CS (finally replying to my sundial nagging): “As far as the sundial thing, I’ll just reiterate that I stand by my above post addressing that, and will also add that in the story itself, it notes that the sundial not working only several hours a day was not a common thing (ie most sundials do not work that way) and it had puzzled many great experts for that reason.
So yeah to take a prototype sundial experiment from third grade, when sundials are not even in use nowadays and to use that to say the entire book is fiction seems silly to me.”
Thank you for proving the point that has been made numerous times: Lubavichers believe what they want to and never let facts get in the way.
I would like to let you in on a little secret. By the time I was in third grade I could read fairly well. But that doesn’t mean that my reading hasn’t improved since as probably every day since then I have practiced that skill. Similarly, in third grade I understood the basic workings of a sundial, but my understanding has improved over time.
Some things, however, don’t change. Just as I still read the words “the cat is wearing a hat” the same way I did in third grade, so too sundial work the same way they did then. And, now please try to get this point, there is no way that trees, mountains, Superman or even the lubavicher rebbe can make a sundial not work between the hours of 2 and 5 in the afternoon. This is true even if they can be seen. NOTHING can affect the working of a sundial if they can’t be seen.
The reason the sundial “puzzled many experts” is very simple. Those experts were as fictional as the sundial!
One more point about it. The story clearly tells us that it was not some koach hatumah that affected the sundial. If that was the case I could bedieved have accepted it. But according to the story it was something scientific that the Baal Hatanya knew. That is fiction!