Thank you very much.

Now I would like to add and ask:
Has the scientific world today proved the Big Bang because of the discovery of radiation and the like that cannot be explained unless we accept the Big Bang as a fact?
And about this I want to ask: is that all? That is, is it all built on questions of phenomena that have no explanation besides the Big Bang? Perhaps in a few years we will find another explanation for them?
A good example: suppose some Torah scholars hold that the Big Bang theory does not fit what is said in the Torah (there are explicit medieval authorities who describe creation differently from Nachmanides). What would these Torah-oriented people say in light of the evidence for the Big Bang? We all know they indeed say that what is written in the Torah is true, and if there are phenomena with no other explanation, in the end another explanation will be found.
Meaning, it is only a question about something, just as once people did not understand how lightning or an earthquake works, but that is not direct proof that this is how it is.
But for example, the fact that order proves an orderer is not merely evidence in the form of a question of who arranged it; it is actually plainly visible that someone built the thing. And likewise, the proof they originally brought from the expansion of the universe is not just a question but an evident proof that the universe is not static, and not merely a question that the matter cannot be explained in some other way.

With much thanks

Science never proves anything. A scientific theory is an explanation of facts observed in reality or in the laboratory. It is always possible that there are other explanations, and still the scientific explanation is the best one we have, and usually it works. Whoever refuses to accept it because maybe there is another explanation should also not get on an airplane or use medicine (maybe in the future it will turn out to kill?).
What Torah scholars, or some of them, think does not matter a bit. Their interpretations are worth about as much as mine and yours. When there is a solid scientific theory, I would not reject it because of some interpretation by this sage or that one.
I did not understand the last paragraph.

I will copy for you the words of Nir Stern about the proof from the expansion of the universe. I want to know what you think of his words.

Regarding the expansion of the universe: this is a new matter in physics. Einstein still thought the universe was infinite and eternal and not expanding. They discovered that the wavelength of starlight is shifted to the red, which ostensibly should indicate that the stars are moving away. And all of them are like that; not a single one is approaching. From this they explained that the universe is expanding. The only problem is that this means we are in the middle, because from us they are all moving away at equal speed. According to Aristotle that is excellent, but science of course does not admit this. They say it is like an inflating balloon, where every point moves away at equal speed from the other points, but on a balloon that is not true: a point opposite us moves away faster than a point near us. They themselves say the balloon model is not correct and there is no other explanation. According to the theory that the universe is expanding, one has to say it began from a single point, and from this they built the Big Bang. But according to the mathematical calculations of the expansion speed, one gets results totally different from what we see exists, and there is no answer to this (there is the inflation theory that tries to answer it, and it is full of problems, but I cannot go into it here). According to the calculations, it is not at all possible that the universe is expanding as it apparently is, because gravitational force should have stopped it long ago. The stars pull one another, and one can calculate the force of attraction, and they should have prevented this expansion. Now it is in a state where gravity should have pulled it backward, and of course there is no answer to how it could have reached such a state. Just as now it continues to expand miraculously despite gravity, so too it miraculously reached a state where it ought to go backward because of gravity, and it does not go backward. In short, for some reason it does not listen to gravity.

To deal with this they invented dark matter and afterward dark energy. This is a hypothesis with no basis at all, completely pulled out of thin air, because it does not fit the known laws of physics. We are talking about matter with which there is no way to come into contact and know of its existence, and yet it pulls the stars with gravitational force. Meaning, its gravitational force does reveal its existence, but absolutely nothing else in the world does. Not only do we not see it, but every experiment and every other measurement of gravitational force explicitly show that it does not exist. Many scientists do not believe in this and say it is better for now to leave the question unresolved. Why one needs both dark matter pulling inward and dark energy pushing outward is the result of very complicated calculations based on very complicated telescopic observations. They observe the light of the stars and also the background radiation of particles that are supposed to stem directly from the Big Bang, and based on these they calculate the course of the expansion, and the calculations themselves are amazingly complicated and full of contradictions. Even after they invented dark matter and dark energy (which are supposed to be 95 percent of the matter in the world), there are still very large contradictions in this model. No calculation solves what we see. It is still groping in the dark, by their own account. Most of them are convinced that one has to go in completely different theoretical directions (like string theory), but they still have not found anything convincing that can be said.
The whole matter of the Big Bang depends on explaining what looks like the expansion of the universe, but in fact we do not see the universe expanding. We only see a redshift of wavelengths, which is a phenomenon that exists when light comes from a receding body (the Doppler effect), but in truth there is still no explanation for this phenomenon. The expansion is full of contradictions that have not been solved, and most scientists do not accept it as a fact but only as a direction for the beginning of an investigation whose outcome is unknown.

I do not know who this Nir Stern is, but this seems to me like nonsense. Amateurish objections.

Aside from the above request, if you could elaborate regarding Nir Stern’s questions.

Another question: Maimonides in Guide for the Perplexed, part 2 chapter 74, fifth approach, brought that there were those who proved the createdness of the world from the question of who decided that each piece of matter would receive its particular form—that is, who determined that this matter would be stone and that gold, etc. And Maimonides rejected the point, and already at the beginning of their words he said this proof is founded on their understanding that whatever is possible in the imagination is also possible in reality. And the philosophers do not think so. About this I asked whether according to the science known today one could say that this proof is indeed correct, because seemingly today we see that the basis of matter is one, and the particles also behave freely, so one needs some decider who will determine by will what each thing will be.
And this is what someone answered, and I want to know what you think of it:
Regarding particles: on the one hand, the behavior of a particular particle according to today’s science is considered agreed upon and certainly known to have no fixed lawfulness, and it cannot be predicted in advance. If we say that particles are composed of the four elements, then the mixture of the elements is different in each one, and from there comes the differing behavior. That is why in chapter 19 Maimonides proves specifically from the heavenly bodies that they are not mixtures composed of the elements.

But according to science, particles behave statistically. For example, a particle is in a certain place and can move to side A or side B. That one particle will move randomly to one side, and it is impossible to predict in advance which. But there is a lawfulness that says there is a seventy percent chance it will move to side A. If we set a million particles in motion and count, we will find that seventy percent reached side A, and this follows a known law and can be predicted in advance. That is quantum mechanics. So there is lawfulness in a certain sense—just not for one specific particle.
I have no idea what this means regarding the question of eternity.
What I explained is overly simplistic, to the point of being inaccurate. If it interests you, you have to read about Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle to understand more, because it can also reverse: one can know a particle’s location, but then the velocity will not be known. I do not know how to explain it briefly.

Maimonides’ words are correct, but partial. There was someone who determined that the laws of nature would be as they are, and from them the structure of matter emerges. I do not see any connection between quantum theory and this argument.

In Israel there is much discussion of the question of divine foreknowledge and free choice.
One should examine and ask about the question itself: how do we know that God indeed knows the future? Perhaps once He created choice—and choice plainly contradicts knowledge of the future—then in truth He does not know the future, and that itself is part of the creation of the matter of choice: that He not know the future. Because since He wanted to create choice, He does not know the future, and this is part of creating choice.
And saying this is no deficiency in God, because deficiency means there is something outside Him and He must move from potential to actual in order to attain it. Here there is nothing that He did not create; rather, this itself He created: choice, which means that knowledge will be renewed for Him from what He wanted to be.
And if we say that necessarily He knows the future because relative to Him it is not future, since He is truth and eternity and everything is present to Him, as Gersonides explained,
then that means the answer created the question and there is no question at all. Someone who asks the question has already stated the answer.
Needless to say, the question was not created from verses in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) where it is explained that God knows before the choice, because in every such place it is Maimonides who asks the question, and he never answered that there is indeed revelation of such knowledge. Each time he answered differently. For example, on the verse “this people will rise up and go astray,” he explained that it was said in general terms and each individual still had choice. And people have already noted that Maimonides did not hold that the matter of divine knowledge could be revealed to a prophet, and therefore each time he explained the verses differently.
So necessarily, the decision that God knows choice is not because of verses but because of some reasoning, and I do not understand what it is, unless it is as above from Gersonides—that He, may He be blessed, is above time and everything is present for Him. But then it is not considered that He knows the future; rather, there is no future for Him. And if that is what created the question, then we already said the answer in the very asking of the question, so what is the question?

See my book The Science of Freedom, and also on the site where I wrote this in the name of the Shelah and in my own name. I explained there that lacking prior knowledge of information that does not yet exist is no deficiency in His law, and He is still omnipotent.

Thank you.
So you do indeed dispute the assumption behind the question. What did those who raised the question think—what made them ask it?

Let me ask further: does your honor have any idea what the “active intellect” is that Maimonides spoke about, to which one who cleaves would know the future?
And to stress what he wrote, that even those who hold the world is eternal agree that one who cleaves to the active intellect will attain prophecy and know the future—
what is that? And how?
Do you know anyone who explains this?

This is a concept from ancient Aristotelian philosophy, and I do not see value in dealing with it.

I want to ask about the well-known wonder that our land, the Land of Israel, throughout all the days of exile kept faith and there was no nation or people that succeeded in settling it. There were many swamps and the land did not produce properly—until her children came to dwell in it.
Is this actually a change in nature, or is there some natural explanation to an extent—for example, that it is the nature of the land that when it is not inhabited for some time it develops very difficult swamps, and one needs wisdom and self-sacrifice to settle them and make use of them again, and therefore until members of our people came with devoted effort it did not yield fruit. So this would not be completely supernatural, only a kind of providence that there were no others who cared enough to invest here.
Is this historically correct? Or was the reality that many tried to settle it with real effort and nevertheless did not succeed, in which case this is an open miracle that only for Israel does the land yield its produce?

In general, one may raise a difficulty about the common claim that the land did not give its strength, from the historian Samuel Manning (1874), who writes: “We rode across the plain which shone in the pale green hue of early spring. We plucked armfuls of cyclamens, anemones, roses, and dozens of other species that were set like jewels in the meadow. We could identify with the poets who praised the splendor of Sharon. But where are the inhabitants? This fertile plain, capable of sustaining a vast population, is almost completely desolate—two or three tiny villages.” So it is explicit that the land did give its strength, and for some other reason there was no settlement there—perhaps they did not want to invest in it, or because of wars and the like—and if so, this is not a complete miracle. It requires investigation.

Similarly, I want to ask about our own times, about Gush Katif, where as is known the Arabs did not manage to produce successful crops from the lands there. Is that really a miracle, or perhaps they did not invest and did not know the expertise of how to work those fields, and it is not truly a miracle?

I do not know how to answer this. Such events can also happen by way of nature. We are dealing with probability, not with an action against the laws of nature.
It is true that there is support here from the fact that the prophets and the Torah foretold all this in advance. That greatly strengthens the claim that this was an event directed from above.
Note that one cannot say this about Gush Katif, and therefore there is no indication there of anything supernatural. It is worth remembering that the Arabs are not really successful at making deserts bloom in their other countries either. They have a dysfunctional culture that leads to many technological and social failures, not only here. On the contrary, the Palestinians are among the better and more advanced of the Arabs (also thanks to us, of course).

I did not understand why one cannot say this about Gush Katif.

I do not know the details of the reality well enough, but it may very well be that the Arabs there do know all the methods, and if even so it does not succeed for them, that seems supernatural, completely so. This needs investigation.

By the way, I am not at all sure in the plain sense that there is prophecy about this whole matter, since it is said in Bechukotai, and that goes mainly on the exile after the First Temple.

Because there is no prior prophecy about Gush Katif. The prophecy dealt with our exile (“your enemies who dwell in it shall be desolate over it,” and “you, mountains of Israel, shall give forth your branches,” etc.).

Greetings, Rabbi.
A somewhat scientific question.

I want to copy before you the words of someone who presents himself as having great scientific understanding. He seems to think there is some scientific theory according to which some kind of “shortening of the way” might be possible here on earth—that space would remain as it is, and yet it would be possible to enter from one place and exit from another. Does this seem to you to have anything to it? And is there any possibility at all, even a distant one, to think so? Or is it impossible to entertain the possibility of such a shortcut occurring naturally here on earth except by means of such strong gravity that in that very place it would also destroy space, so there would be no one left to make the jump, because it would destroy the space, and then we would not call it a shortcut at all, because there would be no space?

Or perhaps it is obvious that the writer understands absolutely nothing, and even made a mistake because there is no scientist in the world who thinks this way—which would prove he just sat on Google and copied things he did not understand.

Here are his words…

Wormhole

A wormhole is a theoretical idea of the American physicist John Archibald Wheeler, meaning a shortcut in space and time. According to the theory, time can be shortened through passage between holes in the universe connected to each other by something like tunnels. He claims that a particle caught at the entrance of a wormhole can be swallowed into it and appear at its other opening.

The term “wormhole” draws inspiration from a worm that drills holes in an apple: it enters at a certain point, digs a tunnel, and exits at a point on the other end. Physicists assume that just as one can penetrate the earth at one point and come out at another point, so too this can be done in space-time. To understand this, imagine a soft double comforter. When one person lies under it, folds are formed in the blanket (valleys and ridges). Each fold bypasses the limits of time and allows whoever passes through it to reach another point as though by a miraculous leap.

Today the existence of wormholes in reality is not known, but science conjectures that mathematically they are possible—that is, that it is possible to connect two points in space-time and use them for time travel.

This is a known scientific hypothesis (you can read about it on Wikipedia). In principle it is apparently possible, but in practice it has not been measured. It seems that practically perhaps elementary particles could pass through it, but not anything larger than that.

I should stress that this is mainly a human question and not necessarily a religious one:

We perceive with certainty, and in a way that is not open to two interpretations, that every ordered thing must have an arranger—that is, a cause. The only thing open to discussion is what level of order requires an arranger and shows that it cannot merely be the hand of chance; that is already an internal discussion.

How astonishing it is, then, that the wise Maimonides and other medieval authorities gave a place of honor in human reason to Aristotle’s opinion and reasoning that the world is eternal.
For according to this view, the world emerged from God not through intention and will, but as something necessarily flowing from Him…
And as Maimonides emphasized several times, see the beginning of chapter 19 on Aristotle’s view: “All these things are not by the intention of an intender who chose and willed that they be so, for if they were by the intention of an intender, they would not exist in this way before they had become objects of intention.” End quote.
And see further on in chapters 20 and 22.
Now we need to understand: how is it even possible to entertain such a thing, that an ordered creation emerged from God without intention? For in order for something to be planned, it must of necessity be planned.

To answer this question by saying that the philosophers had a different style of thinking does not answer anything in my humble opinion.
They were not fools, and certainly not Maimonides. So how could they think such things? How could something planned emerge from God without His having thought about it and planned it?

Of course, I am not bothered about resolving a difficult Maimonides. On the contrary, what bothers me is my own opinion, which is so decisive that order requires an orderer who plans the order. And if Maimonides did not see this as necessary, perhaps I am mistaken.

Addition:
True, one can always argue and err and think differently.
But in this case the question still stands in full force.
And the problem here is twofold:
A. Maimonides was wise, and he is not suspect of intellectually approving anything that merely counts as a remote and bizarre possibility against common sense. Especially since at the beginning of part 2 he brought several proofs for God’s existence (not for the creation of the world), and some of them are considered weak and strained proofs, so he was not only looking for something that can be proven from every possible angle; see there the second and first proof carefully.
B. And even more so, he himself wrote that something in which one sees purpose necessarily teaches intention on the part of an intender, because without intention it would not have been planned for a purpose. Therefore in part 3 chapter 13 he wrote that one who admits the truth will bring proof of an intending agent, and consequently that there was creation, from the fact that we see purpose in the lower world—for example, that plants are for human beings.
See how astonishing this is.
And again, in two respects:
A. Why does one need so much to “admit the truth” in order for this line of analysis to decide the issue? (And indeed later there he already hinted that this does not decide it, because perhaps creation flows from God in such a way that all of it is for the sake of the highest being—man—and that is not intention on the part of an intender.)
B. And even more so: does one need to reach this complex line of argument that plants are for human beings? Does not every simple organ in the human body teach you this all the more strongly?

It seems clear that if the world emerged and followed necessarily from God, as the intelligible follows from the intellect, as he wrote in chapter 20, then it can also emerge ordered, and there is no intellectual problem in that.

But how? How can something be planned without God planning it? And if God planned it, then that is necessarily a proof of creation, as Maimonides wrote several times that planning rules out eternity. Because planning means that before the thing, it was planned, and thus in the stages of causation the planner necessarily preceded it. See chapter 19 and part 3 chapter 13, and this is clear.

What you are asking is exactly resolving a difficult Maimonides, and that is what your whole message is about from beginning to end.
In my opinion, an ordered thing requires an orderer, and it seems reasonable to me that there must be intention behind it (for otherwise there is no orderer here. One could, with difficulty, reject this by saying that the Holy One, blessed be He, is different, in that things emerge from Him necessarily, but He Himself does not need an orderer outside Him).
I do not make a practice of answering the question of how Maimonides, wise as he was, thought otherwise. I say what I think, and questions about Maimonides should be directed to him. Regarding the Guide for the Perplexed, I do not generally deal with it and I am not expert in it.

According to the “Big Bang,” it seems the world was created in Tishrei, since Abba of Samuel made “bangs” for his daughters in the days of Tishrei 🙂
With blessings, Abcosmos Melodia