Q&A: Torah
Torah
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I know several people who, the moment they have a dilemma or are unsure about something (not related to Torah), such as whether to move somewhere else, or whether to invest money in this company or another, or whether I need the surgery the doctors are recommending or whether it will pass, with God’s help, and so on and so on, go to a rabbi and ask what they should do. Is there any logic to this? Can a rabbi really guide them in the right direction even though he has no knowledge of material matters, business, or medicine, for example? And there are those who told me that of course he can, since everything is in the Torah. Is that saying true? And if it is true, how do you actually find everything? I myself have not even found the Pythagorean theorem, but maybe that is because I do not study enough, so I do not find it, and if I really study tractate Eruvin in depth I will find geometry and trigonometry there, etc.? On the other hand, if it is not true, then what is the meaning of “He looked into the Torah and created the world,” since according to that it is clear that everything is in the Torah?
Answer
The midrash, “He looked into the Torah and created the world,” is just a midrashic statement, and no conclusions should be drawn from it. It does not seem plausible to me that there is scientific information in the Torah, and even if there is, no one has any way of extracting it from there. The midrash probably means to say that what I need for guidance in life is found in the Torah, and even that is not all that clear.
If it were possible to extract everything from the Torah, I would expect the sages to reveal cures for all diseases, future technologies, and thus save us a great deal of time and convenience and enable us to win every war and overcome every difficulty. This is nonsense, of course.
I already once told here that when I studied in the yeshiva in Bnei Brak and went to the university in the afternoon (at the time I was doing a doctorate in physics), the guys in the yeshiva told me: what do you need to look for at the university? Everything is in the Torah, isn’t it?! I told them: your answer works in two ways: a. Please find me the solution to Schrödinger’s equation for a rotating potential well. That would save me a lot of time and I could devote it to Torah study. Needless to say, to this day I have not received the solution from anyone there. b. If Schrödinger’s equation is also in the Torah, then I am studying Torah all day; it is just that in the afternoon I study it at the university. So what is the problem with my going there? Does the place itself make the difference?!
This teaches you that these are empty slogans with no content; whoever says them has no idea whether they are true or what they even mean. Cheap nonsense. I discussed all this at length in the trilogy (for this matter a special chapter is devoted in the second book).
But of course there is value in consulting a wise person, not necessarily a Torah scholar. That is always good. Not to receive orders, but to receive advice and guidance in thinking.
Discussion on Answer
I also know Rabbi Sherki’s approach—he is also (along with Rabbi Michi) my rabbi—so I wanted Rabbi Michi’s approach.
Brother, stop being a clown, you are wasting your time. Every beginning student knows that you are not required to know everything, all the more so the views of every rabbi in the world. Even the Amoraim did not know all the baraitot. I would like to see you go tell them that they had not studied enough…
What is the source for Rabbi Sherki’s words? About this “Higher Torah” as well.
“Everything is in the Torah.”
Recipes are for fools; the Torah is not a recipe book.
I have long thought that Rabbi Michi and Rabbi Sherki should join forces. Two giants of the world.
Maybe that is how the messiah will come..
A,, the source for “Higher Torah” is from the Zohar, if I am not mistaken.
The source is in Maharal, Tiferet Yisrael, if I remember correctly.
The midrashim that speak about contemplating the “Torah” and the creation of the world are speaking about the “Higher Torah,” which is the blueprint for creating this world. It would have been appropriate to mention this interpretation, but apparently Michi has not studied enough . . .
Here, from Wikipedia (from the eminent Rabbi Sherki, may he live long and well):
“The statements of the sages that speak about the ‘Torah’ into which God looked and created the world refer to the Higher Torah, written as ‘black fire upon white fire’ (Jerusalem Talmud, Shekalim 6:1), and this is not the Torah that is in our hands. No sage of Israel ever learned science through the Torah, but rather through scientific literature. ”