Michael el Chayil

In case my current suave and debonair persona makes it hard for you to imagine me as a science nerd, this story should remedy that misconception.  Long before I was married -- in fact, long before I had any thought that marriage and dating had anything to do with each other (I was in college...) -- I asked a girl on a date.  I arrived at the appointed time and she informed me that she had forgotten about that she had homework due the next day. (That's possible, right?  I mean, just because we are all in college and taking a full-time load, that doesn't mean we'll always have homework, right?  I mean, it's not like she said she had to wash her hair, right?)  Anyway, apparently felt a little badly (big step up from anyone else -- both of them -- that I had asked before), so she asked if I'd like to have some popcorn and visit at little bit.  I didn't have to be asked twice!  She asked me, "Why are you a physics major?  That sounds so boring!"  ...

I struggle every year with trying to make the fast of Tisha b'Av more meaningful than just dreading yet another 25 hour fast.  I learn about the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash (may it be rebuilt soon and in our lifetime) and the story of Kamtz and Bar Kamtza.  Those make an intellectual impression on me.  I read about/listen to/watch first person accounts of holocaust victims; see documentary on Leah Kaufman on the Aish  site.  Those make me inspired by what a human being (even an 8 year old girl) can become, horrified by how low a human being can sink, and a bit embarrassed about my own complaining (gee whiz... it's been 23 hours since my last good meal... I guess I'll just have to nap more before ma'ariv).  But none of them strikes a chord of personal or even communal tragedy. Till yesterday, 10 Av 5775/July 26 2015; when I was wakened by the buzz of an incoming text message telling me that the funeral for Bubbie Rochel would be at 11:00AM.  ...

I can remember when we got our first color TV.  There we still plenty of shows that were still in black and white, though.  (Some people used to turn the color adjustment knob just to force green or magenta tinging of the picture -- "I paid for color; I am going to see color, darn it!")  Besides the shows being broadcast in black and white, they also mostly addressed issues in black and white; that is, either avoid it completely or say something that had unanimous approval of the viewing public as understood by the corporate sponsors. One show that was a little different (to my young, impressionable mind) was Father Knows Best .  One show made particularly strong impression on me, was when Bud came home spouting that no one does anything except for selfish motives.  Father was horrified and set out to prove him wrong by directing their old-time house painter to use cheap paint; it only needed to look good enough to fool prospective buyers, father told the pain...

Consider the following thought experiment: have your friend throw/roll a bowling ball down a lane in which you have set up sensor to determine the precise speed, angle, and rotation of the ball just after he releases.  You can then predict, with whatever accuracy you want (just get better sensors for better results), precisely what pins he will knock down  (which, by the way, is precisely how the Wii Sports  bowling game works).  Alternatively, I could set up sensors to measure the direction and speed of each pin in the set and then use that to tell him precisely what the speed, angle, and rotation of the ball was just after he released.  I assume you are not shocked. You are not shocked because everyone knows that's the way the physical world works.  Given the complete state of a system now, I can (in principle) tell you what its state will be at any moment in the future and what it must have been at an moment in the past.  That is, of course, unles...

Newton's Laws of Motion begin with:  Unless acted upon by an outside force, an object in motion at rest will remain at rest and an object in motion will remain in motion.  Newton's second law states that the change in motion of an object is directly proportional to the net applied force.  Please note that the first law seems to be nothing more than the special case where there is no externally applied force.  We are not the first to notice that (sorry to burst your bubble); Newton knew that very well when he codified his laws of motion.  So why did he include a special case of the 2nd law as the 1st law?  He was making a point.  He was asserting a major break with the then reigning Aristotelian view of the world, which stated: an object at rest will remain at rest, while an object in motion will tend to come to rest.  The Aristotelian world view was that everything in the universe has a preferred place; motion is the response or an object to bein...

I thought I'd let the whole brew-ha-ha (brouhaha; get it?  I slay me...) about my post-pesach beer trials and tribulations before bringing up a side point.  I said there that the beer was permitted because we have a  ספק ספיקא /doubly inconclusive. Namely: (1) Maybe the malted barley was all bought after pesach; (2) even if it wasn't we can rely on ברירה/choice (since it is d'rabanan).  On that point, some cried, "Nay! 'Tis but a single doubt, though with two dependent parts." The ספק ספיקא I presented was:  First, we have a ספק if the barley is from before Pesach at all, and since it is d'rabanan we apply the general rule of ספק דרבנן לקולא/in case of doubt on a Rabbinic prohibition, the halacha is to rule leniently.  Second, even if the barley is from before Pesach, we can rely on ברירה/choice and we can assume that the barley used to make my batch of beer came entirely after Pesach.  The nay-sayers claimed that I had rea...

Just to set the stage, here is a quote from Lord Kelvin , one of the seminal scientists who shaped modern physics: The more thoroughly I conduct scientific research, the more I believe that science excludes atheism. I don't need to bring proof that some scientists are atheists and/or believe in evolution; however, I want to be clear that the idea of creation is not, in and of itself, an unscientific concept.  This is not, of course, a proof that atheism is unscientific; I just want a level playing field. In order to decide how to live my life effectively, I must understand the intended purpose (if any) of my existence.  There are many (many, many, sigh...) proposed candidates; lots of religions, lots of philosophies; a veritable plethora of -isms .  To winnow the playing field to only the reasonable candidates for Truth, I only accept those that satisfy the following criteria. A logical system.  That knocks out religions that just willy-nilly add yet another g...

Just so everyone is on the same page:  For those of you who believe that evolution is easily disproved by looking at the amazing order, synergistic form with function, and cooperating system apparent in the universe; I say, "nuh-uh"; or, less succinctly, "Very complex systems can come into being by random processes; given a typing pool of monkeys randomly banging on typewriters, they will eventually produce the entire works of William Shakespeare."  For those of you who believe that belief in a supernatural creator is entirely a matter of blind faith and outside the pale of logical investigation; I say, "nuh-uh"; or, less succinctly, "Given the available data (both historical and physical measurements) and current understanding, the most rational conclusion is that the universe is the beautiful production of an intelligent and wise Creator, tailor made to accomplish His purposes.  Now that everyone is mad at me and thinks I am on the "the other s...

I have started a new series of taped shiurim (I know those recordings wouldn't know  tape from Adam, but I am old enough to think of all recordings as "taped") by Rabbi Ahron Lopiansky on Da Ma Shetashiv /know how to answer an apikoros  (I had no idea that word only applied to Jewish apostates ; cool!).  I like this genre of shiur.  First, you cover a lot of ground vis a vis Jewish thought.  Second, I know this apikoros (a very irritating one, actually, who always stars at me while I brushing my teeth) that is a real tough customer and he always needs to hear the same answers said a new way; over and over again. R' Lopiansky started with a nice introduction of some necessary conditions before you even think to begin a discussion.  He presented an interesting thought experiment.  Suppose you had the opportunity to meet an aborigine who was very intelligent, but had never before seen a computer.  (To get an idea of how he feels, try asking yo...

I am a physicist by training and predilection and a programmer by necessity.  One thing that means is that when I am confronted with a conflict between truth and beauty, I embark on a mission to accomplish two things: Accept the truth. Alter my perception to beauty to correspond to what is true. For example, there were those who feel that irrational numbers (number that cannot be expressed as the ratio of two integers) are ugly.  This group includes the Pythagoreans of the ancient world, who are said to have drowned   Hippasus  for having used their theorem to prove their existence.  It also certain members of the Indiana state legislature who introduced bill #246 into the 1897 Indiana General Assembly to legislate that π should equal exactly 3. Those folks, and others of their ilk, are bound and determined to alter truth until it matches their perception of beauty. I find that us truth seekers are by and large a pretty tolerant group.  That is, ...

I was looking at a book about the human body with my five year old granddaughter and her four year old brother after the recent ברית מילה of their newest brother.  Of course, they had both asked about why he had one and she didn't.  I, being the grandfather, answered straight and let their parents deal with any embarrassing follow on questions.  In any case, we turned to the nervous system and my grandson, with the confidence and certainty that only a four year old boy can muster, declared, "Boys do not  have brains."  His sister, in that tone of voice that will some day be used to once again explain to her husband that no, he can't wear that tie with that suit, said, "Of course boys have brains; if they didn't have brains they couldn't think and they would just kick and hit all the time."  I am not really sure who won that argument... I recently heard a shiur from R' Yisroel Reisman given on the occasion of a siyum for a daf yomi completin...

On the issue of who is the halachic mother in the case of surrogate motherhood , we have seen an argument for the genetic mother and an argument for the birth mother .  Both had proponents, but neither had the universal acceptance.  (Ok... almost nothing this complex has universal acceptance, but neither has even enough acceptance to definitively declare, "This is the halacha.")  There is one more argument, that it is impossible to make such a determination.  (Spoiler alert: this argument will suffer the same fate as the other two; we'll deal with that shortly.) For those of you who do not live in Chicago or Eretz Yisrael: let's review the relevant halachos of חדש (new grain) and ישן (older grain).  The Torah forbids the use of new grain until after הקרבת העומר/the Omer offering is brought, which is on the second day of Pesach -- 16 Nissan.  When we have the בית המקדש, then חדש grain changes status to ישן with הקרבת העומר; nowadays, we wait t...

More on the details of determining the halachic mother in case of surrogate motherhood .  We tried proving that the genetic mother is the halachic mother , but ran into issues; still no proof. Let's try the other way, to prove that the birth mother is the halachic mother.  Of course, all gemaras have their own personality and are, well, gemara; there are no "easy" ones.  None the less, there are certainly some mesachtos that are more approachable than others.  Then there are the big three, whose acronym is עני/poverty: עירובין, נידה, יבמות; because they really consume a lot of mental resources just to get a surface understanding.  Of course, therefore, this arguments begins with a gemara in יבמות; daf 97b, in fact. Chazal there discuss the case of a non-Jewish woman who has twin boys.  In the first scenario, the three of them converted to Judaism.  The halacha regarding converts is: גר שנתגייר, כקטן שנולד דמי/one who converts [to Judaism]...

As I am sure you recall (since am quite certain you have nothing to do but to wait expectantly for your next installment of TftD; on the off chance I am wrong, however, you can review the salient issues here ), there are three main schools of thought on the halachic mother in the case of surrogate motherhood.  Today we shall, בעזרת השם, explore the first alternative: the genetic mother is the halachic mother.  (Based on my understanding of shiur I hear from  Rabbi Noach Oelbaum .) Among the children of Shimon who came down to Egypt with Yaakov was: שָׁאוּל בֶּן הַכְּנַעֲנִית; literally: Shaul, son of the Canaanite woman.  Rashi finds it untenable that Yaakov would make such a shidduch and therefore prefers the explanation found in Gen. Rabbah (80:11): The son of Dinah, who had been possessed by a Canaanite. When they killed Shechem, Dinah did not want to leave until Shimon swore to her that he would marry her. A little background, also from the medrash...

I am working from Southern California this week.  The primary motivation was traveling to meet my new grandson, יהושע אהרן דנבן Yehoshua Aharon Donovan (more about the name soon).  As השגחה would have it, my company just happens to have an office 30 miles from where my new grandson currently resides, and I just happen to have recently been assigned to an issue that relates to the product that is developed in this office, and it just happens the discovery of the root cause of the issue required me to sit together with a developer here so we had expertise from both areas of the code base looking at the same screen and discovering the problem together.  What luck! Anyway, I use the navigation system on my cell phone (a small, hand-held computer with more memory and compute power than the computers that landed a man safely on the moon, and by the way can also enable real-time voice communication between two parties even while traveling nearly anywhere on the globe) to ...

This question -- consciously expressed or not -- is at the basis of a many discussions of Torah observance in the modern world: What if the Torah were given now?  I mean, we have all this cool, gee-whiz technology and stuff that the ancients didn't, so the Torah would be different, right? That question is something like asking, "If the engineers who built this drop on the Matterhorn Bobsleds ride at Disneyland had known that we would be on this cart carrying our cell phones, would they have built it differently?  I mean, wouldn't they have taken into account that I might have something in my pocket that could fall out?"  Actually then engineers who built that ride most certainly knew that people might have something expensive in their pockets that might fall out.  They engineered for it, the made provisions for it.  You won't see a mention of cell phones in the original plans, but you certainly will see provisions for people with pockets and stuff in those p...

I offer the following story with some trepidation, but it is inspiring and I believe the possible damage can be mitigated. There was an Israeli solder in one of the elite military units who began turning toward the Torah.  He went to a shiur here and there, read this and that, and so on.  At one point he came to a point in his תשובה process where he had to, as it were, "fish or cut bait".  His unit was all volunteer and he made the decision to not reenlist for another tour of duty.  He came home, through himself into becoming a בעל תשובה.  It wasn't 30 days later that he died.  The particulars are absolutely irrelevant to what follows and the point of this story. The young man's rav was preparing to make a shiva call, but had no idea how to answer the most obvious question/challenge he was going to get from the parents: "He turns toward HaShem, he wants to become more religious... and he dies in barely a month?!" Of course, this is an old questio...

Every day when I leave Beis Medrash I thank the Good Lord for the opportunity to be in the community of those who learn Torah.  Some days are just plain amazing,  Other days, though, are over the top fun.  That was the kind of day I had yesterday.  Two gems in hilchos Yom Tov, siman 510: Several things that you are forbidden to do on Yom Tov, and which of them are permitted if you do them a little differently than usual. First of all, you just gotta love a title like that.  Of course, anything necessary for food preparation that could not have been done the day before without compromising the quality of the food is permitted.  That's why you are allowed to bake bread and even slaughter a cow on Yom Tov; you can't compare the taste of fresh baked bread and cow-to-bbq-in-less-than-an-hour to the stale bread and leftover meatloaf.  On the other hand, you may not sharpen the knife to slaughter the cow nor grind the wheat into flour on Yom Tov. The activi...

If you want an inkling of the greatness of Dovid HaMelech, consider the end of his life.  He was bedridden and physically unable to generate any body heat.  One beloved son had already rebelled and been put to death.  Another had raped his Dovid's daughter (the son's half-sister) and been dispatched by the first son.  Now another son was mounting a rebellion.  What else could happen?  Bat Sheva comes in, unannounced and without being summoned, and says: "But you promised!" -- referring to the fact that Dovid had sworn an oath that her son, Shlomo would be the next king.  Where do you see his greatness?  Think back to last time one of your kids came back with, "But you promised!"  How calm, cool, and collected were you?  And the only stress you have is tuition. Dovid HaMelech, though, retained his composure; nay, he sprang into action.  That's greatness.  Yet... it does beg the question: how was Dovid able to swear to such a t...

As you may recall (or you can refresh your memory here ), I have been going 'round and 'round about whether I can drink a certain beer that I had already purchased before any concerns were known.  The concern was and is: חמץ שעבר עליו הפסח; the brewery in question is Jewish owned (100% Jewish owned, in fact, which is a relevant factor, as will be explained shortly) and they do not sell nor otherwise divest themselves of חמץ during Passover.  That makes any beer that is produced from said חמץ forbidden to all Jews forever by rabbinic decree as a קנס/penalty. There several reasons I have spent so much time on this.  The least reason was that I like that beer and I was at risk of losing $15 worth of it; that is: the remaining 18 bottles from the case I had bought before the news broke.  I will not buy this beer again unless/until they come under kosher supervision, but $15 is $15 dollars.  A vastly more important reason I have spent so much time on this is that t...