Holy of Holies

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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 [...]

Brit Milah in Six Dimensions

Sefer Yetzira speaks of three dimensions: Olam, Shanah, and Nefesh.  Olam literally means "world" and signifies space. Shanah literally means "year" and signifies the dimension of time. Nefesh literally means "soul" and signifies the spiritual dimension. In another place, recognizing the space itself is three dimensional, Sefer Yetzira speaks of five-dimensional space which is a Minkowski spacetime with an addition of the fifth spiritual dimension. This construct is very similar to the Kaluza-Klein five-dimensional generalization of the General Theory of Relativity (a theory that is near and dear to my heart, because, unaware of its existence, I independently rediscovered it as a teenager.) Kaluza-Klein, first forgotten, is now experiencing a revival as a special case of the string theory. Sefer Yetzirah In every one of these dimensions, G‑d created the domain of holy [...]

By |2018-09-23T03:48:50-04:00September 18th, 2018|Uncategorized|1 Comment

Sex, Drugs and Rock n’ Roll

And the Eternal spoke unto Moses, after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they drew near before the Eternal and died. (Leviticus 16:1)   The above verse seems perfectly innocuous and, on the surface, serves as a mere introduction to the laws of Yom Kippur service that follows. Much, however, lies beneath the surface. Some of the deepest secrets of Kabbala are hidden therein. Allow me to present them along the lines of Sex, Drugs and Rock n’ Roll. Sex The story of two eldest sons of Aaron—Nadab (Nadav) and Abihu (Avihu)—dying is told in the Torah portion of Shemini: And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took each of them his censer, and put fire therein, and laid incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the Eternal, which [...]

Entangled Cherubs

And thou shalt make two cherubim of gold; of beaten work shalt thou make them, at the two ends of the ark-cover. And make one cherub at the one end, and one cherub at the other end; of one piece with the ark-cover shall ye make the cherubim of the two ends thereof. And the cherubim shall spread out their wings on high, screening the ark-cover with their wings, with their faces one to another; toward the ark-cover shall the faces of the cherubim be. And thou shalt put the ark-cover above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will meet with thee, and I will speak with thee from above the ark-cover, from between the two cherubim which are [...]

Schrödinger Menorah: Burning and not Burning

The miracle of Chanukah revolves around a single-day-supply of olive oil burning for eight days during the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem (Bet HaMikdash), after Maccabees liberated Israel from the occupation by the Greco-Syrian Seleucid empire. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson There are countless explanations of the miracle of the oil lasting eight days. The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, offers a unique explanation. The Rebbe dismisses any explanation of the miracle that relies on the miraculous nature of the oil itself. The Rebbe maintains that to be kosher for the Menorah, the oil had to be natural olive oil, not some miraculous oil. According to the Rebbe, the miracle was that natural oil was burning and not burning at the same time. The Rebbe draws an analogy with [...]

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 [...]

Thou Shall Not Collapse G‑d’s Wavefunction

Acharei Mot  1. And the Lord spoke to Moses after the death of Aaron's two sons, when they drew near before the Lord, and they died. 2. And the Lord said to Moses: Speak to your brother Aaron, that he should not come at all times into the Holy within the dividing curtain, in front of the cover that is upon the ark, so that he should not die, for I appear over the ark cover in a cloud. (Leviticus 16:1-2) This parshah describes the service of the Kohen Gadol – the High Priest – performed on Yom Kippur. Why does it start by referencing the death of the two sons of Aaron (the first Kohen Gadol), Nadav and Avihu?  What relevance does this have to the topic at hand?  As we read earlier, [...]

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