V’zos Habracha – Spacewarps
A Roman emperor, according to a Midrashic account (Sifri, Devarim 357), sent two army units to find Moshe Rabbeinu’s burial site. When they stood above it on a hill, they saw it below. When...
Category: Science
Parshas Tetzaveh – Redolence and Relationship
After the Torah prescribes the details of the various vessels attendant to the mishkan (tabernacle), of the construction of the mishkan itself, of the mizbeach (altar), of the daily lighting of the menorah, of the...
Plumbing the Meaning of the Torah’s First Word
The Torah’s first verse is purposely unclear. As the Ramban, Nachmanides, points out, the deepest truths of how the universe was created are unfathomable and inscrutable, hidden, ultimately, in the realm of mysticism, not...
The Real Story Behind the Vaccine Story
One of the Covid-19 vaccines being studied has yielded encouraging results. That good news should yield us something too: a sense of awe at the accomplishment. Earlier this week, the biotech company Moderna, which...
How Coronavirus Sparked an Open Season on Haredim
A piece I wrote for Haaretz about the vilification of haredim over past weeks with regard to the current coronoavirus crisis can be read here. If you are unable to read it online, feel...
Amino Acids and Us
Like many 60-somethings, I remember being informed in grade school of the imminent solution to the mystery of life. Triumphantly, teachers described an experiment conducted by two researchers, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey, in...
A Column from 2010: Great Expectations
Thoughts of consequence can sometimes arise from the most mundane experiences, even a headache.Opening the medicine cabinet one day, I was struck by a sticker on a prescription container. “Not for use by pregnant...
Don’t Let The Measles Epidemic Fuel a Jew-Hating One
An article of mine in the Forward about the role of Orthodox anti-vaxxers inthe measles epidemic can be read here
Agudath Israel Statement about Nonsense and Insults at Monsey Gathering
Countless rabbinical figures and leaders, including leading rabbis in the Agudath Israel movement and doctors serving these communities, have repeatedly encouraged vaccination in the strongest possible terms. A recent gathering in Monsey, New York,...
Genetics and Mimetics
When my family lived in Providence, Rhode Island back in the 1980’s and early ‘90s, I heard rumors that some of the city’s residents of Cape Verdean ancestry had a strange custom. Friday afternoons,...
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