Greece Defeated - Scientist & Mystic

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Be Within Stay Above

Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe, Rabbi M. M. Schneerson

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The Ancient Greeks couldn’t understand us Jews. They asked us to describe our G–d. We said He could not be described. They asked us to explain how He created a world out of nothing. We said it could not be explained. They told us that which could not be explained could not exist.

And so continued the debate between philosophy and Torah for many centuries. Step by step, men described and explained everything they saw, until there was no room left for miracles, for prophecy, for divine providence, for G-d.

It was then that the fountains of wisdom opened for humankind and we gazed into the mysteries of the atom, of energy fields, of black holes in space.

Suddenly, the universe became once again a wondrous place. Suddenly, we discovered that existence itself could not truly be described or explained. In truth, the greatest mystery is that anything exists at all.

Today, it is okay to believe in the supernatural, for the "Laws of Nature" have been deposed from their throne. There is no reason to deny free choice, for the iron chain of Cause and Effect has been loosened. Today, once again, scientists talk about the oneness of the cosmos and a Consciousness within it.

Today, if anyone should tell you that Science has all the answers, respond that yes, it does. Its answer is to stand in awe at the design of this universe in which we live.

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	Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe, Rabbi M. M. Schneerson More articles... \|
	From the wisdom of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, of righteous memory; words and condensation by Rabbi Tzvi Freeman. To order Rabbi Freeman’s book, Bringing Heaven Down to Earth, click here.

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Reader Comments
Latest Comments:

Posted: Dec 22, 2008

words of Rabbe Schneersohn

Contemporary science no longer lays claim to absolutes; the principle of probability now reigns supreme, even in practical science as applied in common daily experiences. Certainly in such realms as the origin of the universe, the origin of life on earth, and the origin of the species, where the theories are based on speculative extrapolation, and even more so in the realm of pure science, where everything is based on assumed premises (If we assume that, etc. then it follows, etc.) – scientists clearly do not deal with certainties.

Need one remind our (orthodox???) Jewish scientists, who still feel embarrassed about some ‘old-fashioned’ Torah truths,

Posted By henk, Buffalo, NY

Posted: Dec 22, 2008

There are no answers

Why can't we just "accept" the experience of "being" each day, without doing all the math?

The "essence" of existing in a world that is both finite and infinite. One we can see, one we can not. One we think we understand, but one we will never understand.

Enjoy the beauty of the moment for this very moment is part of the fraction that makes up the whole.

Posted By Cindy, Ft. Towson, OK, USA

Posted: Dec 5, 2007

Them vs. Us

Is it the Greeks as a people that was 'defeated'?

Really, the topic is how science and a believe in G-d coincide with each other; or more specifically if they are antithetical to each other.

It's not which group of people defeated whom.

To imply otherwise implies that is why Torah was given to you.

It implies that Judaism is intrinsically antithetical to other people.

Add to this that there are many Jews who don't understand Judaism.

Only a small percentage of you even bother with it.

There is something downright self-defeating about all that, Mr. Freeman.

Posted By Thomas Karp, New Haven, Ct.

Posted: Dec 5, 2007

response to Helga

G-d exists outside of nothingness, nothing is really just an absence of anything physical, G-d is beyond any of the concepts we can think of.

Rabbi Freeman -

I always greatly enjoy your essays and thoughts and once again you have delivered an interesting inspiring point of wisdom.
thank you

Posted By Jonathan

Posted: Dec 30, 2005

2 days later

You said that G-d created a world out of nothing. You didn't say that there was nothingness (as in absence of G-d).

Thank you for helping me with my thoughts.

Posted By Helga Hudspeth

Posted: Dec 28, 2005

Regarding nothingness

In your first paragraph you state the following: "They (ancient Greeks) couldn’t understand us Jews...They asked us to explain how He created a world out of nothing. We said it could not be explained..."

I used to think that G-d made everything, out of something or out of nothing, however He pleased. But now I think that nothingness has never existed, nor can it ever exist. To say that nothingness exists would be the same as saying that there is a somewhere, a something in which G-d is not.

I think G-d made everything out of Himself -- how can it be any other way?

PS. My favorite part of your daily thought was this: "Today, if anyone should tell you that Science has all the answers, respond that yes, it does. Its answer is to stand in awe at the design of this universe in which we live."

Posted By Helga Hudspeth

Scientist & Mystic


	Past the Cosmic Machine


	Fuzzy Notions


	Greece Defeated


	Beneath the Veneer


	Cosmic Fractals


	All of Him


	Analogy


	Utterly Simple


	More Simple


	What You Need To Know


	Ideas With No End


	This


	Any Place


	Any Moment


	Any Soul

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