Shvuos

Shavuot — Three States of Consciousness

Shavuot — Three States of Consciousness

Shavuot (a.k.a. the Feast of Weeks, or “Pentecost”) is the only Jewish holiday with no fixed day on the calendar—it is always the fiftieth day from the beginning of the counting of the Omer (which itself starts on the second day of Passover). What is so special about the number 50, and what is its connection to Shavuot? Shavuot is not only the culmination of the counting of the Omer—Sefirat HaOmer—but also the culmination of the process of the maturation of our consciousness. On Shavuot, it is customary to read the Book of Ruth (Megilat Rut). The story begins with Lot and his daughters running away from Sodom and hiding in a mountain cave. Seeing the destruction of Sodom, the daughters of Lot suspected that God, in his fury, destroyed the whole of [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2024-06-09T16:48:17-04:00May 30th, 2017|Holidays (Yomim Tovim), Mashiach (Messiah), Omer, Physics, Shavuot, Uncategorized|3 Comments

613 Degrees of Freedom

613 Degrees of Freedom

Passover has ended. All Jews hastily return their Passover dishes to storage in special cabinets or the attic until the next Passover. After an eight-day break, home becomes filled with the aroma of freshly baked bread. Passover leaves us with the pleasant taste of burnt matzot, memories of the Seder spent with family, and stories of the Exodus. But did Passover really end? In the Mishnah (the precursor to Talmud), the holiday of Shavuot ("Pentecost") is called Atzeret. This word is familiar to us from Shemini Atzeret—the holiday that follows immediately after the seven days of Sukkot, often simply viewed as the last day (or, in the diaspora, the last two days) of Sukkot. Either way, Shemini Atzeret is the conclusion of the festival of Sukkot. By designating Shavuot as Atzeret, the Mishnah seems [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2024-06-09T16:13:49-04:00June 6th, 2014|Freedom, Passover (Pesach), Shavuot, Space, Spirituality, Time, Uncategorized|1 Comment

Suspected Adulteress as a Schrödinger Cat

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 [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2020-05-24T16:41:26-04:00May 30th, 2014|Bamitbar, Collapse of the wavefunction, Entanglement, Husband and wife, Naso, Numbers, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Quantum Theory, Shavuot, Superposition, Uncategorized, Wavefunction|2 Comments

Freedom in Space, Time and Spirituality

And the entire Mount Sinai smoked because the Lord had descended upon it in fire, and its smoke ascended like the smoke of the kiln… Exodus 19:18 The Holiday of Shavuot is thought to be a culmination of the Passover. Just as Shmini Atzeret is a culmination of the Holiday of Sukkot and comes after seven days of Sukkot, Shavuot is also called Atzeret and comes after the Holiday of Pesach, albeit separated from it by forty-nine days of Omer. On Shavuot, we read a Torah portion from Chapter 19 of the Book of Shemot (Exodus). We already discussed verse 18, "Mount Sinai smoked," in the previous post. Mount Sinai smoked because the Lord had descended upon it. Here, I'd like to focus on the word "smoked" from a different perspective. It hints at [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2024-06-09T10:47:09-04:00May 18th, 2013|Freedom, Holidays (Yomim Tovim), Omer, Passover (Pesach), Shavuot, Time, Uncategorized|0 Comments

Passover, Shabbat and the Principle of Least Action

Passover, Shabbat and the Principle of Least Action

There is hardly a Jewish holiday more widely celebrated than Passover (Pesach). Jews of all denominations, affiliations, and levels of religious observance, if any at all, gather at the Passover Seder to tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt. What is often lost amid all of the beautiful rituals, not least among them the singing of Had Gadia and other Seder songs, is the deep meaning of this holiday, which is far more profound than a mere recollection of historical events, no matter how important they may be. What is, then, the deeper meaning of the Passover that transcends its historical significance? On the morrow of Shabbat One obscure and little-known (outside of the observant Jewish community) commandment ("mitzvah") may lead us to a deeper understanding of the meaning of the Passover—this [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2021-03-14T20:50:19-04:00March 31st, 2013|Creation, Holidays (Yomim Tovim), Omer, Passover (Pesach), Physics, Science, Shabbat, Shavuot, Uncategorized|3 Comments

Shavuot — Three States of Consciousness

613 Degrees of Freedom

Suspected Adulteress as a Schrödinger Cat

Passover, Shabbat and the Principle of Least Action

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