A Tisha B'Av wake-up call from Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis. Esther Jungreis was eight years old when, as an inmate of the Bergen Belsen concentration camp, starved and humiliated, she would hear the daily shouts of the Nazi officers: "Line up, you Yudishe shwinehunt [pig-dogs]!"
And, as she obeyed their commands, little Esther would think: "I'm glad I'm a daughter of the people who stood at Sinai and sealed a covenant with God to be his eternal people and live by his Torah. I'm glad I'm not a daughter of this nation of brutes."
"The atmosphere in Europe today is just like it was in 1938. In every country I went to, Jews told me that they are afraid." This summer, Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis, one of the most charismatic speakers in the Jewish world, did a speaking tour of Europe. "I'm sorry to tell you," she declared last week in a Jerusalem interview, "that the atmosphere in Europe today is just like it was in 1938. In every country I went to, Jews told me that they are afraid, that they are experiencing virulent anti-Semitism."
Her words are underscored by last week's judicial verdicts in France of the Muslim thugs who tortured Ilan Halimi to death because, in the words of the gang leader, "he was Jewish." Most of the co-defendants got off with such light sentences that France's Minister of Justice was embarrassed into calling a retrial. But perhaps even more ominous was the audacious statement of the French prosecutor, who accused the defendants of turning "normal anti-Semitism into hateful anti-Semitism." What, indeed, defines the line between "normal" (therefore ostensibly acceptable) anti-Semitism and the "hateful" variety? Had his Muslim attackers killed Ilan without torturing him for 24 days, would that have been acceptable in 21st century France?
"Europe is becoming Eurabia," Rebbetzin Jungreis avows. "The continent is being dominated by radical Muslims who are vehemently anti-Israel. And," she cautions, "anti-Israel means anti-Jewish. It's politically correct today to be anti-Israel or anti-Zionist, rather than anti-Semitic. But if anyone has any doubts about the intentions of radical Islamists, just remember Daniel Pearl. He was not a settler, nor an Israeli, nor even actively involved in Judaism. In fact, he was married to a non-Jew. What was his crime? What his murderers made him say before they decapitated him: ‘I am a Jew.'"
The word "afraid" cannot be applied to this petite powerhouse of a woman, who at age 73 can speak on four different continents in a week and whose teaching, writing, and counseling schedule, on less than three hours of sleep a night, would wear out a person half her age. Yet, as a Holocaust survivor, Rebbetzin Jungreis is clearly troubled by a sense of déjà-vu as she regards a world silent in the face of rising anti-Semitism.
"Before and during the Holocaust, there was not one nation who spoke up for us. And today there is not one nation speaking up for us. The whole world is negotiating with despicable dictators. The more vicious the Muslim nations become, the more olive branches are thrown at their feet, and the more pressure is placed upon Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East. This pressure emanates not only from traditional anti-Semitic sources, but from our American government as well. The concessions that Washington demands of Israel are nothing short of suicidal. And yet, very few seem to care. Additionally, the administration has given the green light to Iran's nuclear power program, provided, of course, it is used only for peaceful purposes! If it weren't so tragic, it would be laughable. Don't they realize that we....nay, the entire world, heard Ahmadinejad openly proclaim his intention to wipe Israel off the map?"
The Iranian dictator's canards differed from Hitler's similar diatribes only by replacing the title "Juden" with "Zionists." Rebbetzin Jungreis cites Ahmadinejad's September, 2008, speech to the United Nations General Assembly, in which he proclaimed: "The dignity, integrity and rights of the American and European people are being played with by a small but deceitful number of people called Zionists. Although they are a miniscule minority, they have been dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers as well as the political decision-making centers of some European countries and the US in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner... This means that the great people of America and various nations of Europe need to obey the demands and wishes of a small number of acquisitive and invasive people. These nations are spending their dignity and resources on the crimes and occupations and the threats of the Zionist network against their will."
Although the Iranian dictator's canards differed from Hitler's similar diatribes only by replacing the title "Juden" with "Zionists," not one member nation of the United Nations (except Israel) walked out of Ahmadinejad's speech. In fact, points out Rebbetzin Jungreis, Columbia University invited Ahmadinejad to speak. "Can you imagine inviting Hitler to speak at Columbia University?" she asks ruefully.
The very night following his U.N. invective, Ahmadinejad appeared on Larry King Live. Rather than challenging Ahmadinejad's accusations, Larry King (himself a Jew) amiably asked his guest, "How old are you? You look so young, but you already have married children." Rebbetzin Jungreis, her voice soft but her eyes flashing fire, declares: "I would have asked him some very different questions."
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
If you were a Jew in Europe in March, 1939, and somehow, magically, you knew all the horrors that were about to be perpetrated against Europe's Jews—the ghettoes, the starvation, the cattle cars, the concentration camps, the gas chambers, the death marches--, what would you do to stop it?
This was the question I recently asked a group of American college students being primed for leadership in the Jewish community. One woman raised her hand and answered, "I would alert world leaders."
I replied: "The world leader who was most sympathetic to the Jews was FDR, but as late as 1944, when he knew the worst, even FDR, as we now know, refused to bomb the train tracks to Auschwitz, an act that would have saved hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews." I turned to the group and asked: "How many of you think that the Jews could have been saved by alerting world leaders?" Not a single hand went up.
I invited other suggestions, and a young man offered: "There were mercenary armies in those days. I would have used Jewish money to hire a mercenary army to defend us."
"A mercenary army? Not a single standing army in Europe could defeat Hitler's juggernaut. How many of you think that the Jews could have been saved by a mercenary army?" Not a single hand went up.
"I would have warned the Jews of Europe to flee," a young woman suggested.
"To where?" I asked. "We all know that not a single country in the world, including the United States, was willing to take Jews who could still get out of Germany in 1938. Besides, numerous accounts attest that the Jews who were warned by those who escaped from cattle cars and death camps simply refused to believe that it was possible, in the 20th century, in enlightened Europe, for Jewish men, women, and children to be murdered in factories of death. As we continue to see today, the Jewish capacity for self-deception as to the intentions of our enemies is limitless."
The college students sat there silently, looking grim.
We had just viewed a clip from "The Third Jihad," a documentary about the dangers of militant Islam. "I wasn't really asking you how you could have prevented the Holocaust," I explained. "Really, I was asking you how you'll prevent the next holocaust. Is there anyone here who thinks that diplomatic or military solutions can save the six million Jews of Israel who will imminently face an Iranian nuclear bomb?"
The group was silent.
REBBETZIN JUNGREIS'S SOLUTION
The approaching fast day of Tisha B'Av commemorates the core tragedy of Jewish history: the destruction of the First and Second Holy Temples in Jerusalem. Not only was Tisha B'Av a spiritual tragedy, for the Divine Presence retreated into the inaccessibility we all experience, but also all of the physical tragedies of the 2,000-year exile, all of the Inquisitions, Crusades, pogroms, and holocausts issue from the calamity of Tisha B'Av.
The sages of the Talmud posed a curious question: What caused the Temple's destruction? These sages were chronologically as close to the destruction of the Temple as we are to the Holocaust -- a single generation. They all knew that the Romans had set fire to the Temple. Yet, they understood that whatever befalls the Jewish People is determined by God in response to our own actions. Thus the sages famously concluded that the Temple was destroyed because of our spiritual failure, because of sinat chinam, baseless hatred among Jews.
A loving father will discipline his child when he has to -- not out of anger, but out of genuine care for what's best for the child." Likewise, Rebbetzin Jungreis points to a spiritual solution for our dire predicament. When asked how Jews today can use the rising anti-Semitism to embrace their Judaism instead of running away from it, Rebbetzin Jungreis replies: "If a Jew tries to escape his covenant with God, then God takes out wanted ads in all the newspapers: ‘WANTED: ANTI-SEMITES TO REMIND MY PEOPLE WHO THEY ARE.' And unfortunately there are always millions of volunteers. In every country, wherever you go, you will find anti-Semitism. No matter what a Jew does, his obligation to the Covenant will pursue him. Many Jews in Hungary before World War II had converted to Christianity. When we were being shoved in the cattle cars a woman was screaming to the Nazi guard, 'I'm not a Jew!' He just pushed her with his rifle butt into the cattle car."
"God is not punitive; He's corrective," Rebbetzin Jungreis explains. "A loving father will discipline his child when he has to -- not out of anger, but out of genuine care for what's best for the child. God is our loving Father. We are experiencing the tragedy of a nation that has forgotten who they are, so God uses anti-Semitism to remind us."
She illustrates with a searing example: According to the Talmud, one of the reasons God saved us from bondage in ancient Egypt was that we didn't change our Hebrew names. "Fast forward," Rebbetzin Jungreis declares, pointing out that in Germany before the War assimilation and intermarriage were rampant. Most Jews forgot about Hebrew names. They became Otto and Eva. Then, in 1938, Hitler passed the Nuremberg Laws. One of those laws demanded that all Jews must assume a Jewish name, that every Jewish man must add the name "Israel" and every Jewish woman must add the name "Sarah." Thus, if a Jew's name was Otto Schwartzbaum, he had to become Otto Israel Schwartzbaum. Jews had forgotten who they were, but Hitler reminded them.
"Jews had forgotten who they were, but Hitler reminded them." "Fast forward to 2009," Rebbetzin Jungreis says. "When I speak on college campuses, I give out my books gratis, and I inscribe each book to the recipient. I ask each student, ‘What is your Jewish name?' Most of them reply, "I don't know.' I tell them, ‘You have to find out your Jewish name.' If they don't have a Jewish name, I tell them to go to their rabbi and ask for a Jewish name, or I give them a Jewish name. Because your Jewish name is not simply a name. Your Jewish name is your roots, your heritage, your identity. Through your Jewish name you are linked to your life's mission."
A few years ago, she was invited to meet with ministers of the Hungarian parliament. One of the ministers asked her: "Are you angry?"
Rebbetzin Jungreis inquired, "What do you mean?"
The minister explained: "During the Holocaust, this same Hungarian parliament passed all those anti-Semitic laws."
The Rebbetzin replied: "We are not a nation that indulges in anger. But let me tell you a story. My ancestors in ancient Egypt suffered slavery and degradation. If you had asked who has the greater chance of surviving the millennia, the Israelite slaves or the Egyptian empire, everyone would have laughed at you. But all that is left of the Egyptian empire is relics in the British Museum, and we, the Jewish People, are still here. And this holds true for all the mighty empires of the world, from the Babylonians to the Romans. The great Roman Empire killed hundreds of thousands of Jews. The Emperor Titus built a victory arch in Rome to commemorate the conquest of the Jews. I moved through the Arch of Titus going from Hitler's concentration camps on our way to freedom. Hitler claimed to give the world ‘the final solution.' He even built a museum in Prague to exhibit the artifacts of the extinct Jewish people. But his ‘thousand-year Reich' survived 12 years, and we Jews are still here."
Jewish survival, explains Rebbetzin Jungreis, is God's part of the Covenant. Our part is to keep the Torah's commandments.
"If we would only allow a moment of truth to illuminate our hearts," grieves Rebbetzin Jungreis, "we would readily concede our pitiful state. Just consider that we, the nation that taught a pagan world about God, we, the nation that introduced the language of prayer to humanity, we, the nation that has lent meaning to the concept of faith and trust, has forgotten how to turn to God, how to trust Him, how to have faith in Him."
With obvious pain, she quotes a recent article in the New York Times. The article maintained that in these depressed economic times people cannot afford to go to psychotherapists, so instead they go to their religious counselors. A Muslim businesswoman interviewed by the journalist complained that it's difficult to find a good place to pray five times a day when she's in the business world. A Catholic woman complained that the sexual mores of the Church are very restrictive. What was the complaint of the Jewish woman? She finds it very stressful to have a Jewish last name and to be identified with Israel. So she assures her date that she eats pork and that Israel has nothing to do with her. "What has become of us?" laments Rebbetzin Jungreis. "God looks upon His children and weeps."
Rebbetzin Jungreis ends on a powerful note:
"Hitler needed ghettos. I know. I was in one.
"Hitler needed cattle cars. I know. I was in one.
"Hitler needed concentration camps. I know. I was in one.
"Hitler needed gas chambers. I know. I was in one, although that time it sprayed water instead of gas.
"Ahmadinejad doesn't need ghettos, nor cattle cars, nor concentration camps, nor gas chambers. He can accomplish the same thing just by pressing a button. Heaven forbid!"
What will you do to stop him?
Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis is the founder and president of Hineni, and author of four best-selling books: Jewish Soul on Fire, The Committed Life, The Committed Marriage, and Life Is A Test. For Rebbetzin Jungreis's schedule of appearances,click here.
This article can also be read at: http://www.aish.com/h/9av/aas/51471282.html
A few Parshas ago Moshe Rabbeinu was given his literal death sentence for hitting the rock in stead of talking to it for water. One interpretation of this is that Moshe had to change his nature and this was his last Nisayon or spiritual test. In Beresheit, Avraham Avinu was tested ten times climaxing with the biding of Yitzchak. What is the connection with these themes and my standing in the middle of Brooklyn, NY?
We are all being tested constantly by Hashem and instead of recoiling and running away from the challenge we should welcome it. We I first came back I felt like I was suffering from Shell shock. My raised height of sensitivity has grown to such a level that I've been caught off guard gazing at the bad sights all across the city from the Metropolitan Museum to Times Square. My mind, body and neshama have been feeling a certain disconnect since my feet hit the ground in the U.S. However I know that this is all the will of Hashem. Hashem wants me, and the rest of us, to be challenged and constantly shook up so that we could work on our middot, but also be able to sway outside of our comfort zones and our set nature. I'm not comparing myself to the cream of the Jewish crop, but we should all merit to want to be like them and constantly perfect ourselves and see nothing but the greatness of this world and the beauty Hashem bestowed upon it and us.
May we all merit to better ourselves no matter of the environment we are in. And always remember to keep learning and cleave ourselves to the Tzaddikim who are close in proximity. And if there are none then make yourself the man, as written in Pirkei Avot "Where there is no man you should stand and be the man."
Best from the dark side of the light,
Daniel Binyamin Cipriani
The Ohr HaChaim - Rav Chaim Ben Attar, Unotuchable In Life And Untouchable In DeathOn Motza'ei Shabbos 15 Tammuz 5503/1743 at the same time Rav Chaim ben Attar, better known by the name of his peirush on Chumash called Ohr HaChaim, was niftar in Yerushalayim, the Ba'al Shem Tov was washing for Seudah Shlishis and commented to his talmidim, "The Ner Maaravi has been extinguished." In Teveria at that same time Rav Chaim Abulafia fainted. When he woke up, he said that he accompanied the Ohr HaChaim to the gates of Gan Eden.
When Har HaZeisim fell into the hands of the Jordanians after 1948, they started to build a road through the Bais HaKvaros. When the tractor came to the kever of the Ohr Hachaim it broke down and nothing could start it again. The next day they brought in a new tractor to clear the path. As soon the tractor touched the kever it overturned and tumbled into the valley killing the driver. After that the plans were halted and a road was built higher on the mountain. The beginning of earlier road is still visible today.
The Ohr HaChaim was born in Sali, Morocco in 5456/1696 into a wealthy family. As he grew so did his torah and yiras shamayim and he eventually opened up his own yeshiva. His life was not ideal as he was targeted by the government and thrown into jail on more than one occasion became accused falsely of things that he had no part in. One time he was even thrown into the lions den and came out unharmed.
His earliest works, chidushim on Shas called Chefetz Hashem, were published in Amsterdam in 1732. He fled Morocco forever in 1738 after hunger ravaged the population and the survivors all fled. It was at this time that Rav Chaim decided to emigrate to Eretz Yisroel and open a Yeshiva in Yerushalayim. The journey lasted a long time and took him through Italy where he published his famous work the Ohr HaChaim in 1741. Another famous work that he wrote is the Pri To'ar on Yoreh Dei'a.
In Elul 5501/1741 he reached the shores of Eretz Yisroel but could not travel to Yerushalayim because of a plague rampant the city. Only a full year later did the Ohr HaChaim realize his dream and open a yeshiva in the Ir HaKodesh. His happiness knew no bounds. In his yeshiva learned two future gedolim the Chida and the Maharit Algazi. Sadly this dream only lasted one year as the Ohr HaChaim was niftar on 15 Tammuz 5503/1943, at the young age of 47. Yehi Zichro Boruch! (See also Kedoshim Asher BaAretz)from Revach.org
From the straits I call G-d; He answers me with the expanse of the Divine
Psalms 118:5[1]
"Between the strictures"[2] is the prophet Jeremiah’s description of the period between the 17th of Tammuz, the day the walls of Jerusalem were breached, and the 9th of Av, when the Holy Temple was destroyed and the exile of Israel commenced. To date, these two days are observed as days of fasting, and the three-week "strait" between them as a period of mourning and repentance.
The narrow strait, however, is not a roadblock; on the contrary, it is a mechanism for increased productivity. Hydraulic power plants, rockets and garden hoses employ it to squeeze a greater degree of power and velocity from the element they constrain. The shofar, sounded to waken man to repentance, is also such a device, its narrow mouth-end pinching the stream of air expelled from the blower’s lungs into the piercing note that emerges from its wide, upward-sweeping end.
The same is true of the strictures of Tammuz 17 and Av 9 and the two thousand years of physical exile and spiritual darkness they mourn. Twenty centuries of suppression have wrenched the Jewish soul through the funnel of exile, revealing its deepest convictions and provoking its highest potentials. From these terrible straits we have never ceased to seek G-d, and it is this seeking that will yield the "Divine expanse" of ultimate redemption and the perfect world of the messianic age.
"On that day," proclaims the prophet, "the great shofar will be sounded. And they will come, those lost in the land of Assyria and those forsaken in the land of Egypt,[3] and bow before G-d on the Holy mountain, Jerusalem."[4] On that day, the goodness and perfection of G-d’s creation will burst through the straits of concealment and blossom into unconstrained realization.
[1]. Recited before the sounding of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah.
[2]. Lamentations 1:3; see Midrash Rabbah on verse.
[3]. The Hebrew Eretz Mitzrayim (Land of Egypt) literally translates as "the land of the strictures."
[4]. Isaiah 27:13
from Chabad.org
According to growing numbers of scientists, the laws and constants of nature are so “finely-tuned,” and so many “coincidences” have occurred to allow for the possibility of life, the universe must have come into existence through intentional planning and intelligence. In fact, this “fine-tuning” is so pronounced, and the “coincidences” are so numerous, many scientists have come to espouse The Anthropic Principle, which contends that the universe was brought into existence intentionally for the sake of producing mankind.
Even those who do not accept The Anthropic Principle admit to the “fine-tuning” and conclude that the universe is “too contrived” to be a chance event.
In a BBC science documentary, “The Anthropic Principle,” some of the greatest scientific minds of our day describe the recent findings which compel this conclusion.
Dr. Dennis Scania, the distinguished head of Cambridge University Observatories:
If you change a little bit the laws of nature, or you change a little bit the constants of nature—like the charge on the electron—then the way the universe develops is so changed, it is very likely that intelligent life would not have been able to develop.
Dr. David D. Deutsch, Institute of Mathematics, Oxford University:
If we nudge one of these constants just a few percent in one direction, stars burn out within a million years of their formation, and there is no time for evolution. If we nudge it a few percent in the other direction, then no elements heavier than helium form. No carbon, no life. Not even any chemistry. No complexity at all.
Dr. Paul Davies, noted author and professor of theoretical physics at Adelaide University:
“The really amazing thing is not that life on Earth is balanced on a knife-edge, but that the entire universe is balanced on a knife-edge, and would be total chaos if any of the natural ‘constants’ were off even slightly. You see,” Davies adds, “even if you dismiss man as a chance happening, the fact remains that the universe seems unreasonably suited to the existence of life—almost contrived—you might say a ‘put-up job’.”
According to the latest scientific thinking, the matter of the universe originated in a huge explosion of energy called “The Big Bang.” At first, the universe was only hydrogen and helium, which congealed into stars. Subsequently, all the other elements were manufactured inside the stars. The four most abundant elements in the universe are: hydrogen, helium, oxygen and carbon.
When Sir Fred Hoyle was researching how carbon came to be, in the “blast-furnaces” of the stars, his calculations indicated that it is very difficult to explain how the stars generated the necessary quantity of carbon upon which life on earth depends. Hoyle found that there were numerous “fortunate” one-time occurrences which seemed to indicate that purposeful “adjustments” had been made in the laws of physics and chemistry in order to produce the necessary carbon.
Hoyle sums up his findings as follows:
A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintendent has monkeyed with the physics, as well as chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. I do not believe that any physicist who examined the evidence could fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce within stars.
Adds Dr. David D. Deutch:
If anyone claims not to be surprised by the special features that the universe has, he is hiding his head in the sand. These special features ARE surprising and unlikely.
UNIVERSAL ACCEPTANCE OF FINE-TUNING Besides the BBC video, the scientific establishment’s most prestigious journals, and its most famous physicists and cosmologists, have all gone on record as recognizing the objective truth of the fine-tuning.
The August ‘97 issue of “Science” (the most prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journal in the United States) featured an article entitled “Science and God: A Warming Trend?” Here is an excerpt:
The fact that the universe exhibits many features that foster organic life—such as precisely those physical constants that result in planets and long-lived stars—also has led some scientists to speculate that some divine influence may be present.
In his best-selling book, “A Brief History of Time”, Stephen Hawking (perhaps the world’s most famous cosmologist) refers to the phenomenon as “remarkable.”
“The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers (i.e. the constants of physics) seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life”. “For example,” Hawking writes, “if the electric charge of the electron had been only slightly different, stars would have been unable to burn hydrogen and helium, or else they would not have exploded. It seems clear that there are relatively few ranges of values for the numbers (for the constants) that would allow for development of any form of intelligent life. Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty.”
Hawking then goes on to say that he can appreciate taking this as possible evidence of “a divine purpose in Creation and the choice of the laws of science (by God)” (ibid. p. 125). Dr. Gerald Schroeder, author of “Genesis and the Big Bang” and “The Science of Life” was formerly with the M.I.T. physics department. He adds the following examples:
1) Professor Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in high energy physics (a field of science that deals with the very early universe), writing in the journal “Scientific American”, reflects on
how surprising it is that the laws of nature and the initial conditions of the universe should allow for the existence of beings who could observe it. Life as we know it would be impossible if any one of several physical quantities had slightly different values.
Although Weinberg is a self-described agnostic, he cannot but be astounded by the extent of the fine-tuning. He goes on to describe how a beryllium isotope having the minuscule half life of 0.0000000000000001 seconds must find and absorb a helium nucleus in that split of time before decaying. This occurs only because of a totally unexpected, exquisitely precise, energy match between the two nuclei. If this did not occur there would be none of the heavier elements. No carbon, no nitrogen, no life. Our universe would be composed of hydrogen and helium. But this is not the end of Professor Weinberg’s wonder at our well-tuned universe. He continues:
One constant does seem to require an incredible fine-tuning—The existence of life of any kind seems to require a cancellation between different contributions to the vacuum energy, accurate to about 120 decimal places.
This means that if the energies of the Big Bang were, in arbitrary units, not:
100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000,
but instead:
100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000001,
there would be no life of any sort in the entire universe because as Weinberg states:
the universe either would go through a complete cycle of expansion and contraction before life could arise, or would expand so rapidly that no galaxies or stars could form.
2) Michael Turner, the widely quoted astrophysicist at the University of Chicago and Fermilab, describes the fine-tuning of the universe with a simile:
The precision is as if one could throw a dart across the entire universe and hit a bulls eye one millimeter in diameter on the other side.
3) Roger Penrose, the Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, discovers that the likelihood of the universe having usable energy (low entropy) at the creation is even more astounding,
namely, an accuracy of one part out of ten to the power of ten to the power of 123. This is an extraordinary figure. One could not possibly even write the number down in full, in our ordinary denary (power of ten) notation: it would be one followed by ten to the power of 123 successive zeros! (That is a million billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion zeros.)
Penrose continues,
Even if we were to write a zero on each separate proton and on eachseparate neutron in the entire universe—and we could throw in all the other particles as well for good measure—we should fall far short of writing down the figure needed. The precision needed to set the universe on its course is to be in no way inferior to all that extraordinary precision that we have already become accustomed to in the superb dynamical equations (Newton’s, Maxwell’s, Einstein’s) which govern the behavior of things from moment to moment.
Cosmologists debate whether the space-time continuum is finite or infinite, bounded or unbounded. In all scenarios, the fine-tuning remains the same.
It is appropriate to complete this section on “fine tuning” with the eloquent words of Professor John Wheeler:
To my mind, there must be at the bottom of it all, not an utterly simple equation, but an utterly simple IDEA. And to me that idea, when we finally discover it, will be so compelling, and so inevitable, so beautiful, we will all say to each other, “How could it have ever been otherwise?”
See the full presentation of this and other themes on the 2001 Principle Website.
http://www.2001principle.net
Article Origin: The_Fine_Tuning_of_the_Universe
by Rabbi Mordechai Steinman
And G-d spoke to Moses, saying: "Pinchas, the son of Elazar, the son of Aaron the Kohen, turned away My wrath from the children of Israel with his zealotry for My sake... Therefore... I shall grant him My covenant of peace..."
Numbers 25:11-12
Pinchas' deed evokes many associations -- courage, decisiveness and religious passion are several that come to mind -- but peace hardly seems one of them. Pinchas, after all, killed two people. True, what he did was condoned by Torah law, and his doing so saved many lives; still, one does not usually think of homicide as a peaceful act.
As the Torah tells it (see Numbers, 25; Rashi, ibid; Talmud, Sanhedrin 81b-82b and 106a), the wicked prophet Balaam, having failed to undermine the people of Israel's special relationship with G-d by harping on their past sins, had an idea. "Their G-d abhors promiscuity," he said to Balak, the Moabite king who had hired him to place a curse on Israel. Corrupt them with the daughters of your realm, and you will provoke His wrath upon them.
This time Balaam succeeded. Many Jews, particularly from the tribe of Shimon, were enticed by the Midianite harlots who descended upon the Israelite camp in the Shittim valley, and were even induced to serve Baal Peor, the pagan god of their consorts. When tribunals were set up by Moses to try and punish the idolaters, Zimri, the leader of Shimon, sought to legitimize his tribe's sins by publicly taking a Midianite woman into his tent, before the eyes of Moses and the eyes of the entire community of Israel.
Moses and the nation's elders were at a loss as of what to do. Torah law does not provide for any conventional, court-induced punishment for such an offender. There is a law that gives license for "zealots to smite him," but this provision eluded Moses and the entire Jewish leadership. Only Pinchas remembered it, and had the fortitude to carry it through. He killed Zimri and the Midianite woman, stopping a plague that had begun to rage as the result of G-d's wrath against His people.
The Grandfather Issue
The Talmud, referring to G-d's opening words to Moses quoted above, asks: The Torah has already told us who Pinchas is, back in the sixth chapter of Exodus and again, but a few short verses before, in Numbers 25:7. Why does the Torah again refer to him as "Pinchas, the son of Elazar, the son of Aaron?"
Rashi, quoting the Talmud and Midrash, explains:
Because the tribes of Israel were mocking him, saying Have you seen this son of the fattener, whose mother's father fattened calves for idolatrous sacrifices, and now he goes and kills a prince in Israel?! Therefore, G-d traced his lineage to Aaron. (Pinchas' maternal grandfather was Jethro, who prior to his conversion to Judaism, was a pagan priest).
This explanation, however, seems to raise more questions than it answers:
(a) What set "the tribes of Israel" against Pinchas? The animosity of one tribe, the tribe of Shimon, would be understandable: he killed their leader and put an end to their pagan orgy. But why was he condemned by the entire community of Israel, most of whom were outraged by Zimri's act and were doubtless grateful for Pinchas' stopping the plague?
(b) Of what possible relevance is Jethro's past? If Pinchas acted wrongly, then he is guilty of much worse than having a grandfather who fattened calves for slaughter. "Murderer" would be a more apt epithet than "fattener's grandson." And if it was acknowledged that killing Zimri was the right thing to do, why was the young hero and savior of his people being mocked?
(c) If, for whatever reason, Pinchas is to be faulted because of Jethro's idolatrous past, why dwell on the fact that he "fattened calves for slaughter"? What about the fact that he was a pagan priest who (as the Midrash tells us) had served every idol in the world?
(d) Whatever the complaint against Pinchas was, how is it refuted by the fact that he was Aaron's grandson?
Who Is A Zealot?
The nature of Zimri's crime made his killing an extremely sensitive moral issue. On the one hand, the Torah deems what he did as deserving of death. On the other hand, it does not entrust the carrying out of the sentence to the normal judiciary process, ruling instead that "zealots should smite him." Who, then, qualifies as a zealot?
When a sentence is carried out after the due process of a trial and conviction, there is less of a need to dwell on the motives of the judges and executioner: they're going by the book, and we can check their behavior against the book. But the motives of the zealot who takes unilateral action are extremely important, for his very qualifications as a zealot hinge upon the question of what, exactly, prompted him to do what he did. Is he truly motivated to "still G-d's wrath", or has he found a holy outlet for his individual aggression? Is his act truly an act of peace, driven by the desire to reconcile an errant people with their G-d, or is it an act of violence, made kosher by the assumption of the label "zealot"?
The true zealot is an utterly selfless individual -- one who is concerned only about the relationship between G-d and His people, with no thought for his own feelings on the matter. The moment his personal prejudices and inclinations are involved, he ceases to be a zealot.
(This may be why the law that "zealots smite him" falls under the unique legal category of halachah v'ein morin kein, ""a law that is not instructed": if a would-be zealot comes to the court and inquires if he is permitted to kill the transgressor, he is not given license to do so (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Forbidden Relations, 12:5). Indeed, the very fact that he has come to ask disqualifies him -- someone who needs to ensure, in advance, that he is backed by the court, is no zealot. The true zealot has no thought for himself: not of his feelings on the matter, not of his personal safety, not even of the moral and spiritual implications of his act on his own self -- he doesn't even care if what he is doing is legal or not. He is simply determined to put an end to a situation that incurs the Divine wrath against Israel.)
Aaron's Grandson
According to this, the questions posed above answer each other.
The tribes of Israel knew that the case of Zimri warranted the law that "Zealots smite him." But they were skeptical of Pinchas' motivations. Why is it, they asked, that no one -- not Moses, not the elders, nor anyone in the entire leadership of Israel -- was moved to assume the role of zealot, save for Pinchas, "the youngest of the band"? Was Pinchas the most caring and selfless one of them all? Far more likely, said they, that what we have here is an angry young man who thinks he found a Torah-sanctioned outlet for his aggression.
A bit of digging around in the skeletons of Pinchas' family closet only reinforced their initial doubts. Of course, they said, look at his grandfather! Few professions are as inhumane as the fattening of calves for slaughter. The fact of Jethro's idolatry is not what is relevant here, but his nature and personality. Pinchas, the "tribes of Israel" reasoned, must have inherited his grandfather's natural cruelty, and proceeded to clothe it in the holy vestments of zealotry.
So G-d explicitly attached Pinchas' name to Aaron, the gentlest, most peace-loving man that Israel knew. Aaron, the "lover of peace and pursuer of peace, one who loves humanity and brings them close to Torah." In character and temperament, G-d was attesting, Pinchas takes after his other grandfather, Aaron. Not only is he not inclined to violence -- -it is the very antithesis of his natural temperament. Pinchas is a man of peace, who did what he did with the sole aim of "turning away My wrath from the children of Israel."
Two Hypocrites
This also explains the significance of another statement by Rashi. After emphasizing that Pinchas was Aaron's grandson, the Torah writes: "And the name of the smitten Israelite, who was smitten with the Midianite, was Zimri the son of Salu, a tribal prince of the Shimonites." On which Rashi comments, "On the same occasion that the righteous ones lineage was cited in praise, the wicked ones lineage was cited in detriment." But what detriment is there in Zimri's being a Shimonite prince?
Those who looked with a negative eye on Pinchas' motives, saw his cruelty even more strongly underscored when contrasted with the motives of the man he killed. Pinchas slew a man, while that man was engaged in an act of love; Pinchas was giving vent to his own violent passions, while Zimri acted out of a selfless concern for his constituents, putting his own life on the line (for surely he knew that some zealot might take it upon himself to kill him) to save his tribe through his bold attempt to legitimize their sins. If Pinchas did the right thing -- these critics were saying -- he did it for all the wrong reasons, while Zimri might have done a wrong thing, but was motivated by an altruistic love for his people.
G-d, who knows the heart of every man, spoke to dispel this distorted picture. Pinchas, He attested, inherited the peace-loving nature of his grandfather, while Zimri was every inch a descendent of Shimon, whom Jacob rebuked for his heated and violent nature. ("Cursed be their anger, it was fierce," said Jacob of Shimon and Levi, rebuking them for the massacre of Shechem and their plot against Joseph, "and their wrath, for it was cruel" -- Genesis 49:5.)
Indeed, the Talmud describes a hypocrite as one who "does the deeds of Zimri, and asks to be rewarded like Pinchas." Zimri's kindness was the ultimate hypocrisy: instead of fulfilling his role as the leader of his people by prevailing upon them to cease the behavior that was destroying them, he pursued the fulfillment of his own passions, without regard to the terrible consequences to their spiritual and physical well-being -- -all the while disguising his act as selfless and self-sacrificial. In contrast, Pinchas deed was "hypocritical" in the positive sense: ostensibly violent and cruel, but in truth a selfless act of peace.
from Chabad.org
from Aish.com
by Rabbi Yonason Goldson Sowing seeds of kindness and gratitude.
A number of years ago, when my wife was a stay-at-home mother, her daily schedule consisted entirely of dreaming up new forms of entertainment for our 2-year-old son and his 6-month-old sister. One fateful morning, a combination of desperation and inspiration brought a shout to my wife's lips as she gazed through the kitchen window: "Yitzie, the trash men are coming!" Our son, caught up in the excitement of the moment, raced for the garage door with a squeal not unlike the sound of the big truck's brakes.
Without a doubt, no one else in our town would be displaying any such enthusiasm. Our trash collectors are not revered for their social graces. Then again, I don't suppose I'd have a terribly pleasant disposition either if it were my job to remove other people's trash.
But if our automated robot-arm trash trucks provide a fitting symbol for our impersonal, mechanized world, they also provide small children with a captivating diversion as they lumber through their appointed rounds. My wife called our son as he toddled to the top of the driveway, "Yitzie, say thank you to the men for taking our garbage."
They stood frozen in their tracks, staring in wonder at the barefoot boy in diapers applauding them for their service. To the garbage men, the sight of a pint-sized boy with his hand rotating like a corkscrew shouting, "Tank 'oo! tank 'oo!" must have appeared comical. But we all desire recognition, and in all likelihood these overlooked public servants had traversed the same streets for months or years receiving only the rarest signs of appreciation for their labors. This time, they stood frozen in their tracks, staring in wonder at the barefoot boy in diapers applauding them for their service.
Greeting the garbage men became a weekly ritual, with our son eagerly awaiting their arrival every Wednesday morning at the kitchen window. During the summer, his 5-year-old brother and 7-year-old sister would stand beside him, also waving and intoning words of thanks, but without Yitzie's zeal and bubbling exuberance. And when the school year began, it was Yitzie by himself again, all smiles and salutations, waiting to shower greetings and accolades upon his loyal public servants at the foot of the driveway.
Within a few weeks, the trash men underwent a remarkable transformation, approaching our house with sparkling eyes, toothy grins, and their own shouts of "What's up big guy? How ya doin'?" The seeds of a few moments' diversion for a little boy seemed to have sprouted into the highlight of the week for a few humble workers. The world was a better place for the unassuming good will of a child.
Wednesday mornings eventually returned to normal, as Yitzie left home for elementary school and the trash men sank back into their unabated drudgery. For a while, my wife and I sadly recalled how easy it had been for an unassuming child to brighten his little corner of the world, to chase away skepticism, cynicism, and self-absorption of his elders. But even as we slipped back into our own routines, we tried not to forget the experience altogether.
The great sage Shammai, known best for his strict and uncompromising approach to Jewish law, also taught his followers to "receive every person with a pleasant countenance." We all want to be validated as human beings. We all know how a simple smile from a stranger can cheer up our day. And yet we so often wait for others to initiate when such a small investment yields returns vastly disproportionate to the effort and energy it requires.
This simple lesson of kindness and gratitude, so easily taught and learned, can be just as easily untaught and unlearned. But if it is planted deep enough in youth, if its roots are given a chance to grow strong and take hold, then -- like a garden of perennials cut back before the winter's frost -- it may force its shoots upward again until it bursts forth in the full blossom and beauty of adulthood to smile upon the world.
This article can also be read at: http://www.aish.com/sp/pg/49378832.html
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