Alex

About Alexander Poltorak

Alexander Poltorak was trained as a theoretical physicist in Russia. A physicist and brain researcher, he held academic positions at various colleges and universities serving as an Assistant Professor of Biomathematics at Cornell University Medical College, as an Assistant Professor of Physics at Touro College, as an Adjunct Professor of Physics at the City College of New York. He guest-lectured at Columbia University School of Engineering and Business School. Presently, he is the Founder & President of NeuroLight, Inc. and a Research Fellow at the Institute for Ultrafast Spectroscopy and Lasers. Alex Poltorak authored several books, research papers, and many articles. He blogs about physics, kabbalah and Jewish philosophy.

Curses, Blessings, and Semiconductors

Curses, Blessings, and Semiconductors

Ki Tavo And it shall come to pass, when the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, that thou shalt set the blessing upon mount Gerizim, and the curse upon mount Ebal. (Deuteronomy 11:29)These shall stand upon mount Gerizim to bless the people, when ye are passed over the Jordan: Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Joseph, and Benjamin; and these shall stand upon mount Ebal for the curse: Reuben, Gad, and Asher, and Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali. And the Levites shall speak, and say unto all the men of Israel with a loud voice: Cursed be the man that maketh a graven or molten image, an abomination unto the LORD, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and setteth it up [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2022-09-18T15:50:32-04:00September 18th, 2022|Atomic Theory, Deuteronomy, Ki Tavo, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Quantum Theory, Uncategorized|1 Comment

The Captive Beauty

In the proposed allegorical interpretation, the soldier in the war is a metaphor for the Jewish people, who are all “soldiers” in G‑d’s army Tzivot Hashem, who fight the battle against evil to liberate and elevate fallen sparks from Tohu; where the beautiful woman from another nation is a metaphor for a fallen spark from another universe (Tohu), where the uncontrollable attraction the soldier feels towards the beautiful captive is a metaphor for the uncontrollable attraction a Jewish person (who is attuned to spirituality) feels towards divine sparks he is destined to redeem; where after having extracted the fallen spark from the clutches of evil, it requires a period of purification to achieve the ultimate marriage—the reintegration of the fallen spark into the domain of holiness.

By Alexander Poltorak|2022-09-14T18:34:45-04:00September 12th, 2022|Deuteronomy, Devarim, Kabbalah, Ki Teitzei, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Uncategorized|0 Comments

The Many Secrets of Mezuzah

The Many Secrets of Mezuzah

This week we study the Torah portion of Eikev, which we will be reading this Shabbat in synagogues. This Torah portion contains the second section of the Shema, Vehayah im shamo’ah, where the commandment of mezuzah is given a second time. Traditionally, this is the week when we discuss mezuzah. Coincidentally, tonight, the twentieth day of Av, is the yahrzeit of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, a prominent Kabbalist and the father of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson.[1] Rabbi Levi Yitzchak has an interesting short commentary on the word mezuzah. In honor of his yahrzeit, I would like to expound upon and expand his commentary. The sages of the Talmud say that forty days before a fetus is formed, it is announced in heaven that this child is going to be married to [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2022-08-17T11:31:08-04:00August 16th, 2022|Uncategorized|0 Comments

The Temple as a Model of a Cell

The Temple as a Model of a Cell

Introduction Today, on Tisha B’Av—the ninth day of Av, this year commemorated on the tenth day of Av because the ninth is Shabbat, when mourning is forbidden—we mourn the destruction of the Holy Temple—Bet HaMikdash. This day commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. The First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II, and Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans. Aside from its historical significance, why is the destruction of both Temples so tragic that it is mourned even today? What is the significance of the Temple in Jerusalem? The Temple was a building where kohanim-priests offered sacrifices. The sages state that the Temple was a source of life for the Jewish people.[1] This can be seen easily if we examine the parallels between the Temple and [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2022-08-07T13:43:09-04:00August 7th, 2022|Biology, Kabbalah, Tisha B'Av, Uncategorized|2 Comments

Sefirat HaOmer—A Study in Klal u’Prat

Sefirat HaOmer—A Study in Klal u’Prat

The forty-nine days between Passover and Shavuot are called the days of Sefira or the days of counting Omer—Sefirat HaOmer—when Jews count every day as the first day of the omer, the second day of the omer, and so on until on the Eve of Shavuot, when the last, forty-ninth day is counted. . . . And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the day of rest, from the day that ye brought the Omer of the waving; seven weeks shall there be complete.Leviticus 23:21 Seven weeks shalt thou number unto thee; from the time the sickle is first put to the standing corn shalt thou begin to number seven weeks.Deuteronomy 16:9 This period is marked by semi-mourning with observance of such customs as avoiding haircuts, not shaving, not celebrating [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2022-05-27T19:33:27-04:00May 27th, 2022|Holidays (Yomim Tovim), Husband and wife, Kabbalah, Klal and Prat, Omer, Passover (Pesach), Sefirot, Shavuot, Uncategorized|2 Comments

On Hidden and Revealed Aspects of Reality

On Hidden and Revealed Aspects of Reality

The renowned Kabbalist Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, in a 1932 letter to his son, the future Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, explained the inner meaning of one of the rituals of the Passover Seder—Yachatz—the breaking of the middle matzah.[1] When arranging the Seder plate, we are careful to select three whole matzot. However, as soon as we wash our hands and before even reciting the blessing over these matzot, we take the middle matzah and break it in half. The larger part becomes the afikoman (“dessert”) and is set aside until the very end of the Seder, when it is taken out and eaten in remembrance of the Passover sacrifice eaten while the Temples stood in Jerusalem. The smaller part of the broken middle matzah is returned back to the Seder plate—the [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2022-05-12T23:27:09-04:00April 21st, 2022|Uncategorized|2 Comments

The Soul – Part IV. The Whole vs. the Parts

The Soul – Part IV. The Whole vs. the Parts

This is the fourth installment in the series of essays on the nature of the soul. The first three installments can be found here: What Is a Soul? I. The Spiritual vs. the Materia What Is a Soul? II. Anatomy of the Soul What is a Soul? III. The Many Souls of Man At the dawn of classical philosophy, there were two leading schools of thought: holism and atomism. Holism holds that a system (e.g., physical, chemical, biological, social) should be viewed as a whole rather than a collection of parts. Atomism, in contrast, holds the reductionist view that every system is a collection of parts, and the system can be known only by studying its parts. Holism[1] essentially stands for the proposition that the whole is greater than the sum of its [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2022-06-26T17:19:08-04:00December 27th, 2021|Biology, Kabbalah, Klal and Prat, Soul, Spirituality, Uncategorized|1 Comment

What is a Soul? III. The Many Souls of Man

What is a Soul? III. The Many Souls of Man

…[H]e who tries to cure the soul, wishing to improve the moral qualities, must have a knowledge of the soul in its totality and its parts…Maimonides[1] Maimonides opens his introduction to The Ethics of the Fathers with this statement: Know that the human soul is one, but that it has many diversified activities. Some of these activities have, indeed, been called souls, which has given rise to the opinion that man has many souls, as was the belief of the physicians, with the result that the most distinguished of them states in the introduction of his book that there are three souls, the physical, the vital, and the psychical.[2] While Maimonides lists three souls—the physical (tiv’it), the vital (chiyunit), and the psychical (nefoshit)—he believes them to be aspects of one soul—“Know that [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2022-01-25T15:40:55-05:00December 15th, 2021|Kabbalah, Neuroscience, Reincarnation, Soul, Spirituality, Uncategorized|0 Comments

What Is a Soul? II. Anatomy of the Soul

What Is a Soul? II. Anatomy of the Soul

In the biblical story of the creation of Adam, the Torah states: Then the Eternal G‑d formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.Genesis 2:7 The word translated into English as “soul” in the original Hebrew is nefesh. This is the first and the lowest level of the soul given to Adam. The taxonomy and anatomy of a soul in Judaism are quite complex. Original biblical sources speak of three levels of the soul: nefesh (“soul”), ru’ach (“spirit”),[1] and neshamah (“breath”).[2] The Kabbalah speaks of the five levels of the soul: nefesh, ru’ach, neshamah, chayah, and yechidah. This is based on classical rabbinic sources. As stated in the midrash, “By five names is the soul called: nefesh, ru’ach, [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2021-12-31T15:00:28-05:00November 5th, 2021|Ezekiel, Kabbalah, Names of G‑d, Sefirot, Soul, Spirituality, Uncategorized|2 Comments

What Is a Soul? I. The Spiritual vs. the Material

Introduction Most Americans believe in an immortal soul.[1] Most scientists think the soul does not exist. Why do so many people believe in an immortal soul? Why do scientists not believe in it? What is a soul, anyway? Do we need a soul? We will explore these and related questions in this essay. The French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes famously said “If philosophers were always in agreement about the meaning of words, almost all their disputes would evaporate.”[2] There is hardly a better example to demonstrate this truism than the concept of a soul—one of the most misunderstood and ill-defined concepts. A soul is perceived as spiritual, spooky, and otherworldly. While there is nothing spooky or otherworldly about a soul, it is indeed a spiritual concept. However, that knowledge does not help us, [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2021-11-18T22:42:50-05:00October 22nd, 2021|Soul, Space, Spirituality, Uncategorized|2 Comments

Three Donkeys

Three Donkeys

And Abraham rose early in the morning, and saddled his ass.Geneses 22:3 And Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them upon the ass, and he returned to the land of Egypt.Exodus 4:20 Behold, thy king cometh unto thee, he is triumphant, and victorious, lowly, and riding upon an ass.Zechariah 9:9 The Torah tells us of a famous donkey riding through biblical history—Abraham used it; Moses used it; Mashiach will use it in the future.[1] In Hebrew, an “ass” or a “donkey” is chamor. In the verse in Exodus, Moses set his wife and children on the donkey—ha-chamor. The donkey means a known donkey. How is it known? Rashi states, based on the midrash Pirke d’Rabbi Eliezer, that this is the same donkey that Abraham saddled with wood on the way [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2021-10-20T10:16:27-04:00October 19th, 2021|Uncategorized|2 Comments

Zettaflood

In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.Genesis 7:11 As the Torah tells us, at the dawn of human history, the flood swept the world. Most people, except for Noah and his family, drowned in that flood. Today, we too are drowning in a flood of a different kind—the informational flood. To put the current flood in perspective, consider this: according to one estimate in 2003, between the beginning of human civilization and the spread of computers, humanity generated cumulatively about 12 exabytes (12x1018 bytes) of data. However, in 2002 alone, we generated 5 exabytes of data. According to another estimate, [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2021-10-05T16:43:54-04:00October 4th, 2021|Fractals, Genesis, Kabbalah, Mathematics, Noach, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Uncategorized|1 Comment

Fill the Earth

Fill the Earth

And G‑d created man in His own image, in the image of G‑d created He him; male and female created He them. And G‑d blessed them; and G‑d said unto them: “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it . . . .Genesis 1:28 G‑d created man, male and female, and commanded them to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, and subdue or conquer it. While the literal meaning of this verse is apparent—fill the earth with your progeny by procreating[1]—it begs a question. Specifically, the phrase “fill the earth” seems superfluous—wasn’t it enough to say “Be fruitful and multiply”? Indeed, the Hebrew word milupim[2] (“to multiply”) is etymologically related to the word mil’u[3] (“to fill”).[4] If humans were to multiply, as commanded by G‑d, they would naturally fill the earth. It seems [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2021-10-04T15:13:44-04:00October 4th, 2021|Bereishit, Bereshit, Creation, Fractals, Genesis, Kabbalah, Mathematics, Mathematics, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Space, Uncategorized|0 Comments

The Cosmological Problem of Initial Conditions and the Universe of Tohu

The Cosmological Problem of Initial Conditions and the Universe of Tohu

Now the earth was unformed and void.Genesis 1:2 We have a big problem in cosmology: the problem of the initial conditions of the universe at the time of the Big Bang.[1] Before we can explain this problem, however, we need to review some basic concepts of thermodynamics. Thermodynamics developed by Boltzmann and others[2] described the behavior of gases and liquids and the transfer of heat. A key concept in thermodynamics is entropy. Entropy is a measure of disorder, of chaos. The second law of thermodynamics states that in an isolated system, entropy always increases with time. The second law of thermodynamics explains universal decay. And entropy is the measure of that decay.[3] Shining stars produce entropy. Stars collapsing into black holes produce entropy. Evaporating black holes produce entropy.[4] Entropy is increasing in the universe.[5] Let us [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2022-09-14T22:36:17-04:00September 30th, 2021|Bereishit, Bereshit, Cosmology, Creation, Genesis, Kabbalah, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Sefirot, Thermodynamics, Time, Uncategorized|2 Comments

Let’s Make this Sukkot About Ananei HaKavod, not about Ananei ha-COVID

During the Holiday of Sukkot, we celebrate the divine providence that protected Jewish people from the sun and other dangers of the desert during their forty years of wandering in the desert. This providence came in the form of the ananei ha-koved (“the clouds of glory”). The clouds of divine glory hovered over Jewish people protecting them from the elements—hashgachah pratit (“divine providence”) was openly revealed. The concept of divine providence is often misunderstood. People expect open miracles. Nowadays, we no longer merit the open revelation of divine providence, which is concealed. However, it is still here guiding and protecting us, if we open ourselves to its protection. This reminds me of an old parable. After a shipwreck, a Jew was stranded on an uninhabited island. The Jew prayed to G‑d for a [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2021-09-20T16:30:04-04:00September 20th, 2021|Uncategorized|1 Comment

Yom Kippur—The Day of Pure Delight

Yom Kippur—The Day of Pure Delight

Yom Kippur means “The Day of Atonement.” Some view it as a frightening day full of regrets of the past and anxiety for the future. However, Chasidic philosophy sees Yom Kippur as the day of pure delight. On a simple level, Yom Kippur is the day of forgiveness--the day when we all going to be forgiven, cleansed, and atoned. What is not to be happy about? Moreover, it is a day when we get our personal rendezvous with our Heavenly Father, and with ourselves. The last prayer of Yom Kippur is called Neila ("closing"). It is usually interpreted as the closing of the doors of prayers when the penitent feverishly trying to squeeze another prayer before the doors are shut. In Hassidic teachings, the Neila is viewed completely differently—it is the most cherished [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2023-09-24T00:35:40-04:00September 15th, 2021|Uncategorized|0 Comments

The Offering of the First Fruits and Loop Quantum Gravity

The Offering of the First Fruits and Loop Quantum Gravity

. . . Thou shalt take of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which thou shalt bring in from thy land that the Lord thy G‑d giveth thee; and thou shalt put it in a basket and shalt go unto the place which the Lord thy G‑d shall choose to cause His name to dwell there. . . . And the priest shall take the basket out of thy hand, and set it down before the altar of the Lord thy G‑d.Deuteronomy 26:2,4 And He garbed Himself with righteousness as a coat of mail, and a helmet of salvation upon His head . . .Isaiah 59:17 The Torah portion Tavo begins with the commandment of the offering of the First Fruits (bikkurim). The simple meaning of this mitzvah is self-evident. [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2021-09-06T16:28:20-04:00September 6th, 2021|Uncategorized|1 Comment

The Paradox of Steven Weinberg

The Paradox of Steven Weinberg

The world has lost one of the greatest theoretical physicists of our time—Steven Weinberg (1933–2021). I never met him in person. But I studied his textbooks at university. His Gravitation and Cosmology, translated into Russian, was one of the few books I brought with me when we left the Soviet Union in 1982. This book is still on my shelf. Weinberg’s contribution to physics was enormous. His electroweak theory earned him a 1979 Nobel Prize in physics (which he shared with Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow). His work played an essential role in laying the foundation for the Standard Model of particle physics. He made significant contributions to the theory of strong nuclear forces, formulating the quark theory of strong interactions called “technicolor.” His idea of effective field theory changed our understanding of [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2021-10-20T10:58:20-04:00August 31st, 2021|Uncategorized|1 Comment

The Genetic Alphabet Has Nothing to Do with the Name of G‑d… Other Than That Everything Has to Do with the Name of G‑d

On this blog, we search for structural parallels between the Torah and science; we look for scientific metaphors that help us to understand the Torah better; and we look for Torah insights to help us understand science more deeply. However, this endeavor is fraught with peril. Using superficial parallels that don’t hold up under scrutiny serves neither the Torah nor the science and likely discredits this interdisciplinary research. I don’t like to criticize others, as my own work is not free from errors. But I feel compelled to sound a cautioning note. One such unfounded “parallel” that has troubled me for years is the purported analogy between the four bases (“letters”) of the genetic code and the four letters of the Tetragrammaton—the proper name of G‑d. This parallel, advocated by some highly intelligent [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2021-11-30T13:53:36-05:00August 27th, 2021|Uncategorized|8 Comments

A Wheel Within a Wheel

A Wheel Within a Wheel

Now as I beheld the Chayot [living creatures], behold one Ophan [wheel] at the bottom hard by the living creatures, at the four faces thereof. The appearance of the Ophanim [wheels] and their work was like unto the colour of a beryl; and they four had one likeness; and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel within a wheel. . . . As for their rings, they were high and they were dreadful; and they four had their rings full of eyes round about. Ezekiel 1:15–18 One of the most difficult theological questions is how Eternal G‑d relates to the world created by Him, the world that is always in flux. Indeed, the prophet Malachi says in the name of G‑d: For I the Eternal change not.Malachi 3:6 G‑d does [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2021-12-31T14:52:11-05:00May 21st, 2021|Creation, Ezekiel, Kabbalah, Physics, Spirituality, Tanakh, Time, Uncategorized|5 Comments

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