Chayei Sarah and the Physics of Makifim and Pnimim Synopsis This essay reveals a profound numerical convergence between Torah and quantum physics through the number
There is not a Shabbos in which we do not read the parasha of Lot (Bereshis Rabbah 51:9) The Kabbalistic Dimension: Hidden Unities and Dimensional
When G‑d promises great wealth to Abram, after Abram refuses the spoils of war offered by the King of Sodom, Abram retorts: What can You
In the aftermath of the Great Flood, God places a rainbow in the sky as an eternal covenant with humanity. Yet this celestial arc is
In many Ashkenazi communities, the day after Yom Kippur is nicknamed Gott’s Nomen, Yiddish for “G-d’s Name.” Chassidic sources associate the four days between Yom
By Alexander Poltorak לע”נ אבי מורי, אברהם שמשון ע”ה בן ראובן Between the jubilation of Rosh HaShanah and the solemnity of Yom Kippur lie ten
Alexander Poltorak Abstract This essay addresses the anigmatic statement of the Jewish Sages, stating that G-d created this world with the letter Heh and the
… mi‑b’sari echezeh Elokah—From my flesh I behold G‑d (Job 19:26) Introduction – “In His Image” The Torah’s initial description of humanity is both profound and enigmatic:
By Alexander Poltorak Abstract The Torah portion of Shemini records the climactic eighth day of the Tabernacle’s dedication, the moment when divine fire finally descends.
By Alexander Poltorak Introduction The relationship between the laws of physics and the conditions necessary for life is among the most profound mysteries in both
By Alexander Poltorak And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the cover, from between the two cherubim
And G-d said to Abram, “Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” (Genesis
And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife: “Behold now, I know
Abstract This essay explores the profound significance of the letter Bet (ב), the first letter of the Torah, and its numerical value of two as
Abstract This essay explores the profound connections between language, philosophy, physics, and spirituality in the context of Rosh HaShanah. By examining the linguistic roots of
Look forth from Thy holy habitation, from heaven, and bless Thy people Israel, and the land which Thou hast given us, as Thou didst swear
Introduction In this essay, I intend to draw a parallel between the singularity in space-time, such as the putative point of origin of the universe
Zealotry and Mercy: Parallels Between Pinchas and the War in Gaza The biblical story of Phinehas (Heb. Pinḥas or Pinchas) presents a complex moral scenario
The Temple Menorah served as a lighthouse, illuminating darkness and providing purpose and direction.
And on the eighth day, the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. Leviticus 12:3 In the Torah portion of Tazria, we are commanded to
The Torah portion Tzav describes a ritual performed by Moses in consecrating Aaron as the High Priest (Kohen Gadol) and his sons as priests (kohanim):
In his commentary on this week’s Torah Portion, Yitro, Rabbi Chayim Vital, writing in the name of his teacher, the Ari-zal, states that Abel was
And ye shall take you on the first day the fruit of goodly trees, branches of palm-trees, and boughs of thick trees, and willows of
The spectacle of the universe becomes so much the grander, so much more beautiful, the worthier of its Author, when one knows that a small
The least action principle is an expression of teleological reasoning where the initial states of the system are determined by the endpoints—the beginning and the
Introduction What could the Standard Model of particle physics possibly have in common with biblical accounts of the Israelites’ travels in the Sinai Desert, Kabbalistic
The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. Ludwig Wittgenstein On Rosh Chodesh (the New Moon of the Hebrew month of) Sh’vat,
Cartesian dualism, or mind-body dualism, formulated by the French scientist, mathematician, and philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650), holds that the body and the mind (which he
Structurally identical biblical accounts of creation, destruction, and restoration are viewed as a manifestation of dialectic triad thesis-antithesis-synthesis.
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
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
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
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
…[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
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
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
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
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
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
We are quite familiar with space—we move freely in space back and forth; we concur space on land and beyond; we reclaim land from sea;
The collapse of the wave function is the process of revealing hidden possibilities. Reducing uncertainty reveals information. Until the wave function collapse, the system is
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)
The confrontation between Joseph and his brothers is one of the most troubling stories of the Bible. Joseph and his brother—twelve sons of Jacob—were the
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
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
Michael Frayn’s 1998 play, Copenhagen, concerns a meeting between two great physicists, Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, in 1941 in Copenhagen. In this play, the
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
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
Congratulations to Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel, and Andrea Ghez for wining the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for their contributions to establishing the existence of
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.
Introduction “In the beginning G‑d created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) “In the beginning G‑d created the heavens and the earth,” the Torah
A Study in Form and Matter And Moses prayed for the people. And the Eternal said unto Moses: “Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it
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
For the life of the flesh is in the blood.” (Leviticus 17:11) The word translated here as “life” in the Hebrew original is nefesh, i.e.,
There is a Biblical Commandment to count the days between the Passover and Shavuot, the “Feast of Weeks” (a.k.a. Pentecost). We start counting on the
And every meal-offering of thine shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy G‑d to be lacking
The Torah portion Vayakhel deals with the construction of the Mishkan, i.e., the “Tabernacle.” In Kabbalah, the Mishkan is viewed as a microcosm that represents
On the Eve of Shabbat, we received a government mailing containing documents that we were required to fill out and send back to the Census
In the beginning G‑d created the heaven and the earth. (Genesis 1:1) The first verse in the Torah is key to understanding the fundamentals
And the Eternal G‑d said: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helpmate opposite him.” (Genesis 2:18)
As we discussed in the previous post “Singularity and Paradise,” Paradise offers a beautiful metaphor for modern cosmology wherein Eden is the initial singularity preceding
These are the chronicles of the heaven and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Eternal G‑d made earth and
As we discussed in the earlier post, The Tree of Knowledge as a Metaphor for Superposition of States and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, the Heisenberg uncertainty
And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying: “We came to thy brother Esau, and moreover he cometh to meet thee, and four hundred men with
Time is a storm in which we are all lost. ” (William Carlos Williams, Introduction to “Selected Essays”) I always had a hard time relating
Jews have a very strange custom to take four species (Heb. arba’a minim)—a fruit of a citron tree (etrog), a branch of a date palm (lulav), boughs from the myrtle tree (chadassim),
And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying: ‘Command the children of Israel, and say unto them: When ye come into the land of Canaan, this
Then drew near the daughters of Zelophehad …. of the families of Manasseh, the son of Joseph; and these are the names of his daughters:
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the children of Israel and you shall say to them that they shall make for themselves fringes
Meditations on the Maaseh Merkavah – IV This is the fourth and the final installment in the series of posts related to Ezekiel’s prophesy, Ma’aseh
Meditations on the Maaseh Merkavah – III This is the third installment in the series of posts related to the Ezekiel’s prophesy, Maaseh Merkava, “The
Meditations on the Maaseh Merkavah – II This post is a sequel to my previous post, “Space – Between Future and Past.” For background information,
Meditations on the Maaseh Merkavah – I We do science by studying nature. We study physics in a lab, peering into space or working out
The Special Theory of Relativity, published by Albert Einstein in 1905, was a game changer. It ushered the era of new physics dubbed by some
And all the tithe of the herd or the flock, whatsoever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord.” (Leviticus 27:32)
And ye shall take you on the first day the fruit of goodly trees, branches of palm-trees, and boughs of thick trees, and willows of
Vectors, Spins, and Gender Speak to the children of Israel, and have them take for Me an offering; from every person whose heart inspires him
When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by
In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month… all the fountains of the great
The months of Tishrei is full of holidays, and they all share a common theme—the unification of time—past, present, and future. It all starts with
The previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, the Rebbe Rayatz (a.k.a. the Fridriker Rebbe) told the story about his father, the Rebbe Rashab. Once the brother of Rebbe
Yesterday was the 9th day of the month of Av or, in Hebrew, Tisha B’Av. Usually, Tisha B’Av is marked by mourning and fasting. Yesterday,
In physics, we seek Grand Unification, also known as the Theory of Everything. The Standard Model describes three out of the four fundamental forces: the
And he [Abraham] lifted up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood over against him… (Genesis 18:2) On this blog, we often discuss
Why is this night different from all other nights, asks a child on the Seder night. On this Simchat Torah I asked a different question—why
And the Eternal spoke unto Moses, after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they drew near before the Eternal and died. (Leviticus
Ultimately, I suppose Einstein was right—G‑d does not play dice. So when Haman reached that spiritual level through casting the lots, he discovered the true
And thou shalt make two cherubim of gold; of beaten work shalt thou make them, at the two ends of the ark-cover. And make one
Today, Yud Shvat, is the yartzeit (anniversary of passing) of the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, a.k.a. the Rebbe Rayatz, or the Frierdiker
And these are the years of the life of Ishmael: one hundred years and thirty years and seven years (Gen. 25,17) You might say the
This post is a continuation and the conclusion of the previous post, THE FIFTH FORCE. Aside from the connection with the last week’s Torah portion,
Now, therefore, write ye this song for you, and teach thou it the children of Israel.” (Deut. 31:19) The four known fundamental forces are: gravitational
In the Torah portion Emor (Leviticus 21:1–24:23), we are instructed to abstain from work every seventh day on Shabbat. Next week’s Torah portion, Behar, continues
Last week Torah portion, Emor, speaks about the prohibition of working on Shabbat. In fact, the Talmud enumerates precisely 39 categories of labor forbidden on
And it came to pass at the time that the flock conceived, that I lifted up mine eyes, and saw in a dream, and, behold,
Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites. Moab became terrified of the people, for they were numerous, and
In this Torah portion, Vayechi, Jacob, gathers his children to reveal to them “Ketz HaYamim”–“the End of Days.” Rashi explains that Jacob’s intention was to
I grew up in Russia and was raised on the metric system based on decimal arithmetic. When we immigrated to the U.S., I had to
Give me the Machpelah (double) Cave Genesis 23:9 The first legal acquisition of land in Israel takes place in this Torah portion, Chayei Sarah, when Abraham
Some people may be fooled by randomness but, when we realize that randomness opens the door to the Divine, we are saved by randomness. It
This Rosh HaShanah I had the strangest dream. I dreamed that I was giving a lecture in cosmology at a university when I suddenly realized
And he dreamed, and behold! a ladder set up on the ground and its top reached to heaven; and behold, angels of G‑d were ascending
B’reshit bara Elokim et hashamaim v’et haaretz… In the beginning, G‑d created heaven and earth… Alternative translation: With two beginnings G‑d created heaven and earth…
In the Torah portion Tazriah (Leviticus 13), the Schrödinger cat[1] gets leprosy. Well, it’s not really leprosy, it’s a mysterious supernatural disease called tzara’as, nowadays translated