Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: Simple Faith and Intense Investigation

I thought I was downloading a shiur entitled "Dah Mah Shetashiv LeApekoris" (know what to answer an apikorus) by R' Yisroel Belsky, shlita.  As it turned out, though, I was not downloading one shiur... I was downloading a zip file of 48 shiurim!  Taking about striking it rich!  It the first time I have heard shiurim from R' Belsky and I am amazed by the depth of knowledge he has in science.  Although he didn't actually present any equations, it was clear from his concise and penetrating analysis that he knew exactly how the calculations are performed.

Just to give you an example of his approach: R' Belsky needed a new water heater.  The plumber who installed it told him that it heats water so fast that he'll never run out of hot water.  R' Belsky asked him how much water it held, at what rate it heated water, and how much water was used when taking a shower.  The first two were answered by from the documentation, but he didn't know how to answer the third.  So R' Belsky took a gallon jug, put it under a running faucet, and measured the amount of time it took to fill the jug.  He then calculated the amount of hot water the newly installed device could deliver and it came up short.  "My family of five and the nineteen year old bochur who rents the attic apartment will easily be able to run this out of hot water!  How can that brochure say that you'll never run out of hot water?"  The reply: That brochure was not written for people like you.

R' Belsky's point was not to take the word of "experts" for granted.  Push back on them and ask them to justify their conclusions.  When he was 18 he went to a museum of natural history and saw the famous display of "horse evolution" -- six horses (reconstructed from fossils), from size of small dog to modern horse that span 55 million years.  R' Belsky told the curator that he found the display very informative.  The curator asked him what he liked in particular.  R' Belsky replied, "It's a very clear proof of how ridiculous the theory of evolution is."  What?!?  "You see," continued R' Belsky, "There are millions of changes from horse to horse.  If evolution were true, and change happens by small increments, then there would be horses of all sizes from the smallest to the largest.  They don't exist, so evolution is wrong."  But we'll find them... we just haven't yet.  "That argument may have been reasonable a hundred or more years ago, but you've explored all the fossil beds down to rock bottom... they don't exist."

In conclusion: we don't believe the theory of evolution.  Not because it goes against our faith... faith is irrelevant.  It doesn't stand up as a scientific theory.  End of discussion.

Belief in G-d, on the other hand, has to be a matter of faith.  The Kuzari, R' Belsky notes, which is a sefer that seems to be all about intense investigation, says that one can strengthen his faith with investigation, but it can't really give you a reason to believe in the first place.  Intelligent design can help you to see HaShem (so to speak), but only once you already know and believe that He exists.

I have only heard the first four so far...
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: Love in the Time of Corona Virus/Anxiously Awaiting the Mashiach

Two scenarios: Scenario I: A young boy awakened in the middle of the night, placed in the back of vehicle, told not to make any noise, and the vehicle speeds off down the highway. Scenario II: Young boy playing in park goes to see firetruck, turns around to see scary man in angry pursuit, poised to attack. I experienced and lived through both of those scenarios. Terrifying, no? Actually, no; and my picture was never on a milk carton. Here's the context: Scenario I: We addressed both set of our grandparents as "grandma" and "grandpa". How did we distinguish? One set lived less than a half hour's drive; those were there "close grandma and grandpa". The other set lived five hour drive away; they were the "way far away grandma and grandpa". To make the trip the most pleasant for all of us, Dad would wake up my brother and I at 4:00AM, we'd groggily -- but with excitement! -- wander out and down to the garage where we'd crawl
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: אוושא מילתא Debases Yours Shabbos

My granddaughter came home with a list the girls and phone numbers in her first grade class.  It was cute because they had made it an arts and crafts project by pasting the list to piece of construction paper cut out to look like an old desk phone and a receiver attached by a pipe cleaner.  I realized, though, that the cuteness was entirely lost on her.  She, of course, has never seen a desk phone with a receiver.  When they pretend to talk on the phone, it is on any relatively flat, rectangular object they find.  (In fact, her 18 month old brother turns every  relatively flat, rectangular object into a phone and walks around babbling into it.  Not much different than the rest of us, except his train of thought is not interrupted by someone else babbling into his ear.) I was reminded of that when my chavrusa (who has children my grandchildrens age) and I were learning about אוושא מילתא.  It came up because of a quote from the Shulchan Aruch HaRav that referred to the noise of תקתוק
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: David HaMelech's Five Stages of Finding HaShem In the World

Many of us "sing" (once you have heard what I call carrying a tune, you'll question how I can, in good conscience, use that verb, even with the quotation marks) Eishes Chayil before the Friday night Shabbos meal.  We feel like we are singing the praises of our wives.  In fact, I have also been to chasunas where the chasson proudly (sometimes even tearfully) sings Eishes Chayil to his new eishes chayil.  Beautiful.  Also wrong.  (The sentiments, of course, are not wrong; just a misunderstanding of the intent of the author of these exalted words.) Chazal (TB Brachos, 10a) tell us that when Sholmo HaMelech wrote the words "She opens her mouth Mwith wisdom; the torah of kindness is on her tongue", that he was referring to his father, Dovid HaMelech, who (I am continuing to quote Chazal here) lived in five worlds and sang a song of praise [to each].  It seems to me that "world" here means a perception of reality.  Four times Dovid had to readjust his perc
Post a Comment
Read more