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Orchard of Delights Va’etchanan

Hillel the Elder encapsulated the paradox of the blessing and the Significantly, the Torah teaches us this message in Va’etchanan,
curse inherent in the ego in his famous saying, “If I am not for myself whose numerical value, 515, is the same as that of “tefillah,” the
– who will be for me? And if I am only for myself – what am I?” generic Hebrew word for prayer. The Hebrew word for “song” (shirah)
(Pirkei Avot 1:14). Another quote in Pirkei Avot (2:4) also reflects also has the same numerical value. This series of correspondences
what we have written about Moses: “Make His will as your will so teaches us a profound lesson: the essence of prayer is song and the
that He will make your will as if it were His will.” essence of song is prayer. For this reason the Temple service was
suffused with song and in fact the music of the levi’im in the Temple
was among the Temple’s most powerful experiential elements. Prayer
and song join earth and heaven and link human beings to God. Both
prayer and song emanate from our hearts and have the power to lift
£Quantum Physics Quantum Physics Quantum Physics us up to the very “heart of heaven.”
££
and Human Consciousness
and Human Consciousness
and Human Consciousness

££Cleaving to God
Until recently scientists thought the electron was a particular particle £Cleaving to GodCleaving to God
that had a defined position. Counterintuitively, quantum physicists
realized that the electron actually rotates within the nucleus of an
atom in an ethereal “cloud” and it can assume an infinite number “And you who cleave to God, your God, you are all alive today”
of possible positions at any particular given moment. The human (Numbers 4:4). The Sages ask how the mitzvah of cleaving to God
observer ultimately determines the approximate position of the can be accomplished when He is described in this very portion as a
electron, or to use scientific language, human observation “forces” “consuming fire” (Deuteronomy 4:24)! They answer that by cleaving
the electron to assume a defined position. The importance that to Torah scholars, we are, as it were, cleaving to God (Ketubot 111b).
science is beginning to assign to the role of human consciousness is The boldness of this idea raises many questions and forces us to define
one of modern physic’s most “spiritual” revelations.
more clearly what the meaning of our relationship with God is.
In Sefer Yetzirah, one of the oldest Kabbalistic texts, reality is The notion of cleaving to God by attaching ourselves to his prophets,
characterized as taking place in a number of dimensions: “world” judges, Torah scholars, and cohanim, is an ancient tradition. Today
or “space” (olam); “year” or “time” (shanah); and “soul” or we do so by drawing close to Torah scholars, tzaddikim, Rabbis,
“consciousness” (nefesh). Until Albert Einstein, only space was Rebbes, and Rebbetzins. We experience holiness by drawing close
conceptualized in dimensional terms. Einstein was able to reveal just to those who are holy, ascending nearer to God on the wings of those
one hundred years ago that time can also be considered a dimension who know how to fly that high.
and that the three dimensions of space and one dimension of time
form a unified space-time continuum. The discovery of the space- Yet, notwithstanding this time-honored tradition, we must
time continuum was one of science’s truly great breakthroughs. always ask at what point cleaving to a holy individual causes us to
And now science is on the cutting edge of what may be its greatest abdicate the obligation and responsibility to nurture our own unique
realization – that consciousness is also a “dimension.” relationships with God. When have we become too dependent on
others and forsaken our own efforts to reach God. Just as Jewish

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