If you are ever in Atlanta (and I strongly recommend you visit Atlanta), I strongly recommend you visit the Georgia Aquarium.
Not only do they have a glass tunnel through which you can traverse a >6 million gallon aquatic exhibit, but they are one of only a handful of aquariums (“aquaria”?) in the world (and the only one in the US) that have succeeded in raising whale sharks in captivity.
On Irrationalist Modoxism, I wrote a response to the previous post about Feldheim censorship. In short, recent evidence shows that the erasure of that teaching is being reversed.
My wife and I lived on and off in the mountains of Maine for a few years. The sky was absolutely incredible. The Milky Way was so bright. We now live in a yeshuv in the Galil (Israel). The light pollution here is horrible. I can only see a few of the brighter stars and the planets. Very sad. On the other hand, the need for security dictates the necessity for lighting in our yeshuv.
Although I am an amateur astronomer I don't own a telescope. Simply not worth it here.
This is more related to a post about 2 months ago - the midrashim related to the stones under Yaakov’s head. But similar to this post, absolutely amazing natural wonders.
I just read an article on “The Jerusalem Post” site, Titled “These ‘living rocks’ in Romania are able to grow and even move”.
It’s about these stones called “Tovants” which exhibit pretty stunning properties.
A quote from the article: “But these rocks are not only extraordinarily beautiful, they are also able to develop a "life of their own." They are able to grow and even move just like living creatures, which is how they got the nickname "living rocks." There are very few studies on these rocks, called trovants in Romanian, but they have attracted the attention of many geologists and tourists.”
One thing I found interesting from a midrashic point of reference is the fact that these rocks are found in Romania - Which is of course also where Dracula’s castle is.
So this (potential) connection between Yaakov and Eisav (who reportedly may have been a vampire) and now Romania is simply mind blowing.
I think the aquarium in Valencia Spain has a similar arrangement. You can walk thru a tunnel and see fish above and to the sides. I have seen pictures but have not gotten a chance to visit,
To convey the distances of space you need a much better math background than most Charedim are likely to have. I once learned that a million seconds ago, is what you were doing 11 days ago. But a billion seconds ago is what you were doing 33 years ago.
I have the privilege to live in a small village in Småland, Sweden. On a cloudless winter night I sometimes just lay down on a small road and look at the stars in the sky. The longer I lay the more stars I can see. And that exact part of the Bible is what comes to my mind.
At one occasion I had a weeklong problem with my computer. And admiring the sky I replaced the last part in that quote with ... why worry over a crashed hard disc? Next time I tried to start the computer all functioned!
"Light Pollution", you say. Light POLLUTION? Have you drunk so deeply from the cup of liberalism that you unwittingly use its tropes everywhere? You could simply have used the word "light", and stopped there.
As for the other paragraph - "Extraordinary...enormous... absolutely gigantic... a marvel of engineering... breathtaking". It's been noted before that you are given to hyperbole and exaggeration, but you need not give us so many examples all at once. Three such phrases would have sufficed.
“The Total Perspective Vortex derives its picture of the whole Universe on the principle of extrapolated matter analyses.
….The man who invented the Total Perspective Vortex did so basically in order to annoy his wife. [He] was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher or, as his wife would have it, an idiot. And she would nag him incessantly about the utterly inordinate amount of time he spent staring out into space….“Have some sense of proportion!” she would say, sometimes as often as thirty-eight times in a single day.
And so he built the Total Perspective Vortex — just to show her. And into one end he plugged the whole of reality… and into the other end he plugged his wife: so that when he turned it on she saw in one instant the whole infinity of creation and herself in relation to it. To [his] horror, the shock completely annihilated her brain; but to his satisfaction he realized that he had proved conclusively that if life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion.” -Douglas Adams
If you are ever in Atlanta (and I strongly recommend you visit Atlanta), I strongly recommend you visit the Georgia Aquarium.
Not only do they have a glass tunnel through which you can traverse a >6 million gallon aquatic exhibit, but they are one of only a handful of aquariums (“aquaria”?) in the world (and the only one in the US) that have succeeded in raising whale sharks in captivity.
Any plans to visit Lakewood? If you come speak here it will be a blockbuster event!
Welcome to America.
On Irrationalist Modoxism, I wrote a response to the previous post about Feldheim censorship. In short, recent evidence shows that the erasure of that teaching is being reversed.
https://irrationalistmodoxism.substack.com/p/a-revolution-is-brewing-in-the-chareidi
My wife and I lived on and off in the mountains of Maine for a few years. The sky was absolutely incredible. The Milky Way was so bright. We now live in a yeshuv in the Galil (Israel). The light pollution here is horrible. I can only see a few of the brighter stars and the planets. Very sad. On the other hand, the need for security dictates the necessity for lighting in our yeshuv.
Although I am an amateur astronomer I don't own a telescope. Simply not worth it here.
A little off topic -
This is more related to a post about 2 months ago - the midrashim related to the stones under Yaakov’s head. But similar to this post, absolutely amazing natural wonders.
I just read an article on “The Jerusalem Post” site, Titled “These ‘living rocks’ in Romania are able to grow and even move”.
It’s about these stones called “Tovants” which exhibit pretty stunning properties.
A quote from the article: “But these rocks are not only extraordinarily beautiful, they are also able to develop a "life of their own." They are able to grow and even move just like living creatures, which is how they got the nickname "living rocks." There are very few studies on these rocks, called trovants in Romanian, but they have attracted the attention of many geologists and tourists.”
One thing I found interesting from a midrashic point of reference is the fact that these rocks are found in Romania - Which is of course also where Dracula’s castle is.
So this (potential) connection between Yaakov and Eisav (who reportedly may have been a vampire) and now Romania is simply mind blowing.
I think the aquarium in Valencia Spain has a similar arrangement. You can walk thru a tunnel and see fish above and to the sides. I have seen pictures but have not gotten a chance to visit,
To convey the distances of space you need a much better math background than most Charedim are likely to have. I once learned that a million seconds ago, is what you were doing 11 days ago. But a billion seconds ago is what you were doing 33 years ago.
I have the privilege to live in a small village in Småland, Sweden. On a cloudless winter night I sometimes just lay down on a small road and look at the stars in the sky. The longer I lay the more stars I can see. And that exact part of the Bible is what comes to my mind.
At one occasion I had a weeklong problem with my computer. And admiring the sky I replaced the last part in that quote with ... why worry over a crashed hard disc? Next time I tried to start the computer all functioned!
"Light Pollution", you say. Light POLLUTION? Have you drunk so deeply from the cup of liberalism that you unwittingly use its tropes everywhere? You could simply have used the word "light", and stopped there.
As for the other paragraph - "Extraordinary...enormous... absolutely gigantic... a marvel of engineering... breathtaking". It's been noted before that you are given to hyperbole and exaggeration, but you need not give us so many examples all at once. Three such phrases would have sufficed.
“The Total Perspective Vortex derives its picture of the whole Universe on the principle of extrapolated matter analyses.
….The man who invented the Total Perspective Vortex did so basically in order to annoy his wife. [He] was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher or, as his wife would have it, an idiot. And she would nag him incessantly about the utterly inordinate amount of time he spent staring out into space….“Have some sense of proportion!” she would say, sometimes as often as thirty-eight times in a single day.
And so he built the Total Perspective Vortex — just to show her. And into one end he plugged the whole of reality… and into the other end he plugged his wife: so that when he turned it on she saw in one instant the whole infinity of creation and herself in relation to it. To [his] horror, the shock completely annihilated her brain; but to his satisfaction he realized that he had proved conclusively that if life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion.” -Douglas Adams