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Thought for the Day: From Secular Scientist to Orthodox Rabbi

Well... ahem... I am now an international speaker! I spoke over a teleconference for Aneinu. The topic was: From Secular Scientist to Orthodox Rabbi -or- There and Not Back Again. I thought it was cute to have a subtle (or not so subtle, depending on your background) Tolkien reference. I also thought everyone else would think it was cute as well.  As it turned out, I quickly sized up the situation and realized that no one noticed. In the interest of time, therefore, I elided all the cute stuff I had planned to say in the introduction.

But, hey... I can record it here, just to prove that I really have a very eclectic background. I had planned to lead with:
If this were a Quentin Tarantino motif, the narrative would begin with with the motzei Shabbos, 9 Shvat, 5777 when I showed my wife the document I had prepared for R' Fuerst to sign, conferring my smicha as an Orthodox rabbi. My wife and I then walked over to the rav's house, so we could both be present when he signed it. However, since this is a Tolkien motif, we'll start with an expected party (our first Passover seder as a married couple) with an unexpected outcome (hey... no plagues!!)
But I didn't.

One thing I noticed was the very different way that I view my Ph. D. from the way this group of FFB ladies viewed it. To me, my Ph. D. was nothing more than a step along my lifetime work of searching for the truth. I had thought that my search for Truth would culminate in my understanding physics. The Ph. D. was just a way to be sure that I really, really understood physics, as evidenced by a group of my peers giving my knowledge of the topic their imprimatur. As such, when I realized that I now had discovered that, in fact, my journey needed to take a quite different turn; the Ph. D. became nothing more to me than a high school diploma. I needed it to go further, but it was only a step. I therefore now prefer -- when forced to use a title -- to use only "Rabbi".

For the audience, though, the Dr. added something important to the discussion.  As the organizer told me, "When I say that I don't believe in evolution, I don't really know what evolution means. When you say that you don't believe in evolution, though... that's different!" That was an interesting perspective for me to hear. (I'll still prefer to drop the Dr., however.)

You are welcome to listen to the shiur. I have written up several incidents when I first starting this blog, but never posted them under the "Thought for the Day" venue. I have plans (that may be a bit strong... hopes) to one day write everything up in a coherent narrative. In the meantime, you are welcome to read the scattered notes I have written. Links here, for convenience:

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