By Aharon Moshe ben-Dovid- AhMbdvd 9/23/07
Throughout these pages you will find one major theme being used consistently, Biology.
The most readily understandable reason for this is that while attending College (it's not enough just to attend, you actually must select a major) I selected Biology for many reasons. The reason of primary significance here is that of all the sciences utilizing a scale of comparative relevance, there was no undergraduate major that would be superior.
A primary concept in the body of work, or method of understanding which is often referred to as Kabbalah, deal with such fundamental principles of the cosmic creation. When bringing up such a seemingly monumental concept as the cosmic creation, one might be tempted to ask, how can this be relevant to anything today.
Then I would always counter with, how can you even ask that question, when you really consider the matter, the cosmic creation encompasses everything!
While waiting for our Professor to arrive, conversations such as the following would take place:
Student A: I'm majoring in Physical Chemistry, how about you?
Aharon Moshe: I'm majoring in Biology for Secondary Education.
Student B: (to AM) You want to teach?
Aharon Moshe: Maybe. The hours are pretty good, and you still get
the summers off.
Student A: Well I'm planning to do research. What could be more
important then chemistry. Particularly physical
chemistry.
At this point another student joined in who happened to be majoring in organic chemistry. The discussion took some interesting twists and turns...
Aharon Moshe: Okay it is true eventually everything is made up of atoms. However by the time you get down to that level your not even looking at living things anymore. What your studying is the building blocks of molecules which are found in or make up the skeleton of the organelles, components of the cells of living things.
The point I was trying to make and did indeed make was that by the time you get to the building blocks of matter which is well documented, you have already missed the more important and larger picture which concerns the building blocks of living things.
Wait a second! Asks someone who just happened upon this web page, I thought this was going to be about:
Trying to break down Torah concepts which seem esoteric or complex into easily understandable concepts for one who is looking to understand Torah concepts on a deep level. Ten luminous Emanations, The Arizal, Chassidus, Kabalah, Zohar.
The link below will take you to a nice little glossary for Hebrew terms that may be helpful.
http://www.chassidus.net/glossary.htm
Okay without further delay here it is:
Physics: Point of singularity. Everything we know of today the so called "known universe" came from a single point in massive explosion called the big bang. Other theories like "steady state" or "pulsating universe" theories seek to explain how various elements in the universe are contracting and expanding. Physical entities that exist in the universe such as Galaxies, Collapsed or collapsing stars, black holes etc are used to argue the validity, or the problems in any of these theories.
The theories are quite involved, here is a link or two, feel free to research these cosmic theories on your own:
http://www.mail-archive.com/eristocracy@merrymeet.com/msg00037.html
http://flux.aps.org/meetings/YR01/APR01/abs/S2390.html
Biology: All living things come from cells. All cells come from other cells.
When you get to the matter of where the first cell comes from, some interesting theories, ideas, explanations, and experiments are invoked:
The names to know from the biological literature are:
Stanley Miller: He conducted an experiment seeking to duplicate the primordial conditions which were thought to exist on earth. In this primordial soup mixture of methane gas, ammonia, and/or Nitrogen gas, stanley Miller added electrical current to duplicate lightning, and was able to produce amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins, which are the building blocks of cellular organelles and proteien and enzymes.
Hetertroph Hypothesis
Oparin/Haldane:
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen06/gen06323.htm
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