The Fertility of Letters
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
October 31, 2025 / 9 Heshvan 5786
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Sefirot
Eternity Between the Cherubs
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
March 2, 2025 / 2 Adar 5785
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Zealotry and Mercy: Parallels Between Pinchas and the War in Gaza
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
July 26, 2024 / 20 Tammuz 5784
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The Symbolism of the Menorah
The Temple Menorah served as a lighthouse, illuminating darkness and providing purpose and direction.
June 23, 2024 / 17 Sivan 5784
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Breaking Symmetry to Inaugurate the Priests
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):
April 1, 2024 / 22 Adar II 5784
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Creation—Destruction—Reconstruction
Structurally identical biblical accounts of creation, destruction, and restoration are viewed as a manifestation of dialectic triad thesis-antithesis-synthesis.
November 11, 2022 / 17 Heshvan 5783
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The Conflict Between Joseph And His Brothers—A Gender Theory
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
December 20, 2020 / 5 Tevet 5781
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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
November 29, 2020 / 13 Kislev 5781
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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
October 28, 2020 / 10 Heshvan 5781
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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
June 30, 2020 / 8 Tammuz 5780
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The Soul is in the Blood
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.,
May 4, 2020 / 10 Iyyar 5780
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Counting Weeks and Days
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
April 28, 2020 / 4 Iyyar 5780
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Salt: The Covenant of the Opposites
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
March 31, 2020 / 6 Nisan 5780
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The Surrounding Light and the Penetrating Light
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
March 23, 2020 / 27 Adar 5780
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Ki Tisa Hints at the Coronavirus
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
March 16, 2020 / 20 Adar 5780
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In the Beginning — It’s All About Change
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
March 11, 2020 / 15 Adar 5780
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It Is Not Good For Man To Be Alone
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)
February 7, 2020 / 12 Shevat 5780
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Cosmology and the Tetragrammaton
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
January 18, 2020 / 21 Tevet 5780
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Singularity and Paradise
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
January 16, 2020 / 19 Tevet 5780
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The Tree of Life and Wave Mechanics
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
December 30, 2019 / 2 Tevet 5780
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The Primacy of the Prime Numbers
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
December 13, 2019 / 15 Kislev 5780
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Noah’s Ark — Sailing through the Flood of Time
Time is a storm in which we are all lost. ” (William Carlos Williams, Introduction to “Selected Essays”) I always had a hard time relating
November 2, 2019 / 4 Heshvan 5780
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Sukkot — Bringing Time into Space
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),
October 18, 2019 / 19 Tishri 5780
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The Land We Married
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
August 4, 2019 / 3 Av 5779
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Daughters of Zelophehad
Then drew near the daughters of Zelophehad …. of the families of Manasseh, the son of Joseph; and these are the names of his daughters:
July 28, 2019 / 25 Tammuz 5779
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Ẓiẓit, Koraḥ, and Wave-Particle Duality
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
July 2, 2019 / 29 Sivan 5779
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Fitting Pieces of the Puzzle Together
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
June 21, 2019 / 18 Sivan 5779
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Collapse of the Wave Function
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
June 18, 2019 / 15 Sivan 5779
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Relational Space
Meditations on the Maaseh Merkavah – II This post is a sequel to my previous post, “Space – Between Future and Past.” For background information,
June 17, 2019 / 14 Sivan 5779
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Space – Between the Future and the Past
Meditations on the Maaseh Merkavah – I We do science by studying nature. We study physics in a lab, peering into space or working out
June 13, 2019 / 10 Sivan 5779
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Ten Sephirot and Special Relativity
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
June 2, 2019 / 28 Iyyar 5779
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The Entangled Tenth
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)
June 2, 2019 / 28 Iyyar 5779
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Unified Field Theory and the Dew of Resurrection
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
May 19, 2019 / 14 Iyyar 5779
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Fractal Tu B’Shevat
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
January 21, 2019 / 15 Shevat 5779
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The Beard of the Long Face is Found
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
August 31, 2018 / 20 Elul 5778
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Three-and-a-half Hakafot — Topology of Simchat Torah
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
October 15, 2017 / 25 Tishri 5778
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Five Worlds
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
February 6, 2017 / 10 Shevat 5777
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The Fifth Force – Epilog
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,
October 13, 2016 / 11 Tishri 5777
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The Fifth Force
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
October 11, 2016 / 9 Tishri 5777
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Fractal Patterns in the Torah
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
May 31, 2016 / 23 Iyyar 5776
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Shabbat in Numbers
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
May 22, 2016 / 14 Iyyar 5776
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Jacob’s Sheep: Particles, Fields and Strings, and the Architecture of Reality
Synopsis This essay reads Jacob’s agreement with Laban over the streaked, speckled, and spotted sheep as far more than an odd detail in an ancient
November 20, 2015 / 8 Kislev 5776
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Balak – Interference of Souls
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
July 8, 2015 / 21 Tammuz 5775
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The End of Days I
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
January 2, 2015 / 11 Tevet 5775
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