Hot answers tagged science
16
The short answer is no. Waiting between consuming meat and consuming dairy has nothing to do with how much time we perceive to have elapsed but with the experience of the person who consumed it. Spaceman Ploni, who decided to eat meat immediately prior to takeoff (a revolting thought), can still taste it when he returns to earth, despite the fact that his ...
12
According to the Rambam in the Guide of the Perplexed "Whenever it is possible to interpret the words of an individual in such a manner that they confirm to a being whose existence has been demonstrated, this is the conduct that is more fitting and most suitable for an equitable man of exellent nature."
Even though I'm certain this will be controversial, ...
11
I would say the biggest explanation ahead of its time was not by the rabbis, but by the Torah, steadfastly defended by even the most rational rabbis in the face of prevailing secular thought. Up until 1929 (and perhaps even as late as 1949), the leading view in astronomy was that we lived in a steady-state universe with no beginning and no end. People often ...
11
This is from the Babylonian Talmud. Shabbat 135b says that we don't break Shabbas to save the life of a baby born in its eighth month of gestation. The idea was that there are 7-month babies and 9-month babies, and an 8-month baby was either an early 9-monther or a late 7-monther and if it were an early 9-monther, it probably wasn't going to make it.
...
10
Ralbag (Gersonidies) has the earliest known use of a proof by mathematical induction in his mathematical work Maase Hoshev (1321 CE).
Source: Rabinovich, N. L. (1970). Rabbi Levi Ben Gershon and the Origins of Mathematical Induction. Archive for History of Exact Sciences, 6(3), 237-248. Available in JSTOR here.
(For comparison, the prevalent thought ...
10
First, you should remember how bad infant mortality was in those days. So what it says about how some infants were considered not viable (and thus could not be touched on Shabbos), no longer applies today when infant mortality is much lower. You should talk about the change in infant mortality with your students.
The way you phrased your question implies ...
8
Rambam, Hilchos Yesodei Hatorah Chapter 3. From Chabad.org
Halacha 1
The spheres are called the heavens, the firmament, the habitation, the skies.
There are nine spheres. The closest sphere is the sphere of the moon. The second sphere, which is above it, is the sphere which contains the planet Kochav (Mercury). The third sphere, which is above ...
8
A simple explanation is that the when G-d created the world 5772 years ago, He did not create it as a "brand-new" world, but rather created the world in a state as if it had been existing for many years previously.
This is quite evident from the fact that the sin of the Tree of Knowledge occurred on the same day Adam was created. He was obviously "born" ...
8
This article from Dr J Menczer indicates that although there is a significantly lower incidence of cervical cancer amongst Jews it is not due to family purity laws, as even Jews who do not observe these laws have a lower incidence of cervical cancer.
7
Torah Shleimah (BeReishis 1:1 note 30) quotes the Rama in Toras HaOlah who says that Chazal (Yerushalmi Avodah Zarah 3:1, BaMidbar Rabbah 13, Zohar VaYikra 10, Zohar Chadash 15) knew the earth was round before the non-Jews (he gives the date that they knew as 5252, i.e. 1492, whereas Wikipedia claims that it was already known by that time that the world was ...
6
Waiting six hours is not based on the scientific definition of digestion. The Talmud (Chullin 105a) says that one must wait from one meal to the next. There is a disagreement among the Rishonim if that actually means from one meal to the next, or if it means the amount of time between the morning and evening meals, which would mean approximately six hours. ...
6
See our discussion and the sources brought here where it is shown that the pikuach nefesh of reviving a dead person is different than that of saving a live person in that it only overrides Torah commandments if there is a good chance (defined by some to be >50%) of success. Cyrogenics has about as low a success rate as one could imagine, so it would seem ...
6
One example I have heard is the amount of stars in the universe (from here):
In case you're concerned that the rabbis of the Talmud really hadn't a
handle on what's going on in the skies, here's something to make you
think again: The current estimate of the number of stars in the
universe is about a thousand billion trillion (10^24). The Talmud ...
6
One approach is mentioned in The Challenge of Creation, by R' Natan Slifkin, in footnote 2 on page 277:
... others explained that the deluge did not cover the entire earth, hence not every species of animal had to be taken on board; see Rabbi Dovid Tzvi Hoffman, commentary to Genesis, pp. 140-141; Rabbi Azriel Leib Rakovsky (disciple of Rav Yaakov ...
5
Prof. Nathan Aviezer wrote a book "בראשית ברא" answering questions about the creation in torah view.
There he claims the 6 days of creation to be 6 periods of time that didn't necessarily last 24 hours. Moreover - maybe it was one cycle of dark&light, but thing happened at a quicker pace.
Take, for example, a person's growth. If you were to calculate ...
5
If he eats meat, gets onto a fast plane and flies east, and lands before six hours have elapsed for him, I don't think anybody would say that he can now eat dairy just because the clock shows a later time. For that matter, he doesn't get to jump the gun when switching to Daylight Saving Time. (But citation needed.) I would expect the same logic to apply ...
5
Depending on what you mean exactly, the answer is yes and no.
In terms of the actual canonized text of the TaNa"Ch, no, it is final and closed. There are very few instances of deviation between traditional texts, and they are all documented and accounted for. One example of potential "changes" or "improvements" actually was discovered in the Dead Sea ...
4
For Ashkenazim at least, the halacha is like Tosafot, that once one finishes the meat meal, if he starts a new meal he may consume dairy. However, in the common case, people follow their minhag of how long to wait. See the Rama in Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah 89:1, as I've seen it traditionally understood -- that he paskens like the יש אומרים that one needs not ...
3
I saw a presentation which gave 2 specifics (though I'm no scientist and had to take the presenter's word for it):
that the gemara posits a 10 dimensional universe (or some number like that) and science is now coming around to a similar view [I found this which seems to be related]
that the gemara puts an embryo turning into a fetus (first heartbeat) at 40 ...
3
According to the P'ri Chadash (89:6), six hours is not meant literally, and a person should just wait from one meal until the time for the next meal. In the winter, the P'ri Chadash writes, this could be approximately four hours. (Disclaimer: I haven't noticed many people follow this opinion in practice).
It seems reasonable to interpret the P'ri Chadash as ...
3
Insofar as I do not believe there is any clear halachic conclusions on this I will offer the following speculation:
If medical science comes to a place where there is sufficient possibility that a particular ailment can be treated in the future, or perhaps even a hope once this process has been established in other cases, then I believe it can be considered ...
3
You're assuming that the passage is only concerned with the creation of physical stuff, but verse 2 makes clear that everything was messed up chaos.
My opinion: Perhaps on day one, the laws of the universe were created: the existence of light, forces (e.g. gravity), matter, time etc. That's a faithful reading of the verse because it says 'Let there be ...
2
I'm going to try and give a brief direction or method rather than an answer.
First step - understand the science well. That is, not just what the theories said, but how well founded they are, what assumptions they make, what is proven, what is assumed, the historical developments of those theories, etc.
Second step - understand the Chumash well. That ...
2
Cyrus the Great, reigning 559 BC–530 BC, conquered Babylon in 538 BC and freed the Jews slightly thereafter. He issued some of the first declarations on human rights. While this snapshot does not cover the start of the religion, Cyrus the Great is a historical figure well documented in various cultures' archaeological records (and well worth reading about) ...
2
There are four options here:
The "meat" is made from plant matter, arranged in the same shape as meat (proteins, fat, etc), but there are no animal cells. The "meat" is vegetarian.
The meat comes from animal cells, and the starting animal cell was not kosher. The meat is then not kosher, despite the huge bitul in the growth medium. This is because the ...
2
Read here for an evolution of the different opinions in Halacha regarding blood that moved, and eating raw meat (from the Talmud to the Poskim).
"blood that moved" is talking about the blood that is found in the meat, not the veins/arteries (as the Tur (67) and others say, while raw meat may be permitted without salting, the blood found in the ...
2
I suggest you look at the section of that Wikipedia article: Does a CMH prove Cohen ancestry?
It is all about probabilities, where you expect a more likely distribution, not a DNA test like in the movies where you prove an association to like 1 in a Trillion.
In any event, although it is called 'Y chromosomal Aaron' it could very well be some immediate ...
2
Not at all. As the Yerushalmi (Nedarim 9:1) asks rhetorically:
לא דייך מה שאסרה תורה אלא שאתה אוסר עליך דברים אחרים
Is what the Torah forbade not enough for you, that you [seek to]
forbid other things upon yourself?
As for the reason for the prohibition on kil'ayim, no one claims to have the definitive answer. It is not considered a moral ...
2
Genetic engineering has been cited by some as both halachically acceptable and problematic in several respects:
Stem Cell Research -- Unlike some other religions, Judaism does not define a fetus as a human being with full rights until after 40 days of gestation. Yevamos 69a; Nidda 30b. But see Rebbe's position at Sanhedrin 91a (holding that the soul is ...
1
This is a reply to:
water can be turned into oxygen and hydrogen so air and water are not so different, while according to torah view wind and water are two different, independent elements.
The Rambam in Hilchot Yesodei Hatorah 4:5 writes that not only can the elements interchange, but that they are constantly doing so.
Also, as a side note, Energy is ...
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