a sky hook in sight.

- Shaarei Emunah, Ch.27

8. Delayed Choice

2006-09-11T15:26:00.000-04:00

In the previous post, we discovered that how we look at things actually determines what they are. But does it also determine what they were?

One of the most incredible discoveries of all time, is actually a very little known, weird kind of fact. Almost quirky.

When electrons pass through a barrier with two slits, you can choose to observe them as waves, in which case they went through both slits, or as particles in which case they went through only one.

Let's get into this for a minute. One of the implications of this discovery is that once you observe the electron as a wave, it was a wave all the way back to when it was emitted from the electron gun. Similarly if you chose to observe it as a particle, it was a particle not only at the time of observation, but retroactively all the way back to its origin.

"Whoa!" Says the logical brain. "How can it be that an observation I make now is changing things earlier? It makes no sense. There must be some mistake here."

But there is no mistake. In 1978, physicist John Wheeler concocted a thought experiment to test this time-travel effect observers have on quantum systems, and lo-and-behold by 1984 it was proven in the lab and replicated dozens of times since. Today there is no doubt about it. Observer choices made now determine the history of particles in the past, whether it's nanoseconds, minutes, or millennia ago.

And it's not just a matter of proton here and a neutron there. The entire cosmos is made of this stuff, so it turns out that any observations and all observations share this remarkable property. We recreate all of history and even pre-history just by opening our eyes in the morning!

In Judaic terms it's not all that strange. Jews celebrate the renewal of the universe every day in their morning prayers, "hamechadesh b'tuvo b'chol yom tamid, maaseh b'raisheet" which speaks of the Creator's "daily, constant renewal of the work of Creation." And all of that is because of us, as the Mishna states that every individual is obliged to say, "bishvili nivra ha'olam – For my sake was the world created."

But this whole retroactive reality business has an even a deeper spiritual significance. It refers to the power of teshuvah, repentance, or more accurately return, restoration.

With the approach of the Jewish New Year, also known as the Day of Judgment, we all have some fixing up to do. But in this there are different levels. There's a kind of restoration that rights a wrong, repays a debt, gets us back to level ground. But then there's another, higher mode of teshuvah, where negatives get transformed to positives. A teshuvah where errors become assets, where even intentional sins become merits. Where darkness is transformed to light.

And here's where photons can illuminate our spiritual life as well. By choosing to return in the best possible way, we demonstrate to our Creator that we are in tune with the possibility of reinventing ourselves, of transcending sustainability, surpassing even tikkun olam, achieving a perfection within ourselves and the world.

It's all a matter of how you look at it.

Further reading:
Likutei Amarim – Tanya, Part 1, Ch.7

7. Quantum Judaism

2006-09-11T15:25:00.000-04:00

syn·er·gy ('sin-&r-jE) n.

The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects.

There is an exquisite synergy between Torah and quantum physics. The bad news is that understanding it demands learning a little quantum physics. The good news is that it’s not so hard as it seems at first.

Quantum physics is the science of littlest bits -- anything atomic size or smaller. Examples are the smallest bit of electricity, an electron, and the smallest bit of light, which is a photon.

All subatomic particles may be seen either as waves or particles, but not both at once. For example, when ejected from a "gun", electrons travel fairly straight, forming a cluster of points on a detector screen. This shows their particle nature only (left diagram). However, when the electrons ejected are aimed through a narrow slit, they make a diffraction pattern, which shows their wave nature (right diagram).

So far so good. The problem is that waves and particles are opposites and have mutually exclusive properties. Nothing can act both as a wave and a particle at the same time.

Now which state is the quantum in before it is observed? Wave? Particle? Both? Or none? According to quantum physics, the pre-observation state has the potential of being either but is actually neither. Moreover it is the act of observation itself that brings the thing into being in one of its possible states.

How so? Picture an electron being fired at two slits. There are two ways to observe it. One way is to set up a detector that can check which one of the two slits it went through. This method invariably reveals the electron to be a particle that has passed through only one of the slits. The other way is to record the electron's passage as a diffraction pattern on a screen, which means it went through both slits and is a wave.

It seems impossible that the electron should go through only one of the two slits, and through both of them, at one and the same time. Yet this seems to be the case.

There is no resolution to this conundrum; it’s a paradox. Try as we might, we can’t wish away the fact that how you choose to look at things really makes them that way.

It may interest you to know that the sages of the Talmud (Yuma 21:1) described a similar paradox with regard to the location of the Ark in the inner sanctuary of the ancient temple in Jerusalem. The quote there is, “The place of the ark is dimensionless space.” What does this mean?

The ark measured 2.5 cubits and was placed in the middle of a room measuring 20 cubits. But strangely, from one end of the ark to the wall was 10 cubits, and from the other end of the ark to the opposite wall was also 10 cubits. Adding the ark itself gives 22.5 cubits. Yet, measuring from wall to wall, there were only 20 cubits. Thus, when you measured the ark itself, it took up space, whereas when you measured around it, it did not!

So what state was the ark in before it was observed? Spatial? Non-spatial? Both? Neither? According to Torah, the pre-observation state has the potential of being either but is actually neither. Moreover it is the act of observation itself that brings the thing into being in one of its possible states.

Now how about that? Quantum Judaism! But the parallels don’t really stop there. (More in next post)

6. The New Physics

2006-09-11T15:22:00.000-04:00

The New Physics puts us face-to-face with the self-same mysteries that characterize Old-time religion – the existence of G-d, the soul, and the significance of human life in the grand scheme of things. For the next few issues, we will be exploring how this is so.

The good news is that you don’t need to be a physicist or a theologian to appreciate these things. The bad news is that even if you were both, you still wouldn’t understand it.

Quantum theory, the guts of the “New Physics,” is nearly a century old. Yet it can’t shake its popular label of newness. It is hands-down the best-substantiated model of atomic behavior in existence, but with all that, it is no less mind-boggling, counter-intuitive, and downright vexing as it was when it was first conceived.

Albert Einstein bucked it for decades, calling it “impressive” but “spooky”. Physics super-star Richard Feynman says, “I think it is safe to say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.” Nobel Physicist Max Von Laue said, “If that turns out to be true, I’ll quit physics!” Even its co-founders were confounded. Erwin Schrodinger, author of its very equations said, “I do not like it and I’m sorry I had anything to do with it.” And the theory’s most famous expositor, Niels Bohr, said “Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.”

What, you may ask, is driving all these clever scientists so bonkers? And why should a layman like me even bother to scratch the surface if these brave souls have plumbed its depths to no avail?

The answer to why is why not! Physics is fun, nature is interesting, paradoxes are intriguing, and more than all this, understanding creation is a means to understanding the Creator, and that is indeed a most noble avocation.

In 1926, eighty years ago, when quantum physics was still in its infancy, Niels Bohr came to the University of Toronto to explain his exciting theory at a seminar for professors and greaduate students in the physics department. The school newspaper reported that after 45 minutes, the only two attendees that were awake were the speaker and the journalist.

At that time science was a purely materialistic and rational enterprise and the last thing anyone expected a scientist to say was that science had spiritual implications.

Today, however, there are literally tens of thousands of books, articles, lectures and movies, all dealing with the synergy of science and spirit. Some are academic, others popular. And while every branch of science has contributed to the spirituality revolution, the vanguard of them all seems to be quantum theory.

Next week we will start following the experimental trails that lead us into an enchanted world, our world, where mind matters more than matter does.

5. Are Scientists Evolving?

2006-09-11T15:20:00.000-04:00

Science is evolving. Every living thing grows and changes with time and perhaps it is fair to view science, mankind’s collective awareness of how nature works, in the same way: as a dynamic, living system of knowledge, much more than a collection of brute facts.

The science of today is far advanced from what it was even just a few years ago, yet somehow, archaic notions still plague the minds of many supposed scientific experts. One of those lingering bugaboos rattling around in the skulls of academia’s ivory tower is that the notion of a Creator is irrelevant to science.

One need look no further than the daily news for the daily row over evolution and creationism, where the purported defenders of science come with the clarion call “Intelligent Design is not Science, it’s religion. As such, it’s irrelevant to science.”

This is not a new concept. It is rooted in the Age of Reason and the “Enlightenment” when European society rebelled against the church specifically and religion generally. However, it’s no longer the 18th Century or the 19th Century or even the 20th Century.

For the rationalist, a godless science worked just fine because classical physics had built such a neat edifice on the foundation of purely materialistic assumptions. (Those assumptions are material realism, logical positivism, causal determinism, locality, and epiphenomenalism.) However, during the past century, modern science has turned full circle and disqualified each and every one of those materialistic assumptions.

And the result?

The new physics views consciousness as the underlying reality of nature. It sees time-space separations as illusory. It recognizes that paradoxes are integral to reality and will never “go away” when we learn more. It recognizes that classical rules of cause-and-effect break down entirely in every atom in the universe. It allows for a level of human significance in the cosmos never before imagined, except by the Jews. And it even envisions a continuous creation involving both a higher consciousness and human awareness which act together to bring all reality, including the past, from a potential to an actual state.

In short, modern science sees an enchanted universe, a holistic reality, subject to some ephemeral higher unity.

So how ironic it is, that the very same scientific community that cries, “No Way!” to Intelligent Design, simultaneously envisions a conscious universe, intimately personal, ultimately transcendent and beyond any rational comprehension. Does this sound like a science indifferent to G-d? I guess that depends on how you define “G-d.”

4. Faith In Science - Part 2

2006-09-11T15:16:00.000-04:00

In the previous post, we showed how faith, rather than being opposite to science, is actually integral to it.

Authentic science is impervious to politics. Nature will yield her secrets to anyone willing to poke, prod, observe and think. And nobody can tell nature what to do.

So when repeatable experiments come up with results that are enigmatic, paradoxical, or even downright crazy, no matter! Nature doesn’t work for my brain and doesn’t need to conform to my sensibilities. Thus the annals of science are replete with examples of things which are entirely beyond our understanding, simply because experimental results force us to accept their existence.

This does not mean that we should not employ our intellects at all. There is a real and valid role for logical analysis and intellectual comprehension, both in dealing with worldly matters and in our spiritual life. Where people often delude themselves, however, is in believing that with reason they can solve all meaningful questions about nature and issues of lifestyle.

Even logic itself has come to recognize its own limitations. A revolutionary theorem proposed by the famous mathematician Godel essentially states that any system of logic is either incomplete or inconsistent. This means that there is always something beyond our rational mind that we have to come to in order to complete our knowledge of anything.

An example of the necessity of faith comes from IBM think-tank mathematician Joe Halpern, whose research into the synchronization of clocks led him to discover that even the simplest acts of communication require a leap of faith. He explains using the following illustration. Two generals have been planning a surprise two-front attack on their enemy. One general signals the other 'We attack at dawn.' Having sent his signal, is the general confident enough to strike at dawn? No, because he needs confirmation from the second general that his signal was received. Now let's say #2 sends his confirming signal. Are they now ready to roll? No, because #2 does not know that #1 received confirmation.

How many confirmations are actually necessary? Halpern determined that for any number of confirming steps, one can always devise a plausible situation in which one more step is actually necessary. Consequently there is no such thing as complete confirmation of a signal and all communication including everyday conversation is based on the unsubstantiated belief that the other party 'knows what we mean'. But do I know what you mean? I don't know - I just believe that I do.

The most brilliant minds of 30 years ago could not even dream of the wonders of science and technology today. Now, as we try to peer ahead into the new millennium, it's high time we internalized the lessons of last century’s science, including the following: The world is beyond our understanding and what we cannot grasp with reason may be accessible only through faith.

Faith and reason are not trains in collision. They are more like trains in series; one picks up where the other leaves off.

3. Faith In Science

2006-09-11T15:10:00.000-04:00

How do we judge people with faith? Naive? Gullible? Brainwashed? Mindless? Indoctrinated? Out-of-touch with reality? Dangerous?

And how do we judge people who are rational? Normal? Sensible? Intelligent? Trustworthy? Reliable?

And where would we put the scientist on this spectrum? Most people would not hesitate to identify the scientist as a rational person. One must possess and use a lot of intelligence to pursue science.

What we don't often realize, however, is that science cannot exist without faith. By faith here, I do not necessarily mean religion. The faith required by science is rather that quality of human nature that assumes certain things and accepts them as true without having to prove them.

Everyone has his or her givens, including the scientist. The givens of science include definitions, assumptions, axioms, and the rules of inference. None of these types of ideas are known by reason, yet every scientist accepts them as true and valid. There has never been nor will there ever be, even one scientific conclusion without implicit faith in the givens of science.

For example, everyone believes in gravity even though practicing physicists will tell you that the force of gravity is absurd, totally contradicting the principles of classical physics. Moreover no one has ever seen or felt a wave or particle of gravity. The idea of gravitational force requires action at a distance with no intermediary, which is literally ~ impossible according to classical physics and human reason. And yet, we affirm gravity to be true, real and proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Science even presumes faith in the traditional sense, of belief in a Creator. All of science is built on the principle that everything that happens has a cause. This implies a chain of causation back to the First Cause, the Big Banger, if you will.

In the last few decades, science has come to an even greater dimension of faith than ever before. The most recent experimental advances in physics, and the latest conceptual advances, such as chaos, and superstring theories, have shown clearly that we must accept a view of reality that is totally beyond anything the human mind can begin to comprehend.

Faith is not anethema to science. On the contrary. It is it’s raison d’etre.

2. Why Ask Why?

2006-09-11T15:04:00.000-04:00

In the previous post we presented 13 bold statements that together indicate a spiritual revolution well underway in the world of science. This week we clarify one of the limitations of the scientific method.

Scientism Myth: The laws of nature explain natural phenomena.
Science Fact: The laws of nature do not explain anything, they only describe.

Popular culture has this notion of “G-d of the gaps.” That is, wherever there is a gap in our knowledge of nature, that is where we need some explanation, call it G-d. Thus, as we learn more about nature, the scientists’ realm purportedly gets bigger and bigger while the ‘divine’ realm gets smaller and smaller. Eventually, the argument goes, science figures everything out and the religious are left with improtant questions like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. In otherwords G-d is an irrelevant crutch for feeble minded people that need some kind of explanation for things while scientists figure out what is really going on.

This is the view of popular culture, but popular culture does not reflect too deeply into the subject of natural law. For if it did, it may come up with another perspective entirely.

Students of science know what natural law is: A mathematic formulation that describes the relationships between phenomena. This is a very good thing. Without these equations that map out what’s going on in the world we would be without plastic and cars and phones and airplanes and ipods. We wouldn’t understand global warming or market trends or molecules or medicine.

But students of science also understand, or should in any case, what natural law does not do. It doesn’t explain why things are the way they are. It doesn’t explain why the grass is green or the sky is blue or why there are such things as sky and grass in the first place.

Ask a biologist why grass is green and s/he may describe for you at length the mechanisms of photosynthesis, the structure of chlorophyll, the energy states required for oxidative phosphorylation, the reflection of unusable wavelengths of light, the chemistry of retinal stimulation, and the neural pathways to the visual cortex. At the end you may even be satisfied, unless you happen to remember that the question was not how grass is green or even how we perceive it to be green but rather why grass is green.

Moreover, it’s not only that science has not discovered the answer yet but will in the future. Rather these are things that science can never know, because these are not the questions with which science deals.

Unfortunately, science education does not train the scientist in what he cannot know or anything else pertaining to the philosophy of science. It provides the tools and the current set of beliefs and says get to work, leaving questions of purpose, meaning and ultimate cause in the foggy background, always tantalizing and stimulating the scientfic quest without ever finding out at all.

As for where those answers lie, that’s another question.

1. Has Science Discovered Its Soul?

2006-09-11T14:36:00.000-04:00

In this blog, we will track the trends in scientific discovery of G-d, the soul, and the significance of human life. If this doesn’t sound very scientific, that’s only because there’s so much going on in the world, that many people are simply unaware of the new discoveries and theories and their implications.

The fact is that science is in the midst of a spirituality revolution every bit as significant as the renaissance, the industrial revolution and the information age. The new developments touch not only a few disciplines but literally the entire spectrum of scientific endeavor, from astronomy to zoology and from psychology to physics.

These evolving trends in science are of two types: Discoveries that challenge commonly held anti- religious notions, and those that validate ideas previously thought to be exclusively religious or mystical.

Among the antiquated beliefs that still pass for science among the uninformed are the following, all dysfunctional relics of 19th Century thinking:

The laws of nature explain natural phenomena;

All meaningful questions have rational answers;

The notions of Creator and soul are irrelevant to science;

Material realism and causal determinism are upheld by science;

Scientific objectivity is achievable in principle;

The world and the cosmos must have existed for billions of years;

The diversity of life has arisen by chance through mutation and natural selection;

Planetary motion is necessarily heliocentric and not geocentric;

Small local actions are insignificant in the grand scheme of things;

Thoughts and feelings have no direct effect beyond the mind;

Physical healing comes about only through physical means.

Instead of all this, current scientific wisdom includes new and numerous, unrefuted, peer-reviewed, published scientific studies that compel even secular researchers to draw such “mystical” and “unscientific” conclusions as:

Laws of nature cannot explain anything;
All logical systems are either inconsistent or incomplete;
There exists an omniscient Creator;
Creatio ex nihilo is ubiquitous and continuous;
Man has a soul;
Man has free will;
Physical reality depends on the Creator’s dynamic relationship with man;
Cosmology and Geology allow for a young world;
Biblical Creation is no less plausible than Darwinian evolution of species;
Geocentrism is as valid as heliocentrism;
Small local actions can have immediate, far reaching and wide ranging impacts;
Thoughts and feelings can impact external physical systems directly;
Faith and prayer actually heal.

“This is new?” you might ask. Well yes and no. It’s new to science, but old to traditional faith. But the synergy works both ways because faith is enhanced by science as well. In future posts, we will document all these claims and provide an explanation for why all this is happening specifically now.