Letters From The Readers

Hi Rabbi Slifkin,
Please allow me to introduce myself. I'm 24 and I have been religious for about 2 1/2 years or so. The thing is, I've been living with doubts for a long time. In fact, I have stopped to keep the mitzvos except Shabbat and the rest of the 10 commandments. I've talked to rabbis here and gone to... seminars with nothing to show for it. ...I have a hard time trusting Chazal. And it was things regarding the sweat lice, etc. ... and if I am ever to say something... I am held up to contempt for questioning them. I have a very hard time communicated with anyone and expressing my ideas. Anyways... a great thing happened... I found out that you wrote a book called Mysterious Creatures. So I ran that day and bought it and finished it... I was really amazed by the stuff in there. ...I'm writing this email to you to ask if you can help me find my way back to Torah. I want to thank you for writing that book.
H.D., Los Angeles

Dear Rabbi Slifkin,
Hello. I am a yeshiva student in New York... I recently read your book Mysterious Creatures with great interest.
While studying Yoreh Deah this year, I was baffled by the Halachos of Drusah (Y.D. 57). Several times, Chazal state that the problem with Drusah is that the attacking animal has poison in its claws. This sounds as if Chazal believed that the claws of a predatory animal inject venom into their prey thus rendering it a Treifah.
This statement of Chazal presents us with quite a challenge. After all, taken at face value, this statement is clearly in conflict with modern day scientific knowledge. While a snake's bite can inject venom, our knowledge of the natural world tells us that an attacking animal's claws do not.
How are we to understand instances like this where a statement of Chazal conflicts with modern day scientific knowledge? Nearly everyone whom I discussed this issue with insisted that all we could say was - nishtaneh hateva (nature has changed). While I know that there are instances where that approach must be used, I could not believe that a more rational way to solve this problem existed.
I was so happy to have discovered your book wherein you clearly offer sources which show that other ways to deal with this matter do in fact exist, and are firmly grounded in Jewish tradition. I can not accurately describe to you how thrilled I was when you mentioned Rabbi Carmel's footnote in Michtav M'Eliyahu wherein he dealt with this very topic. Thank G-d, a rational route exists with which one can deal with scenarios where Chazal's statements are not in line with what we now know to be scientific fact.
To tell you the truth, before seeing your book, I had suggested a similar structure as Ray Dessler's in order to approach this problem. However, no one I communicated with was willing to grant that such an approach was even a valid option. After reading your book, and especially the piece from Rav Dessler, I felt a sense of vindication, as well as a sense of sadness that more people in a teaching position are not aware of the legitimacy of this approach. I find it most unfortunate that when struggling with this issue, students may often find themselves forced to fall back on nishtaneh hateva or to feel like some sort of heretic. I imagine that so many others' minds would be at ease if they only knew of this approach.
Thank you Rabbi Slifkin for publishing your book. I hope that I am but one of many whose minds your book will help put at ease...
Sincerely,
P.A., New York

Dear Rabbi Slifkin,
My 10-year-old son is very bright and interested in all types of things - both this world and other-worldly. He reads science fiction and is constantly discussing and imagining all sorts of creatures. I was thrilled to buy your book about the sources for mystical creatures because it gave us the opportunity to bring sources in the Torah into his whole creative imaginings. It is so important for a boy like him to see that the things he is interested in are mentioned in the Torah and it can be relevant to him. The book is well written, well researched and beautifully illustrated. Thank you and please - if you can - write more about animals and the Torah! We are so grateful to you,
Family R., New York
P.S. He read the book at least three times!

As a science teacher in a frum girl’s middle school, it is both my pleasure and my privilege to introduce my students to the wonders of Hashem’s creations. I have found Rabbi Slifkin’s book, The Science of Torah, to be an invaluable resource. The book is divided into three different sections: the first part details the delicate balance of all the “natural” laws, which point to a unique Creator. The second part details questions on the age of the universe, and the third part details different theories of evolution.
When my students ask, “why do we have to learn science, we’re never going to be scientists?” I answer that one can gain in Yiras Shomayim by contemplating Hashem’s creations. The delicate balance of “natural” laws is such that life could not exist if even one thing were different. Rabbi Slifkin’s book gives many examples of these natural laws, and also shows how they lead to an appreciation of Hashem’s greatness. Rabbi Slifkin gives a very clear and understandable explanation of the correspondence of the physical world and the spiritual. The universe in which we live is a physical manifestation of the spiritual world simply because Torah was the ‘blueprint’ for creating the physical universe. Just as there is a concept of ‘histahlshelus’, an unfolding of layers of existence from the spiritual down to the physical, there is a corresponding unfolding of patterns in the physical world that we inhabit, termed fractals by the scientific community.
My administration feels that it is very important for me to cover the topics of the age of the universe and evolution from a Torah viewpoint so that my students have the background of proper hashkafah when exposed to them later. Rabbi Slifkin’s book has a very thorough discussion of the Torah perspective on these issues, presenting ideas from many of our sages. I tell my students that Hashem created the world the way He wanted it to exist. He could have created it in any way He wanted. The fact that the world was created with evidence of an old universe, with gradual stages in the creation of animals, seemingly evolving from one to another, means that this is the way Hashem wanted the world to look. As Rabbi Slifkin quotes from the Kuzari, “Heaven forbid that there should be anything manifest or proved which would contradict anything in the Torah.” It is important that my students learn the difference between actual observations, “that which is manifest”, and vague theories and incorrect pseudoscience, and it is vitally important that they know what our sages have said on these topics. Too many of our people look at scientific observations and conclude that the Torah is, chalilah, wrong. Too many others look at the Torah and conclude that Hashem’s actual creation is what is wrong. This is also a tragedy.
People come to Yiras Shomayim in many different ways. There are some who come to love Hashem and realize His greatness from studying Torah. Others come from contemplating the wonders of His creations. The last question I ask my students on the final test at the end of the year is: What did you learn this year that helps you realize ‘Mah rabu maasecha Hashem’? I was very pleased that I had adequately conveyed the miracle of Creation, when one of my students answered ‘evolution’.
I highly recommend Rabbi Slifkin’s book The Science of Torah, for anyone interested in the interface between science and Torah, between the physical world of Hashem’s marvelous creation and the spiritual Truth with which it was created.
J.J., Baltimore

D.F.

Dear Rabbi Slifkin,
It's been a while now since I have completed "The Camel, The Hare & The Hyrax," but I think of it almost every day. I think of why it took so long for someone to come out and write about this subject. There are many kinds of Jews out in the world and they have been unsuccessful in coming back to Judaism, due to certain "controversies". The issue of the identity of the Kosher animals has for a long time been the sticking point for me, and each of the rabbis that I would talk to would always push it aside or give some apologetic answer to it mainly because they are just plain ill informed.
Not you Rabbi Slifkin. Your research into the matter topped with your honesty is a breath of fresh air. Many Jews need this kind of "intellectual" look into the matter to bring us back into Judaism rather than just seeing it from a "hashkafah" point of view. I have had many doubts before, regarding this matter. But through your book I have realized that there is still hope for me. Many people fear to speak of this subject, because of what we might find out. In this book, you have shown me that we should not fear to ask questions and that sometimes admitting to not knowing something is not the same as admitting to defeat.
You have shown me that an Orthodox Rabbi is not afraid to tackle this matter in an honest fashion and I am very proud of that. This book deserves to be in every serious Jewish thinker's home. Long have people used the subject of the identity of the kosher animals as evidence that the Torah is not from God. This book gives us all the ammunition to fire back at them... to show them that they do not own a monopoly on intellectual thought... nobody does.
Thank you Rabbi Slifkin for your great work on this subject. You have given me, as well as many other people, a reason why we should give Judaism another chance.
Sincerely,
H.D., Los Angeles

Dear Rabbi Slifkin,
I can`t tell you how happy I was to have read your book Science of Torah. I have been a practicing Rabbi for the past 20 years and your book reinforced my understanding of Emunah, and reconciled many dilemmas I had. It was fulfilling to be reminded of awesome Torah sources which tackled so many issues in such a mature manner.
M.G.

Dear Rabbi Slifkin,
As a scientist, a biologist with more than 40 years of scientific research and administrative activity behind him, I am writing to say how much I support your work. I read The Science of Torah and it gave me one of the clearest expositions of the lack of conflict of Torah and science. In this age of science, we cannot lose an entire generation of young people by forcing them to turn their back on science as they learn Torah in greater depth and show increased commitment to mitzvot.
D.M.

Dear Rabbi Slifkin,
I am a product of the "black hat" yeshivas both here in the U.S. and in Israel. Starting in my early 20's, I found the unanswered and/or poorly answered question of seeming contradictions between science & fundamental Torah very troubling. I found the Yeshiva environment discouraged research in this area and what little literature was recommended, tended to be poorly written, poorly researched, and guided by agenda. This served in reinforcing the sinking feeling that the two worlds could not be coalesced after all. Ultimately, I was very lucky to have found Rabbonim with real answers and an overall broad vision of Torah that opened new worlds for me. As it turned out, the more information I was exposed to, lead not to a loss in emunah, but rather a newfound sense of what it means to be a Ben-Yisrael in today’s world. So many years later I look back at many of the seeming contradictions between science & Torah – rooted in a naive dichotomization of the two worlds – as childish and silly. I would like to thank you for writing books dealing with these issues that are truly informative, extremely well researched, and most importantly - honest. I enjoyed your straight-forward style of raising difficult problems, explaining the varying approaches that attempt to address them, and pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of each approach - giving the reader as much information as is available. Given the nature of our incredibly complex world, it is to be expected that some questions continue to leave us without satisfying answers. That fact however, is not at all threatening if you view yourself as being on the path of understanding. The best we can do is hand what we’ve learned to our children and let them run with it. Armed with new information, future generations will take what we’ve handed them, and take it to places we could only have dreamed of – continually expanding the reach and breadth of Torah’s insights. It is a shame that some would rather live in a static dead world and have all of the answers, than recognize that we live in a living world, which insists on our never-ending struggle with it. It’s a shame that so many go off the path because they feel trapped in a world that has abdicated that struggle.
Y.S , Brooklyn

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