Joseph

Pashuteh, I refer you to my previous posts for the answers to your questions. I won’t rehash the same thing over. Many of your points are addressed in my OP on this thread. The rest in subsequent posts.

You mentioned Slifkin’s site. The only thing I found addressing heliocentrism there, was a letter to him that read as thus:

Zach, 1. It is “Eppur si muove” 2. It is mere legend that Galileo said this.

Zach,

I’ve responded to your point regarding stellar parallax many comments ago – on the first page of this thread. You once again are in denial, yet offering no counter evidence. Neither to the solid scientific points I brought, nor to the reputable scientists I quoted verbatim (other than an empty claim that it is “wrong.”)

The scientific knowledge of our sages.

Scientific facts in Chazal and rabbinic tradition can be divided into two categories:

(a) Scientific facts that are taken from the Torah itself, and

(b) Scientific facts that were known by Chazal based on their knowledge of science.

The most recent example of this is the Chazon Ish ZTL, who lived in our times, and had no secular education at all, yet showed much knowledge of math and astronomy, much of which can be seen in his teshuva on the international dateline.

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.

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.

It is amusing how those opposed to the Torah, and the science expressed in the Torah, will even reject modern science if it is found in accordance with the Torah!! In rejecting such science, they will not even attempt to refute it scientifically, but just attempt to use empty words like inaccurate, wrong, out of context, etc. without ever being able to specify what is correct!

Zach, Your science is outdated and has long been replaced by Einstein. True, the theory of relativity is complicated, especially General Relativity (compared to Special Relativity), yet this is no reason for you to reject Einstein’s science due to your lack of understanding it. Einstein has supplanted pre-Newton science in various areas, as I have previously explained.

I suggest you research Einstein’s “Principle of Equivalence”, which is essential to understanding General Relativity. Your last comment in the name of science, astrology, and physics is at odds with modern science. You are arguing with Einstein. I have quoted Hans Reichenbach, who Albert Einstein sat down with and taught Relativity to. Read my previous comments on this, but Reichenbach unequivocally writes in his book that saying the sun revolves around the earth is scientifically equivalent to stating the earth revolves around the sun. Again, I quote:

“The cosmologies of Copernicus [Heliocentrism] & Ptolemy [Geocentrism] are kinematically equivalent; both of them are descriptions of the same facts, and Ptolemy’s epicycles of the planets are the kinematic equivalents of the circular orbits of Copernicus.”

Hans Reichenbach, Philosophy of Space and Time, p. 210-211

See additional elucidation and quotes in my previous comments.

Pashuteh, I’ve clearly demonstrated from a purely modern scientific standpoint that stating the sun circles the earth is accepted as scientifically correct. I’ve also demonstrated that stating the sun circles the earth is accepted Torah. I honestly don’t know the Rambam you paraphrased offhand, I don’t know if it is a faithful translation, and if it is whether it is an accurate understanding of it. Nevertheless, if you look at this issue from a purely Torah standpoint or a purely scientific standpoint, this is its result.

David, Please reread my opening post on this thread for the answer to your question. (Here are some of the relevant passages: Rema in Toras HaOlah 1:2, Ran Drashos #13, Maharal Ber Hagolah 6, etc.)

You cannot reject Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and insist at using pre-Einstein Science to reject the Torah. I suggest a reading of Hans Reichenbach’s book “Philosophy of Space and Time.”

ALL MOTION IS RELATIVE

WE CANNOT KNOW ABSOLUTELY WHICH CELESTIAL OBJECT IS MOVING AND WHICH ONE IS STANDING STILL.

WE CAN CHOOSE ANY SUN OR PLANET AS OUR REFERENCE POINT, AND THEN CALCULATE MOVEMENT OF OTHER BODIES IN RELATION TO THAT BODY.

Here is a collection of quotes by men who have understood the nature of motion.

The cosmologies of Copernicus [Heliocentrism] & Ptolemy [Geocentrism] are kinematically equivalent; both of them are descriptions of the same facts, and Ptolemy’s epicycles of the planets are the kinematic equivalents of the circular orbits of Copernicus.

Reichenbach, Hans- Philosophy of Space and Time- p210-211

The commonly held view is that Copernicus’s heliocentric model vanquished the competition, especially the geocentric view of Ptolemy, because it yielded better predictions of the positions of the celestial bodies. In actual fact, the predictions of the Copernican model were a little worse than those obtained via the complicated series of epicycles… the real selling point of the Copernican model was that it was much simpler than the competition yet still gave a reasonably good account of the observational evidence.

Today we cannot say that the Copernican theory is ‘right’ and the Ptolemaic theory ‘wrong’ in any meaningful physical sense.

Fred Hoyle, Nicolaus Copernicus, Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., 1973, p78

The Copernican conception is indeed simpler, but this does not make it any “truer” since this simplicity is descriptive … One description may be simplest for some phenomena while a different description may be simplest for others; but no simplest description is distinguished from other descriptions with regard to truth. The concept of truth does not apply here, since we are dealing with definitions.

Reichenbach, Hans- Philosophy of Space and Time- p219

And hence this affirmation: “the earth turns round” has no meaning, since it cannot be verified by experiment; … such an experiment … cannot even be conceived of without contradiction …

Henri Poincare- Science and Hypothesis- p117

… it is meaningless to talk of absolute motion.

Even the Copernican world-view appears to be shaken by this consideration. It makes no sense accordingly, to speak of a difference in truth between Copernicus and Ptolemy: both conceptions are equally permissible descriptions.

What has been considered as the greatest discovery of [western] wisdom, as opposed to that of antiquity, is questioned as to its truth-value … the doctrine of relativity does not assert that Ptolemy’s view is correct, it rather contests the absolute meaning of either view.

Reichenbach, Hans- From Copernicus to Einstein, p 75,82

There is one more implication that modern science has perceived in the work of Copernicus. The same observational data that Ptolemy organized in his geocentric theory of deferent and epicycle can also be organized under the heliocentric theory of Copernicus. Despite the belief of the latter that the new theory was true, the modern view is that either theory will do and that there is no need to adopt the heliocentric hypothesis except to gain mathematical simplicity. Reality seems far less knowable than Copernicus believed, and today scientific theories are regarded as human inventions.

Morris Kline- Mathematics and the Search for Knowledge, p85

… the Ptolemaic theory of the solar system was abandoned in favor of the Copernican not because it failed to “agree” with all the facts, for it explained as much as the Copernican did, but because the latter, as Copernicus himself said, was “simpler,” more elegant mathematically, and a more harmonious addition to the body of science than the former.

… there was no intellectual inconvenience at one time in regarding the earth as the fixed center of the universe, nor was there any particular reason, socially or otherwise, why it should not have been accepted, nor was it inconsistent with the existent body of knowledge.

Randall, J. H.- Philosophy: An Introduction- p135, 139

Two thousand years ago the earth turned; then it remained immobile until recently, when it has again begun to turn. [!!!]

Nicholas Malebranche (1638-1715)- The Search After Truth- p371

All the known celestial movements can be explained on a geocentric theory, if it is sufficiently complex.

Lacey, A.R., Dictionary of Philosophy- p359

… in fact simplicity of the mathematical theory was the only argument Copernicus & Kepler could advance in favor of their heliocentric theory as opposed to the older Ptolemaic theory.

Is the path of the earth around the sun an ellipse? No. Only if the earth & sun are regarded as points and only if all other bodies in the universe are ignored. Do the four seasons on earth repeat themselves year after year? Hardly. Only in their grossest aspects, which are about all men can perceive anyway, do they repeat.

Morris Kline- Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty- p 344, 350

He [Copernicus] was able, in fact, to cite as a distinct advantage only the greater simplicity of his system. … Here lies one of the reasons which led scientists to accept the Copernican system, even though it must be conceded that, from the modern standpoint, practically identical results could be obtained by means of a somewhat revised Ptolemaic system.

Hans Reichenbach- From Copernicus to Einstein- p18

WE CANNOT PROVE IF THE EARTH IS MOVING THROUGH SPACE OR IF IT IS ROTATING ON ITS AXIS.

Absolute space, that is to say, THE MARK TO WHICH IT WOULD BE NECESSARY TO REFER THE EARTH TO KNOW WHETHER IT REALLY MOVES, HAS NO OBJECTIVE EXISTENCE … THE TWO PROPOSITIONS:

“the earth turns around” and “it’s more convenient to suppose the earth turns around” have the same meaning; there is nothing more in the one than in the other.

Henri Poincare, Science & Hypothesis; p116-117.

It may be convenient for certain purposes to regard the earth as the centre; but nothing can oblige us to do so. No part of the universe- Earth, Sun, or anything else- has any unique right to be called the ‘centre.’ Observed motions are all relative, and it is a matter of decision what point in the universe is to be selected as the central origin of reference.

So the view that the earth is moving is just as admissible as the view that it is at rest.

Toulmin, S. & Goodfield, J.-1961- The Fabric of the Heavens- p169

From the point of view of modern science… there is no absolute frame of reference, only frames which are more or less convenient to use for the purpose at hand. A geocentric frame is useful for everyday activities … while a heliocentric frame is [useful] for solar-system mechanics …

Wikipedia- Geocentric Model

Motion is change in position; it is clear, however, that it cannot be observed unless it is a change in position relative to a certain body and not relative to an ideal space point. Is it meaningful, under these circumstances, to speak of absolute motion or of motion relative to space, if motion relative to other bodies only can be observed?

According to this principle there exists only a motion of bodies relative to other bodies, and it is impossible to distinguish one of these bodies as being at rest, because rest means nothing but rest relative to another body, i.e.

rest is itself a relative concept.

Hans Reichenbach- Philosophy of Space and Time- p210

In The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928) by Hans Reichenbach, a disciple of Einstein (at the University of Berlin, where Einstein first taught relativity), he demonstrates that all the following concepts are clearly shown possible from a scientific point of view:

1. The earth stands still and the sun revolves around it,

2. The sun stands still and the earth revolves around it,

3. Both are revolving around a certain point.

There is no way to prove which of the above is correct or preferable.

In the second century BCE, Ptolemy perfected Aristotle’s construction of how the sun and the planets revolve around the Earth in circular orbits with additional rotation around certain points on these orbits. About 1600 years later, Nicholas Copernicus made a revolution in astronomy by describing the Earth as going around the sun. A little later, Johannes Kepler described the orbits as elliptical, and by a century after that, Isaac Newton had reinforced this picture with his law of gravitation. In the 20th Century, Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity eliminated the idea of absolute space and absolute movement.

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From the article “Scientific theory”:

Description and prediction

Echoing the philosopher Karl Popper, Stephen Hawking in A Brief History of Time states, “A theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements: It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations.” He goes on to state, “Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis; you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory.” The “unprovable but falsifiable” nature of theories is a consequence of the necessity of using inductive logic.

Assumptions to formulate a theory

…something accepted without proof, and it is incorrect to speak of an assumption as either true or false, since there is no way of proving it to be either (If there were, it would no longer be an assumption). It is better to consider assumptions as either useful or useless, depending on whether deductions made from them corresponded to reality. … On the other hand, it seems obvious that assumptions are the weak points in any argument, as they have to be accepted on faith in a philosophy of science that prides itself on its rationalism. Since we must start somewhere, we must have assumptions, but at least let us have as few assumptions as possible.

Example: Special Theory of Relativity

Pashuteh Yid,

“Chazal did not know the science of today.”

There is no reason to believe the “science of today” is entirely correct and will not be refuted by future scientists, just as past science has been refuted by current scientists.

“Had Chazal known the science of today, why didn’t they build an atomic bomb and drop it on Rome.”

If nothing else, because the RBS’O wanted the Beis Hamikdash to be destroyed.

Regarding the new chochma in the world, mentioned in the Zohar, that is new to the Umos Hoalom, not to Chazal.

BTW this isn’t my scholarship. I haven’t been to Oxford, nor even the JTS collection in NY! (Nor found all these mekoros.) I merely pieced together in a post what others have found.

Yasher Koach for the last paragraph!

Pashuteh, Don’t know if it was my comment in the geirus thread, but how a ger particularly interacts with his former family is a specifically discussed halachic matter.