Posted on 05/31/2008 6:55:49 PM PDT by Zionist Conspirator
Monday morning 6/2
Kohen--Numbers 4:21-24
Levi--vs.25-28
Yisra'el--vs.29-37
Wdnsday 6/4--Ro'sh Chodesh Sivan
Kohen--Numbers 28:1-3
Levi--vs. 3-5
Shelishi--vs. 6-10
Revi`i--vs. 11-15
Thrsday morning 6/5
Kohen--Numbers 4:21-24
Levi--vs.25-28
Yisra'el--vs.29-37
Strday 6/7--Shabbat Parashat Naso'
MORNING
Kohen--Numbers 4:21-37
Levi--4:38-49
Shelishi--5:1-10
Revi`i--5:11-6:27
Chamishi--7:1-41
Shishi--7:42-71
Shevi`i--7:72-89
Maftir--7:87-89
Haftarah--Judges 13:2-25
EVENING
Kohen--Numbers 8:1-4
Levi--vs. 5-9
Yisra'el--vs. 10-14
Ping.
Recall that I am a Torah believer. So too is Gerald Schroeder who, in The Science Of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom, offers up a relativistic model of creation over 15 3/4 billion years which he regards in perfect harmony with the Biblical view of six days.
Personally, I’m in good concert with Schroeder on this, noting that the Sun forms in the latter half of day 2 (~4.6 billion years ago). Thus the old saw, “How might a day be otherwise measured?
Note in a similar vein as well that Leviticus 11:19 uses the Hebrew word "tuf nun shin mem tuf" - "Tinshemet" - to refer to a "bird", then uses the same word in 11:30 to refer to a "reptile", in more than a passing nod to later “evolutionists”.
That is just fascinating to me and I think says a lot about how relevant the Bible really is for our time. The key it would seem is in the discernment of how we from our scientific age read that same eternal truth from the perspective of Moses’ time.
It turns out, from this perspective, that it’s very much one and the same.
Thanks so much again for allowing me to indulge this bit of hopeful unification.
God’s Goodness always to You and Yours....
Schroeder picks and chooses when he will listen to science and when he will not. He arbitrarily subjects the first verses of Genesis to modern scientific interpretation but then when Adam and Eve arrive on the scene he suddenly opts to become a fundamentalist, completely ignoring what science has to say. This is an artificial and arbitrary position that neither creationists nor scientific evolutionists can accept.
The same science that says that the universe took fifteen billion years to form also says there was no Flood, that Adam and Eve never existed, that the ancient generation listed in Genesis are myths adopted from Mesopotamian paganism, etc. If he is going to heed the words of science on the beginning of the Torah, then why does he suddenly and arbitrarily stop his ears to science at a certain point and become a fundamentalist dogmatist?
Science also tells us that Hebrew is not the original G-d created language but that it "evolved" from older languages. I wonder what Dr. Schroeder as to say about that? He probably rejects it in the name of dogmatism, but in doing so he loses any and all right to criticize people who apply his dogmatic fundamentalism more consistently.
If you want to believe Schroeder no one is going to stop you. There are certainly Orthodox Jews--including even insular Yeshivish Jews--who agree with him and you. But please don't imply (as some do) that Schroeder's arbitrary blend of scientism and fundamentalism is "the" Orthodox Jewish position.
In the final analysis, science can tell us nothing about either the beginning or the end of the universe because neither the beginning nor the end of the universe is natural. Naturalistic scientists retroject the laws of nature as we know them into the distant past in order to explain how the existence of the universe is a purely natural phenomenon and project the laws of nature as we know them into the distant future to show how the earth will eventually be pulled into the sun, etc. But the laws of the universe neither created nor will put an end to the universe. They came into being at a certain time and will be superseded at a certain time. For this reason "theistic evolutionists" have the gall to call G-d a "liar" (chas vechalilah!) because it "looks as if" the universe is billions of years old. These people, however, seem to have no problem with G-d "lying" in the Torah (again, chas vechalilah!).
Shavu`a vechodesh tov.
And thank you again ZC, for the Readings for the week.
Fabulous response, ZC!
I'll try hard not to imply anything to Orthodoxy. These views are my own.
As a noachide I came to Judaism through a Conservative shul (about a year), but now attend a Chabad, occasionally, just down the street.
I had a lot of math & science in college. I believe Torah through the sense that I mentioned last week and this. I think - I hope - G-d understands my "wrestling" with Him in that sense. I guess that's why I like Schroeder, having read his works and having heard him with Dennis Prager, who I also like very much and who in fact, more than anyone else, led me to Judaism.
I think perhaps in the sense you mentioned, Schroeder too "struggles" with G-d, as He is obviously as paramount in his life as He is in mine and yours.
Science is no false thing. We've split the atom with it, and, G-d willing, will eventually contain the fusion of Hydrogen to Helium for virtually unlimited electricity.
I see G-d in geology as well as within Torah. Sense Him in the growth of plants as easily as in The Ten Commandments. In the universe, vast from it’s most remote to the structure of quarks and maybe even superstrings.
I’d agree with you that we can never know it’s beginnings, as much from quantum uncertainty, as well as its end...the now current “dark energy” which seems to propel it’s expansion ever outward.
In this, and of this, all, is of G-d.
So again, thanks for letting me wax divine. As I see it, yes. But always in knowing that all things begin and end in Him.
And thanks too, always for your weekly post, of which I’m honored to be included.
All Good, always.
Everything Good too to You and Yours....
Thanks so much again.
Shalom.
You’re more than welcome. [smile]
We (family and I) are over 60 miles from the nearest Chabad and must rely for the time being on online direction from a great Orthodox Rabbi.
I never said it was. However, it can only study the phenomena of which it is aware, and this means it is limited to only those things governed by the laws of nature as we know them today. Previous ages when the laws of nature were different, and especially the coming-into-being of those laws in the first place, are completely outside its purview.
Splitting the atom is something that takes place here and now. This has nothing to do with the origins of all that is.
See. We do agree!
All Good....
Well met.
By the way, Thanks For Your Service.
All Good....
Well . . . we obviously don't agree about everything (such as the usefulness of scientific theories about origins, which are by their very nature supernatural), but Mashiach will teach us all things when he comes.
Two interesting things about this weeks parashah: the first part of the fourth `aliyyah deals with the sotah (the woman suspected by her husband of "straying" into idolatry). There are two absolutely unique things about this ritual: 1)each time it was performed the Holy Name of G-d was actually written and effaced (the only time this may be done, illustrating G-d's abhorrence of the breakup of a marriage), and it is the only mitzvah in the entire Torah requiring a supernatural miracle--although perhaps this is not strictly so, since the thread on Yom Kippur was supposed to turn from red to white. Hmm. Alouette?
I don't think this is the only mitzvah that requires a "miracle," all the symptoms of tz'ra'at (translated as "leprosy" but there is no similarity to the disease now known as Hansen Syndrome) are the result of speaking lashon hara (gossip), this is why the symptoms are identified by a priest and not a physician.
Right you are, though in that case the mitzvot are in response to the supernatural phenomenon rather than calling it forth (as do the laws of the sotah and the change in color on Yom Kippur).
Although it's a bit off-topic for this thread, it is my understanding that tzara`at was not a disease at all and was not communicable. "Lepers" were exiled "without the camp" not because it was catching but because it caused ritual impurity, which is totally different. However, most people nowadays read about "leprosy" in the Bible and assume it is Hansen's disease.
Um . . . what about Na`aman Ha'Arami? How did a non-Jew come down with tzara`at in that instance?
Shabbat-shalom, Alouette!
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