Pentateuch (Chumash)

Torah – Five Books of Moses

Stress-testing the judgment

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 Alexander Poltorak|2020-11-04T22:47:39-05:00November 17th, 2019|Bereshit, Genesis, Mathematics, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Uncategorized, Vayeira|0 Comments

Noah’s Ark — Sailing through the Flood of Time

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

Cosmic Symphony

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 Alexander Poltorak|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

Noah — the First Inventor

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 Alexander Poltorak|2019-11-05T16:13:45-05:00October 28th, 2019|Bereshit, Genesis, Noach, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Uncategorized|0 Comments

The Land We Married

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 shall be the land that shall fall unto you for an inheritance, even the land of Canaan according to the borders thereof.” (Numbers 34:1-2) And ye shall inherit the land by lot according to your families—to the more ye shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer, thou shalt give the less inheritance; wheresoever the lot falleth to any man, that shall be his; according to the tribes of your fathers shall ye inherit.” (Numbers 33:54) And every daughter, that possesseth an inheritance in any tribe of the children of Israel, shall be wife unto one of the family of the tribe of her father, that the [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2019-08-05T15:11:16-04:00August 4th, 2019|Creation, Entanglement, Husband and wife, Massei, Numbers, Pentateuch (Chumash), Quantum Theory, Randomness, Sefirot, Soul, Uncategorized|0 Comments

Daughters of Zelophehad

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: Mahlah, Noah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Tirzah. And they stood before Moses and before Eleazar, the priest, and before the princes and all the congregation at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, saying: “Our father died in the desert, …. and he had no sons. Why should our father's name be done away from among his family, because he had no son? Give unto us a possession among the brethren of our father.” (Numbers 27:1-4) In the Torah portion that was read last Shabbat in the Diaspora, Phineas (Pinchas), we read the story of the five daughters of Zelophehad who brought the claim for inheritance in [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2022-04-21T14:21:49-04:00July 28th, 2019|Bamitbar, Kabbalah, Mashiach (Messiah), Names of G‑d, Numbers, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Pinchas, Quantum Field Theory, Science, Sefirot, Standard Model, Uncategorized|8 Comments

Ẓiẓit, Koraḥ, and Wave-Particle Duality

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 [ẓiẓit] on the corners of their garments, throughout their generations, and they shall affix a thread of sky blue [wool] on the fringe of each corner. (Num. 15:37,38) They [Koraḥ and his men] assembled against Moses and Aaron, and said to them, “You take too much upon yourselves, for the entire congregation are all holy, and the Lord is in their midst. So why do you raise yourselves above the Lord's assembly” (Num. 16:3) The Torah portion Shelach deals primarily with the fiasco of the spies sent by Moses to scout out the land of Canaan. The portion ends, however, seemingly out of turn, with the commandment to [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2023-06-18T09:58:51-04:00July 2nd, 2019|Bamitbar, Korach, Numbers, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Quantum Theory, Sefirot, Shlach, String Theory, Uncategorized, Uncertainty Principle|3 Comments

The Entangled Tenth

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) This Shabbat, I was called up to the Torah for the last aliyah (lit. “ascent”, meaning the reading from the Scroll) of the book of Leviticus. This portion talks about tithing animals, giving the precise procedure for doing so – every animal is released from a pen one by one while being counted – one, two, three, … , ten. The tenth animal is touch by the rode and consecrated as the ma’aser – tithe. The Torah states that every tenth animal is holy unto G‑d. What is the state of the animals before counting? They have two possible states: (1) chulin, i.e., “not sacred” and (2) ma’aser, [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2019-06-02T11:37:10-04:00June 2nd, 2019|Bechukotai, Collapse of the wavefunction, Entanglement, Leviticus, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Quantum Theory, Sefirot, Superposition, Uncategorized, Wavefunction|0 Comments

Unified Field Theory and the Dew of Resurrection

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 the brook (Levit. 23:40) After completing his masterpiece, the General Theory of Relativity in 1916, Albert Einstein spent the rest of his life working fruitlessly on unifying gravity with electromagnetism. His quest was to develop a unified field theory that would unify his General Relativity, a theory of gravitational, with Maxwell electrodynamics. To his great dismay, Einstein never succeeded in developing a unified field theory. It was actually even worse. While working tirelessly on unifying two known classical fields – gravitational field and electromagnetic field – Einstein missed the incredible progress in quantum physics, of which he was one of the founders and for which he received his [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2019-05-20T03:48:19-04:00May 19th, 2019|Emor, Kabbalah, Leviticus, Mashiach (Messiah), Names of G‑d, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Quantum Field Theory, Quantum Theory, Relativity, Resurrection, Sefirot, Sukkot, Uncategorized, Vayikra|4 Comments

Adultery and Monogamy of Entanglement

Adultery and Monogamy of Entanglement

And whosoever lieth carnally with a woman, that is a bondmaid, designated for a man, and not at all redeemed, nor was freedom given her; there shall be inquisition; they shall not be put to death, because she was not free. (Lev. 19:20) In Quantum physics there is a principle of monogamy of entanglement, which roughly means that if two particles (or objects) are entangled, neither can be entangled with a third particle (or object). A human parallel to this principle is obvious – if two spouses are married, neither can have any intimate relations with a third person. In other words, a marriage must be monogamous. It is because of this parallel that the physical relationship between entangled particles in quantum mechanics was named the monogamy principle, or monogamy of entanglement. In [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2019-05-16T07:05:00-04:00May 12th, 2019|Entanglement, Husband and wife, Kedoshim, Leviticus, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Quantum Theory, Superposition, Uncategorized, Vayikra|0 Comments

Ye shall be disentangled… but not disengaged

In my post, “Ye Shall be Disentangled,” I suggested that the verse: “Ye shall be holy, for I, the Lord, your G‑d, am holy” (Levit. 19:2) may be interpreted as: “Ye shall be disentangled, for I, the Lord, your G‑d, am disentangled.” I supported this proposition with the quantum monogamy principle (a.k.a. monogamy of entanglement) according to which, if two objects are entangled, neither of them can also be entangled with a third object. Consequently, if we wish to be entangled with G‑d, we cannot also be entangled with the material world, as it would violate the monogamy principle. Thus, we must disentangle from the world, i.e., be holly. One may legitimately object to this interpretation because, in Judaism, we do not have monasteries; we do not have monks, we don't withdraw from [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2019-05-16T07:34:42-04:00May 8th, 2019|Acharei Mot, Entanglement, Exodus (Shemot), G‑d, Kedoshim, Leviticus, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Quantum Theory, Shemot, Spirituality, Uncategorized, Vayikra|1 Comment

Vectors, Spins, and Gender

Vectors, Spins, and Gender

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 to generosity, you shall take My offering. (Ex. 25:2) Every physics professor teaching physics 101 to freshmen spends the first lecture teaching vector algebra. Why vectors are so important? Because most quantities in mechanics (a branch of physics dealing with motion and forces) are vectors. A vector is a mathematical object that has a magnitude and a direction. For example, velocity is a vector – it shows not only how fast the object is moving, but also in what direction it is moving (it is different from “speed” which is an average velocity and is just a number). Similarly, acceleration is a vector, force is a vector, angular [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2019-02-11T02:25:28-05:00February 10th, 2019|Creation, Exodus (Shemot), Husband and wife, Kabbalah, Mathematics, Mathematics, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Quantum Theory, Science, Terumah, Uncategorized|1 Comment

Jacob Meets Esau and His 400 Men

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 Alexander Poltorak|2020-12-09T21:07:14-05:00November 22nd, 2018|Bereshit, Genesis, Mathematics, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Uncategorized, Vayishlach|4 Comments

The Meaning of Life as Taught by Bayesian Angels

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 Alexander Poltorak|2024-01-07T17:25:24-05:00November 19th, 2018|Bereshit, Biology, Dreams, Genesis, Mathematics, Mathematics, Neuroscience, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Science, Uncategorized, Vayetze|1 Comment

The Second Derivative — The Secrets of The Double Cave

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

Biblical Relativity

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

Wellsprings from Above and Wellsprings from Below

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 Alexander Poltorak|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

Day Six – the State of Superposition

Day Six – the State of Superposition

And G‑d saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good, and it was evening and it was morning, the sixth day. (Gen. 1:31) The Biblical narrative of creation concludes with the above verse. Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (a.k.a. Rashi) comments on this verse: the sixth day: Scripture added a “hey” on the sixth [day], at the completion of the Creation, to tell us that He stipulated with them, [“you were created] on the condition that Israel accept the Five Books of the Torah.” [The numerical value of the “hey” is five.] (Tanchuma Bereishith 1). Another explanation for “the sixth day”: They [the works of creation] were all suspended until the “sixth day,” referring to the sixth day of Sivan, which was prepared for the giving of the Torah (Shab. 88a). [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2018-10-10T14:40:55-04:00October 10th, 2018|Bereishit, Bereshit, Collapse of the wavefunction, Deuteronomy, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Quantum Theory, Superposition, Uncategorized, Wavefunction|1 Comment

Tishrei — Past, Present, and Future

Tishrei — Past, Present, and Future

The months of Tishrei is full of holidays, and they all share a common theme—the unification of time—past, present, and future. Picart, Blowing of the Shofars on Rosh Hashanah It all starts with Rosh HaShanah. Traditionally translated as the New Year, it literally means the Head of the Year. The word shanah has the same letters as the word shinui — “change.” As Aristotle famously wrote, time is change. The sages of Kabbalah agree—time, in its essence, is change. Thus, Rosh HaShanah can be translated as the Head of Time, or the Beginning of Time (since a related Hebrew word, reshit means the “beginning”). Indeed, it is all about time. Rosh HaShanah has three main themes—Ziḥronot (remembrances), Shofrot (Sounds of the Shofar), and Malkhiot or Kabalat Ol Malkhut Shamayim (acceptance of [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2023-10-17T22:54:50-04:00September 29th, 2018|Bereishit, Holidays (Yomim Tovim), Kabbalah, Names of G‑d, Pentateuch (Chumash), Rosh HaShanah, Simchat Torah, Sukkot, Sukkot, Time, Uncategorized, V'Zot HaBerachah, Yom Kippur|0 Comments

Scientists are Clarifying Witnesses

Listen, O heavens, and I will speak! And let the earth hear the words of my mouth! (Deut. 32:1) In this Torah portion Haazinu, Moses appeals to heavens and earth as witnesses. However, a few verses later, he extorts the Jewish people: “Ask your father, and he will tell you; your elders, and they will inform you” (Deut. 32:7) as if to confirm the testimony of heavens and earth. Why wasn’t the testimony of heavens and earth enough? Why did their testimony need to be corroborated by “your father” and “your elders”? The Lubavitcher Rebbe The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, in one of his talks (see R’ Schneerson, M.M. Likute Sihot (Brooklyn, NY: Vaad L’Hafotzas Sichos, 1998) v. XIX, Devorim, pp. 188-196) discusses the Talmudic concept of two types of witnesses: [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2018-09-23T03:38:20-04:00September 21st, 2018|Creation, Deuteronomy, Devarim, Haazinu, Mashiach (Messiah), Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Uncategorized, Witnesses|0 Comments

Previous 345 Next