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Egyptian Exile as a Metaphor for Compactification in String Theory

And they made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and in brick…Exodus 1:14 On a literal level, the Egyptian exile (Galut Mitzrayim) is a story of the Jewish people’s enslavement in ancient Egypt, where they were forced to do hard labor making mortar and bricks, and building cities for the Pharaoh. On a deeper level, it is axiomatic in Jewish mysticism that suffering is usually a means to purify and rectify a sinner’s soul in this or past incarnation. It is also axiomatic that any sin damages the sinner’s soul and some supernal spiritual levels that obstruct the flow of the divine benefice into the world, impeding the blessing and, therefore, causing suffering to the sinner. Technically, it works as follows. When a sin committed below causes damage above, the resulting [...]

By |2021-01-11T22:54:15-05:00January 11th, 2021|Exodus (Shemot), Kabbalah, Mathematics, Mathematics, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Reincarnation, Sefirot, Shemot, Shemot, Spirituality, String Theory, Topology, Uncategorized|0 Comments
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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 [...]

By |2020-12-24T20:42:06-05:00December 23rd, 2020|Bereshit, Biology, Collapse of the wavefunction, Entanglement, Genesis, Miketz, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Quantum Theory, Science, Superposition, Uncategorized, Vayeshev, Vayigash|0 Comments
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On Rachel, Leah, and Dark Energy

Now Laban had two daughters: the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. (Genesis 29:16)   Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz (the Shelah HaKadosh)[1] famously says that the Torah speaks to the upper words and hints to the lower words. That means that the primary subject to the Torah narrative has to do with the dynamics of the spiritual worlds while only hinting at the historical narrative that appears to be the meaning of the biblical text. It is not surprising because what happens down here reflects what happens up there—in the spiritual spheres. However, the historical narrative is not necessarily the only reflection of the higher reality. We may see how the same or similar dynamic is reflected in natural laws. This Torah portion introduces us to two [...]

By |2020-11-29T23:01:47-05:00November 29th, 2020|Bereshit, Genesis, Kabbalah, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Relativity, Science, Sefirot, Uncategorized, Vayetze|1 Comment
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Jacob and Esau—Thermodynamics of Order and Chaos

And these are the chronicles of Isaac… (Genesis 25:19) So Esau went unto Ishmael, and took unto the wives that he had Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebaioth, to be his wife. (Genesis 28:9)   This Torah portion is called Toledot. In Hebrew, toledot means “generations” or “chronicles.” Indeed, this Torah portion starts with the phrase, “These are the chronicles of Isaac.” This is not the first or the last time this word appears in Tanakh (the Hebrew Scriptures). It appears for the first time in the opening verse of chapter 2 of Genesis: These are the chronicles of the heaven and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Eternal God made earth and heaven. (Genesis 2:4) The second time it appears in [...]

By |2020-11-24T11:50:04-05:00November 23rd, 2020|Bereshit, Creation, Exodus (Shemot), Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Superposition, Symmetry, Thermodynamics, Time, Toledot, Uncategorized|2 Comments
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Keturah and Hagar III—A Metaphor for Unification

And Abraham took another wife, and her name was Keturah. (Genesis 25:1) Keturah: This is Hagar. She was called Keturah because her deeds were as pleasant as keturah (incense). (Genesis Rabbah 61:5) Keturah is Hagar. (Zohar 133)   As we discussed earlier, Abraham had a concubine, Hagar. Later in life, after the passing of Sarah, Abraham took another wife whose name was Keturah. Midrash, the Zohar, Rashi, and other commentators state that Keturah is Hagar. To distill this situation to its essence, we have here two seemingly distinct individuals who, in the view of at least some biblical commentators, are one and the same person. To any physicist, this narrative bespeaks a unification. Indeed, this situation is analogous to the unification tendency in theoretical physics, where different fundamental interactions are unified into one. [...]

By |2020-11-19T23:08:20-05:00November 15th, 2020|Bereshit, Chayei Sarah, Genesis, Kabbalah, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Quantum Field Theory, Standard Model, Uncategorized, Zohar|1 Comment
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Noah’s Ark—Three Layers of Reality

A light shalt thou make to the ark…with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it. (Genesis 6:16) We mentioned in the previous posts that Noah’s ark was a microcosm.[1] As we discussed in the previous post, “Noah’s Ark—Three Layers of Being Human,” most structural parallels related to Noah’s ark are based on its tripartite structure —that is, its having three tiers. In Chasidic thought, the three levels of Noah’s ark correspond to three worlds of BiYA—Beriyah (the World of Creation), Yetzirah (the World of Formation), and Asiyah (the World of Action). In this essay, we will investigate how the tripartite structure of Noah’s ark is reflected in the structure of reality. We might say that the totality of existence comprises three layers—physical, informational, and spiritual. The classification of reality into three [...]

By |2020-10-29T19:31:45-04:00October 28th, 2020|Age of the Universe, Bereshit, Collapse of the wavefunction, Fractals, Genesis, Kabbalah, Mathematics, Mathematics, Noach, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Sefirot, Space, Spirituality, String Theory, Superposition, Time, Uncategorized, Wavefunction|0 Comments
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Tzimtzum III—Renormalization—Sweeping Infinites Under the Rug

Sweeping Infinities Under the Rug—or Renormalization Having dealt with internal contradictions in the previous section (see Physics of Tzimtzum I — The Quantum Leap and Physics of Tzimtzum II — Collapse of the Wave Function), we are left with another problem—infinity. Although God concealed His self-contradictory nature by “sweeping paradoxes under the rug” in the process akin to the collapse of the wave function, the Light of the Infinite (Ohr Ein Sof) filled the whole of existence with infinite Divine emanation. This infinite radiation left no room for any finite creation to emerge. What was God to do? Having aced the exam on quantum field theory with flying colors, God employed the favorite trick of theoretical physicists in sweeping infinities under the rug using what is called “renormalization.”[1] Roughly speaking, renormalization solves the [...]

By |2020-10-14T20:39:04-04:00October 14th, 2020|Bereishit, Bereshit, Creation, Deuteronomy, God, Kabbalah, Mathematics, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Quantum Field Theory, Quantum Theory, Relativity, Space, Standard Model, Tzimtzum, Uncategorized, Uncertainty Principle, Zohar|1 Comment
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Physics of Tzimtzum II — Collapse of the Wave Function

In the previous post “Physics of Tzimtzum I—The Quantum Leap”, we gave a general overview of the mystical doctrine of tzimtzum—the cornerstone of Lurianic Kabbalah. It is time to get into the details. The first phrase that describes the process of tzimtzum in Etz Chaim states: Ein Sof “contracted” (tzimtzem) Himself in the point at the center, in the very center of Ohr Ein Sof. This sentence raises several difficult questions: First, what could it possibly mean that the Infinite (Ein Sof) “contracted” (tzimtzem) Himself? In Hebrew, the word tzimtzum comes from the root TZM, which means “to diminish” or “to fast,” that is, to “diminish” oneself.[1] It can also mean “to be precise,” that is, to remove ambiguity.[2] The repetition of the root TZM is a grammatical form of doubling down, an extreme [...]

By |2020-09-24T21:25:40-04:00September 11th, 2020|Bereishit, Bereshit, Collapse of the wavefunction, Creation, Genesis, God, Kabbalah, Names of God, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Quantum Theory, Relativity, Superposition, Tzimtzum, Uncategorized, Wavefunction, Wavefunction of God|0 Comments
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Physics of Tzimtzum I — The Quantum Leap

Introduction “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” the Torah says. However, what was before the “beginning”? It is like asking, What was before the Big Bang? In physics, until relatively recently, such questions were discouraged. The prevailing wisdom was that time and space had been created by the Big Bang, and there was no “before” before the Big Bang. Mishnah discourages such thinking, too. The sages point out that the first letter of the Torah, the letter bet, is open on the left and closed on the right:[1] The text of the Torah and the history of the world proceed from that opening on the left. The closed right side of the letter bet visually walls off [...]

By |2020-08-25T19:56:59-04:00August 17th, 2020|Atomic Theory, Bereishit, Bereshit, Cosmology, Creation, Genesis, God, Kabbalah, Mathematics, Names of God, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Quantum Theory, Space, Spirituality, Tzimtzum, Uncategorized, Zohar|5 Comments
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Getting a Blessing Through a Wormhole

And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses went into the tent of the testimony; and, behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi was budded, and put forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and bore ripe almonds. (Bamidbar 17:23)   In the Torah portion we read last Shabbat, God instructs Moses to Speak to the children of Israel and take of them rods, one for each fathers’ house… thou shalt write every man’s name upon his rod.” (Bamidbar 17:17) As we read in verse 23, the next morning, Aaron’s rod (i.e., staff) bore ripe almonds. Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi asks the question, why almonds?[1] If the staff of Aaron had blossomed with any flowers or fruits, that would have been enough to miraculously demonstrate to the children of [...]

By |2020-06-30T20:27:00-04:00June 30th, 2020|Bamitbar, Korach, Numbers, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Relativity, Sefirot, Uncategorized|0 Comments
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