Bamidbar

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The Standard Model

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 doctrines related to the unfolding of spiritual worlds, or the arrangement of the letters in the Name of G‑d? To make connections or parallels between such unrelated concepts may sound farfetched. However, this is exactly what we are going to do in this essay. Remember that in structural analysis, we do not concern ourselves with the specifics or the nature of the objects at hand—we are interested only in the interrelationships among the objects, the high-level structure, or the storyline. So, let us not worry that particle physics speaks of subatomic particles, whereas the Torah speaks of the arrangement of Jewish tribes around the Tabernacle in the desert—topics [...]

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 from thy meal-offering; with all thy offerings thou shalt offer salt." (Leviticus 2:13)   Torah dictates that all offerings to G‑d must be brought together with salt. Classical commentators ask: What is so special about salt that it is an indispensable ingredient of any sacrifice? Moreover, why is it called the covenant of salt? Nachmanides explains: The Torah also uses this covenant as a model for other covenants, as both the priestly covenant[1] and the Davidic covenant[2] are called “covenant of salt” because they are upheld just as the sacrificial covenant of salt…. I am of the opinion that the significance is that the salt is water, which [...]

Mishkan – a Metaphor for Quantum Reality

And when the Tabernacle setteth forward, the Levites shall take it down; and when the Tabernacle is to be pitched, the Levites shall set it up… (Num. 1:51) During the wonders of Israelites in the desert, the Tabernacle (Heb. “Mishkan”), existed as a sanctuary only during their encampments. Whenever they traveled, the Mishkan was taken down and disassembled to be carried by Levites during the journey. When G‑d commanded Moses to set the camp, the Mishkan was reassembled and set up again. Let us fast forward some three-and-a-half thousand years to the beginning of the 20 c. It was a time of great intellectual turmoil. The discovery of the atom’s structure by Rutherford, according to which an atom resembled the solar system with a nucleus at the center and electrons orbiting the nucleus, [...]

Suspected Adulteress as a Schrödinger Cat

In quantum mechanics, the state of a physical system is described by the so-called wave function (or the "wavefunction"). All attempts by Schrödinger, who first introduced the wave function, and others to interpret it as a scalar potential of some physical field, or as the de Broglie wave (as in particle-wave dualism) were not successful. In 1926, Max Born noticed that the squared amplitude of the wavefunction of a particle in a given region gives the probability of finding the particle in this region. He suggested that the wavefunction represented not a physical reality but rather our knowledge of the quantum state of an object. The wave function represents our knowledge of all possible quantum-mechanical states of an object and their probabilities. In other words, the quantum-mechanical state of a physical system is [...]

A curious Case of Retrocausality—Dead Inherit the Living

Pinchas You shall apportion the Land among these as an inheritance, in accordance with the number of names. To the large [tribe] you shall give a larger inheritance and to a smaller tribe you shall give a smaller inheritance, each person shall be given an inheritance according to his number. Only through a lot shall the Land be apportioned; they shall inherit it according to the names of their fathers' tribes. Bamidbar-Numbers 26:53-55 Albert Einstein and Kurt Gödel in Princeton Einstein once said that he only went to his office at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton to have an opportunity to chat on the way home with his friend, Viennese mathematician, Kurt Gödel. Once, the story goes, Gödel came to Einstein's birthday party with a present – a new cosmological solution [...]

Paradox of the Red Heifer

Speak to the children of Israel and have them take for you a perfectly red unblemished cow, upon which no yoke was laid… The cow shall then be burned in his presence… The one who burns it shall wash his clothes in water and cleanse his body in water, and he shall be unclean until evening… Anyone touching the corpse of a human soul shall become unclean for seven days. On the third and seventh days, he shall cleanse himself with it, so that he can become clean. But if he does not sprinkle himself with it on the third and seventh days, he shall not become clean… They shall take for that unclean person from the ashes of the burnt purification offering, and it shall be placed in a vessel [filled] with [...]

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