A new idea and what is it…

Their ridiculous behavior is coherent on the level of faith and distorted on the level of science. The behavior of the questioner, assuming that his religion is coherent on the level of science but ridiculous on the level of faith. To accept that the act of Genesis is not as simple as it seems and the status of Mount Sinai is, is interpretive folly on the level of reading comprehension. On top of that, to internalize evolution and the billions of years of suffering of an impotent God who is unable to create a better world in less time, and at the same time to believe in a God revealed in fire who descends on a mountain and prophesies sixty thousand to keep the commandments, performs miracles for a thousand years and then disappears forever - this is science fiction that has no more hold than that of the Haredim, who at least rely on solid tradition. So the vile and pseudo-intellectual idea of the bloodless derives more from nationalism than from rationality. And indeed

On the contrary, evolution is founded on the principle of ‘natural selection’ according to which the Creator does not intervene in the war for existence and does not aid the weak and does not ‘save them from the stronger’. Intervention in favor of the weak is clearly immoral, since the entire development of the world comes through the process of ‘natural selection’ in which only the strong survive, the weak and the defective disappear from the world, so that the next generation will start from a healthier and stronger genetic starting point.

The whole point of medicine is the opposite. The doctor helps the weak and those whose genetics have not been kind to them to survive despite their natural weakness. The social and ethical concept that underlies medicine and its development is that a reformed society strives for the good of all. We will not throw the weak into the trash can so that they do not interfere, but rather we will strengthen and improve and thus, out of brotherhood and solidarity, the world will be perfected.

And behold, it is a wonder, science and medicine do not develop in the jungle, but rather in the modern welfare state!!

With blessings, Shim-Pan Zvi Levinger

The concept of a society obligated to care for the weak was developed to a large extent inspired by the Bible, which describes God as slow to anger and full of compassion, who, while being high and lofty, dwells with the humble and contrite in spirit. God says, “For I am the Heal you, and to man, who was created in our image, He commanded, “Heal and you will heal.” And it is not without reason that many of Israel’s great men were physicians.

On the uniqueness of the Torah from all ancient legal systems, in that it established helping the weak as a legal obligation of the first order, see the article by Professor Daniel Friedman, “And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt,” on the website Da’at.

Twenty years ago I was riding a bus and explaining to an ultra-Orthodox guy that the Four Elements theory, which is presented in the strong hand of the Laws of the Foundations of the Torah, has been scientifically refuted. Suddenly I heard a voice whispering, "All who enter the aya will not return" (or something like that), apparently to warn the ultra-Orthodox guy of the great threat to his soul. I had to get off so I didn't answer him, but after that I thought I should have told him that the Four Elements theory wouldn't build him a bus or cure him of diseases. So he should stop living a lie.

Gil,
I'll answer you here instead of in a discussion about monastic revelation (V.D. is the R.T of my first names). The difference between the Genesis account and the Mount Sinai status is that the Genesis account has been scientifically refuted much stronger than the Mount Sinai status. In fact, there is no scientific branch that does not refute the simplistic argument that the world was created 5778 years ago, starting with physics, chemistry, biology, geology, planetology, and so on (by the way, like in a computer game, this does not mean that the game is not played for 5778 years; it just seems to us as characters in the game that the world has existed a little longer). As for the status of Mount Sinai, the strongest thing that can be said about it is that it has no scientific proof. I will add that I believe that the issue will always be vague by its very nature. The distance between the Creator and creation will be such that any contact He has with the creatures will be vague. It is not for nothing that the sages said that Mount Horeb was named after him, who made the world a ruin (Meir Bozaglo in Language for the Faithful expands on this). Any contact of the Lord of the World with reality shocks reality itself. The only science that challenges the status of Mount Sinai is philology. God forbid that I should underestimate the science of philology, and yet it seems to me that this is not enough to challenge revelation. If Rabbi Michi (and also Ibn Ezra) can live with additions and changes, so can I. One great scholar I knew told me that in his thesis on language, he proved that the language in Deuteronomy belongs to a later stage than the language in the rest of the Pentateuch. Again, it is difficult for me to see what this proves.
So yes, there are difficulties and questions, but the story of the Mount Sinai situation is too significant and too strong for me to give up on it given such a weak set of evidence. What's more, the ambiguity of reality is already understood in the story, as many sages have noted.

Y.D., I would love to know why you accept the story of the Mount Sinai stand. It is true that it has no significant refutations (contrary to what you wrote, philology does not even pretend to refute it, but only says that there are several versions of the story) but the idea that I am a demon from Mars also has no refutations (not even purely philological ones!).

I thought about all the words that seem to be later changes and additions. Different versions don't bother me.

There's nothing wrong with me. You could really be a demon from Mars 🙂 .
You're asking a general question – Why be religious, the private aspect of which is why accept the story of the Mount Sinai status?
If I've decided privately that I'm a religious person who believes in God as revealed at Sinai, then for me there's no problem believing in the Mount Sinai status. It's part of the same package deal. The deeper question is why do I believe in the God who was revealed at Sinai?
I don't know. I have no idea. It's just a fact. At a certain point in my life I came to the conclusion that I simply believe and that's it, without too many additional questions. It may have had to do with the fact that I grew up in a traditional home. It may have had to do with all sorts of psychological facts, but the truth is that it doesn't really matter. I believe. I live in connection with God. I fear God (not necessarily in my own room, but at least outside). I hope to see the face of God (after I repent, before that it would be a catastrophe) and to dwell in the house of God all the days of my life. I don't have too many other demands. In the end, I work for Him, not He for me, and that's what it comes down to.

Y.D. (It was clear that this is your first name. Just as it is clear that raspberry juice has a first name but it is unknown) Your words are valuable and inspiring. Thank you for the answer, but I am still waiting for the length of your explanation of the two signs of God according to the Kuzari, which are the Torah and Israel. To me, that sounds enough. The revelation is simple - the life of Hadaki and Levi, and I was a prophet in it - but I do not see its fundamental importance as, in my opinion, perhaps not all the prophets of Israel who lived before the writing of the story about it (according to the scholars, of course.) Of course, if it were, it would be better in the sense that a true myth is more educational (according to the method of the early Michi, who is not and accurate) but that too is only a "myth" and it educates even without being true, according to me. I am waiting for an answer as to why in your opinion this is not enough
Why say that God is revealed within the people of Israel and his Torah is not enough? In the context of this thread, I think it is more coherent to say that the entire Torah is a kind of symbolic and conceptual writing than to divide it between Creation and Sinai. This is the same writer who said both things with equal seriousness. The Haredim – like birds flying, may God protect them ’ – are also coherent because they maintain that everything is as it is. Your zigzag (which, unfortunately, I am also quite a bit of) is, in my opinion, what sometimes leads to slander against the Haredim because deep down you feel that they are right about it - continued

They are right in their coherence and it is infuriating because it is a caricature of reason. This is a well-known phenomenon that the haters called the hatred of the peoples of the countries of the world. The hatred stems from ideological closeness, etc. But I don't have the strength to get into that. This is not the subject of the discussion either.

On the 17th of Elul 8th

Regarding the truth of the Torah and its testimony about the Exodus from Egypt and the status of Mount Sinai –

It is impossible to implant in the minds of an entire people a story that did not exist and was not created and claim that their ancestors experienced it and saw it, and another story that tells of their humiliating origin as slaves and requires them to observe the 13 commandments in conflict with all the religious and ethical norms of their time.

It is impossible to sell a story that will be accepted by a divided and separated people, who, apart from a few decades of unity in the days of David and Solomon, a unity that crumbled immediately after Solomon, were politically divided, and even more so it is impossible to sell such a story to a people scattered to all corners of the world.

The fact that despite the division and separation – The entire people have one Torah (even the Samaritans who arrived in the land during the time of Sennacherib, after hundreds of years of separation between Israel and Judah – hold the same Torah with slight modifications) – indicates that all the tribes carried one story, that’ Moses brought them out of Egypt and gave them a Torah with which they entered the land.

Even the high moral level of the Torah and its bearers makes it improbable that they could forge and fabricate stories that did not exist and were not created.

As for the Genesis account, it is a schematic description of the process of creation. Even if you were to say that the process of creation lasted billions of years, the Torah has no interest in extending this story. Since ’day’ In biblical language, it also expresses a "period", the Torah states that there were six days, that is, six stages of creation, from the simple to the complex, at the end of which the world reached stability and the Creator "rested from his work".

Even so, the story of the Torah is revolutionary in relation to what is accepted in surrounding cultures, in whose creation stories the sun and the moon serve as gods who created the world, and the Torah takes them down from their greatness, and places them between plants and animals, in the role of lanterns - so the Torah should get involved in stories that seemed delusional to any reasonable person about billions of years and the Cretaceous, Pleistocene and Paleozoic?

The simplicity of the creation story conveys the main message: There is one Creator who created everything gradually from the simple to the sophisticated, with the main point being light and the culmination being man, who from then on is the Creator's emissary to manage creation.

With blessings, Sh”z Levinger

By the way, the possibility that creation literally took place in six days is also not unreasonable. The researchers' assumption is based on the assumption that the world has always proceeded according to the same laws and at the same pace. But this assumption is not necessarily valid if we are talking about a created world. It is possible that in its beginning the process proceeded in an accelerated manner.

And an example of this is the creation of man. In his mother's womb, man undergoes a developmental process similar to evolution for nine months. Over the next twenty years, development continues more and more slowly until he reaches stability that lasts for decades. If researchers from Mars get a twenty-year-old man and they measure the rate of his development – They will conclude that at this rate it took thousands of years to reach the state they found it in 🙂

Thank you, Sh”el. The points you raise regarding the split and the Samaritans are fascinating and convincing. What is the source of this claim? Yours?. B. I feel that you have not answered the main point of my question. I accept the truth of the Torah, but I am trying to formulate a rational and weak argument that does not require experimental hypotheses that go beyond what is familiar to us. In this, I argue for the reliability of the Exodus and the establishment of the people of Israel in the Sinai Desert, the receipt of the Torah or its core from a chosen man named Moses, and its writing in one or other stages during the First Temple period based on traditions such as the way of the sojourner. According to this, everything was done under the providence of God, and as is evident from the way He provided throughout the history of our people. The traditions that passed down in ancient Israel were legendary, such as the Midrash of Hazal, according to which God literally walked with us in a pillar of cloud and gave His Torah in fire and lightning. I am trying to clarify whether this point can be waived by explaining it as an allegory and parable. What will remain is a covenant made between Israel and the Lord by Moses then in the Sinai Desert (or at the foot of the mountain that was sacred even in the days of Elijah and according to the tradition evident in the archaeological find in Ajarud). What is wrong with that? Arthur Greene takes a similar approach in his book. According to this, there is no exceptional prophetic revelation for the entire people, but the monotheistic gospel of God is revealed to each individual and revealed to him (as it were) is the revelation.

What is done is that the Torah itself describes a miraculous process in which, during a short period of time, they left Egypt with signs and wonders and heard the voice of God speaking to them at Sinai, and for forty years, Moses received the Torah from the Torah, which was signed at the end of the forty years and written on a book with a warning not to add to it or subtract from it.

And this form of creation is suitable for a revolution. What the Torah created in the ancient world is a complete revolution, a challenge to the entire system of beliefs and values of the cultural world of the period. A revolution is born in a storm. Once it has been created and has become a fact that can no longer be undone, the revolution must ‘shift gear’ to a moderate development, accompanied by ups and downs, trial and error, which allow its internalization in hearts, deepening understanding of it and detailing the methods of its application in life, and subsequently expanding the circle of its influence..

With greetings, Sh”z Levinger

The creation of a human begins with the emotional turmoil of his parents, then he develops very quickly, within nine months he grows rapidly from a single-celled creature to a primate, going through stages that were naturally supposed to take billions of years over nine months (see Wikipedia entry ‘The Biogenetic Law’).

Then he goes out into the world but still receives everything – food, protection and knowledge – from his parents ‘When the master carries the mammal, then he is ready to stand on his own and cope on his own on the solid foundation given to him by his parents and teachers, and he ‘listens and adds’, building layers of knowledge and wisdom on the foundation he received from his predecessors.

And so the revolution of the Torah is built. It began with the storm of the Exodus and the presence of Mount Sinai, continued with growth ‘when the craftsman carries the suckling’, and later the people go to school, learn the Bible from the prophets, the Mishnah and the Talmud from the Tannaim and Amoraim, and on the basis of the foundations they received – builds generation after generation additional layers that stand firmly on the foundation of their predecessors and apply the eternal principles in changing situations of reality.

With greetings, Sh”z Levinger

Gil
I wonder where the confidence comes from that ”internalizing evolution and the billions of years of suffering of an impotent God who is unable to create a better world in less time… is science fiction that doesn't have much traction” etc’

The dominant view in classical monotheism, and in my opinion the most serious, objective and comprehensive description of the concept, is that evil is nothing more than the absence of the normal activity characteristic of an organism, and not the suffering itself. For example, injury, blindness, ignorance or illness. These are usually accompanied by psychological **disgust and warning** mechanisms called pain or suffering, but without these the world would be very problematic and there is no place here to expand on what happens to babies born without the ability to feel pain (they don't tend to survive too long).

Hence, the question is not why God created a world that requires so many years of suffering, but why He created a world that requires so many events in which creatures are injured, damaged, eaten by other predators, and so on (of which suffering is just a side effect). It should be noted that the phenomenon is very general: everything that comes into being in the world, including galaxies, humans, plants, or animals, must cause the destruction of other objects or organisms along the way. Even a simple activity like breathing requires the destruction of the oxygen you breathe and its emission as carbon dioxide. Such is the nature of the physical world: there is no coming into being without the creation of a lack of something else.

When you ask why God allowed such a thing to happen, you are essentially asking why He decided to create a physical world at all, instead of leaving only angels and spiritual beings in His creation. We see that He decided to prefer a universe with a physical world that includes humans like us despite the necessary evil that exists in it. But how does this distinction become a question about the existence of God? How can we claim to know that a creation that includes a physical world like ours is worse than one without it?

The simple answer is that the existence of evil does not in the least undermine the monotheistic claim and is nothing more than a stale taunt for demagogic purposes.

Regarding “and in less time”, what do you think? Either you believe that God intervened and therefore it really happened in less time, and all the arguments against, which are necessarily based on the assumption that there was no and could not be intervention in principle, are null and void, or you believe that He did not, and then the reason it took so long is that it is necessarily the time needed, given that the Creator is interested in a physical world like ours that is free to develop itself in accordance with its internal causal capabilities.

Thank you, Sh”el (remnant of righteousness to endure?) Your analogies are thought-provoking and do make sense. Sh”el

Copenhagen. I assume that it took him a long time to create the world because in one way or another it is subject to the limitations of matter (as Micha and Rambam suggest). This is also the source of evil. Precisely for this reason, the humanistic revelation that presents an omnipotent transcendent figure perhaps fits the original creation story in its simplest form and not contemporary science. Coherence in science will also shape our attitude to revelation and present it as something that humans arrive at from within themselves and as part of the Creator's providence. I will expand on this later.

You may be talking about another God – that is not really possible. If we are dealing with the primary principle of reality, it must have a necessary existence – otherwise it is not primary but something *caused* it to be. At the same time, everything else that exists must *receive* its existence from the necessary being, according to the general principle that every contingent property requires a cause that unites it with the object in which it is realized (for example, someone dyes her hair and therefore her hair turns, say, green. You always need the activity of the cause – the chemical bonds that attach the dye to the hair – in order for her hair to remain green).

It follows, therefore, that there is no external entity or principle that can prevent God from realizing what he realizes because everything else, to the extent that it exists, exists as a result of his causal influence, and to the extent that it is possible at all, this very possibility also rests on his (God's) causal abilities.

Matter cannot exist on its own because there is always some complexity there and everything complex is logically subject to destruction or creation, meaning it is contingent, meaning it receives its existence from something else, meaning it is not the primary principle of reality.

This is the essence of the pagan concept, taking the created contingent world or some object within it (something that is ”subject to matter”) and attaching to it the title “god” that they worship.

“As Micah and Rambam explain”? Where?

In the year 11, Elul 8,

For ages – Gil Ad,

The Mount Sinai status is an antithesis to the concept that underlies evolution, which claims that the world was built and developed as a result of a cruel war of existence in which the strong prey on the weak and therefore the strong survive.

The entire status is an antithesis to the concept of ‘the strong wins’. The strongest of all, the Creator of the world, chooses precisely the weakest, frightened slaves who have just emerged from decades of hard slavery, and with these weaklings the Almighty Creator makes a covenant and crowns them ’virtues’, the King's favorite treasure.

The concept that the world is built on a cruel war of existence is not a new concept. All pagan mythologies are founded on a cruel struggle for existence between the idols in which the strongest wins, and man worships gods stronger than him, in order to receive their help.

And here the Torah sets a new model: not the strongest wins, but the good. He who has faith and moral values. He who recognizes the goodness of his Creator and the goodness of his parents. He who is not bothered by the economic struggle for existence. He will not swear to lie, will know how to stop the pursuit of wealth and dedicate one day a week to his God and to benefit his son and daughter, but also with his slave and servant, his ox and donkey. A man who not only will not physically harm his neighbor and his property, but also in his heart will not covet or desire what is not his.

This is the Torah of the Mount Sinai: The days of chaos and futility in which the ‘war for existence’ brings about a situation in which darkness rules the earth with no place for light. A new evolution has arisen: and those who will survive and triumph in it are those who believe in and strive for good.

The chaotic period of the cruel war of existence was not in vain. It brought the world to the understanding that a free war of existence leads to chaos and anarchy. The darkness will not be abolished, the instincts of existence and achievement receive their domain in the ’six days of action’, but they are subject to the limitations set for them by the Creator, limitations of faith and morality, which harness achievement to a positive purpose.

This sublime status gave ‘space’ for the people to absorb the revolutionary message, and from now on begins the work of thousands of years, in slow progress, full of struggles and crises, ups and downs, until the people and, in their wake, humanity begin to truly absorb the message. About a thousand years pass and the trauma of destruction and exile until the people of Israel are weaned from idolatry; another thousand years will pass until humanity partially accepts monotheism, and another thousand years will pass until humanity begins to free itself from the distortions of the partial Judaism it has adopted.

Human progress goes in a combination of revolution and evolution. ‘First tablets’ given with ’sounds and lightning’ and broken, and ’Second tablets’ that grow through slow, gradual work and endure for days.

With best wishes, Sh”z Levinger

For forgiveness of the delay,
the verse in Deuteronomy says: “And you shall keep and do it, for it is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who shall hear all these statutes, and shall say, "This great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what great nation is there that has a God so near to it as the LORD our God in all that we call upon Him? And what great nation is there that has statutes and righteous judgments according to all this law which I set before you today?”. From this verse it can be seen that for the Gentiles the Lord is not revealed directly. He is revealed through Israel, who has a God so near to them in all that we call upon Him, and through the righteous laws and judgments of the Torah which He gave. Israel and the Torah reveal the name of the Lord in the world.
This connection between Israel and the Torah has several halachic implications that I have found (if anyone has found more or wants to correct me, I would be happy to do so). On one side of the argument, the one who sees a Jewish person at the time of his death must tear up and the Gemara reasons: Why is this similar? A Torah scroll that was burned. On the other side of the argument. We bury a desecrated holy object like we bury a person from Israel. This is true according to the words of Seth, but also for the altar stones that were desecrated by the Greeks and that were hoarded by the Hasmonean dynasty. In all cases, burial is seen as the proper relation to a desecrated holy object. A study of the issue that characterizes a desecrated holy object versus a demitzvah holy object in Tractate Megillah shows that a desecrated holy object signifies the name of God, either directly as in the words of Seth, or as a result of the name of God being called upon the place as happened to the altar. The argument we saw between Israel and a desecrated holy object teaches us that the name of God is also called upon Israel. Therefore, the law that applies to one side of the argument must also apply to the other side.
The Gemara assumes that the name of the Lord inspires awe. One might wonder whether there is some kind of fiscal proof here for the existence of the Lord (only a real thing inspires awe -> the name of the Lord inspires awe -> the Lord is a real thing). Either way, the Gemara's certainty in this assumption prompts it to wonder, along with Jeremiah, why the name of the Lord called upon the Temple did not inspire awe among the Gentiles at the destruction of the Temple. The Gemara finally concludes that while the name of the Lord in the Temple does not inspire awe, the name of the Lord upon Israel inspires awe, since the likelihood of the existence of a sheep among seventy wolves is close to zero (a type of ontological fiscal proof). In this context, we will recall that a year ago, following the placement of magnetometers on the Temple Mount, Arabs were prevented from entering the Temple Mount for two weeks; something that had not happened for 2,500 years (in the Temple, both Gentiles were not prevented from entering the Temple Mount, as is seen in Josephus). The event was so unusual that for two weeks the first question I asked when I came to work was whether the Arabs were still outside? Then it was over and they went back inside. In any case, according to the sages, the revelation of the name of God continues in the world through the awe that it continues for those who encountered Israel and who protected Israel in exile.
If you follow the discussions with Doron, you can understand why the question of who the name of Israel applies to, the Jews or the Christians, is so significant. The question is who reveals the name of God in the world? A similar debate is taking place regarding Islam regarding the Torah. Regarding the Temple Mount, both religions agree that it should be separated from a house of prayer of another religion. I hope this answer answers what you asked.

In the context of creation in six days, there is Gerald Schroeder's book “Genesis and the Big Bang” which attempts to measure the six days of creation according to Einstein's theory of relativity, which states that time is relative to the speed of the body. I have not read it myself, nor do I have the physical training to examine it, but I understood that it is worth reading.

Thank you, your words are interesting. I will think about it. Regarding Gerald Schroeder's book "Science and God", which Michi also mentioned in one of the answers about the age of the world. Well, Nathan Aviezer in his second book on Torah and Science brings physicists who rejected Schroeder's option as beginner's mistakes. I have no idea and no way to test this.

14, not to the speed of the body (this is the special theory of relativity) but to the density of mass (the general theory of relativity). The rate of flow of time changed as the universe expanded because the density of mass decreased.