Joseph

And so the choson went off to learn in yeshiva for 12 years — just like Rabbe Akiva, while his kallah stayed home and slept on straw mattresses — just like Rabbe Akiva’s wife Rachel.

She asked to feast on only bread and water, and not waste money on jewelry but rather donate to charity.

So she swam home and lived a very simple and inexpensive lifestyle thereafter.

So I let her drive my Lexus to the wedding hall. We found a Rabbi and a minyan, and got married. I then needed to sell my Lexus to support her lifestyle.

So I got on my knee and proposed on the spot.

Gavra @ Work:

The Maharik (shoresh 161) says that avid inish cannot be facilitated through a Gentile.

The Yerushalmi says that a Chodesh is established by witnesses, and some girl has her third birthday on that Rosh Chodesh, she gets her besulim and can lose them with a man, but if later those witnesses were proven Zomemim, and we realize she was never three to begin with, nature follows the Torah and her Besulim grow back. This process is obviously not scientific but miraculous, and with no Kidush Hachodesh until Moshiach comes, its going to be difficult for the scientists to observe the process.

Regarding the Rambam, Reb Yaakov Kaminetzky said that the Rambam’s Hilchos Deos were not intended to be Torah, but rather the Rambam’s secular wisdom. He said, by way of proof, that the Rambam there says the moon is a sentient entity, and now we “see” on TV that it is only a rock.

Rav Schneur Kotler ZTL said that this statement of Reb Yaakov “may not be said”, and that he remembers that Rav Meir Simcha of Dvinsk ZTL once said that there are people who hold like this regarding the Rambam, and they are totally wrong, and he (Rav Meir Simchah) would really write a sefer showing that every word of the Rambams Hilchos Deos is culled from Chazal, but the Malbim already wrote such a Sefer so he doesnt need to. Rav Schneur continued, that nobody knew what Rav Meir Simcha was referring to by the Sefer of the Malbim until a few years ago (like 30 years ago from today) they reprinted a Kuntres from the Malbim showing that the Rambam’s Hilchos Deos was all from Chazal.

Rabbi Menachem Kasher (author of Torah Sheleimah) wrote a Sefer called “HaAdam al Hayareach”, where he devotes all of chapter 4 to this Rambam. He, too, quotes from the Zohar in a different place to support the Rambam: “Does then the ground so sentient? Yes, as it says (Mishle 3:19) ‘Hashem with wisdom founded the land'” Meaning, He created a land that possesses wisdom. He also quotes more. Rav Chaim Kanievsky also quotes sources throughout Hilchos Deos showing where in Chazal they come from.

About the Rambam and the Zohar, it is true, though not everyone concurs; the consensus is that the Rambam did not have the Zohar. Nevertheless, there are statements in the Rambam that have no source other than the Zohar (such as “Whoever gets angry is as if he worshipped idols”). The explanations given for this is that the Rambam had Medrashim that we no longer have, plus the Rambam was able to be “mechaven” to Kabbalah even though he did not have the sources.

(reposted from elsewhere)

“How does the fact that Hashem said the sun should shine in the day and the stars at night prove that Hashem created the sun and stars in literally 24 hours?”

646 –

The Gemora says this expicitly. It describes 10 things that were created on the first day of creation, one of which is the “length of the day and night” – as it says, “vayehi erev vayehi voke yom echad”. So the time span of the day was created on the first day of creation. And, as Rashi states, it means “[the day and night together] – i.e. 24 hours between them”.

Grandma Moses must be jealous.

Mesira applies even if the law was broken.

I agree 1000% with simchasaba.

Who blasted you?

Wolf: The Gemorah says they come from dirt, a point we’ve discussed at length.

Any comment on squeak’s post?

The Torah says the world was created in 6 days. And that Rashi says explicitly that when the Torah says Vayehi Erev Vayehi Voker Yom Echad it means 24 hours.

The Gemora says this expicitly. It describes 10 things that were created on the first day of creation, one of which is the “length of the day and night” – as it says, “vayehi erev vayehi voke yom echad”. So the time span of the day was created on the first day of creation. And, as Rashi states, it means “[the day and night together] – i.e. 24 hours between them”.

Wolf:

You took my point on a specific question you had, and went too far with it. (I’m sure you realize this.)

The world is physically less than 6,000 years old. I’ve posted on this point earlier.

“Do you think that respectful disagreement is impossible?… The same applies to scientific statements of Chazal — I can disagree respectfully. Disagreement in and of itself is not disrespect.”

Wolf: Correct. It is impossible for you to chas v’shalom disagree with Chazal.

Your summation of my lice post wasn’t too bad.

Thorne Bay, Alaska

I heard its Jewish population quadrupled in just the past 6 months alone! (From 1 to 5 people.)

Schools frequently put name and address stickers on little children as a safety precaution (should they c’v get lost?)

“Chazal knew what was known in their time , but not more.”

The Chasam Sofer (Beshalach) writes Chazal know science from the Torah.

The Aruch Hashulchan (EH 13) writes someone who disagrees with Chazal on scientific matters, testifies about himself that he does not believe in Torah she bal peh, even though he would be embarrassed to admit it outright.

There are many additional meforshim stating the same. But this is a good start.

Bemused, per chance did you many oodles ago post as Sarah? Your erudition and tmimus are quite similar.

Feif: Absolutely wrong.

Rashi, Devorim 17:11

Even if they tell you that right is left and that left is right (you should listen to the sages) certainly if they tell you right is right and left is left.

Charlie: “Other rishonim argued with Rashi on that comment”

Name me ONE Charlie, name me one please.

EDITED

WHY G-D CREATED THE WORLD

Once upon a time, there was only G-d, The Perfect Being.

And G-d, being Good and Benevolent, wanted to bestow this feeling of perfect happiness on others. So He had a plan to create others that can enjoy this infinite, amazing G-d-Pleasure, just like He Himself does. But there was a problem.

The answer: Create beings that have the ability to connect to G-d in such a way that they can actually be part of G-d, but with their own individual identity. Since they are part of G-d, connected to His essence, they will be able to enjoy the G-d pleasure, but only to the extent that they are connected.

So this is what He did:

This blueprint is called the Torah.

The connection with Hashem is called Olam Habbah.

But there was more work to be done. In order to fulfill the Torah, man needed tools. There is a Mitzvah in the Torah of honoring parents. That means man will have to have parents. There is a Mitzvah to fast on Yom Kippur, so man will have to have a need for food. And the food itself would also have to be created.

In order for man to fulfill the Torah, an entire world will have to be created, and man will have to be given a physical body with which to do Mitzvos.

So Hashem created the whole, entire, physical Universe.

And so Hashem gave us the Torah.

(reposted from elsewhere)

Joseph, no more long posts

Torah is to the natural world what a bluprint is to its edifice, or what DNA is to an organism. Histakel B’Oraysa Ubara Alma – Hashem looked inot the Torah, and created the world as a relfection of it. This happened because the very reason – the only reason – the world was created in the first place was as a tool to fulfill the Torah. How can you fulfill the Mitzvah of Pri Etz Hadar without an Esrog tree? How can you fulfill the MItzvah of Kibud Av Va’em if you dont have parents? How can you make Kiddush Friday night without such things as night, or wine, or words?

Those are easy examples. But Hashem does nothing without a reaosn, and creates nothing witout a reason. And if Hashem created it, it has one reaosn and one reaosn only: to facilitate the fulfillment of the Torah. Because without that reason, the world whad no reaosn to exist.

So everything in the world – every little detail, every little subatomic particle, every litttle spec of space dust – is here to somehow faciliatate the fulfillment of the Toah. Just as every part of a car is to faciliatate the comfortable and efficent transportation of humans from one place to another, so too every part of the world is to faciliatate the transportaiton of humans to Gan Eden by way of Kiyum HaTorah.

But a differnece between a car and the Torah is, whereas there may have been several possible version of how to make a car, and several possible alternatives to the actual car that was created that would have facilitated juts s well the goal of transporting people form on place to another- differnet typoes of cars, trucks, planes, bicycles, etc – there was only ONE possible way to facilitate the goal of getitng people into Gan Eden, and that was by creating this particular world. No other world, not even in te slightest detail, would have done the job.

Just as the Torah is infinitely precise in its details, so does the natural world reflect the infinite precision of the Torah. WHen Hashem created an Esrog, which shaken in the proper manner, would connect the shaker’s soul to Hashem Himself in the particular way that the speciifc Mitzvah of velkachtem lachem pri etz hadar does, He created the Esrog, the jointsand limbs of the person shaking it, the water and soil and sunlight and gasses that the Esrog consolidates, the mind and body of the perosn shaking the esrog, the circumstances surrounding the buying of the esrog – its value, its purchase price, the precise difficulty invovled in obtaining it, — every single factor that comprises the act of the mitzvah, its nisyonos, and its ramifications — were created with infinite precison, down to the sub atomic level in order to best produce the desired effect.

Because the world itself – the entire universe – is desgined to be the place where, when Moshiach comes, the spiritual energey that was emitted upon the performance of the Mitzvos, combined with Hashem’s revelaiton of His Oneness, matures into the spiritual environment Olam Habah, which is en enternal conneciton betwen the Mitzvah-doers and Hashem Himlsef, the entire world, every molecule and sub atomic element it consists of, every single segment of time and space itself, every sub-sub-sub atomic component of every single square micro-inch of the entire universe, was created in a way that it will fulfill its spiritual purpose – of untimately onnecting humans to Hashem through its being used bu humans to be turned into a connection between the human body-and-soul, and Hashem.

That was the only single solitary idea that Hashem had in mind when creaitng the world. That was the only single solitary reason the world was made. ANd just as Hashem is one, and the Torah is one, and could not e any other way, the world, in order to fulfill its purpose as becoming the connection to Hashem was created in the only way it could have been, using the Torah as its blurprint, as its DNA. ANd that mean not only the physical shell of the world, but every single nuance of every single sub-atomic detail of the wordl, was created using the Torah as its bluepirnt. The Torah and nothign else is what the world reflects, on aninfinitely sublime level.

This is why the Rambam states (Yesodei Hatorah 2:2) that the natural world contains “wisdom that has no measure and no end”. Because juts as the Torah has infinite wosdom, so does the world, which is a reflection of it.

The calculations and details that went into this world are bottomless. And its nature reflects the nature of the Torah itself; is details reflect the details of the Torah, in the same way that the details of the organizsm reflect the details of the DNA molecule.

So far we know that nature and Torah relate in that the Torah actually dictates what goes on in nature – histakel b’oraisa ubarah almah – just as the blueprint of a building decides how the building will be built, the Torah, in the same sense, decided how nature works. And just as the DNA controls the structure and makeup of the organizsm, so too it is the Torah the controls the structure and makeup of the world. There is not a single spec of the natural universe that is not ruled and determined by the Torah. As Rabbeinu Bachyai writes in the Introduction to Chumash, all wisdom and science in existence is contained in the Torah.

And the opposite is true as well – the Avos knew and fulfilled the entire Torah even though it had not yet been revealed by Hashem. Avorohom Avinu made and donned a pair of Tefillin. Now there are maybe 10 or so Halachos L’Moshe Misinai invovled in making a pair of tefillin. How did Avrohom Avinu know how to make a pair of Tefillin?

The answer is that Hashem looked inot the Torah and bsaed on it, decophered nature; Avrohom re-performed that process the other way: He looked inot the Tevah, the natural universe, and decphered the principles upon which it was based, the reasons wy it was created in precisely the way it was, and, with preision accuracy, the details of that Torah which is reflected in nature. He looked, for instance, at his own body, and he deciphered from his 248 limbs and his 365 sinews, the 248 Mitzvos aseh and the 365 mitzvos lo saaseh. He deciphered the Torah by studying its reflection – the universe – the same way a skilled architect can decipher the blueprint of a building by studying the building.

So he made a pair of Tefillin.

Nature is created by, from, and as a reflection of Torah. Nature follows Torah law, not vice-versa. And although nature, on the surface, follows surface-level physical laws, on a deeper level, on the deepest, deepest level of science, all of nature, all of the universe, follows a system of laws that are designed to facilitate the purpose of Creation, namely, its enetual maturation, nurtured by the study of Torah and performance of Mitzvos by the Jewish nation, into a spiritual entity known as Olam Habah.

In a nutshell, those Laws of Nature are simply a reflection of the Laws of the Torah itself. When the physical universe, which is a reflection of Torah, is nurtured by the Torah-acts of the Am Segulah, it becomes a vessel for the conneciton of the souls and bodies of the Am Segulah to the Creator of the Torah.

That is the cosmology of the world in a nutshell.

So the natural world and the Torah are inexorably connected. The Torah is the blueprint of the natural world, and the natural world is a reflection of the Torah. Avrohom, Avinu, or someone on his level, could look into nature and discover how to make a pair of Tefiillin; and Chazal were able to loo inot the Tora and discover thigns about nature. [Rabeinu bachya, Ramban].

But there is a reason that the natural world was tied to the deepest levels of the Torah. G-d could have made a world whose blueprint was physical laws or someother system of rules. Why did Hashem chose the Torah as the blueprint of creation?

And that is how Avrohom Avinu made a pair of Tefillin by looking into the natural world with the eyes and understanding of the Avos, and saw how the world needs Tefillin in order to fulfill its purpose, and how exactly those Tefillin need to be made. By seeing the sleeve, oyu can understand the shape pf the arm, and by seeing an arm you can understand the design of the sleeve.

That is the relationship between Torah and the natural world.

(reposted from elsewhere)

charlie,

Regarding answering scientists and those who have blind faith in them about the age of the world, first, just like the flaw in their “vestigial organ” logic, the entire concept of measuring the age of the world the way the scientsts do is based on the assuption that the world was not created by a Creator. But if you say that the world was created the way the Torah tells us it was, that is, a full-blown world, complete with starts visible in the sky, ful-grown trees and animals (and a human), a totally, fully developed and mature world, then their logic falls apart.

Because when the world was created, it already had an age. In other words, when Adam for instance was created, he was an adult, even though he was one day old; there were fully grown trees; the sun’s light already reached the earth; an entire world existed, full-blown and OLD. How old was the world at the moment it was created? I dont know — it doesnt say. But we do know that it didnt start from scratch. And so lets say a “scientist” would chop down a tree 1 week after it was created and find maybe 50 rings insude – would that prove that the tree was 50 years old? To the scientists it would, and the “tree ring” concept is used as one of their “proofs” that the world is over 6,000 years old. But the truth is it prove no such thing, becuase when the tree was created it was created as an adult, 50 year old tree.

So even if dating would be accurate, it still doesnt prove that the world was not created 6,000 years ago – because when it was created, it already could have been thousands or millions of quardrillions of years old.

That is the first thing to understand when dealing with the “true believers” of science. But even if they will come up with somethgin that cannot be explained by the above, there is a Torah principle that you must know that has been used long before any of today’s scientists orbttheir grandparents were born, that tells us that although the world was in fact created 6,000 years ago, we know that it possesses all and every characteristic of a world that is much, much older. The Torah actually expects scientific measurements of the age of the universe to return an age of much, much more than 6,000 years. And we have known this for centuries.

[this star]

The Divrei Chaim does not tell us the location of the Yaaros Dvash. But the Divrei Yoel (Simchas Torah p.613) identifies it as being in 2 places: Vol. I, Drush 1 and Drush 15. There, it quotes a Medrash (Rabbah 10:4) that before the Sin of Adam the Mazalos operated much more rapidly. After the Sin, the Mazalos operated much slower and longer. With this Medrash, he explains the fact that we pasken that both the opinion that the world was created in Nisan, and the opinion that the world was created in Tishri, are true. Says the Yaaros Dvash: because the Mazalos operated much more rapidly before the Sin, between the time the Mazalos were created on the 4th day, and the time Adam was created, on the 6th day, the Mazalos had already run their course from Nisan to Tishri.

The mistake in their system is that they are not measuring the amount of time itself that occurred. They are identifying various events that already happened and are saying:

1) We measured the amount of time it would take this event to occur

2) And this event has already occurred

3) Therefore, the amount of time it would take to make it occur has already elapsed.

The flaw on that logic is that they only measured how much time it would take if those events would happen NOW, in the post-chet world. But since those events took place before the Chet, they took much less time, and so the occurrence of those events does not indicate the elapse of nearly as much time as the scientists think.

If they would find a way to measure time itself, meaning the amount of moments that transpired during the course of history, they would come up with 6,000 years.

–

Evolution, by definition, means “slow progress”, the opposite of revolution, which means sudden progress. When did this “evolution” supposedly occur?

Besides, there is no viable evidence for evolution. The evidence is evidence only assuming there is no Creator. All the similarities between us and monkeys are, to us, meaningless, because theres no reason to assume that one Creator did not create many of His creations with similar physicality. But if you assume there is no creator, then the quesiton arises: how do you explain the similarities between us and lower species? And besides — how in the world did such complex “animals” such as humans get here anyway? There are two options” fast or slow. Fast makes no sense if there is no creator. And the whole vestigial thing makes no sense also, as you noticed.

The Torah says the world was created in 6 days. And that Rashi says explicitly that when the Torah says Vayehi Erev Vayehi Voker Yom Echad it means 24 hours.

The 6 days of creation were in fact 24 hours. How could they not be? Aren’t days 24 hours now? So when did this change? Where does it indicate in the slightest that the first Sunday after creation (or the first Shabbos?) was suddenly shorter than previous days??

On the contrary – it’s clear that on the fourth day Hashem said the sun should shine during the time-period that was called “day” and the stars/darkness should rule during the time-period called “night”. Since then, that hasnt changed, and obvisouly, as we can see today, the sun and the stars have decided that the time period called day plus the time period called night, are 24 hours.

The Gemora says this expicitly. It describes 10 things that were created on the first day of creation, one of which is the “length of the day and night” – as it says, “vayehi erev vayehi voke yom echad”. So the time span of the day was created on the first day of creation. And, as Rashi states, it means “[the day and night together] – i.e. 24 hours between them”.

G-d does not leave “room for doubt” in the sense that there is something for an objective person to doubt, when it comes to the existence of a Creator. All it means is that we have Bechirah to deny or to dount even though our denial or doubt make no sense.

It’s a simple as a judge presiding over an open-and-shut case where the defendent is guilty. Open and shut, nothing to discuss. But the defendent is the judge’s own brother. The question is, will he say the truth or deny the truth – either to himself or to the public.

Same with our Emunah. The existnece hashem is na open-and-shut case. But all the Yezter Horahs in the world tell us to deny it, in order to throw off all our restrictions. The question is, will we fool ourselves.

The Ran says that the reason the aseres hadibros starts with Anochi Hashem, as opposed to “Thou shalt believe in me”, is because they certianly did believe before kabbalas hatorah, because anybody who is not an idiot (or willing to fool himself into being one) surely believes, since G-d’s existnce is so obvious. So it was meaningless for Hashem to tell them “thou shalt bleieve”. Instead, He introduced Himslef, as if to say “The G-d that you believe in — I am He!” Anochi hashem. And the Mitzvah of Emunah is therefore to believe not that G-d exists, since that’s simplicity – but to believe that the G-d that surely exists is the entity that took us our of Egypt and gave us the Torah — to bleieve that “I”. i.e. the One talking to us on Har Sinai, is in fact the G-d that we all know must exist.

And no, I dont believe that people would find plenty of “scientific proofs” that there is no Hashem. I say that because they havent done so before or after evolution, since the idea of Kadmus Haolam, which has been logically disproven long ago.

It’s simple math: the world is either accident or intelligence. If you want to be an atheist, your choice is accident.

If accident. it was either at once or in stages. But that such a highly developed world can accidently all come at once , like “boom!” theres people, males, females. food, water, air, sunlight etc” all suddenly and at the same time is currently inexplicable.

That leaves graduality, which means evolution.

The exact mechanism whereby the graduality supposedly took place – survival of the fittest, sudden mutation, etc – is where the theories come in. But if youre goign to be an atheist, youre goign to have to find some way to validate evolution, because until they find somethgin else, evolution is the only way to explain a G-dless world. Thats why its worth spending our time showing what nonsense evolution is, because today, thats all the atheists have to hang their hats on. Once thats not an option, there is nothing left for them.

And if they come up with some other silly idea, that too, will be worth spending our time to expose. But right now, this is all they have. And it is nothing.

(reposted from elsewhere)