Monthly Archives: August 2006

Electric Shaver Part 4

Very import article to be read by all:
http://chareidi.shemayisrael.com/REI66features2.htm
(See previous posts, Part 1 , Part 2 & Part 3)
Update: Very interesting and informative article over at Seforim, entitled
Jews, Beards and Portraits

Dark Matter exists…?

I am not a scientist, nor do I have scientific training (in terms of chemistry, mathematics, biology, etc … I do not think "Computer Science" counts in this instance). However, science does fascinate me, and I am always eager to learn new things. Is this latest discovery, perhaps, the proof for the pasuk, "When the earth was astongishingly empty and darkness on the surface of the deep…" (Geneis 1:2)? Any thoughts on matter from those more knowledgeable would be appreciatied. See here for the article.
Below is an incredible
visualization I found of "dark matter".

(Dear Matter Visualization – http://visservices.sdsc.edu/projects/enzo/)
See here for more images

R’Kook – Your Independent Intuition

Your Independent Intuition

It is not the intent of any influence that comes from outside yourself and into your inner being–whether from secular or holy sources–to silence your spirit and mute your independent intuition. Rather, its intent is to bathe you with a flow of light, so that you will absorb it into the essence of who you are.
In this way, and from the midst of this, your independent sense will grow ever stronger. When you are desolated by internal shoddiness, you think that the intention of everything that comes from outside yourself is to abrade your independent sense of reality, to make you crumple, and you totter. You become short-tempered and you cease to grow.
Together, the holy and the secular influence your spirit. When you integrate them, you are enriched. You must take what is fitting from each of them. From the holy, take the light of life and an inner character. From the secular, take the container, the superficial understanding that provides a basis for grasping the content. The secular provides material for analogies and explanations, for contexts in which to understand the ways of the world and good character traits.
There is a spirit of abundance that is the awareness of division between the holy and the secular. That abundance becomes ever more clear when you gather the wealth of these various sources. It strengthens and illumines your spirit.At last, you come to the innermost circle of Torah. The diseased cloud within you that hides the Torah begins to glow more and more with the light of Torah. Out of the mist, lights are revealed in their full beauty.

Orot Hakodesh I, pp. 67-68
From the Well of Kindness, Pg 24 hosted at Jewish Spiritual and Beautiful  

Torah and Science Links 1:

Here are some interesting links I have found with regard to the topic of Torah and Science:
1. Ascent: The Centre for Jewish Mysticism in Safed and the Galil – Torah and Science
2. Torah Science Foundation: Where Kabbalah meets Science
3. Mind over Matter:
Mind Over Matter is freely translated from the Rebbe’s talks, discourses and letters on science, technology and medicine. It covers such diverse topics as proof of the Creator, origin of the species, aviation, fate vs. freedom, geometry, medicine and more.
4. When the Torah Doesn’t Mean What It Says: Non-Literal Interpretation of Scripture and the Controversy over the Works of Nosson Slifkin (R’ Jeremy Weider)


No 1,2,3 cover the issues of Torah and Science from a Lubavitch perspective.
No 4, is a audio lecture by R’ Jeremy Weider, a Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshiva University. In all honesty, I find his conclusions somewhat surprising. In my understanding, he basically arrives at the same conclusion as R’ Shubert Spiro in his (in?)famous "The Biblical Stories of Creation, Garden of Eden and the Flood: History or Metaphor?". I would not call the approach heresy, however, I feel it is highly untraditional, and ultimately avoids the real issues in the Science and Torah debate.

Electric Shaver Part 3

There is an interesting post on English Hebraica regarding the historical use of depilatory cream by Orthodox Jews as a means of beard removal. See the post here as well as a direct link to the article quoted here. (For previous posts on the topic see Electric Shaver Part 1, Part 2)