This Shabbos we had a siyum to celebrate the completion of our learning of tractate Rosh Hashanah. We also discussed the week’s parsha Shelach, the article witten by David’s father “Empirical Basis for the Belief in God”, and the halakah of tzitzit.
We studied the last part of tractate Rosh Hashanah, and then had a celebration for finishing the book. In the last part of the tractate, we learned that there are times that we are exempt from the mitzvah of coming to shul and davening. In these times, those that are exempt will still realize the benefits of those that do participate in the minyan. We also learned that once we are in shul, it is expected that we will daven, regardless of our exemption status, unless we are explicitly exempted. This is because there is an expectation that once we are there we are able to participate. After our learning, we celebrated the completion of the tractate.
We discussed parsha Shelach and Rav Yeager’s commentary on the parsha. The parsha contains what is known as the “sin of the spies”. We discussed whether or not there were really spies. Dave W pointed out that the word “spy” does not appear in the Torah. In the parsha, the "spies" come back, with most of them giving a bleak report of our ability to conquer the land.
We discussed exactly what constituted the sin. Norm pointed out that the sin was not having faith in Hashem and going on this mission to begin with. We discussed how in order to accomplish our goals, whether as a nation, or as individuals, it is important to have faith in Hashem. It is also important to believe that we will succeed. If we do not believe we will succeed we are licked from the start.
We discussed how the spies expectations influenced what they reported. Norm commented on an experiment in psychology where there are two people. One of them is expecting to receive a dollar, and the other is expecting to receive a dime. Both of these people are put into a room. A blind person is asked to go into the room and give one of them a dollar, and one of them a dime. More than 50% of the time, the person expecting the dollar gets the dollar, and the person expecting the dime gets the dime. In the same way, the spies expectation of finding Israel to be too hard to conquer, influenced their conclusion that Israel was too hard to conquer.
Because of our lack of faith, we had to wait an entire generation before we were able to enter Israel. David talked about how this was not necessarily punishment, but that it would take this long for us to internalize faith in Hashem. When we have a goal, sometimes we have to take “baby steps” towards that goal. We discussed that maybe it was never the plan that we would conquer Israel immediately.
David talked about an article that his dad, Dr. George Schlesinger, wrote entitled “Empirical Basis for the Belief in God”. This article appeared in the book Challenge, which is edited by Cyril Domb and Aryeh Carmell.
The article starts off by describing the process and logic by which we gather evidence and "proove" that a scientific theory is true. The article uses the example of Newton’s law. Newton’s law predicts that there will be a planet in a very specific location in space. We conduct an experiment to see if the planet is where Newton’s law would predict. The probability of finding a planet in the specific location by chance is very small. The fact that we verify the planet is there, is evidence that Newton’s law is correct.
We can do more and more experiments and make more predictions based on Newton’s law. Each time we verify a prediction, we gather more and more evidence and become more and more certain that Newton’s law is true. However, we can never become perfectly 100% certain, because it is always possible that our predictions are all true based on chance.
The article then proposes that if we use this logic to accumulate evidence to prove scientific theories, the same logic should apply to accumulate evidence for the existence of God. Instead of looking at the location of planets, we look at the occurrence of miracles. For example, earthquakes that occur at the exact time and place necessary to ensure a nation wins a war. The probability this event would occur by pure chance is very very small. In fact no-one predicted the earthquake. The occurrence of miracles at exact times and places is evidence of Hashem’s existence.
We can look at more and more miracles in order to get more and more evidence. There are miracles all around us, such as the creation of man. There are miracles such as the fall of the Soviet Union, and the establishment of the state of Israel. And we all have miracles in our personal lives starting with simply the fact we were born. The probability of each of these miracles occurring by chance is extremely small. None of these miracles are predicted. Noone predicted that I specifically would be born on a certain date and time. The same way we can not prove that Newton’s law is correct with 100% certainty, someone can always bring something up in which God’s existence has not been proved with 100% certainty.
Finally, we discussed the mitzvah of tzitzit. The tzitzit remind us of the Torah commandments. We are obligated to have tzitzit with 4 corner garments, but what if we do not have any 4 corner garments? We concluded that although we are not obligated, we should try to acquire and wear 4 corner garments with tzitzit.
What about woman wearing tzitzit? Woman are not obligated, because tzitzit is a time dependent mitzvah, however it can be good for woman to wear tzitzit although this should not be a priority. Woman should not wear tzitzit in public, as this could draw attention to something that is not currently very common. If we ever reach the point in which a lot of woman are wearing tzitzit in private, then it would be fine for woman to start wearing tzitzit in public.
This is a summary of what we discussed. No Halachic rulings are intended or should be inferred.
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