Neuroscience

Home/Science/Biology/Neuroscience

Gazing at the Shekhinah

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 punished for gazing at the Shekhinah—the divine presence.[1] But what relevance does this have to the Torah portion retelling the greatest event in Jewish history (and, indeed, the history of human civilization)—the Sinaitic epiphany—the giving of the Torah? This is the Torah portion, where we read the Ten Commandments. What is the relevance of the sin of Abel to the Ten Commandments? More generally, what is Abel’s connection to this Torah portion? That is easy to understand. The Torah portion Yitro starts with the story of Jethro (Yitro), Moses’s father-in-law, coming to Moses in the Sinai desert with his daughter—the wife of Moses—and her two children. Rabbi Chayim [...]

By |2024-02-05T15:05:18-05:00February 4th, 2024|Bayesian probability, Collapse of the wavefunction, Exodus (Shemot), G‑d, Kabbalah, Neuroscience, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Reincarnation, Superposition, Superposition, Uncategorized, Wavefunction, Wavefunction of G‑d, Yitro|2 Comments
Read More

Entrainment by the Red Heifer

And for the unclean they shall take of the ashes of the burning of the purification from sin, and running water shall be put thereto in a vessel. Numbers 19:17 In my essay “Paradox of the Red Heifer,” I proposed a mechanism by which the ashes of the red heifer remove the impurity of death, where I analogized the procedure with resuscitation using a defibrillator.[1] In this essay, I propose an additional mechanism based on the phenomenon of entrainment, which I will explain below. Entrainment In physics and biology, entrainment refers to the synchronization of two or more rhythmic cycles.[2] This concept can apply to various systems, from physical phenomena to biological rhythms. Here are a few examples: Physics. In mechanical systems, entrainment refers to the process whereby two interacting oscillating systems assume the [...]

By |2023-07-06T19:54:37-04:00July 3rd, 2023|Biology, Chemistry, Chukat, Ezekiel, Mathematics, Mathematics, Neuroscience, Numbers, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Physics, Science, Soul, Spirituality, Uncategorized|1 Comment
Read More

What is a Soul? III. The Many Souls of Man

  …[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 its parts…Maimonides[1] Maimonides opens his introduction to The Ethics of the Fathers with this statement: Know that the human soul is one, but that it has many diversified activities. Some of these activities have, indeed, been called souls, which has given rise to the opinion that man has many souls, as was the belief of the physicians, with the result that the most distinguished of them states in the introduction of his book that there are three souls, the physical, the vital, and the psychical.[2] While Maimonides lists three souls—the physical (tiv’it), the vital (chiyunit), and the psychical (nefoshit)—he believes them to be aspects of one soul—“Know that [...]

By |2022-01-25T15:40:55-05:00December 15th, 2021|Kabbalah, Neuroscience, Reincarnation, Soul, Spirituality, Uncategorized|0 Comments
Read More

Jacob’s Struggle With a Man: A Metaphor From Neuroscience

So the present passed over before him; and he himself lodged that night in the camp. And he rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two handmaids, and his eleven children, and passed over the ford of the Jabbok. And he took them, and sent them over the stream, and sent over that which he had. And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was strained, as he wrestled with him. And he said: “Let me go, for the day breaketh.” (Genesis 32:23–26)   The story of Jacob wrestling with a “man” is yet another of [...]

By |2020-12-07T17:30:25-05:00December 4th, 2020|Bereshit, Biology, Dreams, Genesis, Neuroscience, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Science, Uncategorized, Vayishlach|0 Comments
Read More

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
Read More

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
Read More
Copyright 2019 QuantumTorah.com
Toggle Sliding Bar Area

Archives

Categories

DON’T MISS A BEAT

Be the first to know when we publish a new post.

Go to Top