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  1. Only For the Sake of the Temple Did They Merit to Receive the Land of Israel -Vilna Gaon on Deut. 26:9
  2. Why the Holocaust ?
  3. Torah Codes by Professor Daniel Michelson
  4. The Task of the Spy, Eli Cohen, H”YD. – A Torah Hint About This
  5. Monotheism Vs. The Outlook That Everything is G-d
    An Article Against The Attempt To Deify The Rebbe Of Lubavitch, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson
  6. Issues Involving The Ascent To The Temple Mount – An Exchange Of Letters Between S. Scheinman and Rabbi Avigdor Neventzal
  7. For a Different Opinion About Prayer on the Temple Mount see: The Historical Background On the Struggle For Jewish Prayer On The Temple Mount: Translated Excerpts from Rabbi Shlomo Goren’s book on Har Habayit
  8. Argaman – An English version of the halachic article that appeared in Techumin, Vol. 26
  9. Why G-d Let Bin-Laden Succeed!
  10. When Is It Permitted to Bow to Men and When Is Bowing Forbidden Intermediary Worship , According to Rabbeinu Nissim

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The Search for Life on Mars – The Positive and the Negative Side of that Search


Quote from https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7666
SHERLOC was built at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which leads the Perseverance mission; WATSON was built at Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego. For the most promising rocks, the Perseverance team will command the rover to take half-inch-wide core samples, store and seal them in metal tubes, and deposit them on the surface of Mars so that a future mission can return them to Earth for more detailed study.SHERLOC will be working with six other instruments aboard Perseverance to give us a clearer understanding of Mars. It’s even helping the effort to create spacesuits that will hold up in the Martian environment when humans set foot on the Red Planet. Here’s a closer look.

The Power of RamanSHERLOC’s full name is a mouthful: Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals. “Raman” refers to Raman spectroscopy, a scientific technique named after the Indian physicist C.V. Raman, who discovered the light-scattering effect in the 1920s.”While traveling by ship, he was trying to discover why the color of the sea was blue,” said Luther Beegle of JPL, SHERLOC’s principal investigator. “He realized if you shine a light beam on a surface, it can change the wavelength of scattered light depending on the materials in that surface.

“This effect is called Raman scattering. Scientists can identify different molecules based on the distinctive spectral “fingerprint” visible in their emitted light. An ultraviolet laser that is part of SHERLOC will allow the team to classify organics and minerals present in a rock and understand the environment in which the rock formed. Salty water, for example, can result in the formation of different minerals than fresh water. The team will also be looking for astrobiology clues in the form of organic molecules, which among other things, serve as potential biosignatures, demonstrating the presence life in Mars’ ancient past.

“Life is clumpy,” Beegle said. “If we see organics clumping together on one part of a rock, it might be a sign that microbes thrived there in the past.

“Nonbiological processes can also form organics, so detecting the compounds isn’t a sure sign that life formed on Mars. But organics are crucial to understanding whether the ancient environment could have supported life.

A Benefit of the Search for Life

One benefit of searching for life on Mars is that it encourages countries to look for other alternatives to abortion or murder or mandatory family limits as the world population grows. Namely, the growing Non-Jewish population might one day be partially moved to a Mars colony or to other planets.

I did not suggest part of the Jewish population should be settled in space, because life on the Moon or Mars would cause a number of halachic problems for Torah observance. See Mitzvot in Space (Halacha in Extreme Places Part 3) – Rabbi Anthony Manning

Truth and Knowledge as Torah Values

The search for proper facts and a true understanding of the Universe is a Jewish value and will help us understand the Torah better. However, this value is dependent on first having the proper love and devotion to Hashem, which will allow the seeker of scientific truth to remain fully committed to Torah. Those that do not have the proper love for Hashem are in great danger of getting ripped away from Torah observance, when the “facts” they seem to discover don’t fit their preconceptions of Judaism.

It is also vital that the seeker of scientific truth learn in a framework that is friendly and supportive of Torah observance and in a framework where scientific facts are not distorted to comply with social agendas.

One also has to take into account that are main focus of study should be Torah study. Science study is to be viewed like a spice or as dessert for the main meal. As it says in the last chapter of Pirkei Avot as translated by Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld:
“Rabbi Elazar ben (son of) Chisma said, The laws of the bird-pair offerings and the beginning of menstrual periods — these are essential laws. Astronomy and the numeric values [of the Hebrew letters] are the spices to wisdom.” Rabbi Rosenfeld translated the Hebrew word פרפאות as spices. Rashi suggests it should be translated as Dessert or Appetizer. All three interpretations tell us science wisdom like astronomy is not our main focus of interest but something extra to the essential.

Some of the Negatives in the Search For Life

Atheists and Agnostics are bothered by the fact that according to the facts we know today it is very difficult to explain life as we see today as being the product of blind naturalistic forces. These secular groups are driven to look for life in the hope that it will help them come up with a secular answer for all that we see in nature or at least they can say, if life once existed on Mars, then we can feel more confident that a secular answer for nature will one day be discovered.

For an explanation of why the theory of darwinian Evolution is not sufficient to satisfy the secular conscience, see The Seti Proof for the Existence of G-d and Microbiologist Carl Woese Disproves A Key Doctrine of Darwin and see The Creation of Adam from Dust and the Theory of Evolution

This type of scientific expedition to Mars if it yields significant results will lead to a certain sense of haughtiness among the science commuity and their allies.

In general, the more people feel haughty the less people feel they have a need for Hashem. See Rashi on

Devarim – Deuteronomy – Chapter 7:7 for a deeper discussion of this problem.

Cost

One issue I purposely did not raise in this article, is it worth the expense of the economic level to explore the moon?

It appears that based on past precedent, that exploring space, in the long term will pay for itself.

This post was by Shlomo Moshe Scheinman

One friend brings another. The permanent location of this post is at https://vilnagaon.org/the-search-for-life-on-mars-the-positive-and-the-negative-side-of-that-search/

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PermanentTopics


A Light Unto the Nations 
Evidence For the Existence of G-d[Hashem]
Book 1: Is G-d a Good Gamble?
Contents

Book 2: Interpretation of the Bible

gaonpicB”H Excerpts from An Anthology of the Gaon by Rabbi Moshe Zuriel {Tzuriel}

A Selection of sayings of the Vilna Gaon regarding beliefs, extracted from most of the writings of his disciples, of those faithful to him, and from some of his own writings.

Swiftness

The fact that a person puts off performing a mitzvah until the morrow leads to his not performing it at all, rather, as soon as he has the opportunity he should immediately perform it – to Proverbs 10/8, 14/23, 27/1

If not now, then when?” (Avot I) – the Sages did not say ”if not today”, for even on the same day, one should already now, perform the mitzvah.- to Proverbs 6:9

This Anthology of the sayings of the Vilna Gaon is Not Appropriate For Non-Jewish
Souls. Instead they should scroll up this page to the section A Light Unto the Nations which is more appropriate for a mixed audience.

Anthology Topics: 1 Cruelty  2 Erev Rav  3 Father  4 The First Man  5 Forefathers  6 Heretics 7 The Holy Temple  8 Limbs 9 Love of G-d  10 Man  11 The Nations of the World 12 Prophecy 13 Reproof  14 Reward and Punishment 15 Suffering  16 Swiftness  17 Torah   18 Torah Study  19 The World to Come –B”H

Tekhelet Has Been Rediscovered !

For more information on how to get Tekhelet and why you should wear it, GO TO: http://www.tekhelet.com

Here at https://vilnagaon.org/ we also have an article about Tekhelet
Read:   A Solution to Fundamental Problems Regarding Tekhelet

by Shlomo Moshe Scheinman (the author , in the past has written articles with the Haskama of prominent Rabbis , such as, the author of Otzrote Haraaya, Rabbi Moshe Zuriel (Tzuriel) and Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, head of the Temple Institute.)