The Symbolism of the Menorah
The Temple Menorah served as a lighthouse, illuminating darkness and providing purpose and direction.
The Mystery of the Eighth Day
And on the eighth day, the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. Leviticus 12:3 In the Torah portion of Tazria, we are commanded to circumcise a male child on the eighth day. In the previous Torah portion, Shemini, we read that the dedication of the Tabernacle (Mishkan) also took eight days, and only on the eighth day the Shechinah (“divine presence”) rested on it. What is the significance of the eighth day? Chasidic philosophy interprets the eighth day as the day after seven days. In numerous writings (ma’amarim) and talks (siḥot), the Rebbes of Chabad stated that seven days represent nature, whereas the eighth day is a day above nature.[1] The eighth day represents the supernatural. Why, you may ask, do the seven days represent nature? We are told that the number [...]
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 [...]
Sanctuaries in Space and Time
We are quite familiar with space—we move freely in space back and forth; we concur space on land and beyond; we reclaim land from sea; we turn deserts into gardens; we turn desolated space into sprawling cities. We are, on the other hand, helpless in the face of time. We cannot move freely in time. We can’t move back in time. We are swept forward in the inexorable flow of time. We do not understand time; we cannot change it. We are masters of land, but not of time. It is for this reason, when G‑d instructed Moses how to build a sanctuary for Himself, He could not have started with time—we would have not the faintest idea what it meant—a sanctuary of G‑d in time—let alone how to do it. That is why G‑d started with space, instructing Moses how to build the Mishkan—a Sanctuary in space—first. Only then He commanded Moses about Shabbat.
Nadab and Abihu — Tragedy in Time
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 He had not commanded them. And there came forth fire from before the Eternal and devoured them, and they died before the Eternal. (Exodus 10:1-2) And Aaron spoke unto Moses: ‘Behold, this day have they offered their sin-offering and their burnt-offering before the Eternal, and there have befallen me such things as these; and if I had eaten the sin-offering to-day, would it have been well-pleasing in the sight of the Eternal? And when Moses heard that, it was well-pleasing in his sight. (Leviticus 10:19) The Torah Portion Shemini tells two stories: One of the tragic death of two sons of Aaron—Nadab (Nadav) and Abihu [...]
The Surrounding Light and the Penetrating Light
The Torah portion Vayakhel deals with the construction of the Mishkan, i.e., the “Tabernacle.” In Kabbalah, the Mishkan is viewed as a microcosm that represents a miniature model of the entire universe—both physical and spiritual. The Mishkan was comprised primarily of two categories of objects. The first category included the coverings that made up the roof and the walls surrounding the Mishkan. The second category included kelim—the objects inside the Mishkan. This is not the first time the description of the coverings and kelim appear in the Torah. In the Torah portion Teruma, G‑d gives Moses detailed instructions for the construction of the Mishkan. Interestingly, in Teruma, G‑d first speaks of the kelim and then of the coverings, whereas in Vayakhel, when Moses instructs the Jewish people, he reverses the order and first [...]
Sukkot — Bringing Time into Space
Jews have a very strange custom to take four species (Heb. arba’a minim)—a fruit of a citron tree (etrog), a branch of a date palm (lulav), boughs from the myrtle tree (chadassim), and branches of the willow tree (aravot)—and wave them in all six directions (na’anuim) while holding the species together. The precise movements involve bringing the bunch to one’s heart, then moving them to and fro in all six directions, three in each direction, every time returning the bunch to the heart. A strange sight indeed… what could it possibly mean? I’ve written before that Sukkot has to do with bringing holiness into time and space. The seven days of dwelling in the sukkah-booth (a.k.a. tabernacle) is related to the most important cycle of time – 7: there are seven days in a week, seven years in a Sabbatical cycle (shemita), seven [...]
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 [...]
The Pilot Wave
And on the day that the tabernacle was reared up, the cloud covered the tabernacle, even the tent of the testimony; and at even there was upon the tabernacle as it were the appearance of fire, until morning. So it was always: the cloud covered it, and the appearance of fire by night. And whenever the cloud was taken up from over the Tent, then after that the children of Israel journeyed; and in the place where the cloud abode, there the children of Israel encamped. At the commandment of the Lord the children of Israel journeyed, and at the commandment of the Lord they encamped: as long as the cloud abode upon the tabernacle they remained encamped. And when the cloud tarried upon the tabernacle many days, then the children of Israel [...]
Mishkan – a Metaphor for Quantum Reality, II
Continuing the theme of my last post, Mishkan – a Metaphor for Quantum Reality, the analogy between the Tabernacle (“Mishkan”) and quantum reality goes even deeper. The quantum world is best described today by the Quantum Field Theory. According to this theory, there are no particles, only fields. When we interact with a field, it manifests itself as a quantum of the field, which, to some extent, looks and behaves like a particle. For example, when we interact with an electromagnetic field, it manifests itself as a photon – a quantum of the electromagnetic field. An electron, according to the Quantum Field Theory, is not really a particle but a quantum of the electron field, which is a quantum field that is spread across the entire universe. This quantum is an excitation of [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
Sacrifices and incenses – fields and entanglement
At the end of the weekly portion, Tetzaveh, the Torah speaks of the burnt offerings (Heb. qorbanot) and the incense offerings (Heb. qetoret). The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, contrasts these two types of offerings by highlighting their symbolism. The Hebrew word for a burnt offering or sacrifice, qorban, is etymologically related to the word qarov “close,” qiruv “to bring close” and qerovim “relatives,” as they all share the same root QRB “to be close.” Sacrificial offering (qorban) meant to bring a person who brought it close (qarov) to G‑d. The Hebrew word for incense offerings, qetoret, literally means “smoke," "the odor of sacrifice," or "incense.” However, Rabbi David Kimchi ("Radak") points out that the word qeturot means “connected” as it is etymologically related to the Aramaic word qeter “to bind” and [...]
Global or Local?
And let them make me a Sanctuary that I may dwell among them (Ex. 25:8) In modern physics, there are two paradigms usually expressed as locality and nonlocality. Theoretical physics was born when Isaac Newton published his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1687, where he formulated his laws of motion and the universal law of gravity. The law of gravity says that two masses attract each other proportionally to the product of their masses and inversely proportionally to the square of the distance between them. This law said nothing about the nature of the gravitational interaction, it did not explain the mechanism of this attraction at a distance. Newton was bothered by the question of how one body can act on another body far removed from it with nothing in between, i.e., the notion of “action [...]