I signed up for a psychology class once. I learned three things. First, I learned that the unit of measure for a psychology class is the JND -- just noticeable difference. So for example, while black and brown shoes will definitely have a different internal temperature for a given ambient temperature, humidity, exposure to direct sunlight, etc... that difference is less than 1 JND. (No, not 1.0; JNDs are atomic, sort of). Second, I learned that we would be tested on material in the assigned reading that would never be covered in lecture. Throughout my entire college career, I never read a textbook; I just attended lectures and worked out the problems to learn the material. So I dropped the course.
Before I dropped, though, I actually learned one very cool concept that I later found discussed by our sages over the last few centuries (Rishonim and Acharonim). Namely, that all we can really observe is correlation; two events that always occur together under certain conditions. Cause and effect, however, is something we, the observer, imposes on the data. The example they gave was each day at noon, the following two events are observed. One the chimes sounded in the campus clock 12 times. Two, bees swarmed around the small park on campus for the students. It didn't seem reasonable to assume that the bees were ringing the chimes, nor that the chimes were causing the bees to swarm. Further research found that a donut shop showed up each day at noon at that small park area to sell donuts to the students who have lunch break then. The hypothesis became that the appearance of the donut truck was drawing the bees out. I presume further research was done to demonstrate that the donut truck really was the independent variable. I had dropped by then.
I have been bothered for a long time by a picture that is painted by Yeshayahu, chapter 11, regarding the future days of the mashiach, may he arrive soon and in our lifetime. "The lion, like cattle, will eat straw" (verse 7) and the land will be filled with the knowledge of HaShem as water covers the seabed (verse 9). It seems that when the world has come to the point of clear recognition of HaShem, then the lions -- and bears, and wolves, and leopards, and even venomous snakes -- will stop eating other animals.
Why? The lions -- and bear and wolf and... -- aren't doing anything wrong by eating animals. That is what it does. HaShem created it that way. Animals are not good nor evil, they just are; and they live according to the HaShem given nature. I understand that nation will not fight nation, swords will be beaten into plowshares, there will be no more war -- Please, HaShem, may that be very soon and in our lifetime! But what does that have to do with lions and tigers and bears, oh my?
Then I heard R' Biderman quoting a Radak. I went to look it up. This is so cool! We say אַשְׁרֵ֣י three times a day, which is mostly Psalm 145, which is written nearly alphabetically. The verse for צ is:
צַדִּיק ה' בְּכָל־דְּרָכָיו וחָסִיד בְּכָל־מַֽעֲשָֽׂיו: HaShem is righteous in all His ways, all His actions are kind
Says the Radak: HaShem provides food to all living being with righteousness and integrity. And even though some animals are predatory, such as the cat that eats the mouse; and the lion, bear, leopard and other predators that eat other animals. And birds of prey eat other birds and small animals. Yet all is done with precision. Each animal has an allotted time to live, when it is time for them to die, sometimes their death is accomplished by feeding another animal, sometimes for other reasons.
That means that the death of one animal is correlated with the eating of another, but their death is not caused by another animal wanting to eat. With that we can get a deeper understanding of the vision of Yeshayahu. The world will be so filled with clarity, that death will end. If animals don't need to die, the other animals won't need to eat them. The lion isn't getting hungry and then looking to kill an animal to fulfill his desire, rather the animal's time to die has arrived, so the lion gets hungry so he can fulfill the Desire of HaShem.
That is so cool that I almost don't mind that I had to take two weeks of that psychology course.
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