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creation of the universe are one in the same i love dr schroeder an engaging and fascinating figure and dynamic speaker who spoke in my former shul in michigan his work represents an important attempt to reconcile theology and scientific theory but his work isn t a work of fact neither is the big bang theory itself it s only a scientific theory with many possible difficulties that i personally don t understand read the real wikipedia article if you re interested a problem arises though when writers and thinkers confuse theory and argument with fact and write as if the big bang theory and creation are one and the same in a recent piece that appeared on the jewish ideas daily website michael carasik who i don t know but is described as the creator of the commentators bible and of the torah talk podcast who teaches at the university of pennsylvania opens his torah piece the end of the torah writing the torah begins with a bang the big bang the creation of the universe but it ends with a whimper albeit a whimper concealed by a very loud noise of another kind the piece concludes similarly literarily the torah ends as it began invoking the historical story of the jewish people in a cosmic frame the big bang of genesis 1 distracts us from the silent mystery of the instant before creation if that is indeed a theologically or scientifically possible moment at all personally i don t find the piece all that compelling and wouldn t have written about it but carasik s casual intermingling of the big bang with creation does trouble me i have no issue with modern attempts to rectify science and theology yet we must always remain cognizant of the fact that these represent attempts to reconcile theories nothing more and nothing less we make these attempts in an effort to accept seemingly contradictory theories when science tells us one thing and religion another how indeed can the universe be the product of a billions year old explosion when the torah tells us that god created the world several thousands years ago good question we can either reject science not a good option in my view reject religion a far worse option or try to find some way to merge the two as dr schroeder does but when we begin to refer to these efforts as facts we endanger our faith by equating the two systems with each other i ll explain a torah jew accepts axioms of faith creation is a pretty important one upon which every other religious tenet rests these principles are by definition eternal they do not and will not change science finds itself under no such restrictions it creates theories based on observations and rejects them when new observations cannot be reconciled with those theories a scientist cannot hold eternal scientific truths she can only believe what she can see right now and must reject a theory no matter how ingrained when it can no longer be proven even this year scientists have questioned the holy of holies of theories einstein s theory of relativity based on recent experiments allowing ourselves to identify a religious doctrine with a certain scientific theory creates two problems first and foremost it equates two very different systems of belief one eternal and unchanging and the other in constant flux by definition this cheapens the strength of our belief and faith until we feel comfortable shifting religious philosophy and tenets of faith as we would an antiquated scientific theory and on a more practical level what happens when science comes up with a new theory to replace the big bang which better matches new observations from even more powerful technology do we then say that creation was wrong as well after all weren t creation and the big bang one and the same am i making too much out of a pithy literary attempt to frame a torah piece on a popular website perhaps but meshing theology and science is always a dangerous game which requires a very delicate touch as we read bereishit yet again this week and return once again to the mystery of creation let us commit ourselves to accept our own limitations and realize that the creation story isn t a scientific text nor should it be underlying any attempt to reconcile science and faith must be a firm commitment to our religious beliefs scientific theories come and scientific theories go today the big bang is an important astronomy theory and tomorrow it will just be a bad sitcom from the early 21st century but our faith in god whether we can accurately explain how he created the world remains absolute posted in beraishit torah and science leave a reply kayin s canine companion posted on october 19 2011 by rspolter reply can you believe the name of this place it s real i get a weekly parshah piece called netvort written by rabbi joshua hoffman this week he pointed out a midrash i hadn t heard before we all know that after kayin kills his brother and finds himself confronted by god he says to god גדול עווני מנשוא my sin is too great to bear bereishit 4 13 yet it s not altogether clear whether in this cryptic statement kayin fesses up to his heinous act and his statement represents a declaration of repentance or whether he rejects god s wrath telling him sorry it s all too much for me to worry about god not my problem i think it s the latter but it s a huge machloket in any case god responds that whoever kills kayin will be punished seven fold verse 15 and god gives a sign to kayin to protect him what sign did god give kayin the midrash says אמר ר יהודה הזריח לו גלגל החמה א ר נחמיה לאותו רשע היה מזריח לו הקב ה גלגל החמה אלא מלמד שהזריח לו הצרעת רב אמר כלב מסר לו אבא יוסי בן קסרי אמר קרן הצמיח לו רב אמר עשאו אות לרצחנים רבי חנין אמר עשאו אות לבעלי תשובה בראשית רבה כ ב rabbi yehudah said god rose the sun for him rabbi nechemia said for that evil person would god have risen the sun rather it must mean that god shone upon him leprosy rav said that he gave him a dog abba yossi ben kisma said that he grew a horn upon him another rav said that he made him a sign for murderers rabbi chanin said that he made him a sign for ba alei teshuvah bereishit rabbah 22 clearly the rabbis in the midrash themselves couldn t agree whether kayin had repented and interpreted the sign that god gave kayin in light of how they viewed his declaration if they felt that he did repent he got the sunrise or a sign for ba alei teshuvah whatever that was if not he got leprosy or a horn was he then the first humacorn get it human unicorn in any case what about the dog was it a sign of his repentance or of his refusal to repent rabbi hoffman notes that ramban who quotes the midrash sees the dog as a sign of kayin s repentance as the dog would now serve to guide him away from any dangerous animals looking to kill him i ve got my doubts despite our current infatuation with dogs as pets chazal as well as the torah didn t see dogs in a very positive light think of the dog references in the torah what do we do with treif meat we throw it to the dog when is chametz no longer forbidden when it s no longer ra ui l achilat kelev edible by a dog the lowest of animals i guess then if you re a dog owner you d have to agree with ramban and see the dog as a gift but if you re not kayin s dog might be more of a punishment than a gift posted in beraishit leave a reply an unusual tiyyul and praying for rain posted on october 18 2011 by rspolter reply reading one of the weekly alonim parshah sheets but they re really more like booklets in shul called matzav haruach i noticed the pictured advertisement for an unusual and fascinating tour of a matash that s a hebrew acronym for מפעל טיפול שמרים which is a nice way of saying sewage treatment plant i often write in another forum about israeli efforts involving ecology and the environment so i d heard about advances in this area and if you look at the ad carefully the price was right read here free so off we went that s right yesterday we took a fascinating tour of the jerusalem municipality s sewage treatment plant what exactly do they do with the sewage that you flush down the toilet well after they clean it they send it right back down the river not to worry you don t drink it did you know that 98 percent of raw sewage is water i didn t but do now well up until not too long ago that raw sewage just flowed out of the city and into nachal sorek literally mucking up the environment at some point people came to their senses and realized just how disgusting and environmentally destructive that is and they built the sewage treatment plants at the plant the sewage is filtered about three times first for solids and then twice for sediment and fats the sediment is then biologically treated with enzymes and bacteria which produces methane gas see the big gold dome in the picture which is converted into electricity and sold back to the power grid the sediment itself is then sold to farmers as fertilizer water leaving the sewage plant the water after being filtered a third time and biologically cleaned with whatever enzymes they use it s sent down the wadi into a system of man made lakes that are then piped through the country for agricultural use you might have noticed purple pipes in parks or near fields and a sign that says irrigation water do not drink that s essentially treated sewage water this water source is critical for israel s continued growth and prosperity there s already a well known water shortage in israel my guide wasn t a big fan of the desalination plants either imagine if the entire agriculture industry used tap water instead of treated sewage water think of how low the kineret would be then think empty without reusing our sewage we would either not have crops or not be able to shower or possibly both i found the tour both informative and fascinating some interesting facts emerged down the river it flows clean sort of 1 the reason that you can t drink the sewage water isn t because of biological agents biologically the water is clean but they don t get out either soap or salt so don t drink it 2 most streams in israel are either raw sewage i wouldn t hike in a wadi between yerushalayim and ein gedi if i were you you can thank the palestinians for that who d rather allow untreated sewage to flow into the environment than allow israel to build a modern plant or treated water either way don t drink it unless you know that it s natural rainwater flow think way up north 3 we think that heavy rains are great for the country while this might be true in northern areas that flow into the kinneret and other water aquifers it s not true about rain over much of the country too much rain is never good for the system rainwater flows into the sewage system and literally overflows the machinery all they can do is let the sewage flow through and hope that not too much gets downriver this fact reminded me of the famous story see ta anit 3 8 of choni hame agel מעשה שאמרו לו לחוני המעגל התפלל שיירדו גשמים אמר להם צאו והכניסו תנורי פסחים בשביל שלא יימוקו התפלל ולא ירדו גשמים עג עוגה ועמד בתוכה ואמר רבונו של עולם בניך שמו פניהם עליי שאני כבן בית לפניך נשבע אני בשמך הגדול שאיני זז מכאן עד שתרחם על בניך התחילו הגשמים מנטפים אמר לא כך שאלתי אלא גשמי בורות שיחין ומערות ירדו בזעף אמר לא כך שאלתי אלא גשמי רצון ברכה ונדבה once they told choni hame agel pray that the rain should fall he said to them go and bring your pesach ovens indoors so that they don t get ruined in the rain he prayed yet no rain fell he drew a circle stood inside it and said master of the world your children turned to you for i am like a member of your household i swear in your great name that i will not move from this spot until you have compassion upon your children it began to drizzle and choni said this is not what i requested rather i want rains that will fill wells cisterns and caves the rains fell with wrath and he said this too is not what i requested rather i want rains of blessing and benevolence choni understood that when it rains too hard that s also not a symbol of blessing great downpours overwhelm the fields and wash away into the ocean without sinking into the underground cisterns and they even overwhelm the sewage system washing the sewage down the wadi without having a chance to treat the water so when we pray for rain this week we shouldn t just pray for a lot of rain we do need the rain in great quantities but we also need it in a smooth steady stream so that we can collect the water treat it properly and use it to generate life and blessing in the holy land posted in life in israel things to do in israel leave a reply have more children an old piece from the detroit jewish news posted on october 17 2011 by rspolter 1 a former congregant and friend from michigan is now the editor of red thread magazine a jewish venture seemingly focusing on a youngish jewish demographic perusing the magazine s website i came across an article the price of progeny describing the parental dillemma of exactly how many children to have and the advice of a new jersey based therapist to carefully consider the question of how many children to have and their effect on one s marriage it s a sobering piece and certainly one cannot ignore the statistics and the good doctor s research but while the question of how many children to have should certainly include questions of marital and financial health the article failed to include an important additional factor that jews should consider in this perplexing question faith put simply it s a mitzvah to have children and a greater mitzvah to have more children then i remembered that i wrote about this once in my parshah column in the detroit jewish news so i m sharing with you the article i wrote back then and hope to share more in the future this piece first appeared back in 5763 2003 building the world one child at a time i don t need to tell you that we as a jewish population are not growing as we should be while the jewish population in 1970 was somewhere close to six million we re still hovering around that six million mark more than thirty years later why it s a rather complex question but i can think of two pressing reasons first and foremost intermarriage carves a devastating chunk out of the jewish population pie but there s an equally obvious reason that we don t have federation studies and synagogue initiatives to counteract american jews simply aren t having enough children quick what s the first mitzvah in the torah to believe in god close but not really no it must be the ten commandments right actually wrong again the very first mitzvah in the torah commands us to have children a lot of them the torah tells us god blessed them adam and eve and god said to them be fruitful and multiply fill the earth and subdue it be fruitful and multiply to me that sounds like much more than the 1 6 children americans and most american jews have nowadays in fact not only is it a blessing it s an imperative a mitzvah a commandment the chinuch in listing the commandment to be fruitful and multiply explains that ...