Tuesday, April 16, 2019
Rav Kook on Pesach
We are charged to sing out in joy - God answered our prayers and rescued us from the bondage of Egyptian slavery:
| "I am Eternal your God Who raises you up from the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it." (Psalms 81:11) |
What is the connection between our redemption from Egypt and "opening our mouths wide" to receive God's blessings?
Ongoing Elevation
A careful reading of this verse will note two peculiarities about the word ha-ma'alcha, 'Who raises you up.' First of all, it does not say that God 'took you out' of Egypt, but that He 'raises you up.' It was not merely the act of leaving Egypt that made its eternal impact on the destiny of the Jewish nation, and through it, all of humanity. The Exodus was an act of elevation, lifting up the souls of Israel.
Additionally, the verse is not in the past tense but in the present - 'Who raises you up.' Is it not referring to a historical event? We may understand this in light of the Midrash (Tanchuma Mikeitz 10) concerning the creation of the universe. The Midrash states that when God commanded the formation of the rakiya, the expanse between the upper and lower waters (Gen. 1:6), the divide between the heavens and the earth began to expand. This expansion would have continued indefinitely had the Creator not halted it by commanding, 'Enough!' In other words, unless they are meant only for a specific hour, Divine acts are eternal, continuing forever. So too, the spiritual ascent of 'raising you up from Egypt' is a perpetual act of God, influencing and uplifting the Jewish people throughout the generations.
There is no limit to this elevation, no end to our spiritual aspirations. The only limitations come from us, if we choose to restrict our wishes and dreams. But once we know the secret of ha-ma'alcha and internalize the message of a Divine process that began in Egypt and continues to elevate us, we can aim for ever-higher spiritual goals.
It is instructive to note the contrast between the Hebrew word for 'Egypt' - Mitzrayim, literally, 'limitations' - and the expression, 'open up wide.' God continually frees us from the confining restraints of Mitzrayim, enabling us to strive for the highest, most expansive aspirations.
Now we may understand why the verse concludes with the charge, 'Open your mouth wide.' We should not restrict ourselves. We need to rise above all self-imposed limitations and transcend all mundane goals and petty objectives. If we can 'open our mouths wide' and recognize our true potential for spiritual greatness, then 'I will fill it' - God will help us attain ever-higher levels of holiness.
Seven common myths about quantum physics
I have been popularising quantum physics, my area of research, for many years now. The general public finds the topic fascinating and covers of books and magazines often draw on its mystery. A number of misconceptions have arisen in this area of physics and my purpose here is to look at the facts to debunk seven of these myths.
Don't worry, you don't need to know much about quantum physics to read this article. I will mostly be explaining what quantum physics isn't, rather than what it is…
1. "Quantum physics is all about uncertainty"
Wrong! Quantum physics is probably the most precise scientific discipline ever devised by humankind. It can predict certain properties with extreme accuracy, to 10 decimal places, which later experiments confirm exactly.
This myth originated partly in Werner Heisenberg's "uncertainty principle". He showed that there is a limit to how accurately two quantities – for instance a particle's speed and its position – can be measured simultaneously. When quantum physics is used to calculate other quantities, such as the energy, or the magnetic property of atoms, it is astounding in its precision.
2. "Quantum physics can't be visualised."
Quantum physics describes objects that are often "strange" and difficult to put into pictures: wave functions, superimposed states, probability amplitude, complex numbers to name but a few. People often say that they can only be understood with mathematical equations and symbols. And yet we physicists are always making representations of it when we teach and popularise it. We use graphs, drawings, metaphors, projections and many other devices. Which is just as well, because students and even veteran quantum physicists like us need a mental image of the objects being manipulated. The contentious part is the accuracy of these images, as it is difficult to represent a quantum object accurately.
Working together with designers, illustrators and video makers, the Physics Reimagined research team seeks to "draw" quantum physics in all its forms: folding activities, graphic novels, sculptures, 3-D animations, and on and on.
3. "Even scientists don't really understand quantum physics"
One of the leading lights in the field, Richard Feynman himself said: "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." But he then immediately added: "I am going to tell you what nature behaves like." Niels Bohr, one of the founding fathers of the discipline, gives a good summary: "Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it."
Physicists do understand what they're doing when they're manipulating the quantum formalism. They just need to adapt their intuitions to this new field and its inherent paradoxes.
4. "A few brilliant theorists came up with the entire concept of quantum physics"
Monday, April 15, 2019
Measles outbreak sparks fears, renews tensions over mandatory vaccination
Over 200 cases of measles have been confirmed in the U.S. in the past few months. About half of them occurred in the Pacific Northwest, leading Washington Gov. Jay Inslee to declare an emergency and the state legislature to propose further restricting, or even eliminating, inoculation exemptions. Nonetheless, opposition to mandatory vaccines remains fierce. Special correspondent Cat Wise reports
Palestinian state likely not in US proposed peace plan: Report
newsweek
aljazeera
JARED KUSHNER'S MIDDLE EAST PEACE PLAN PANNED BY FORMER EUROPEAN LEADERS BEFORE IT'S EVEN RELEASED
European leaders have criticized the Trump administration’s approach to a Middle East peace plan, arguing that the current U.S. government had abandoned international norms.
In an open letter written to The Guardian on Sunday, a group of nearly 40 former high-ranking European leaders, including Sweden’s former Prime Minister Carl Bildt, Germany’s former foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel, the U.K.’s former Foreign Secretary David Miliband, and Belgium's former Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, argued that Europe must continue to support a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine regardless of what the Trump administration’s Middle East peace plan looks like.
“Unfortunately, the current U.S. administration has departed from longstanding US policy and distanced itself from established international legal norms,” the letter reads. “It has so far recognized only one side’s claims to Jerusalem and demonstrated a disturbing indifference to Israeli settlement expansion. The U.S. has suspended funding for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and for other programs benefiting Palestinians—gambling with the security and stability of various countries located at Europe’s doorstep,” it continued.
aljazeera
A United States's proposal for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, dubbed "the deal of the century", will likely not include a fully sovereign Palestinian state, the Washington Post reported.
According to sources familiar with the main elements of the deal, the agreement pledged practical improvements in the lives of Palestinians but stops short of securing a Palestinian state.
The White House is expected to reveal its long-awaited peace deal, spearheaded by Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump's son-in-law, later this year.
While officials have kept details of the plan secret, comments from Kushner and other US officials suggest that it "does away with statehood as the starting premise of peace efforts", the Washington Post reported.
The plan is likely to focus heavily on Israeli security concerns.
It revolves around a proposal that foresees major infrastructure and industrial work, particularly in the besieged Gaza Strip.
For the plan to succeed or even pass the starting gate, it will need at least initial buy-in from both Israel and the Palestinians as well as from the Gulf Arab states, which officials say will be asked to substantially bankroll the economic portion.
NYC bus driver refuses to stop for haredi man over measles fears
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/261846
New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority is investigating a complaint by a haredi man, who alleges that a bus driver refused to stop for him at a Brooklyn bus stop over the current measles outbreak.
The man said that the bus driver drove past the stop in the largely Orthodox-populated neighborhood of Williamsburg last week but that he caught up with it after it got stuck in traffic. The bus driver eventually let him on, covered her face with her sweater, and refused to accept the man’s transfer, while shouting “Measles! Go in!” the Brooklyn Paper reported.
The incident was reported to the MTA on Thursday by the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg, which is working with the city to curb the measles outbreak by educating the community and encouraging vaccination, according to The Forward.
“The measles outbreak should not be used as an excuse for antisemitism,” the group said in a tweet.
A second tweet from the group added that: “Facts are, about 95% of the community is vaccinating. We, the Rabbis and community leaders, are working hard to increase it. Not justification to attack the entire community for the shortcomings of a few.”
The incident reportedly occurred several days before New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a public health emergency over the measles outbreak in Brooklyn’s haredi Orthodox community.
There have been 285 reported cases of measles in Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community since October, including 246 children. The Brooklyn outbreak has been tied to an unvaccinated child who contracted the disease during a trip to Israel, The Washington Post reported.
Rabbi David Niederman, president of United Jewish Organization, told the Brooklyn Paperthat haredi Jews in Williamsburg are being harassed on the streets with people shouting “Jews, measles” at them.
Sunday, April 14, 2019
Woman was removed from ultra-Orthodox polling station so top rabbi could vote
Times of Israel
A female Likud election worker was forced out of a polling station in the ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak during Tuesday’s election at the request of the leader of the Ger Hassidic sect, Rabbi Yaakov Aryeh Alter, according to a Friday report in Haaretz.
The woman initially refused to leave the polling station, so the rabbi’s followers contacted Likud Knesset members who arranged to have the woman removed, the report said.
The Likud lawmakers sent a male party official to the polling station to replace the woman “while she took a lunch break,” during which time the rabbi cast his ballot.
Sources told Haaretz that when followers of the rabbi noticed the female Likud member at the polling station, they knew it was “going to be an issue right from the beginning.”
Rabbi Yaakov Aryeh Alter of the Gur Hassidic Dynasty attends a rally of United Torah Judaism party, ahead of the upcoming elections, in Jerusalem, April 8, 2019. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)
“They did almost everything to try to convince her to leave, including offering her money,” the source said.
One of Alter’s followers told Haaretz on Friday that the rabbi did not intend to insult the woman, but saw her presence at the polling station as a “matter of respectability.”
“The Rabbi does not receive women or look at them,” he said.”Its just the same as honoring a special request for a prime minister or president.”
Alter is the Admor, or head, of the Ger Hasidic movement and the powerful patron of Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman from the United Torah Judaism party.
The head of the Likud polling committee Yaakov Vidar downplayed the report, saying the party made “manpower changes as needed” during the busy election day.
Ultra-Orthodox communities frequently try and impose a separation between men and women. The two genders sit separately at synagogues and weddings, and women and men who are not relatives refrain from physical contact.
There have also been attempts to enforce gender segregation on public buses, but the Israeli Supreme Court has ruled it illegal, and also frequent instances where ultra-Orthodox men have refused to sit next to women on planes.
It’s not just in person, most of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox media — which includes four daily newspapers, two main weeklies and two main websites — refuse to show images of women, claiming it would be a violation of modesty.
Saturday, April 13, 2019
SENIOR LONDON RABBI REMOVED FROM POSITION AFTER HAVING AFFAIR
The rabbi, Yonason Abraham, founder of the Toras Chaim synagogue near the primarily Jewish Golders Green neighborhood and one of four judges in the London Beth Din court, said he had "fallen short of the standards expected," according to a Daily Mail report.
Tuesday, April 9, 2019
‘Monkey, Rat and Pig DNA’: How Misinformation Is Driving the Measles Outbreak Among Ultra-Orthodox Jews
'The Vaccine Safety Handbook” appears innocuous, a slick magazine for parents who want to raise healthy children. But tucked inside its 40 pages are false warnings that vaccines cause autism and contain cells from aborted human fetuses.
“It is our belief that there is no greater threat to public health than vaccines,” the publication concludes, contradicting the scientific consensus that vaccines are generally safe and highly effective.
The handbook, created by a group called Parents Educating and Advocating for Children’s Health, or Peach, is targeted at ultra-Orthodox Jews, whose expanding and insular communities are at the epicenter of one of the largest measles outbreaks in the United States in decades.
What Another Round of Netanyahu Will Mean for American Jews
the atlantic
Benjamin Netanyahu’s main opponents have tried to use an unusual weapon against the longtime prime minister ahead of a defining Israeli election set for Tuesday: They’ve argued that he has damaged the relationship between Israel and diaspora Jews.
For some American Jews, the strong alliance between Netanyahu and Donald Trump of the past few years has added stress to their relationship with Israel, which has become especially fraught in the years since the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in the early 2000s. While some Jews in the U.S. appreciate Trump’s positions on Israel, many detest the American president’s domestic politics and believe that he has enabled anti-Semitism and xenophobia. And while segments of the self-identified pro-Israel community in the U.S. resolutely support anything that the Israeli prime minister does, some have been wary of Netanyahu’s alliance with right-wing forces, and disappointed by what they see as his failure to facilitate religious pluralism. Tuesday’s major election in Israel marks a high point of strain in the relationship between at least some American Jews and Israel, which has changed radically in the past generation.
To understand the American Jewish relationship with Israel, it’s helpful to divide American Jews into three rough categories. On the right lies the self-described pro-Israel crowd, many of whom are Republicans, and many of whom are deeply religious. For the most part, this group would cheer another round of Netanyahu. Among modern-Orthodox Jews, for example, “the relationship is incredibly strong—it’s as strong as ever,” Nathan Diament, the executive director of the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center, told me. Part of this connection is sociological; these Jews often travel to Israel, have family there, and send their children there to study. Some in this group don’t believe it’s their place to criticize Israeli policy. “We should be deferential to the decisions that the democratically elected leaders in Israel make about Israel’s security,” Diament said. “They’re the ones whose lives are on the line, and they’re the ones whose kids are serving in the [Israel Defense Forces].”
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