Scientific Mystery

This week's email is dedicated to our friend Steve Goldstein, who had his second brain operation yesterday to remove a malignant tumor. Wishing you a speedy and complete recovery! (to dedicate a future Table Talk, send an email)

Just back from Israel.

On the flight back from Tel Aviv to New York, I witnessed something that I would guess very few people ever see.

I will give you the facts that I know, and see if any of our astute subscribers can solve this one.

The plane left at around midnight and arrived around 4:20 am (both local times).

At some point during the flight, I woke from my slumber to see a beautiful sunrise in the making. The horizon (I was on the right side of the plane) was filled with a thin but gorgeous band of colors.

An hour later, the sky was completely black again, and when we landed in New York one could see a hint of the earliest dawn light, but it was still dark out.

Question: What 3 unusual factors coincided in order to make this phenomenon possible?

This trip enabled me to reconnect to my friend Raffi, currently working on a Master's in physics at the Hebrew University after completing 15 years in yeshiva.

I complimented Raffi for pursuing the Rambam's (i.e., Maimonides) vision for science. Learning about nature, says Rambam, is REQUIRED for the path of transcendence.

Raffi retorted, "Many people say that, but that's a misreading of the Rambam." He says it's the CONTEMPLATION of nature, not merely learning it. If you spend all your time crunching the numbers and never step back to appreciate it, you're missing the point."

(Note, Raffi is preparing for an examine in lasers.)

Question #2 for your Table: Assuming Raffi is right, is the scientist better able or less able than the non-scientist to contemplate the amazing natural world?

Shabbat Shalom

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle.
- Albert Einstein

PPS - Don't forget to print and share!

When Life is Hanging by a Thread

There are two things I’ll bet you don’t know about the lowly caterpillar:

1 – Why is it called caterpillar?

2 – Why do you often see one hanging from what looks like a spider thread?

A1 – The name caterpillar supposedly derives (as usual) from a French word, meaning “hairy cat”. The hairy part I get, but cat? Let’s send that one back to the etymological drawing board.

A2 – caterpillars have a real problem. They have really really poor senses of sight, hearing and smell.

Imagine a caterpillar sitting on a leaf.

The wind blows and rustles the leaf, no problem.

A twig falls and strikes the leaf, not at all scary.

A fly lands on the leaf, our little furry fella yawns.

But when a wasp lands on the leaf and starts to approach his blind and deaf prey, the little guy shoots out a silk thread which sticks to the leaf, and leaps over the edge, dangling out of sight and out of danger. After the bloodthirsty wasp departs, little caterpillar hoists himself up the lifeline and resumes his busy eating schedule.

Prof. Ignacio Castellanos (Hidalgo, Mexico) has proven that the caterpillar can distinguish between all of these various motions of the leaf by mere sense of touch.

How did it learn to do that?

(Sometimes I wonder why biology departments are not full of religious people.)

Here’s a summer challenge for you….When you are outside, enjoying the warm weather and natural beauty of this world, find the “picture perfect” moment (butterfly, sunset, etc.) and DON’T take a picture. Take it in with a deep breath, knowing that it is THIS moment that counts, not the digital memory of it.

Shabbat Shalom

PS – hat-tip to Highlights for Children for alerting me to Dr. Castellanos’s research!

PPS – Remember The Very Hungry Caterpillar? Creator Eric Carle has a whole zoo’s worth of sequels...click here.

Sometimes hanging by the thread brings it’s own danger:



“One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!” - Churchill

Instant Karma

Dedicated to the memory of Galit Schiller, who died last Shabbat from complications after the birth of her third child. Our deepest condolences to husband Judah, son Tomer, daughter Naomi and baby Satya.
To dedicate a future Table Talk, send an email.


Question for your table: From a Jewish perspective, what do you think is the most problematic aspect of Christianity?

For me personally, growing up in America, one of the things that I found most challenging about the dominant religion was the idea of some guy “dying for our sins.”

Preposterous, right? How could someone die for my sins? And why should my belief in him have anything to do with it?

Well...

Actually, it turns out that 95 percent of Christian and Islamic theologies come directly from Jewish thought. They just changed some of the key details.

For instance, the Talmud states: “The death of the righteous atones (for the living).”

Gee, that sounds a lot like the religion that I just dismissed....

To understand the Talmud, consider two questions:

1. What does atonement mean?
2. Why it should be only the death of the righteous that atones. Why not anyone’s death?

The answer to #1: atonement means purifying the soul of negative karma.

The answer to #2: it isn’t the death per se that atones, rather how we react to it.

When a less-than-righteous person dies, we may be sad but we don’t feel that sense of incomprehension, “Why did this happen?!!”

When a righteous person dies, we feel that overwhelming shock, “How could this have happened?” Some even say, “How could God let this happen?” It’s much more than a mere shanda.

And it is precisely that deep-down shutter of realizing that I don’t understand that atones, because negative karma can come from ego, which is characterized by feeling that I know something, that I’m smart, that I’m good because I know what good means. The shocking “unjust” death of the righteous wakes us from this ego-trip and thereby atones for all who hear the tragic news.

Is this what Lennon meant?



Think about it.

Shabbat Shalom.

(By the way, in that video, what's the deal with the knitting?)

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Upcoming speaking schedule:

June 25 – Philadelphia: The Foundation of Ethics (Business lunch)
June 25 – Philadelphia: The Kabbalah of Wine (evening wine tasting + class)
(For details, send an email)

Yiddish of the week:
shanda — shame

Yiddish review - how many do you know?
anee — poor person
koptsen — panhandler
ballaboss — homeowner; layman
nu — various meanings (see archives)
mishpocha — family
mameh — mother
tateh — father
mazal – (MAH-z’l) luck or fortune, as in, “It was good mazal that....”
beshert – (b’shairt) - meant to be, as in “It was beshert that...”
mine eltern – my parents
mine lair-er – my teacher
hamantashen – Haman-pockets
zeigezunt – all the best (said upon parting)
kesher - connection
Ikh volt veln a kave, zayt azoy gut. - I'd like a coffee, please.
...kave mit shmant. – ...a coffee with cream.
...kave mit milkh. – ...a coffee with milk.
...kave mit tsuker. - ...a coffee with sugar.
Di Fir Kashes - The Four Questions
Oy vey! - Good grief!
mensch — a decent person
rachmanos — mercy
neshoma (neh-SHOH-ma) — soul
minig — custom, as in, "Why do you do that?" "It's my minig!"
Gavaltig — wonderful
Oy gavalt — how wonderful (sarcastic)
Azoy gait es! — That’s how it goes!
Shabbos — Cessation; stopping; day of stopping; weekly sabbatical experience
"Gut Shabbos" — "Enjoy your weekly sabbatical experience"
Neshoma — Soul
meshugass — insanity
meshuganeh — insane
kyna hara — no evil eye
shvitz — sweat