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"IN
THE 600TH YEAR OF THE 6TH [MILLENIUM] THE GATES OF WISDOM ABOVE WILL OPEN
UP AND THE FOUNTAINS OF WISDOM BELOW, AND THE WORLD WILL BE SET TO ENTER
THE 7TH" (Zohar I, 117a)
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SEEING THE GEULAH THROUGH THE EYES OF SCIENCE PART VII
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The Rebbe, Melech
HaMoshiach's Request: Cold Water by Dr. Aryeh A. Gotfryd
Editor's
note:
The
absolute truth of all their statements, including those statements about
what is "Rebbe". For example, that "Rebbe" is the
"Essence and Being [of G-d] enclothed in a body", that a Rebbe is
by nature "omniscient" and "omnipotent", that all
material and spiritual blessings flow from the Rebbe.
These are
radical statements that many would like to sweep under the rug of normative
Judaism. However they are neither wild exaggerations nor poetic parables.
Rather these ideas are facts of life which help us understand how a
"human being" like the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, can foresee and
control and coordinate the finest details of someone's personal life
effecting his powerful blessings over many years and many miles removed. In
other words, there is nothing shocking about the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach's
powers given that his nature is above the limitations of nature.
Following
is a story that shows how the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, is in fact the boss
over nature, that he delivers not only reversals of fortune but a symphony
of countless harmonized details of particular Divine providence, and that
he has, in effect, past, present, and future all in his pocket. And if that
sounds excessive, well, consider these two facts: (a) The neshama of
Moshiach is yechida klalis which, according to chassidus, transcends,
permeates and unifies all aspects of Torah and all aspects of world; and
(b) truth is stranger than fiction. Judge for yourself.
Waking Up
Jewish
----------------
When I woke
up to the facts of life, I realized I was in a deep dark golus, and dearly
wanted to emerge into the light. The facts of life, so simple, had eluded
me for my first twenty-six years but now that I knew them, I wanted nothing
more than to learn more about them and share them with others. The simple
facts that inspired me so were: that I have a neshama, a part of G-d; that
the Torah is G-d's will and wisdom in words; that the mitzvos provide a dignified,
satisfying lifestyle for every Jew; and that G-d knows who you are and
cares what you're up to.
For a year
and-a-half, I climbed the ladder of observance, deepening my committment to
Judaism but still not attuned to the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, nor his
unique and central role in the grand scheme of things. Meanwhile, my career
as an environmental scientist was just starting to open up, with
accelarated progress in my doctoral thesis in applied ecology, and a steady
stream of environmental assessment contracts. Despite these successes, I
was dissatisfied. Wading through ecological journals for insight into the
wonderful world of nature seemed hopelessly futile. What a golus!!
Were it not
for my mashpia insisting I finish my thesis, I would have been at yeshiva
learning all about the world from the blueprint of creation itself.
Meanwhile, here I was guessing and fudging along with the rest of the
intellectual prima donnas in the world of academia. I wanted to feed on the
kernels of Torah wisdom, but was meanwhile exiled to chew on the shells of
secular science.
Deep
Calling To Deep
--------------------
Finally,
just before marrying in Sivan, 5742, I made my way to Crown Heights for my
first visit the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach. At first, I wasn't impressed. The
Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, seemed a small, dignified man, nothing so
unusual. Wise. Saintly. Scholarly.
But not so
astounding that an ocean of people should be continuously following him
around, parting like the Red Sea into two walls of humanity whenever he
would pass by. For the first time, I started to wonder whether the Rebbe,
Melech HaMoshiach, was all he was reputed to be. Nonetheless when it came
time to write the customary note one brings to yechidus, I opened my heart
and wrote the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, to help me find the service of G-d
within applied ecology, and not just that my academic pursuits be a means
to earn a degree, a position, a livelihood and so on.
With my
kvittel in hand, I went in line with several hundred other grooms and
brides-to-be, who were scheduled for group audiences in the Rebbe, Melech
HaMoshiach's office. Once inside "the upper Garden of Eden", the
Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach's office, I took my turn to place my note on the
Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach's desk. That's when it happened. The Rebbe, Melech
HaMoshiach, holding the note, looked up to its author with a fixed
penetrating gaze that gave me the distinct and intense impression that I
was being "known".
In what
couldn't have been more than three seconds, it felt like my entire past,
present and future were laid out before this man, and that in the intensity
of the moment he came to know more about Aryeh Avraham ben Chana than I
would ever know about myself. So disorienting was this wordless soul to
soul contact, that I did not hear so much as a single word of the Rebbe,
Melech HaMoshiach's five minute shower of plentiful blessings and sage
advice.
The First
Dream
---------------
A few weeks
later, I had a dream, the most vivid of my life. My kallah and I were
sitting together with the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, in our living room. The
Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, showed us a magazine entitled "SCIENCE
Volume 64, No. 4 (No. 1)". The layout of the title was identical to
the ultimately prestigious journal by the same name, which is the weekly
publication of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science.
"Here is something to help you think", said the Rebbe, Melech
HaMoshiach, to Leah. The Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, opened it up for us. On
the first page was a blue sky with white, fluffy clouds.
The page
was beautifully typeset in English with a crisp, black font and wide
margins on the page. I started to read what seemed a little like Psalm 104,
all about wildlife and vegetation and humanity and meaning to life in the
presence of G-d. As I read on, the clouds started to move through the sky
and a fresh breeze brought a most subtle and delicious fragrance.
Orchestral music welled up featuring inspired melodies, elegantly
harmonized, and in my dream, I fairly "chalished".
The Rebbe,
Melech HaMoshiach, turned the page and the next page was even better, and
the next better yet. Then the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, said, "Let me
know when you get to page seven" and I woke up. With great excitement
I related this fantastic dream to my wife who said, "That's
interesting."
The Buried
Treasure
-------------------
The next
reasonable step was to seek out Science Vol.64, No. 4 (No. 1) and
especially page 7. As a graduate student in the University of Toronto's
Department of Zoology, it seemed likely to find such a popular journal in
the Zoology library and find it I did, but only with volume numbers dating
back to the 200's, decades after the envisioned Volume 64. I tried the
Physics library and the Chemistry Library and the General Science Library
but none of them had back issues that old. Well, forget it, I told myself.
After all, it was only a dream, so I put it out of my mind. Almost.
More than a
year later, the possibility that there may be something more to the dream was
still nudging me periodically so I finally decided to put the matter to
rest definitively, one way or the other. I went where scientists rarely go
-- to Fort Book: The immense concrete structure housing University of
Toronto's central reference library for humanities as well as complete
catalogue data on all the holdings belonging to the university's dozens of
libraries.
Sure
enough, ancient issues of Science were listed to be in the storage stacks
of the Science and Medicine library. What a room that was. Special access
was arranged to the cellar where outdated books were shelved on long
parallel bookcases, mounted on tracks and rollers. There were no spaces at
all between the 20-odd bookcases, so at first glance there seemed to be no
way to access any of the books. The trick was that each bookcase had a kind
of steering wheel mounted on the end. When a wheel was spun, several dozen
times around like a ship captain's wheel, a space would slowly emerge
between two bookcases so you could walk in to retrieve a reference,
provided of course that no one spins the wheel to squash you while you're
in there. There it was. Volume 64, dated the summer of 1926, with its
various issues. Now I would finally see if there was anything to this odd
dream. The article in issue No. 4, page 7, was entitled "Science for
Humanity's Sake" by William Blum. In his address upon receiving the
American Chemists' Medal, Blum explains that because the study and
application of science is spiritually uplifting, science and religion interface
in man.
Nonetheless
each discipline has its own domain, with science describing how G-d works
without being able to address why. In Issue No. 1 of Vol. 64 of Science, on
page 7, one finds of all things a poem about the joy of discovery, quoted
by B. T. Baldwin, president of the prestigious Sigma Xi research society.
The poem reads: Come wander with me-- In regions yet untrod, And read what
is still unread In the manuscript of G-d. I recalled my request of the
Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, asking to partake of G-dliness within science. I
remembered my beautiful dream, with its bibliographic references. And now I
have in hand two buried treasures precisely related to the dream and to the
encounter with the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach.
I put on my
thinking cap and thought, This must be the finger of G-d. On the other
hand, maybe its just dumb luck. So I put it to a test. The alternative
hypothesis: Maybe the dream was meaningless and in the 1920's it merely
happened to be popular for scientists to refer to G-d in their scholarly
speaking and writing. So page by page, I checked all of Volume 64 and many
other volumes in the 1920's and 30's. No spiritual references whatsoever.
Perhaps other scientific weeklies, like Nature, revealed such a trend. On
the contrary, they were all spiritually mute in the extreme. Alternative
hypothesis disproven.
The
correlation between dream and reality was just too improbable to be
meaningless, so I decided to act on the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach's
"instruction", in his saying "Let me know when you get to
page 7". The gist of my letter to the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, was:
Sorry to bother you, but I had this dream, and it took me a while, but I
found these facts, so I'm letting you know. Was this a communication from
you? Shall I act on it or forget about it? If you did send it, enclosed are
copies of the articles referred to in the dream. Now what?
No Answer
is Also An Answer
---------------------------
At the
time, it seemed so strange. On this question, the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach,
did not answer. Yet on every other matter, whether a simchah or a major
turning point, the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, was always quick to respond.
In fact over the following four years, I wrote the Rebbe, Melech
HaMoshiach, no less than eight separate times specifically asking about the
dream and attempting to fulfil its request. Nothing. Not even the slightest
acknowledgment that I had asked. Meanwhile, on my own initiative I became
involved in researching and writing about the relationship between religion
and science, especially with reference to Judaism.
The Second
Dream and Its Interpretation
---------------------------------------
On the 8th
of Tishrei, 5748, I had my second dream encounter with the Rebbe, Melech
HaMoshiach. The Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, was in bed, horribly ill and
emaciated. He called to me to get him a glass of water. "Hot or
cold?" I asked. "Cold." the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach,
answered in that quiet definite voice that could split mountains. I ran to
get some cold water, brought it to the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, and just
as I was handing it to him, I woke up in a trembling sweat, exactly one
minute before my alarm was due to ring. Could the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach,
really be so unwell? If so, how could life go on?
Deeply disturbed, I made my way to shul and asked my mashpia if there was
anyone he knew who could interpret dreams. I was directed to the Rov of the
Lubavitch Community in Toronto, Rabbi Dovid Schochet. After davening the
Rov agreed to convene a minyan for the Hatavas Chalom Service, following
which I related my dream, to which the Rov replied: "When a person
gets sick and recovers, it is a kapara. The Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, was
unwell but now he is fine, B"H, so you don't have to worry about that.
Usually we are used to thinking how we need the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach,
so we are not so attuned to how the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, needs us.
You have merited to see not only that you are needed but also how you are
needed. Water symbolizes Torah; it flows from a high place to a low place.
Water however may be hot or cold. Hot signifies emotions and cold signifies
intellect. The Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, is telling you that he needs your
intellectual service in Torah and Mitzvos." As the Rov was speaking, I
was overcome with feeling as never before in my life. Tears flowed freely
from my eyes and sweat seeped from every pore. I felt as if a 200 pound
weight was being lifted from my shoulders. In a word -- catharsis.
Immensely relieved and with a new-found spring in my step, I thanked the
Rov and headed out the door of the weekday shul and into the hall. That's
when it happened.
Bingo! Not
more than 30 seconds after taking leave of the Rov, I met Rabbi Moshe
Spalter, the administrator of the Chabad House, in the hall. "Aryeh,
do you remember putting in a request for the book Emunah U'Mada at the
Lubavitch Library? Well it took over a year for it to turn up, but here it
is. It just turned up this morning." I did a double take. The cover
was blue, a blue sky with white, fluffy clouds. The first dream.
"Moshe, what does Emunah U'Mada mean?" "It means faith and
science," Moshe casually replied, handing the Hebrew paperback to me.
I carefully leafed through the first few pages.
It was a
collection of letters from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, on a
wide range of topics. The very first chapter was entitled, "Proof for
the Existence of the Creator" -- a rational, step-by-step essay
demonstrating the necessity of G-d's existence according to the criteria of
science and common sense. I slowly rushed my way to page 7. Among the
hundreds of words on page 7 of Emuna U'Mada, there are precisely two in
bold type -- tiyur and biyur -- description and explanation.
There the
Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, writes that science can only describe how the
world works but in no way can it explain why it works that way. The point
the Rebbe was making was exactly the point raised by Blum on page 7 of
Science, Vol. 64, No. 4! I stood dumbfounded. In my hands, I held the blue
sky and white clouds of the first dream delivered on the very morning of
the second dream. And how strangely coincidental that the very same point
was made on the very same page number by the two very different authors in
two very different publications from very different decades.
Especially
considering that all of this was obviously the fulfilment of my request at
yechidus to find G-dliness and meaning in my work in the natural sciences.
No doubt about it. These events had been stamped with the Divine
figerprint, i.e., a combination of low-probability events synchronized in a
meaningful way. Still, as sure as I was, I wanted a little more
confirmation and besides, I still hadn't let the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach,
know that I had reached page 7. So off I went to Crown Heights to let the
Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, know. But how? I was still pondering this
question as I approached the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, in the dollars line
on the first day of Parshas Lech Lcha, 5748.
I knew that
they would be pushing from the back and pulling from the front so there
would not be much time to tell the whole megilla. Prudently, I distilled it
down to two words which I blurted out as I passed before the Rebbe, Melech
HaMoshiach, "Biyur V'Tiyur!" which must have sounded pretty
strange to the chassidim standing around. But it didn't sound strange to
our Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, because immediately the Rebbe, Melech
HaMoshiach, responded with a single, loud, emphatic and resounding Hebrew
word: "Amayn!"
Within a few
days, I was invited by Professor Yirmiyah (Herman) Branover to participate
in the first international Torah/Science conference co-sponsored by his
B'Or HaTorah magazine and R' Shalom B. Lipsker's Aleph Institute. Observant
Jewish scientists from all over the world were to gather during Chanukah
5748 in Miami Beach to present their discoveries of how Torah provides
incomparable insight into the issues raised by science, the arts and modern
life. "Aryeh, do you have a topic in mind?" "As a matter of
fact I do. Description and Explanation in the Sciences."
Following
the conference, I was delegated the task of preparing the proceedings for
publication. The resulting book, "Fusion: Absolute Standards in a
World of Relativity" has as its first chapter my translation of the
Rebbe's letter from Emunah Umada quoted above. And as its fourth chapter,
is my essay called "Beyond Description: The Boundary Between Religion
and Science."
Conclusion
----------
What can we
learn from all this? See G-dliness! There is someone controlling the
workings of this world and therefore everything is governed according to
Particular Divine Providence. Moreover, this Particular Divine Providence
operates not only when we see how it all comes together, but also when we
don't. We know this to be true because the "punch line" of a
Divine Fingerprint event must be set up in advance by someone drafting a
plan and co-ordinating various unrelated factors long in advance of that
climactic glorious moment when it all comes together. But who is that
someone pulling all the strings and dispensing all that Particular Divine
Providence, revealed and otherwise? Our sages say, "a Tzadik decrees
and the Holy One Blessed Be He fulfils". They also say, "The Holy
One Blessed Be He decrees and the Tzadik tears it up".
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