Blog/December 2017/Dec 8th

December 8th

We finally made it back to our home in the Land this week, after a rather extended “vacation” and a return-flight with numerous delays. But we made it, B”H!

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Before I get started, I’d like to recommend a book I recently got: “Five Proofs of the Existence of God”. The author lays out the proofs, from first-principles and without circular arguments, for the existence of God as typically envisioned by the monotheistic faiths. He does a superb job of explaining the logic of the arguments in non-philosophic language which is quite readable. So far, I’ve read the first two proofs; the first of which I’m familiar with from Rambam (Maimonides). His explanation of that argument helped me understand much better what I already knew. Very interesting reading.

On a somewhat related note, Esther and I witnessed a phenomenon which is not well understood: “terminal-lucidity”. We saw my brother ob”m, in his last days, become less and less responsive as his body shut down. He was almost completely non-responsive when he was transferred to the hospice. But after a few hours there, he became “energized” — he was awake, responsive, and eating voraciously. Then, almost as quickly, he settled into a final stupor from which he did not awaken. The hospice staff told us this is pretty common, that it was a “last ditch effort” by the body to stay alive.

What occurs to me is that it is not the body trying to stay alive, but rather the immaterial part of the person, the “conciousness” or “soul”. We are accustomed, in the modern Western world, to think of the body as a very complex machine — and it is, of course — but we are far more than merely a machine, however complex. Jewish tradition (as well as other religious traditions) says we are composed of a physical body as well as an animating soul (hmmm: “anima” means “soul”, doesn’t it?).

My problem with a purely materialistic / mechanistic view of this phenomenon is that it serves no purpose. There is no possible evolutionary advantage to it, as it doesn’t prolong life in any way nor does it confer some advantage to ones offspring. Your car or computer or other complex mechanisms don’t suddenly work better just before they stop working altogether. The law of entropy would also militate against this sort of reaction. So we are left scratching our heads (and as far as I’ve been able to determine, there is no known scientific explanation of the phenomenon).

Just as with the arguments for God from first-principles, one might see how “terminal-lucidity” could convince our ancestors of the existence of an immaterial or spiritual side of our being. Something to ponder, surely.

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So we got home, unpacked, showered, slept, and tried to resume our normal schedule. I felt like I’d gained weight, but in fact had lost 2-3kg. I guess the “grief and anxiety diet” works. Esther did go in to work for a bit, and I slowly resumed my search for contracts and improvements to “8th”. More on that next week, I think.

The most astounding news of the week, by far, was President Trump’s “Jerusalem decision”. Of course that decision was in line with US law as passed by Congress 20 years ago, but I was astounded and flabbergasted and surprised and shocked and happy and hopeful that he fulfilled that campaign promise, when it was one bound to have serious “push-back”. Such as, for instance, the EU, the Pope, the Arab world, etc. all decrying the declaration.

Who could have seen that coming? Oh yeah, the prophet Zekharia for one; among others, of course.

We live in awesome times, my friends!

This shabbat we’re at home (yeah!), and Sarah is with us (yeah!!). The menu will have:
homemade ḥalla, chicken, potatoes, pea soup, fried tofu, various salatim, and cookies.

Until next time,
shabbat shalom!

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