Relativity

Your Grandfather the late Hakham, was a very learned scholar and was undoubtedly familiar with the many medieval authorities who explicitly taught us that "time" was created with matter. See Ibn Ezra introduction to his commentary to the Torah, Maimonides "Moreh Nevuchim" eg., the edition of Kappach, page 161 and more (from memory), Yehudah Halevi, and probably Ramban (Nachmanides).

It is an opportunity to congratulate you on issuing the "Scribe" - "Khazak Baruch". Being (forgive me) Ashkenazi by origin, it is a gratifying intellectual and emotional experience to receive the Scribe, - a window to the once thriving community of Babylonian Jewry.

From: a reader

The Indian Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore mentions in one of his poems "a worldless, timeless, lightless great emptiness" to describe the pre-creation state. Then comes the Big Bang. The poem anticipates the eventual collapse of creation on itself - The Big Crunch, and the 'system' returning to rest. As might be expected the poem is couched heavily in Hindu imagery.

London

Atiene Aghegho

Einstein and the Rabbi do not commit Tagore's mistake in attempting to describe God's domain of infinity and eternity beyond our own universe. How long is eternity? How large is infinity? Why should there not also be an infinite number of Gods all living in peace and harmony with each other? Call them one God if you will, as long as it does not amount to monopoly.

Although Moses grew in a culture which believed in afterlife, the Torah deliberately avoids such speculation. We are concerned with our own universe, where we are doomed helpless hostages.

I note that people do not bow when we pray to God who revives the dead? Where is the evidence? It is a sop to satisfy the squeamish.

"Al Tidrosh besof ubrosh" The Talmud recommends that for our peace of mind, we should not speculate too deeply either regarding the beginning of the creation, or the eventual end of the universe.

Not a laughing matter.

I read your article on page 5 of the Scribe (No: 69), under the title of "who discovered Relativity first, Einstein or the Rabbi?"

I read this article many times and at the end I laughed. Why I laughed?

Because I saw how you solved a problem which no-one could solve in the past, nor will be able to solve in the future.

The question is: What was existing between God and his act of creation for the universe? Was it time?

You have denied the existence of time in this phase, and your solution was: eternity existed, and still is functioning till now.

In this case I can say we are as human beings together with everything else in the universe, must be part of "that eternity."

Are we then, part of the universal God who included eternity and the creation??!! It is true that God created the man. It is also true that man created the concept of the almighty God without a partner to him called time.

Finally, the best solution that I find is that you laugh at me writing to you these lines. Thank you for laughing.

London

Latif Hoory

Above: Latif Hoory in a jovial mood.

Naim Dangoor writes: It appears that earlier Rabbis too came to the conclusion that time came into being when the universe was created.