Genesis

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Bereshit — the First Book of Torah

Stress-testing the judgment

And Abraham drew near, and said: 'Wilt Thou indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Perhaps there are fifty righteous within the city; wilt Thou indeed sweep away and not forgive the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? That be far from Thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked, that so the righteous should be as the wicked; that be far from Thee; shall not the Judge of all the earth do justly?' And the Lord said: 'If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will forgive all the place for their sake.' And Abraham answered and said: 'Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, who am but dust and ashes. Perhaps there shall lack [...]

By |2020-11-04T22:47:39-05:00November 17th, 2019|Bereshit, Genesis, Mathematics, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Uncategorized, Vayeira|0 Comments
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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 to the story of the Flood on a literal level. Why would G‑d want to wipe out all people He created in full knowledge that they would sin? Like it was a surprise for G‑d! G‑d, who exists above time, which He created, cannot be surprised—He knows the future. Then why to create humanity, just to destroy it later? And animals. . . what was their fault? They have no freedom of choice. They act on instincts hardwired in their genome as they were created. Why punish them? Lots of questions, few answers. If the Torah says the flood happened, it must have happened. However, the Torah is [...]

By |2020-11-03T18:03:07-05:00November 2nd, 2019|Bereshit, Genesis, Isaiah, Noach, Pentateuch (Chumash), Sefirot, Time, Uncategorized, Zohar|12 Comments
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Cosmic Symphony

Strings vibrate, Souls tremble, Angels are running and returning, G‑d is touching and not touching – The rhythms of the universe… Nothing stays still… all is in flux. The inexorable flow of time is synonymous with the existence itself. Indeed, everything exists in time. However, from where does the time come? This is, perhaps, the greatest mystery of science. In modern physics, we do not know what time is, let alone from where it comes. We only know how to measure it – by counting the number of periodic intervals, which we accept as a unit of time. For example, in antiquity, people used a night-day cycle as the basic unit of time. This cycle was born out of observations of the apparent rotation of the sun around the earth (although, in reality, [...]

By |2021-12-15T20:45:38-05:00October 30th, 2019|Bereishit, Creation, Deuteronomy, Devarim, Ezekiel, Genesis, G‑d, Soul, Spirituality, String Theory, Time, Uncategorized|1 Comment
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Noah — the First Inventor

At the end of the first chapter of the Torah, Genesis (Bereshit), G‑d regrets, as it were, creating humanity that became depraved: And the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth… And the Lord said: ‘I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the earth…; for it repenteth Me that I have made them.’” (Gen. 6:5-7) Nevertheless, one man, Noah (Heb. Noach), found favor in the eyes of G‑d: But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord” (Gen. 6:8) We don’t learn about Noah’s righteousness until the following weekly Torah portion, Noach.  So, what did Noah do to find favor in the eyes of G‑d? The hint may be found in the earlier verse narrating Noah’s birth and his naming by [...]

By |2019-11-05T16:13:45-05:00October 28th, 2019|Bereshit, Genesis, Noach, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Jacob Meets Esau and His 400 Men

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 him.” (Genesis 32:7) Why does the Torah take pains to tell us the exact number of men accompanying Esau? Servants of Esau are of no particular significance. It is apparent that, by specifying the number of men in Esau's entourage, the Torah is trying to tell us something about Esau. It seems to me that Jacob understood the significance of the number 400. This number is a sum of the powers of 7 from 0 to 3: 70+71+72+73=400. These four powers of 7 hint at the lunar month, which has approximately 28 days (4×7). The significance of this will become apparent later. 400 is a repdigit (a portmanteau [...]

By |2020-12-09T21:07:14-05:00November 22nd, 2018|Bereshit, Genesis, Mathematics, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Uncategorized, Vayishlach|4 Comments
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The Meaning of Life as Taught by Bayesian Angels

November 19, 2018 And he [Jacob] dreamed, and behold! a ladder set up on the ground and its top reached to heaven; and behold, angels of G‑d were ascending and descending upon it. (Genesis 28:12) Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi (a.k.a Baal HaTanya, or the Alter Rebbe) once remarked in Yiddish, “lieben mit di tzait” – live with the time, meaning one should live with Torah portion of the week.  Last week I was taught a lesson on how the current Torah portion affects my thinking, whether I know it or not. Last week I shared with my wife, who is a biophysicist, that while thinking about system biology, I realized that all organisms – from a single cell to multicellular organisms – are Bayesian systems. I knew that the brain is a [...]

By |2024-01-07T17:25:24-05:00November 19th, 2018|Bereshit, Biology, Dreams, Genesis, Mathematics, Mathematics, Neuroscience, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Science, Uncategorized, Vayetze|1 Comment
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The Second Derivative — The Secrets of The Double Cave

And he [Avraham] spoke with them, saying, “…Listen to me and entreat for me to Ephron the son of Zohar. That he may give me the Machpelah (Double) Cave, which belongs to him, which is at the end of his field…" (Genesis 23:8-9) double: A house with an upper story over it. Another interpretation: because it was doubled with couples (Er. 53a) (Rashi on Genesis 23:9) In the Torah portion Chayei Sarah, Avraham purchases a Double Cave, Machpelah, as the ancestral burial plot. Almost all classical Biblical commentators interpret Machpelah (that is, "double") to mean a cave with two chambers. Rashi takes an entirely different approach and states that the cave was known for a two-story house built on top of it. So, the word Machpelah refers not to the cave itself, but to [...]

By |2020-11-11T00:04:58-05:00November 7th, 2018|Bereshit, Chayei Sarah, Genesis, Mathematics, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Randomness, Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Biblical Relativity

And the life of Sarah was one hundred years and twenty years and seven years... (Gen. 23:1) Why did Esther merit to rule over 127 countries? Said G‑d: “Let Esther, the descendant of Sarah who lived 127 years, come and rule over 127 lands. (Esther Rabbah 1:8) The Midrash Ester Rabbah compares 127 years of Sarah’s life with 127 provinces that Esther ruled. How can one compare time with space? When the Midrash says that Adam gifted 70 years of his life to his descendant, King David, it’s understandable – a year for a year. But a year for a province? What’s the connection? Hermann Minkowski When, in 1905, Albert Einstein published his Special Theory of Relativity, it was nothing short of a scientific revolution. For the first time, Einstein showed [...]

By |2024-10-13T21:44:20-04:00November 4th, 2018|Bereshit, Chayei Sarah, Genesis, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Relativity, Science, Space, Time, Uncategorized|1 Comment
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Wellsprings from Above and Wellsprings from Below

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 deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. (Gen. 7:11) In calculating the time of the dawn of Messianic revelation, the Zohar writes, And after six hundred years of the sixth thousand there will be opened the gates of wisdom above and the fountains of wisdom below, and the world will make preparations to enter on the seventh thousand as man makes preparation on the sixth day of the week, when the sun is about to set. (Zohar I, 117a) The Zohar calculates this based on the letters of the Tetragrammaton, but brings the verse from this parashah as the mnemonic: “In the six hundredth [...]

By |2022-05-30T22:03:48-04:00October 14th, 2018|Bereshit, Genesis, Kabbalah, Mashiach (Messiah), Names of G‑d, Noach, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Quantum Field Theory, Science, Uncategorized, Zohar|2 Comments
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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 Rashab, Rabbi Menachem Mendel (a.k.a. the RM”M) told him that he read in a magazine an article that stated that scientists found a nerve in the brain regulating the cognitive function so that when a person needed to remember something he would tilt his head looking up, whereas when the person needed to concentrate, he’d tilt his head down. The Rebbe Rashab took his brother to his study, took from the shelf a book by the Second Lubavitcher Rebbe, the Mittler Rebbe, in which it stated the same thing. The Rebbe Rashab said to his brother, “You’d think he was a doctor, but he wasn’t. He saw Adam [...]

By |2018-11-10T23:01:55-05:00August 31st, 2018|Bereshit, Biology, Genesis, Kabbalah, Neuroscience, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Science, Sefirot, Sefirot, Toledot, Uncategorized, Zohar|4 Comments
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Dreams of Pharaoh—A Lesson in Symmetry

In the Torah portion Miketz, Pharaoh has two dreams. He wakes up agitated and calls on all the wise men of Egypt to interpret his dreams. Nobody is able to come up with an acceptable interpretation, so they fetch Joseph from prison and he successfully interprets the dreams of Pharaoh—that there will be seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. Joseph proceeds to instruct Pharaoh on how to prepare for the seven years of famine. In the previous posts, "Interpreting Dreams" and "Joseph—the Master of Time," we already explained how Joseph was able to interpret dreams in terms of units of time and why Pharaoh appointed Joseph as the viceroy of Egypt. This story, however, still has mysteries to unlock. Perhaps it can teach us more lessons. In Talmudic and [...]

By |2020-12-20T14:57:57-05:00December 16th, 2017|Bereshit, Dreams, Genesis, Mathematics, Miketz, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Quantum Field Theory, Symmetry, Uncategorized|2 Comments
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Joseph—the Master of Time

The story of Joseph’s incarceration ends with his successful interpretation of the dreams of the Pharaoh’s chief butler and the chief baker.  He ingeniously interpreted ordinary objects (tendrils of grapes and baskets of bread) as symbols of the units of time (Interpreting Dreams). Even greater insight was Joseph’s understanding that the engagement in time, manifested by the chief butler’s personally squeezing the grapes into the cup and placing the cup in Pharaoh’s hand, symbolized life for the chief butler. Conversely, the passivity of the chief baker, who dreamt of baskets of bread sitting on his head, with birds eating from the baskets, symbolized the opposite of life.                                                  Girolamo Brusaferro [...]

By |2020-12-17T20:11:21-05:00December 14th, 2017|Bereshit, Dreams, Genesis, Miketz, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Time, Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Abraham Meets Abraham From a Parallel Universe

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 the collapse of the wavefunction as the result of a measurement. This phenomenon is called the “measurement problem.” There are several reasons, for which the collapse of the wavefunction—part and parcel of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics—is considered a problem. Firstly, it does not follow from the Schrödinger equation, the main equation of quantum mechanics that describes the evolution of the wavefunction in time, and is added ad hoc. Second, nobody knows how the collapse happens or how long the wave function takes to collapse. This is not even to consider that any notion that the collapse of the wavefunction is caused by human consciousness, as proposed [...]

By |2020-11-09T20:52:37-05:00November 2nd, 2017|Bereshit, Collapse of the wavefunction, Genesis, Kabbalah, parallel universes, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Quantum Theory, Uncategorized, Vayeira, Wavefunction, Zohar|7 Comments
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Joseph’s Sons

And now thy two sons, who were born unto thee in the land of Egypt before I came unto thee into Egypt, are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh, even as Reuben and Simeon, shall be mine.  And thy sons, that thou begettest after them, shall be thine; they shall be called after the name of their brethren in their inheritance.  And as for me, when I came from Paddan, Rachel died unto me in the land of Canaan in the way, when there was still some way to come unto Ephrath; and I buried her there in the way to Ephrath—the same is Beth-lehem.”  And Israel beheld Joseph's sons, and said: “Wherefrom are these?”   (Genesis  48:5-8) The above narrative in the Torah portion Vayechi is quite perplexing.  It starts with a shocking pronouncement by Jacob that two [...]

By |2020-12-27T21:53:49-05:00January 15th, 2017|Bereshit, Genesis, Husband and wife, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Uncategorized, Vayechi|2 Comments
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One-to-Many and Many-to-One

And he arrived upon the place and lodged there all night, because the sun was set; and he took from the stones of the place, and put them under his head, and lay down in that place to sleep. (Genesis 28:11) And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put under his head, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. (Genesis 28:18)   Rashi notes that, before Jacob lies down to sleep, the verse speaks of the plurality of stones: “he took from the stones of that place, and put them under his head.” When Jacob wakes up, the verse suddenly switches from plural to singular, mentioning only one stone: “and took the stone that he had put [...]

By |2020-11-25T23:52:49-05:00December 9th, 2016|Bereshit, Creation, Dreams, Genesis, G‑d, Mashiach (Messiah), Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Science, Uncategorized, Vayetze|3 Comments
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Chayei Sarah – where Kabbalah meets physics

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 ‘hand of G‑d’ wrote that number [137] – Richard Feynman The mystery about α is actually a double mystery. The first mystery – the origin of its numerical value α ≈ 1/137 has been recognized and discussed for decades. The second mystery – the range of its domain – is generally unrecognized. — Malcolm H. Mac Gregor, M.H. MacGregor (2007). The Power of Alpha. World Scientific. p. 69. Kabbalah is the esoteric level of the Torah. The word “kabbalah” (קבלה) literally means “receiving” or “received [wisdom].” The gematriah (numerical value) of the word “kabbalah” is 137: Kuf (100) + Bet (2) + Lamed (30) + Heh (5) = 137. This number appears explicitly for the first time [...]

By |2018-10-28T19:58:33-04:00November 27th, 2016|Atomic Theory, Bereshit, Chayei Sarah, Genesis, Kabbalah, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Quantum Theory, Science, Soul, Spirituality, Uncategorized|3 Comments
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Joseph teaches Pharaoh a lesson in fundamental forces

This week, we read in the Torah portion Vayigash (Gen. 44:18–47:27) about Joseph revealing himself to his brothers and Jacob coming to Egypt with his family. This storyline culminates by Joseph presenting his brothers and his father to Pharaoh. A curious thing, though—instead of presenting all eleven brothers, Joseph presents only five. This fact does not escape the attention of Rashi, who comments as follows: Joseph chose the weakest of his brothers to avoid conscription of the brothers to the military service in the Pharaoh’s army. This explanation always left me dissatisfied. Even if it explains why Joseph presented fewer than all of his brothers to Pharaoh, it does not explain the number—why five? Why not one, or two, or three? The number five in Hebrew is represented by the letter Heh. I submit to [...]

By |2018-10-14T16:57:40-04:00December 20th, 2015|Bereshit, Creation, Genesis, G‑d, Names of G‑d, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Quantum Field Theory, Quantum Theory, Uncategorized, Vayigash|1 Comment
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Jacob’s Sheep—Particles, Fields and Strings

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, the he-goats which leaped upon the flock were streaked, speckled, and spotted. (Gen. 31:10)   This week’s Torah reading, Vayeitzei (Gen. 28:10-32:3) talks about three kinds of sheep: streaked, speckled, and spotted.   Streaked Sheep   Streaked sheep (“akudim”) were ankle-ringed. They looked as if their ankles were bound together with a black rope. Hence the name—"akidim" (Hebrew world for streaked, “akud” means bound as in “Akeda”—binding of Isaac). Speckled Sheep Speckled sheep (Heb. “nekudim” from sing. “nakod”.) were sheep with black dots.   Spotted Sheep   Spotted or flecked sheep (Heb. "berudim") were blotched. What is the significance of these streaks, speckles and blotches that the Torah devotes [...]

By |2017-11-24T14:57:34-05:00November 20th, 2015|Bereshit, Genesis, Kabbalah, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Quantum Field Theory, Quantum Theory, Science, Sefirot, Uncategorized, Vayetze|0 Comments
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Covenant between the Parts as a Metaphor for Quantum Entanglement

And he took him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each half over against the other… And it came to pass, that, when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, a dread, even a great darkness, fell upon him…  And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and there was thick darkness, behold a smoking furnace, and a flaming torch that passed between these pieces. Genesis 15:10-17 The above verses from the Torah portion Lech Lecha (Genesis 12:1–17:27) describe the Covenant between the Parts (a.k.a. the Covenant of the Pieces), when G‑d entered into eternal covenant with Abraham (at the time called Abram) – a covenant symbolized by halved animals. The simple meaning of this ritual is apparent: just as a halved [...]

By |2020-11-03T17:30:36-05:00October 25th, 2015|Entanglement, Genesis, Lech-Lecha, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Quantum Theory, Randomness, Uncategorized, Wavefunction|0 Comments
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Adam Kadmon and Holographic Universe

Dedicated to the memory of Professor Yaakob David Bekenstein   The Torah opens with the word “Bereshit” – in the Beginning – whose first letter, Bet, is written large to signify that it contains a hidden meaning. The gematriah (numerical value) of the letter Bet is 2. It has three sides – top (“roof”), bottom (“floor”) and the right “wall”:   Letter Bet of Bereshit may be viewed as the “event horizon” of the Torah. In General Relativity, the event horizon is the area of spacetime beyond which information is inaccessible to an outside observer. For example, the event horizon of a black hole is the boundary surrounding every black hole that acts as information firewall – the light from within the event horizon cannot escape outside and, therefore, information is invisible to an [...]

By |2018-10-08T21:52:53-04:00October 11th, 2015|Bereishit, Bereshit, Cosmology, Creation, Genesis, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Science, Spirituality, Uncategorized|0 Comments
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