Page 116 - Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrew

CHAPTER 5 “DOUBLE” AND A MESSAGE OF SYMMETRY
CHAPTER 5 “DOUBLE” AND A MESSAGE OF SYMMETRY 95 95

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That this is the message conveyed by shamayim is indeed a bizarre
coincidence. Why should the sky be conceived by the Hebrew language to be
symmetrical? The sky shows extreme asymmetry. No two parts of the observable
sky looks alike. Denoting the sky by a term that carries a message of symmetry
is counterintuitive. It contradicts any experience that an earthly-bound observer
of the sky could have had, in ancient times as well as in ours: in that segment of
the sky, and not another, we expect to see the sun during daytime; during dark
hours, different groups of stars occupy different segments of the sky, creating

patterns (well-known to our ancestors) that were supposed to influence the fates
of everything that happens on Earth. The asymmetry in the patterns observed
in the sky in fact served the platform for personal predictions in the art known
by the name astrology (if we remember correctly, this term from a long-gone
culture …).
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The word shamayim, by contrast, offers no distinction with respect to which
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direction in the sky one points his or her finger. Shamayim implies that the sky

is perfectly symmetrical. Rabbi Ovadia Seforno (1470–1550) was probably the
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first to offer this interpretation of shamayim. In his interpretation for Genesis 1,

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he explains, “The word ‘Shamayim ’ indicates an object, far-away relative to us
in two equal distances on each side, and this would not occur unless in a wheel
turning around in a perfect circle.” From this, Seforno deduces that the earth is in
the center of a perfect wheel (consistent with the geocentric cosmology of Ptolemy
(100-170 AD), prevalent at Seforno’s time). Though Seforno does not explicitly
say this in so many words, obviously the concept of symmetry was behind his

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interpretation for the word shamayim. Yet, he had not heard of fundamental
symmetries of the universe or any cosmology theories. In fact, the latter did not
even exist at that time.
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Shamayim, as even fi fteenth-century Rabbi Seforno had felt, conveys
symmetry . That is compatible with all modern cosmologies, and is in concert with
a profound single principle—namely, that our time-space universe is saturated
with fundamental symmetries.

Whatever direction one chooses to point one’s finger in the sky, wishing to call
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it sham, the Hebrew language teaches us that it is indeed shamayim —sym-
metrical in every conceivable way, and profoundly counterintuitive.
5.4 Water

5.4.1 “Water” in Hebrew
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Unlike “water” in English, which is singular, in Hebrew mayim (water) is plural.
There is no singular for water. This is just the start of the peculiar nature of the