Genesis

Bereshit — the First Book of Torah

On Freedom of Choice, Divine Providence, and the Hard Problem of Philosophy

The story of Joseph and his brothers, described in the Torah portion of Vayeshev, presents many problems. Classical biblical commentators interpret the conflict between Joseph and his brothers in diametrically opposite ways. Some commentators interpret it literally—the brothers were guilty of conspiring to kill Joseph and, ultimately, selling him into slavery, for which they were held accountable.[1] In fact, the brothers admit their guilt: And they said one to another: ‘We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear. . . . Genesis 42:21 Others take the view that these events were predetermined by G‑d. Indeed, in the Covenant Between the Parts, G‑d reveals to Abraham that his descendants will be strangers in a foreign land. Furthermore, [...]

The Exclusion Principle

Like most Jewish families worldwide, last Shabbat, the conversation revolved around the situation in the Middle East and the war in Gaza. The question was, what is the end game? How will this war end after IDF destroys Hamas? The United States, no doubt, will push for the Two-State “solution.” But will such a solution be viable? My wife, Leah, ’שתחי, chimed in, “The two-state solution is not viable because the exclusion principle forbids it.” I immediately understood what she meant. It was a deep insight that captured the very essence of the problem. Leah was also trained as a physicist (in fact, we met at a physics conference). Although she specialized in biophysics, she is familiar with quantum mechanics and spoke to me in the language we both understood. What is the [...]

Light Above and Light Below

Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity (STR) is broadly misunderstood by the public. In most popular science books, relativity theory is hailed for introducing relativity to physics. Whereas Newtonian physics embraces absolute space and time—the narrative goes—Einstein proved that space and time are relative. Fair enough. However, the relativity of space and time is the consequence of STR, not its first principle. The cornerstone of STR is the absolute nature of light or, more precisely, the invariance of the speed of light, which is the same (in a vacuum) in all inertial frames of reference.[1] As Tim Maudlin, a leading contemporary philosopher of physics, writes: The fundamental feature of the Special Theory is not what it makes relative but what it makes absolute. The speed of light is an invariant quantity under the transformation [...]

The Flood—a Quantum Metaphor

Noah’s flood was a cataclysmic event with no parallels in recorded history. All of humanity (along with flora and fauna)—except for Noah and his family (and the animals he took with him into the Ark)—was wiped off the face of the earth. Some may call this catastrophic event the Great Extinction, others, the Great Destruction, but I would call it the Great Collapse. If we focus not only on what the Torah says but also on what it tells us, we notice that the Deluge is a metaphor for the collapse of the wave function—the key concept in quantum mechanics. We often talked about the wave function collapse on this blog. However, for those who come here for the first time or feel they need a refresher, here is a very short summary [...]

The Tree of Knowledge as a Quantum-Mechanical Metaphor

To Mendel Almost three years ago, in December of 2019, I posted an essay, "The Tree of Knowledge as a Metaphor for Superposition of States and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle." The manuscript of that essay contained an addendum with a short primer on the superposition of states in quantum mechanics and quantum-mechanical treatment of the primordial sin. It expressed the ideas of Maimonides about primordial sin in precise mathematical formulas proving the exact parallel between the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and a quantum eraser. Realizing that only people familiar with the formalism of quantum mechanics would understand that part of the essay and fearing losing my readers, I decided to omit the addendum entirely. However, the addendum is arguably the most interesting part of the essay, because it [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Joseph’s Birth—A View From Quantum Mechanics and Biology

And afterwards she bore a daughter, and called her name Dinah. (Genesis 30:21) In my previous essay, “The Conflict Between Joseph And His Brothers—A Gender Theory,” I suggested that Joseph exhibited some proclivity to feminine behavior in his youth. This impression can be naturally inferred from the verses and supported by traditions in Kabbalah related to Isaac, Joseph, and Benjamin, as we discussed in that essay. To be sure, Joseph outgrew his feminine tendencies (perhaps assisted by the tough love shown to him by his brothers). He matured into a man who was not only a husband, a father, and the de facto ruler of Egypt, but an archetype of masculinity and a paradigm of piety, for which he earned the designation of Joseph, the Righteous (Yosef HaTzadik). Moreover, spiritually, Joseph personified Yesod [...]

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