Amazon.com: B'or Ha'Torah : Science, Art & Modern Life in the Light of the Torah (9789652930552): Herman Branover: Books

Book Description

Publication Date: January 22, 1999

B'OR HA'TORAH is an English-language journal for wondering Jews, scientists, artists, teachers, and students. It examines personal and intellectual concerns through the microscope and telescope of the scientist; the algorithm of the mathematician; the discourse of the philosopher; the imagery of the artist, poet, and photographer; and the tested faith and learning of the Torah-observant Jew.

#outer_postBodyPS { display: none; } #psGradient { display: none; } #psPlaceHolder { display: none; } #psExpand { display: none; } B'OR HA'TORAH is an English-language journal for wondering Jews, scientists, artists, teachers, and students. It examines personal and intellectual concerns through the microscope and telescope of the scientist; the algorithm of the mathematician; the discourse of the philosopher; the imagery of the artist, poet, and photographer; and the tested faith and learning of the Torah-observant Jew.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The 10 & 26 Strings of Creation The 613 Nanometers of Tekhelet In the New Issue of B'OR HA'TORAH

B'OR HA'TORAH Journal of Science, Art & Modern Life in the Light of the Torah Issue 11 in English. 196 pages. Illustrated with fine Judaica and nature photography..

A new issue, number 11 in English, of the B'OR HA'TORAH Journal of Science, Art & Modern Life in the Light of the Torah has just come out. The new issue features a unique large section on the origin of the universe. Discussion by eminent physicists and rabbis, including the Lubavitcher Rebbe, shows that the most recent theories of physics are moving toward the viewpoint of the Torah.

In "Ten Dimensions: A Physical Theory of Everything" Rabbi Dr. Naftali Berg alav ha'shalom ties in a survey of the development of Relativity Theory and Supe! rstring Theory with the Rebbe's siha on parashat Noah. The scientific search for the unity of nature concurs with the revelation of Hasidism that the multiplicity of creatures and creations evolve from the perfect unity of G-d.

The most promising theory being developed today to explain all the forces of nature in a unified way is Superstring Theory. This theory postulates that loop-like strings in a multidimensional space-time-rather than point-like particles-should be the model for the fundamental constituents of matter. This theory turns out to be consistent only in multidimensional space-times with 10 or 26 dimensions. These two numbers are very significant in Jewish mystical philosophy. The Divine creative energies are categorized as ten sfirot (emanations); and Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei, the Divine Name responsible for the creation of the universe has the numerical value of 26.

According to Berg: "The equivalent of the sfirot from the physicist's point of view is the ten dimensio! ns. The ten dimensions allow this basic unity/string to man! ifest itself in these various vibrations and exhibit all the forces of nature and all the particles which we observe. When the vibrational modes of the strings are clockwise, ten dimensions are required. When the vibrational modes of the strings are counterclockwise, 26 dimensions are required."

Naftali Berg was an active Lubavitch Hasid in Baltimore, Maryland and an award-winning physicist at the US Army Research Laboratory. He originally delivered "Ten Dimensions: A Physical Theory of Everything" at the Rabbi Aryeh Leib Seminar in Crown Heights a few months before his untimely death in 1994.

Editor-in-Chief of B'OR HA'TORAH, Professor Herman Branover, also contributed an innovative work to the new issue. With co-author theoretical physicist Professor Ruvin Ferber of Branover's native Riga, he compares the two types of time recognized by contemporary physics and Jewish tradition: 1) absolute or unified world time; 2) relative or local time. The first type is defined by Hasi! dism as "absolute, permanently flowing" (etsem hemshekh ha'zman), and the second as "measurable and estimable" (zman ha'nimdad veha'meshuar). There is a special cycle in the Hasidic system called ratso v'shov, which comprises a dual process of 'escape and return.' In physics this corresponds with the periodically recurrent process needed to measure time, i.e., with a finite 'to-and-fro' cycle which occurs by means of some restoring force.

Also in the new issue of B'OR HA'TORAH are: philosopher Yitzchok Block on Creation; physicist Professor Gerald Schroeder on Time & the Age of the Universe; physicist Professor Nathan Aviezer on Man as the Pinnacle of Creation and on Life in Mars; Yanki Tauber's rendition of the Lubavitcher Rebbe on messianic time; mathematician Dr. Ephraim Nissan halakhic invention, The Shabbat Notepad; Rabbi Yitshak Yehuda Rozen on The Lubavitcher Rebbe on Outer Space; philosopher and Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Dr. Shimon Dovid Cowen on Torah Metaphysics versus New! tonian Empiricism (explaining the Rambam's cosmology); phys! icist Professor Avraham Kushelevsky alav ha'shalom on "Why Wasn't Newton Born in China?"; historian Dr. Yoseph Udelson on Solomon Maimon: A Second Look at the Enlightenment; excerpts from Wendy Dickstein's novelization of The Life of Gluckel of Hameln; statistician Professor A.M. Hasofer on Michael Drosnin's The Bible Code; book reviews by Dr. Reuven Ben Dov; Susan Schneider on Women's Rights in the Torah: The Daughters of Tslofhad; physicist Dr. Baruch Sterman on The Meaning of Tekhelet; poetry by Raphael Ruderman and Roberta Chester; and photography by Yaaacov Kaszemacher and Ruth Fogelman.

In Baruch Sterman's fascinating study of the tekhelet dye commanded by the Torah to color certain ritual strings, he illustrates that one molecule of tekhelet dye obtained from the sea snail Murex trunculus gets its blue-green color from a strong absorption peak centered at exactly 613 nanometers. -- The Author

About the Author

Editor-in-chief of B'OR HA'TORAH is Professor Herman Branover Herman Branover was born in Riga, Latvia, earned his PhD from the Moscow Institute of Aviation in magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), and completed a DSc degree in physics and mathematics at the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute. While a leading scientist at the Latvian Academy of Science, Professor Branover discovered G-d and the Torah, became a Lubavitcher Hasid, and then struggled for the right to immigrate to Israel. He actively helped many other Russian Jews to do the same. (The dramatic story of his struggle for Jewish reawakening in the former USSR is told in his autobiography Return, reprinted in 1996 by Jason Aronson Publishers.) After settling in Beersheba with his wife and son, in 1977 Professor Branover created the Center for Magnetohydrodynamics Studies at Ben-Gurion University. The Center engages in teaching, research, and the development of a novel MHD electricity generator. As honorary president of ! SHAMIR, the Israel Association of Religious Professionals from the Former USSR, Professor Branover has continued the voluntary work he started in Riga translating major Jewish texts into Russian and encouraging Russian Jews to observe the Torah and live in Israel. He is the initiator and editor-in-chief of B'Or Ha'Torah, published by SHAMIR. A recipient of the S.D. Bergman Prize for the development of new technology in Israel, Professor Branover also received the Knesset Speaker's Award in 1991 for his work with Russian immigrant absorption. He chairs the Prime Minister's committee for solving immigrants' professional employment problems. He is a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences in Moscow and the Latvian Academy of Sciences, a member of the Moscow International Energy Club, and has received honorary doctorates from the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Technical University of St. Petersburg, and Yeshiva University.