#thanks shlomo :D

[ispyspookymansion]

5 and 12 for book asks!!

5. What genre did you read the most of?

do you even have to ask…..horror by a mile! i think all but 5 of my reads this year were horror <3

12. Any books that disappointed you?

hmmmm i also was pretty underwhelmed with hearts in atlantis by stephen king, it had its sections i enjoyed but also had some parts that were just a slog imo. you dropped the ball sking.

[palmtreepalmtree]

I was tagged forever ago by the lovely @statueinthestone. Thank you for thinking of me, my friend.

This is 15 Questions for 15 Mutuals - I aim to not follow these instructions.

1. Are you named after anyone?

Yes, my grandfather Shlomo. My name, like his name, means peace.

2. When was the last time you cried?

This morning, reading the news.

3. Do you have kids?

No, thank you.

4. What sports do you play/have played?

I played softball as a kid - had a good arm so played catcher mostly once stealing became a thing which I did not enjoy. Also played JV tennis in high school. I did enjoy that and wish I had kept it up.

5. Do you use sarcasm?

Is there a single person who has answered this question without sarcasm?

6. What's the first thing you notice about people?

Truly, no idea. I am one of the least observant people around.

7. What's your eye color?

Hazel.

8. Scary movies or happy endings?

I reject this binary, but accepting this binary, happy endings.

9. Any talents?

Not really. My hobbies come in waves.

10. Where were you born?

La la land.

11. What are your hobbies?

These days it's mostly cross-stitch, crossword puzzles, and stardew valley.

12. Do you have any pets?

Not at this time.

13. How tall are you?

I'm not. I'm in 2-D.

14. Favorite subject in school?

The classes that were most meaningful to the development of my worldview were: Women in Film, Sex and Gender, Constitutional Law, Immigration Law, International Law, and National Security Law & Policy.

15. Dream job?

To the extent I must work, I'm pretty much doing it, but I suppose otherwise I'd love to have my own foundation and give billions of dollars away.

I'm not following these instructions and tagging anyone else, but I'd love to read anyone else's response if you like to do it.

[tzipporahs-well]

Joseph for Ford and Jacob for Stan are also great choices! I considered those and other names for the older twins too.

Alternative Hebrew Names

The Hebrew names I considered for the older twins are the following:

Ford:

Yosef/Joseph (“May G-d add”)

Yonah/Jonah (“dove”)

Shlomo/Solomon (“G-d gives peace”)

Aharon/Aaron (“light, teaching, enlightening”)

Efrayim/Ephraim (“fruitful”)

David (“friend/beloved”)

Yehoshua/Joshua (“G-d will save”)

Stanley:

Ya’akov/Jacob (“holder of the heel”)

Yehudah/Judah (“thank G-d”)

Gad (“fortune, success, troop”)

Yisrael/Israel (“one who wrestles or contends with G-d”)

Reuven/Reuben (“See son”)

Menashe/Menasseh (“to make forget”)

Calev/Caleb (“all heart”)

Naftali (“I bonded, I prayed, I stubbornly pleaded”)

However, I ultimately decided on the names above (Stanley: Sh’aul and Ford: Sh’muel) because of the double alliteration bonus and the thematic resonances combined with the portal/Witch of Endor parallel that I don’t see with the other names except for the Joseph/Judah story.

And even with that one, it’s shakier because Judah offered himself up to take Benjamin’s place. But the family never exactly set out a search team for Joseph. In contrast, Stanley devotes 30 years to bringing Stanford back.

Also the names above allow me to add a third Hebrew name to the mix:

Shermie: Shlomo

Additional bonus:

Stanley, Stanford, and Shermie’s names all come from the “Nach” portion of Tanakh who appear in Haftarot portions. The blessing before the Haftarah is read in a minor key as is the Haftarah narrative itself in contrast to the Torah and its blessings chanted in a major key. Minor keys are often associated with a dark element compared to the lightness of major key with minor key often but not always being associated with sad songs.

this is purely headcanon but knowing the pines twins are jewish, i would like to posit that their hebrew names are miriam for mabel and moshe for dipper (mason)

not only is it double alliteration (miriam/mabel, moshe/mason), but miriam and moshe (moses) are siblings in exodus

[findswoman]

Fic Title Meme

Tagged by my good pal @jadelotusflower��. Thanks so much for including me—what a wonderful idea this is! (And I recognize so many of yours! :D )

Look at the most recent 20 fanwork titles on your AO3 account and answer the questions below.

Mine are:

What She Saw

In Your Vault, In Your Mists, In Your Song

Hoses, Masks, and Canisters

Between the Porch and the Altar

The Chronomaker and the Findsman

Graceful as Water

Sai-perimetry at Gleebaloola’s, You Bet!

Blumfruit and Queen’s Heart

The Drabatan Lady Downstairs

“I saw the wolf...”

You Must be Garazeb; or, Dinner with the Trilashas

Such a funny little bag of dirt...

Feel Safe at Night

Sparks

A Private Place

Gem of my Beaches

Dinner with the Orrelioses

Beautiful, Inexactly

Return Again

Light of Lasan

1. How many are you happy with?

I’m more or less content with them all but wish I could have done better with a few (see item 2 below).

2. How many are…not great?

Well, I kind of wish I’d been able to come up with something better for “A Private Place”; that title isn’t exactly all that attention-getting. Ditto “What She Saw” and maybe also “Feel Safe at Night.” And “Such a funny little bag of dirt...” is not super original because, well, it’s basically just half the story itself (it’s a one-sentence story). :P

3. How many did you scramble for at the last minute?

Most of those listed above in item 2, but I want to say also “Hoses, Masks, and Canisters” and “In Your Vault, In Your Mists, In Your Song.” That last one was tough to title, for some reason, but I think it’s at least a fitting title.

4. How many did you know before you started writing/creating, or near the beginning?

Looks like exactly half of them! “Between the Porch and the Altar,” “Blumfruit and Queen’s Heart,” “The Drabatan Lady Downstairs,” “I saw the wolf...,” “Sparks,” “Graceful as Water,” “Return Again,” “Light of Lasan,” and both of the “Dinner with...” stories (though the “You Must Be Garazeb” part was a later addition, in order to not-so-slyly slip an EC name in there).

5. How many are quotes from songs or poems?

I’m finding fewer than I thought, too, at least among these twenty titles. I’m counting three: “Return Again” (from the eponymous song by Shlomo Carlebach paraphrasing the Hashiveinu), “Beautiful, Inexactly” (from the lines of a poem that served as one of the prompts in the challenge I wrote it for), and “I saw the wolf...” (from the old French folksong “J’ai vu le loup”).

6. How many are other quotes?

“Between the Porch and the Altar” is a biblical quote, from Joel 2:17, which also serves as the epigraph of the story: “Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar...”

7. Which best reflects the plot of the story/content of the fanwork?

Well, the two that have “Dinner with...” in their titles are pretty much “what it says on the tin” type situations. :P Also, I’d say “Sai-perimetry at Gleebaloola’s, You Bet!” is a pretty good summary of what happens in the story, which involves humorous attempts to perform psychometry on various objects sold at a Squib-owned antique shop. So, also pretty much “what it says on the tin.”

8. Which best reflects the theme of the story?

Oh, hmm, I hope they all do in some form or other, though I guess a few notable examples might be “Sparks” and “Light of Lasan,” both of whose titles are meant to reflect the Force/Ashla’s manifestation as light, sparks, etc. in the Lasat shamanic tradition as practiced and experienced by the main OC character.

9. Which best reflects the character voice of the story/pov of the fanwork?

Probably “I saw the wolf...”! That story is told from the viewpoint of a very young Ezra Bridger, so I was going for a childlike voice, and original French song is very much that way itself.

10. Which is your favourite title?

Oh gee, don’t make me choose just one! :P Hmm... maybe “Between the Porch and the Altar,” just because it’s such a compelling image and one I’d wanted to write a fic on for years. But I’m pretty proud of “Gem of My Beaches,” too (for also being a compelling image) and “Graceful as Water” (which kind of masks the grim character of the story it’s attached to).

Thanks again to JadeLotus for the tag! Tagging @runrundoyourstuff @redrikki @fontainebleau22 @gondalsqueen @lasatfat @tarisilmarwen and anyone else who would like to try. (Again, please mention that I tagged you, and please tag me so I can read what you’ve got!)

[foggynightdonut]

The Creation of Adam from Dust and the Theory of Evolution

Article by Shlomo Moshe Scheinman

Contents of the Article Section 1: Evolution

The Simple Meaning of Breishit Genesis 2:7 Implies That Man Was Created From the Dust of the Earth – A Suggestion How This Can Also Be Harmonized With Modern Scientific Theory.

The Woolly Mammoth, Extinct for Thousands of Years, Could be Brought Back to Life in as Little as Four years Thanks to a Breakthrough in Cloning Technology

A Source In Jewish Law That A Dead Body That Decomposes Can Attain the Status of Dust

What Possible Reason Might G-d Have Chosen To Create Adam (see Breishit/Genesis 1:26 – 2:7 ) Through Cloning of the Genetic Material of a Man From a Previous Era or World

Many of Our Rabbis Openly Stated That the Actions That Took Place With Man on the Sixth Day of Creation Are A Prophetic Sign For the Future

An Omen For the Rapid Expansion and Adaption of Biblical Hebrew, Starting From 5708.33 – 5750 (1948 – autumn 1989) in the Wake of the Victory of the State of Israel in its War for Independence and the Subsequent Ingathering of Millions of Jews to Israel.

Section 2: What Are the 3 Strongest Proofs For Evolution and Are They Really So Strong?

Junk DNA

Evolutionary Adaption of a Species to New Environmental Conditions

Regarding the Similarity of the DNA in Humans and Other Mammals

An Introduction to Telomeres

The Telomere Argument Against the Notion of Fusion of Two Small Chimpanzee-like Chromosomes (2A and 2B) in Humans

Most Major Secular Scientists Still Believe That Two Small Chimpanzee-like Chromosomes (2A and 2B) Did Fuse Into One Long Human Chromosome

What Difference Does it Make if Chimpanzee DNA is Close to 99% of that of Humans or a Much Lower Percentage?

Sometimes Scientists Have Tried to Abuse their Mantle of Authority to Make it Appear that their Wishful Guesses at the Reality Are Indisputable Facts

    In the so-called middle ages, there was a popular belief among non-Jewish philosophers and certain Jews who were influenced by these philosophers, that a certain type of substance called in Hebrew, theHiyuli, (the simplest “building blocks” of matter) existed eternally and was not the creation of the Almighty. As reported in the book, known as the Kuzari (in modern editions, ch. 1,section 67), a potential convert, the king of the Khazars wanted to find out what was the official view of Judaism on this subject. The rabbi explained to the king that the received tradition from Adam, No’ach (Noah) and  Moshe (Moses) which stemmed from prophecy, is that no thing could exist without the creation of G-d .

Nevertheless, he added that if a person who believes in the Torah found there was some compelling logical argument to accept the view that an eternal Hiyuli always existed and he combined this concept with the view that many other worlds existed before our world; there would be no defect in his belief that our world was renewed at a certain time and the first men (of our current world) were Adam and No’ach (Noah).

Former Chief Rabbi of British Mandate Palestine, Avraham Kook took the same type of approach on the subject of evolution. He believed that man was created without using the method of evolution. However, he said it was possible to be a believing Jew who for scientific reasons accepts that evolutionary forces had some role in the creation of man. Based on the precedent of the Kuzari (although I did not read or hear that Rabbi Kook explicitly raised this demand) it would appear to me, that although we might tolerate a Jew believing in the creation of man via evolution, but this is only on the condition that he could find an alternative explanation of the Biblical text which could fit with his evolutionary beliefs.

What Possible Alternative Interpretation of Breishit/Genesis Chapter 2 Can we Suggest to the Man Who Feels Forced by Science to Believe in Evolution?

The Simple Meaning of Breishit Genesis 2:7 Implies That Man Was Created From the Dust of the Earth. The Following Is A Suggestion How This Can Also Be Harmonized With Modern Scientific Theory.

    Introduction

   “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2). Not just in the future will the dead be brought back to life but it happened in the past. We know for example, that resurrection of the dead occurred via the prophet Elisha, twice. Once after the death of Elisha, an incident occurred where a dead body waiting for burial had to be tossed onto the bones of the prophet, because of a threat of attack by a national enemy. A miracle occurred after the dead body touched the bones of Elisha and the person came back to life and stood on his legs as recorded in II Melachim (Kings) chapter 13 verse 21.

The second, more well known incident of resurrection occurred when Elisha prayed to G-d to restore the life of the son of a righteous woman, who he had previously given birth, only because of the prophet’s blessing as recorded in II Melachim (Kings) chapter 4. Originally the prophet had intended that the boy be brought back to life by means of his staff. Namely, the prophet’s apprentice would merely have to place the staff on the body of the boy  (as recorded in II Melachim (Kings) chapter 4 verses 29 and 31. But for some reason, not explained in the text, the staff did not accomplish the miracle and Elisha had to pray fervently to G-d to restore the child’s life, which was eventually successful. In the future Rabbi Shmuel Bar Nachmani quoting Rabbi Yonatan contends, in tractate Talmud Bavli, Pesachim, page 68, “that the righteous will be granted the power to restore the life of the dead” and he implies (but does not say it explicitly) there that the miracle will be performed through a staff.

In our times, we are on the verge of transforming what was once the realm of miracles alone to the natural ways that things are done. The web site article at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8257223/Mammoth-could-be-reborn-in-four-years.htmlreports:

“The woolly mammoth, extinct for thousands of years, could be brought back to life in as little as four years thanks to a breakthrough in cloning technology”.

Previous efforts in the 1990s to recover nuclei in cells from the skin and muscle tissue from mammoths found in the Siberian permafrost failed because they had been too badly damaged by the extreme cold.The article states:

But a technique pioneered in 2008 by Dr. Teruhiko Wakayama, of the Riken Centre for Developmental Biology, was successful in cloning a mouse from the cells of another mouse that had been frozen for 16 years. Now that hurdle has been overcome, Akira Iritani, a professor at Kyoto University, is reactivating his campaign to resurrect the species that died out 5,000 years ago. “Now the technical problems have been overcome, all we need is a good sample of soft tissue from a frozen mammoth,” he told The Daily Telegraph. He intends to use Dr Wakayama’s technique to identify the nuclei of viable mammoth cells before extracting the healthy ones. The nuclei will then be inserted into the egg cells of an African elephant, which will act as the surrogate mother for the mammoth.

The Web site http://www.livescience.com/17386-woolly-mammoth-clone.html claims: Extinct animals have been resurrected by cloning before, albeit briefly. Scientists in Spain had cloned a Pyrenean ibex, which went extinct in 2000 (which corresponds to Jewish year 5760). See the article for more details.

Given this introduction that cloning cells from extinct species can theoretically bring that species back to life, provides us with a way, if we so desire to explain Breishit (Genesis) Chapter 2 in such a way that it does not contradict the theory of evolution. Namely, if we assume the Earth is older than 6000 years, which fits in to some but not all Rabbinic interpretations of the Bible, as I have already pointed out in another article, then we can contend that G-d originally used the tool of evolution to create man and perhaps some of the species.

According to this viewpoint, one of the men created through evolution, eventually died and Breishit (Genesis) Chapter 2 describes the resurrection of the dead (perhaps by a cloning process) of that evolved man from the genetic material of a body that had decomposed to dust, who became Adam in the story of the Garden of Eden. Indeed, I found that Rabbi Ephraim Sprecher, Dean of Students and Senior Lecturer at Diaspora Yeshiva makes a somewhat similar claim. Namely, that Chava (Eve) was created by G-d through a cloning process from Adam’s bone (seehttp://rabbisprecher.com/articles.php?op=view&id=16).

I will not however, hide the fact that not all the Rabbis of the Talmud hold that Chava (Eve) was created from Adam’s bone (and thereby removing one precedent for G-d using the process of cloning). Some hold that Adam and Chava (Eve) were originally created as Siamese twins and Chava (Eve) eventually gained her separate identity, when G-d cut the connection between the Siamese twins.

A Source In Jewish Law That A Dead Body That Decomposes Can Attain the Status of Dust

Rabbi Menashe Klein in his responsa works, Mishna Halachot, Volume 16, section 133 was asked the following question. There was a Jew who wanted to buy from a certain city an old cemetery of Gentiles. He wished to build on that plot of land, apartment buildings. The Jew made it clear that there were no legal problems, because according to the law and religion of the Gentiles of that city, once the old cemetery reaches a certain point of time, it loses its status as a cemetery and the land was set to be auctioned for sale. The Jew wanted to know in this situation was there any problem as far as Judaism is concerned to actually buy and build on that land.

Rabbi Klein after dealing with some issues that are not related to this article, brings up the point, that if we knew that the dead people buried there had decomposed to dust, they would lose their status as dead bodies and the cemetery ground could be used. If we were unsure if this took place, some additional measures, which I will not describe in this article, would be needed before the cemetery could be used for a real estate investment.

    From the above case we see an example of how a dead body can attain according to Jewish law the status of dust. Thus if we so wish, we can explain that Adam was created from the dust of a man who had died in a previous era or world.

What Possible Reason Might G-d Have Chosen To Create Adam (see Breishit/Genesis 1:26 – 2:7) Through Cloning of the Genetic Material of a Man From a Previous Era or World

After Adam ate from the tree of knowledge between good and evil, against the commandment of G-d, he was punished with several punishments. Among them was the curse of Breishit/Genesis 3:19 “By the sweat of your brow you will eat bread until you will return to the ground, for it was from it, that you were taken; for you are dust and to dust you shall return”.

The Talmud in tractate Shabbat, page 152b, brings in the name of Achai Bar Yoshia that one hour before the resurrection of the dead, all dead bodies will decompose to dust to fulfill the verse quoted above: “for you are dust and to dust you shall return”. Malbim as well as Ramchal explain that even the righteous have to undergo this process before returning to life through the resurrection of the dead, because out of this dust, a newly rectified and rebuilt body will emerge that will be in the same state that humans were in before the sin of eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Now if we have already have a precedent in Jewish sources that dead bodies in the future will decompose to dust before the resurrection to restore mankind to the state of Adam before his sin, in theory then it is possible to contend that this was the same process that was used for the creation of Adam. Namely, Adam was created by having the body of a man or something close to a man from a previous era or world decay into dust and then a rebuilt Adam was made out of that dust.

Tehillim (Psalms) Chapter 104 Also Implies That Decay Into Dust of the Previous World Is A Precondition Before Rebuilding the Next World

“You hide your face they are terrified, you take away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. You send forth your breath (alt. translation, spirit), they are created and you renew the face of the earth” (Tehillim /Psalms 104 verses 29 and 30). We see from the order of the verses that decay into dust is a key stage before, creation and renewal.

Many of Our Rabbis Openly Stated That the Actions That Took Place With Man on the Sixth Day of Creation Are A Prophetic Sign For the Future

Many of our Rabbis openly stated that the actions that took place with man on the sixth day of creation are a prophetic sign for the future. If this is so, G-d might have specifically wanted to create man from the dust of the body of a man or something close to a man from a previous era or world as a prophetic sign regarding about the method of the future resurrection.

    In my article:A Solution to Fundamental Problems Regarding Tekhelet

, currently found athttp://www.vilnagaon.org/solutions.htmI brought up the issue of why we would have more Divine assistance during the years 5708 – 5750 (secular years 1948 until about 2/3 of 1989) in identifying the animal that was the source of the ancient Tekhelet dye used both in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and placed on the corners of religious garments used by observant Jews, which apparently due to evil governments fell into disuse by Jews over the centuries. There I brought that there are Rabbinic sources that view the entire 6 days of creation as prophetic signs for what will take place during 6000 years of Jewish history and in particular what would be take place in our millennium, the 6th millennium. I will quote from that article because it also has relevance to our point.

    There is a correspondence between the six days of creation and 6000 years of history from the time of the formation of the first man until the destruction of this world, which will take place according to the Talmud in the seventh millennium as explained in tractate Sanhedrin page 97.

    Rabbi Ketina said, “six thousand years is the world and for one it is destroyed, for it was stated: ‘And G-d will be exalted alone on that day’. Abeyei said, two {millennium} it is destroyed for it is stated: ‘And he will bring us alive from the two days and on the third day he will raise us up and we will live before him’. It was taught in a Baraita in accordance to Rabbi Ketina’s view, just as the sabbatical year causes a cessation once in 7 years so too will the world cease {from development} for a thousand years out of seven thousand years for it was stated: ‘And G-d will be exalted alone on that day’. And it states: ‘a song of praise for the day of Sabbath, the day that is entirely Sabbath and it states, for a thousand years in your eyes is as yesterday when it passes by’. The Academy of Eliyahu taught: for 6 thousand years does the world last. Two thousand years is null, two thousand years of Torah and two thousand years – the days of the messiah and in our iniquities that have multiplied, it has been deducted from them what has been deducted.”

Many of our rabbis understood that not just in a general way is there a parallel between the 6 days of creation and the six thousand years of history, but rather there is a perfect parallel. And this is the preview of the book Kol Hator that was printed in the introduction section at the end of the book Hatekufa Hagdola of Rabbi Menachem Kasher:

    The period of the revealed time of the end, which is the period of the beginning of the redemption (Atchalta D’geula) opened and continues from Jewish year 5500. This thing was known to sages based on the principles of the wisdom of the Kabbalah. For there was a tradition in the hands of the sages of Israel that the six thousand years that our world stands in its present fashion is parallel to the six days of creation, each millennium corresponding to its parallel day [in the six days of creation] starting from the first millennium which parallels the first day until the sixth millennium which corresponds to day six of the creation. Now there isn’t a large or small detail in the six thousand years of this world that its principle is not rooted in the six days of creation in a fashion that those of wise intellect that know how to arrange the actions that G-d performed in the six days of creation and comprehend their deeper meaning, knew from the outset all the future things that would come to be in the world, every thing at its proper time and even a small event and this is in accordance to the testimony of the Vilna Gaon in his commentary to Safra Dtsniuta (chapter 5). Now behold the Vilna Gaon knew that the period of the footsteps of the Messiah, it and all its occurrences that will in the future occur, were created on the sixth day from the first hour of the morning and onwards until the time of the end of the day (evening). Now since during the 12 hours of the night, the Holy One Blessed be He didn’t perform anything, behold the calculation of the 12 hours of daytime, starts from year 5500, that is to say the middle of the millennium. This is the same way as 12 hours are in the middle of a 24-hour period. Therefore our Rabbi the Vilna Gaon, with great wisdom deduced the time of the creation of the footsteps of the messiah by their root in the six days of creation, that is to say from the first hour of the morning of the sixth day. From the emergence of the word he knew that the period of the footsteps of the messiah in an actual way has opened up from the year 500 of the sixth millennium [that is to say in 5500]. And so too will it be understood by this principle, that every hour from the hours of the sixth day brings to light in an actual way the actions that are rooted in it from the time of creation for the period of 41 years and 8 months [comment by me: the intention is 2/3 of a year] for you find if you divide 12 hours of the day into 500 years, the time of their control, is as stated previously. {End of Quote}

One should note that in a general way also the Chatam Sofer [Responsa of the Chatam Sofer Volume 6, Siman 61] as well as the Ohr Hachayim [to Leviticus 6:2] agreed that there is a hint about the development of the redemption by what is described as being created on the sixth day. In order to prove that there is truly a connection, between what took place in history and the six days of the book of Genesis, I will note the following examples. Rashi on Genesis 1:4 on the words: “And the L-rd saw the light that it was good and he separated…” – he saw that it wasn’t fitting for it to be used by the wicked and he separated it for the righteous in the future”. And similarly in the first millennium, G-d separated the Garden of Eden for the future. And so too at the end of the first millennium, there was something similar regarding Chanoch that lived 365 years which corresponds to the days of a solar year (a matter of light). Now this is the terminology of Rashi in his commentary to (Genesis 5:22) on the words of “And Chanoch walked” – “he was righteous but was easily susceptible to be influenced to return to do evil, therefore, the Holy One Blessed Be He hurried and removed him and made him die before his time. But according to some of our sages, G-d separated Chanoch by transforming him into something similar to an angel and put him into the Garden of Eden alive. In either case, there is here a matter of separation from the wicked. On the second day of the creation “And the L-rd made the firmament and separated between the water under the firmament and the water above the firmament” (Genesis 1:11). In my opinion, here is a hint to the great flood that took place in the second millennium, and also to the generation of the division at the time of the tower of Bavel/Babel. The division of the waters on the second day hints at the generation of the division, for behold, the gentiles are compared to water as it is written in the book of Psalms chapter 144 verse 7 “rescue me and deliver me from the great waters, from the hand of the sons of the stranger”. [And in accordance to the Targum commentary there, “save me from the populace who are compared to great waters from the hands of the sons of the strangers”.] Based upon all that was said above it is possible to discover a hint in the Torah when we will have special assistance from heaven for the proper identification of the creatures of the Creator (such as the Chilazon, the source for the Tekhelet dye, according to the Talmud).

For behold according to tractate Sanhedrin page 38 in the sixth hour of the sixth day, Adam {first man} called the creatures of the Holy One blessed be He, by names. Just as it is written in Genesis 2:19 “And Hashem the L-rd formed from the earth every creature of the field and every bird of the sky and he brought {them} to the man to see what he would call each one and whatever it would be called by the man, {for} each living creature, that is its name”. Now according to what I have brought previously in the preview to Kol Hator the sixth hour of the sixth day corresponds to the period, which began within the year 5708 and ended at the beginning of 5750. [5*41.66 +500 = 708.33 and 6*41.666 + 500 = 750].

Now according to this, Prof. Otto Elsner, of the Shenkar College of Fibers, who discovered a few years before the year of 5750 the secret of how to dye Tekhelet with the Trunculus mollusc and thereby solved the central problem that disturbed us in the matter of the identification of the Chilazon and renewing the mitzvah of Tekhelet, merited to receive special Diving Assistance, because of the period in which he acted. Namely, the period of “he called each creature by names”.

And according to this, it is not correct, to compare between the merits of earlier generations to our generation – for they did not have the Divine Assistance for identification, that we had. A Divine Assistance that is not dependant upon our good deeds that much, but rather by a plan set at the very beginning by the Holy One Blessed be He. I will not hide the fact that only some of the Rabbis of our generation have accepted the fact that we have correctly identified the source of the Tekhelet dye. So according to those who do not support the usage of the dye derived from the (Murex) Trunculus mollusc as Tekhelet we must find some other reason to tie the period of 5708.33 – 5750 (1948 – autumn 1989) to the sixth hour of the sixth day of Creation.

An Omen For the Rapid Expansion and Adaption of Biblical Hebrew, Starting From 5708.33 – 5750 (1948 – autumn 1989) in the Wake of the Victory of the State of Israel in its War for Independence and the Subsequent Ingathering of Millions of Jews to Israel

Perhaps according to them, the period of 5708.33 – 5750 (1948 – autumn 1989), which corresponds to the activity “Whatever it would be called by the man, {for} each living creature, that is its name” (Breishit/Genesis 2:19) is a prophetic omen of the rapid expansion and adaption of Biblical Hebrew for usage in the modern world. This took place in this period due to the victory of the state of Israel in its war for Independence and the subsequent ingathering of millions of Jews to Israel (as predicted by the prophet Yechezkel/Ezekiel in chapter 36). The connection of the ingathering of the exiles and Hebrew stems from the fact that Hebrew is the official language of the state of Israel. Also, see the Biblical book of Nechemiah (Nehemiah) 13:24 where Nechemiah faults the assimilated Jews of not even raising their children, knowing how to speak Hebrew, thus indicating, that knowing how to speak Hebrew is a Biblical ideal. See also Yerushalmi, tractate Shabbat 1:3, Any one who is permanent in the land of Israel, and eats Chulin food in ritual purity, and speaks in the holy language and recites the Shma prayer morning and evening is guaranteed that he is a “son” of the world to come. Metsudat Dovid in his interpretation of the Biblical book of Tzephaniah (Zephaniah) 3:9 predicts that even the Gentiles after the events of Tzephaniah (Zephaniah) 3:8 will in the future speak the holy language which will help draw them near to proper religious beliefs.

Now if one objects that modern Hebrew has incorporated within it a lot of foreign words, which therefore have no spiritual value, I will point out that the Bible itself incorporates some foreign words into the Hebrew language and nevertheless these words have the same sanctity, regarding the laws of writing Biblical scrolls as any other words in the Bible. See for example, Breishit/Genesis 31:47, where the Aramaic words Yegar-Sahaduta make it in to the Bible. Similarly the name Pharaoh, and according to Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, the word Achu (translated as marsh or marsh grass) of Breishit/Genesis 41:2 and the word Totafot of Shmot/Exodus 13:17, Dvarim/Deuteronomy 6:8, Dvarim Deuteronomy 11:18 were incorporated into Biblical Hebrew from foreign languages. See also Ibn Ezra to Esther 3:7 and 3:12 that the words Achashdarpanim, and Pur are Persian words that made it into the Bible and I will add the Biblical Holiday named Purim stems from this Persian word (see Esther chapter 9).

In summary, based on Kol Hator, I have shown that the Torah has a need as an omen, to describe the creation of man from the dust on the sixth day of creation. This in itself however, does not either affirm or deny the possibility of men or something close to men, being created by some other means thousands or millions of years before the sixth day of creation. Only if you assert that the universe is less than 6000 years old, do you completely shut the door against the theory of evolution playing some role in the creation of man.

Finally, in the viewpoint of Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto writing around the secular year 1740 (Jewish year, 5500)in Daat Utevunote, translated into English as “The Knowing Heart” (page 189) you will find another possible reason, why Breishit/Genesis Chapter 2, neither affirms or denies that G-d used evolution to create what we would in our day would define as the human body. I did not go into detail about his viewpoint, since I believe “the omen explanation” for the sixth day of creation is superior.

In any case, although I have shown a tolerant view towards evolution, I personally have not seen sufficient proof to force me to believe that this was the method G-d used.

 What Are the 3 Strongest Proofs For Evolution and Are They Really So Strong?

Proof #1 The abundance of useless things in this world, such as, extinct species (Dinosaurs), Junk DNA and the appendix, proves that the created world is the way it is, due to evolution.

Proof #2 If we can sometimes observe evolutionary adaption of a species to new environmental conditions, this proves that one species can also evolve into a separate species.

Proof #3 The general similarity of the DNA in humans and others mammals prove they have a common ancestor.

Junk DNA

Regarding proof #1 in general, Judaism takes the attitude of Pirkei Avot אל תהי בז לכל דבר, which means do not disparage, anything. Indeed the Midrash relates that King David once entertained the notion that 3 things in nature were useless and in the end all 3 things saved his life.

Regarding extinct species, such as Dinosaurs, now that cloning technology is being developed, one day those species might be brought back into existence and serve as a direct benefit for man. Perhaps, G-d didn’t want those species to be around in the early stages of human history, so he purposely, made those species become extinct temporarily. Or perhaps, the role of those extinct species was to give mankind certain spiritual lessons. See for example, what I have written elsewhere on the subject,What was G-d’s Purpose in Creating and Destroying Worlds Before Our Current World?

As far as junk DNA is concerned, although a well-known atheist propagandist, once made the claim that most of the DNA in our bodies is junk DNA without purpose, a new study published in 2012 as quoted by the Wall Street Journal ( http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443589304577633560336453228.html) claims otherwise:

The new insight is the product of Encode, or Encyclopedia of DNA Elements, a vast, multiyear project that aims to pin down the workings of the human genome in unprecedented detail. Encode succeeded the Human Genome Project, which identified the 20,000 genes that underpin the blueprint of human biology. But scientists discovered that those 20,000 genes constituted less than 2% of the human genome. The task of Encode was to explore the remaining 98%—the so-called junk DNA—that lies between those genes and was thought to be a biological desert. That desert, it turns out, is teeming with action. Almost 80% of the genome is biochemically active, a finding that surprised scientists. In addition, large stretches of DNA that appeared to serve no functional purpose in fact contain about 400,000 regulators, known as enhancers, that help activate or silence genes, even though they sit far from the genes themselves.

I found an even more recent discovery about DNA that makes the belief in junk DNA even more difficult. To quote David Klinghoffer athttp://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/12/genome_composes080111.html

Researchers at our local powerhouse public university, the U. of Washington, have discovered that the genetic code composes not in one language but two (“Scientists discover double meaning in genetic code“).

Since the genetic code was deciphered in the 1960s, scientists have assumed that it was used exclusively to write information about proteins. UW scientists were stunned to discover that genomes use the genetic code to write two separate languages. One describes how proteins are made, and the other instructs the cell on how genes are controlled. One language is written on top of the other, which is why the second language remained hidden for so long. “For over 40 years we have assumed that DNA changes affecting the genetic code solely impact how proteins are made,” said Stamatoyannopoulos. “Now we know that this basic assumption about reading the human genome missed half of the picture. These new findings highlight that DNA is an incredibly powerful information storage device, which nature has fully exploited in unexpected ways.” The genetic code uses a 64-letter alphabet called codons. The UW team discovered that some codons, which they called duons, can have two meanings, one related to protein sequence, and one related to gene control. These two meanings seem to have evolved in concert with each other. The gene control instructions appear to help stabilize certain beneficial features of proteins and how they are made. [Emphasis added.]

– See more at: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/12/genome_composes080111.html#sthash.kMRO0gfx.dpuf

As far as the Appendix is concerned, newer studies have found uses for the appendix. According to an article athttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21153898/ns/health-health_care/t/scientists-may-have-found-appendixs-purpose/#.UNi8q6xEW-0, the appendix “produces and protects good germs for your gut”.

“The function of the appendix seems related to the massive amount of bacteria populating the human digestive system, according to the study in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. There are more bacteria than human cells in the typical body. Most of it is good and helps digest food”.

Building on this idea, new research has shown that “Individuals without an appendix were four times more likely to have a recurrence of Clostridium difficile”, a deadly pathogen often encountered in hospitals, particularly when patients must be treated by prolonged courses of antibiotics. (see:http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/01/02/your-appendix-could-save-your-life/)

Evolutionary Adaption of a Species to New Environmental Conditions

Regarding Proof #2, for evolution, namely, that we can sometimes observe evolutionary adaption of a species to new environmental conditions, one might wish to offer the following rebuttal. Proof that environment can affect some of the dominant characteristics displayed within an animal species is not proof for changes between different species.

To quote from Dr. Lee Spetner (B’Or Ha’Torah 17 (5768/2007) ”

It took a maximum of seventeen years for a uniform population of finches to diverge into flocks of different shape and size of bills filling a variety of niches on a group of Pacific islands (S. Conant, “Saving Endangered Species by Translocation”, BioScience, vol. 38 (1988) pp. 254-257 and S.L. Pimm, “Rapid Morphological Change in an Introduced Bird, “Trends in Evolution and Ecology, vol 3 (1988) pp. 290-291). The bill shapes, jaw muscles, and behavior of each type are adapted to their chosen niche. However, these changes could have occurred, they could not, in seventeen year or less, have occurred through random mutations and natural selection. Although this kind of observation is used to support molecules-to-man, it cannot lend such support without us having some knowledge of how these changes occurred. This experiment makes one skeptical about Darwin’s story of the finches he found on the Galápagos Islands. I suggested in my book that one way these rapid changes might have occurred is through environmental cues acting upon a built-in-capacity for change in the organism. The organism has to have the capability to respond to an environmental cue. In this way, populations can change very rapidly to adapt to new environmental conditions. Environmental cues are manifested in what is normally called stress. We know that stress causes the release of hormones that can trigger various responses in selective organs, tissues, and cells. These responses can be manifest in a change of phenotype during development, and if the hormones act on the genome, they can make heritable changes as well. The evolution of cichlid fish has been the subject of much study. Some cichlid fishes have been reported to develop a crushing pharyngeal dentition when their diet includes snails, but a simple piercing dentition when it does not. The biochemical signals that effect this have not yet been deciphered. A gene, bmp4, has been found in other cichlid fishes, however, that when overexpressed results in morphological changes in the jaws. Moreover, the authors have demonstrated that bmp4 has the potential to alter the jaw structure that mimics adaptive variation among the fish species. We can see here more than a hint of how evolution can be driven by the environment through nonrandom genetic changes, be they mutations or genetic rearrangements. There are now a great many other examples of rapid evolution that do not fit into the neo-Darwinian theory. I have already mentioned the controlled experiment that showed a rapid evolution of the finches in a species no more than seventeen years. An example of even faster evolutionary change is an experiment on guppies. Guppies adapt differently in the presence of different predators. Guppies living with cichlid fish are smaller and mature earlier than those living with killifish. Guppies were taken from an environment containing cichlids and placed with killifish. The guppy population quickly changed to adapt to the new environment. The full change in the guppy population was observed as soon as the first samples were drawn, which was after only two years. Moreover, the changes have shown to be inheritable and are therefore of genetic origin. The presence of the predator seems to be the environmental cue that induced genetic changes in a large proportion of the population.

In light of Dr. Spetner’s article, one might wish to argue that evolution within a species does not necessarily indicate that evolution is also responsible for changing one species into another. It could be that each of the different species was directly created by G-d with evolutionary cues to allow for adaption to changing environments.

Regarding the Similarity of the DNA in Humans and Other Mammals

Regarding Proof #3 for evolution between species, that the general similarity of the DNA in humans and others mammals prove they have a common ancestor. This proof is indeed stronger than the first two proofs but not as strong as it proponents make it.

A potential rebuttal to the view that the genetic similarities between man and other mammals prove common descent is that just as an efficient computer programmer reuses successful computer codes in different programs, so too, G-d might have wished to reuse successful genetic codes for different animal species. Furthermore, man has a great benefit from the fact that mammals such as mice, have similar DNA. Namely, by virtue of the fact that mice have somewhat similar DNA, we can perform medical experiments on them and learn valuable information from those tests to solve diseases that occur to man.

Another potential rebuttal is that recent scientific discoveries have shown that there are additional factors other than common descent that are used to explain genetic similarities between different animals. If even strong evolutionists admit that sometimes, similar genes do not always indicate a recent common ancestor, perhaps there are other factors at work to explain genetic similarities between man and other mammals.

As an example of another factor that leads to genetic similarities in different species, Ed Yong in a an online National Geographic article dated Jan. 1, 2013 entitled: How a quarter of the cow genome came from snakes, states:

Genomes are often described as recipe books for living things. If that’s the case, many of them badly need an editor. For example, around half of the human genome is made up of bits of DNA that have copied themselves and jumped around, creating vast tracts of repetitive sequences. The same is true for the cow genome, where one particular piece of DNA, known as BovB, has run amok. It’s there in its thousands. Around a quarter of a cow’s DNA is made of BovB sequences or their descendants. BovB isn’t restricted to cows. If you look for it in other animals, as Ali Morton Walsh from the University of Adelaide did, you’ll find it in elephants, horses, and platypuses. It lurks among the DNA of skinks and geckos, pythons and seasnakes. It’s there in purple sea urchin, the silkworm and the zebrafish. The obvious interpretation is that BovB was present in the ancestor of all of these animals, and stayed in their genomes as they diversified. If that’s the case, then closely related species should have more similar versions of BovB. The cow version should be very similar to that in sheep, slightly less similar to those in elephants and platypuses, and much less similar to those in snakes and lizards. But not so. If you draw BovB’s family tree, it looks like you’ve entered a bizarre parallel universe where cows are more closely related to snakes than to elephants, and where one gecko is more closely related to horses than to other lizards. This is because BovB isn’t neatly passed down from parent to offspring, as most pieces of animal DNA are. This jumping gene not only hops around genomes, but between them. This type of “horizontal gene transfer” (HGT) is an everyday event for bacteria, which can quickly pick up important abilities from each other by swapping DNA. Such trades are supposedly much rarer among more complex living things, but every passing year brings new examples of HGT among animals. For example, in 2008, (now at the University of Utah) discovered a group of sequences that have jumped between several mammals, an anole lizard, and a frog. He called them Space Invaders. The Space Invaders belong to a group of jumping genes called DNA transposons. They jump around by cutting themselves out of their surrounding DNA, and pasting themselves in somewhere new. They’re also relatively rare—they make up just 2 to 3 percent of our genome. BovB belongs to a different class of jumping genes called retrotransposons. They move through a copy-and-paste system rather than a cut-and-paste one, so that every jump produces in a new copy of the gene. For that reason, they spread like wildfire.

A third potential rebuttal is that the commonly used argument used by hardcore evolutionists that the genetic similarity between chimpanzees and humans is close to 99% is incorrect or misleading. The claim made in the past that there is nearly a 99% similarity was based on a small and unrepresentative sample of Chimpanzee DNA. Today evolutionists readily admit at the very least that you have to knock the figure down close to 95% by including what is called indels. In a study by a group of scientists including Tatsuya Anzai of the Department of Genetic Information, Division of Molecular Life Science, Tokai University School of Medicine, we learn:

Once the indels are taken into account, the  above-observed 98.6% sequence identity drops to only 86.7% (substitution, 1.4%; indels, 11.9%). This indel-included 86.7% identity may be a better representation of whole-genome sequence similarity between the human and the chimpanzee, as confirmed by a recently published study comparing a number of fragmented chimpanzee sequences with their human counter- parts. (source:http://www.pnas.org/content/100/13/7708.full.pdf)

Since the original 2005 report for the chimpanzee (chimp) genome assembly (5X rough draft), an additional one-fold redundant coverage has been added. Using the new 6X chimpanzee assembly, a sequential comparison to the human genome was performed on an individual chromosome basis. The chimpanzee chromosomes, were sliced into new individual query files of varying string lengths and then queried against their human chromosome homolog using the BLASTN algorithm. Using this approach, queries could be optimized for each chromosome irrespective of gene/feature linear order. Non-DNA letters (gap filling ‘N’s) were stripped from the query data and excluded from the analyses. The definition of similarity for each chromosome was the amount (percent) of optimally aligned chimp DNA. This definition was considered to be conservative because it did not include the amount of human DNA absent in chimp nor did it include chimp DNA that was not aligned to the human genome assembly (unanchored sequence contigs).    Non-Jewish scientists (who are members of a religion with an anti-evolutionary ideology), such as, Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D add the following additional objections. The chimp genome is 10 to 12 percent larger than the human genome. This by itself shows the 99% similarity between Chimp and Human DNA is misleading.

For the chimp autosomes, the amount of optimally aligned DNA sequence provided similarities between 66 and 76%, depending on the chromosome. In general, the smaller and more gene-dense the chromosomes, the higher the DNA similarity—although there were several notable exceptions defying this trend. Only 69% of the chimpanzee X chromosome was similar to human and only 43% of the Y chromosome. Genome-wide, only 70% of the chimpanzee DNA was similar to human under the most optimal sequence-slice conditions. While, chimpanzees and humans share many localized protein-coding regions of high similarity, the overall extreme discontinuity between the two genomes defies evolutionary timescales and dogmatic presuppositions about a common ancestor. (source: http://designed-dna.org/blog/files/269f5ba93730e963bd54c1a139dd48f9-55.php)

Jeffrey Tomkins, Jerry Bergman, and other anti-evolutionary scientists have also attacked another scientific foundation for the viewpoint that men, Chimpanzees, Gorillas, Bonobos, and Orangutans descended from a common ancestor. Humans have only 46 chromosomes (23 from our father and 23 from our mother) while chimpanzees and the great apes have 48 (24 from the father and 24 from the mother). Pro-evolution scientists explain the difference in the amount of chromosomes in humans came about because there was a fusion of two small chimpanzee-like chromosomes (2A and 2B) that formed one stable chimera chromosome in humans (bringing down the number provided by each parent from 24 to 23). Anti-evolution scientists claim that a closer examination of the data totally disproves the theory of fusion. They claim that new data concerning the alleged point of fusion of the two small chimpanzee-like chromosomes (2A and 2B) disproves the notion that fusion took place.

An Introduction to Telomeres

Much of their proof revolves around the concept of telomeres and since very few of my readers probably know what a telomere is first I’ll provide a short introduction (based with minor changes on an article at http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/traits/telomeres/). Inside the center or nucleus of a cell, our genes are located on twisted, double-stranded molecules of DNA called chromosomes. At the ends of the chromosomes are stretches of DNA called telomeres, which protect our genetic data, make it possible for cells to divide, and hold some secrets how to slow down the process of aging and reduce cancer. Telomeres have been compared with the plastic tips on shoelaces because they prevent chromosome ends from fraying and sticking to each other, which would scramble an organism’s genetic information to cause cancer, other diseases or death. Yet, each time a cell divides, the telomeres get shorter. When they get too short, the cell no longer can divide and becomes inactive or “senescent” or dies. This process is associated with aging, cancer and a higher risk of death. So telomeres also have been compared with a bomb fuse. What are telomeres? Like the rest of a chromosome and its genes, telomeres are sequences of DNA – chains of chemical code. Like other DNA, they are made of four nucleic acid bases: G for guanine, A for adenine, T for thymine and C for cytosine. Telomeres are made of repeating sequences of TTAGGG on one strand of DNA bound to AATCCC on the other strand. Thus, one section of telomere is a “repeat” made of six “base pairs.” Why do chromosomes have telomeres? Without telomeres, the main part of the chromosome – the part containing genes essential for life – would get shorter each time a cell divides. So telomeres allow cells to divide without losing genes. Cell division is needed so we can grow new skin, blood, bone and other cells when needed. Without telomeres, chromosome ends could fuse together and degrade the cell’s genetic blueprint, making the cell malfunction, become cancerous or die. Because broken DNA is dangerous, a cell has the ability to sense and repair chromosome damage. Without telomeres, the ends of chromosomes would look like broken DNA, and the cell would try to fix something that wasn’t broken. That also would make them stop dividing and eventually die.

The Telomere Argument Against the Notion of Fusion of Two Small Chimpanzee-like Chromosomes (2A and 2B) in Humans

Although one of the normal task of telomeres is to prevent the fusion of two chromosomes in an organism, since fusion is usually harmful for survival, current evolutionary theory holds that due to some mutation or other unknown reason, between 1 and 6 million years ago, two small Chimpanzee-like chromosomes (2a and 2b) fused together in some extinct human ancestor at the point of their telomeres to produce, the amount of chromosomes that we observe in humans today, which differs by a total of two chromosomes, from what we observe in Chimpanzees, Gorillas, Bonobos, and Orangutans.

     Telomeric DNA at the ends of our chromosomes normally consists of thousands of repeats of the 6-base-pair sequence TTAGGG. But the alleged fusion point in human chromosome 2 contains far less telomeric DNA than it should if two chromosome were fused end-to-end: As evolutionary biologist Daniel Fairbanks admits, the location only has 158 repeats, and only “44 are perfect copies” of the sequence. Additionally, a paper in Genome Research found that the alleged telomeric sequences we do have are “degenerated significantly” and “highly diverged from the prototypic telomeric repeats.” The paper is surprised at this finding, because the fusion event supposedly happened recently — much too recent for such dramatic divergence of sequence. Thus the paper asks: “If the fusion occurred within the telomeric repeat arrays less than ∼6 mya [million years ago], why are the arrays at the fusion site so degenerate?” The conclusion is this: If two chromosomes were fused end-to-end in humans, then a huge amount of alleged telomeric DNA is missing or garbled. Finally, the presence of telomeric DNA within a mammalian chromosome isn’t highly unusual, and does not necessarily indicate some ancient point of fusion of two chromosomes. Evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg points out that interstitial telomeric sequences (ITSs) are commonly found throughout mammalian genomes, but the telomeric sequences within human chromosome 2 are cherry-picked by evolutionists and cited as evidence for a fusion event…. (quote from David Klinghofferhttp://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/07/what_i_said_abo_1062451.html)

What Difference Does it Make if Chimpanzee DNA is Close to 99% of that of Humans or a Much Lower Percentage?

Emotionally, it is easier to believe in a common ancestor between Chimpanzee and Man if they share 99%, while the claim is much less convincing if let’s say they are only 66% to 76% given one standard of comparison used by Jeffrey Tomkins.

A larger difference between Chimpanzee and Man would force scientists who believe in evolution to admit that the pace of change and mutation in evolution is much faster than once thought.

Most Major Secular Scientists Still Believe That Two Small Chimpanzee-like Chromosomes (2A and 2B) Did Fuse Into One Long Human Chromosome

From what I have researched at this point in time, most major secular scientists still believe that two small Chimpanzee-like chromosomes (2A and 2B) fused into one long chromosome found in humans and the skeletons, which they currently identify as our ancestors. They are more impressed by the overall similarity of the genes, in Chimpanzee and Human chromosomes, which in their view suggests a common ancestor, than the problems associated with the alleged point of fusion. I, unfortunately do not have the scientific expertise to decide the question, but rather am just calling for further research into the issue.

Sometimes Scientists Have Tried to Abuse their Mantle of Authority to Make it Appear that their Wishful Guesses at the Reality Are Indisputable Facts

I do wish to point out in the strongest possible terms that on scientific issues that have a huge impact on philosophical beliefs or economic choices and which are fairly difficult to double-check due to the advanced technical nature of the data and limited access to the relevant data, that at times scientists have tried to abuse their mantle of authority to make it appear that their wishful guesses at the reality were indisputable facts. This has been found to be the case in theclimate-warming scandal, where scientists tried to misrepresent the facts to influence climate warming legislation. This has been found to be the case when certain anti-Zionist scientists have tried to distort the genetic data which supports Zionist claims to the Jewish right to Israel (seelink 1andlink 2for more details). This is true also of certain facts cited as absolute proof for evolution, such as the Piltdown man hoax that fooled most of the scientific establishment for 40 years and such as the Archaeopteryx, which I will deal with at a later time in this article. Therefore the ideal solution is that Orthodox Jewish scientists, who have a track record of putting the pursuit of truth above personal agendas, should be our sources for scientific data and interpretation. But in the meantime, we should take the claims of scientists about facts that have an impact on our philosophy with a healthy dose of suspicion.

Are the Fossils of Archaeopteryx the Missing Link Between Modern Birds and Dinosaurs?

For many decades the fossils of Archaeopteryx were touted as the missing link between modern birds and dinosaurs. As reported by Matt Kaplan in the online edition of Nature 27 July 2011 recent finds of a fossil called called Xiaotingia zhengi, by Xing Xu, a palaeontologist at the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology in Beijing, have led researchers to reclassify Archaeopteryx, as well as Xiaotingia zhengi, Anchiornis as belonging in the dinosaur group Deinonychosauria rather than in the bird group, Avialae. Many features led the team to this decision, but the most immediately noticeable are thatXiaotingia,Archaeopteryx andAnchiornis have shallow snouts and expanded regions behind their eye sockets.Microraptor has similar traits, but the early birds in Avialae have very different skulls.

What had led to the earlier misidentification of  Archaeopteryx as the missing link? The article I cited above explains that the Archaeopteryx specimen was discovered just a few years after the publication of Charles Darwin’sOn the Origin of Species. Its combination of lizard-like and avian features made it the ideal ‘missing link’ with which to demonstrate evolution from non-avian dinosaurs to birds.

“Archaeopteryx was a bird because it had feathers and nothing else had them. But then other animals started being found that had wishbones, three-fingered hands and feathers. Heck, evenT. rex had a wishbone. So one by one we’ve learnedArchaeopteryx ‘s uniquely avian traits weren’t so unique. The writing was really on the wall,” says Lawrence Witmer, a palaeontologist at Ohio University in Athens.

In aBBC News articleon the same date, Lawrence Witmer, who I quoted above also states:

“SinceArchaeopteryxwas found 150 years ago, it has been the most primitive bird and consequently every theory about the beginnings of birds – how they evolved flight, what their diet was like – were viewed through the lens ofArchaeopteryx.

“So, if we don’t view birds through this we might have a different set of hypotheses.”

According to Prof Witmer, little is certain in trying to determine the earliest bird and new findings can rapidly change perspectives.

“The reality is, that next fossil find could kick Archaeopteryx right back into birds. That’s the thing that’s really exciting about all of this.”

Witmer’s statement in the BBC article should partially be viewed in the light of the fact that the BBC also reported, that the origins of the new fossil that Professor Xu used to disprove Archaeopteryx as the missing link “are a little murky having originally been purchased from a dealer”. That is to say that the whole theory of bird evolution hinges at this time on one set of fossils, which seemingly were not discovered by scientific experts digging up the ground, but rather by a dealer trying to make money.

It is rather astonishing to me that such a key argument for the last 150 years to prove  Darwin’s view of evolution in general is dependent on one dubious fossil purchase. It shows to me, that the evidence itself in the first place, even before the new discovery was pretty sparse and open to many different interpretations and the subject of wishful thinking.

With the advent of DNA research the fossil evidence for Darwin’s version of evolution even becomes more problematical, because it used to be taught that by finding relatively similar structures in animal fossils (morphology) you could determine the evolutionary path of an animal. So based on this for example, they use to conclude that the hippo and the pig descended from a relatively recent common ancestor. But then, D.N.A. analysis seemed to show that the hippo was in fact a closer relative to the cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises). (source:http://www.science.org.au/nova/newscientist/104ns_001.htm). As a side point, for advanced Torah students, I refer you to an article that solves a halachic question that rises from this reclassification of the hippo athttp://www.crcweb.org/faq/faqanswer.php?faqid=129.

Finally even when scientists are not intentionally trying to push some agenda they sometimes are too quick to jump to conclusions based on incomplete or faulty evidence or by ignoring facts that contradict their theories. So for example, for many centuries, until Louis Pasteur devised a method to prevent tiny insects from laying their eggs on meat, scientists believed in the false notion of spontaneous generation. And it was only in the last half century that most mainstream scientists have come to accept that our entire universe had a definite beginning.

Rabbi Moshe Zuriel’s Approval to Print this Article

“I just concluded reading your fascinating article “Adam from the dust” etc. and it is valuable indeed”. “I do wish that you find a host publication to publicize it”. “The matter of Hiyuli prehistoric material was certainly  the opinion of several ancient Rabbis and might help in our academic disputes with the Sceptics”. “The matter of adaptation of the guppies etc, was very important.Could you place your article on the Internet”? “You go ahead and proceed with your expert defense of our Faith, showing that we too have scientific sources”. Best wishes, Moshe Zuriel

One may quote from the article on the condition that the author and the web site address of the article are noted with the quotation. For more articles about Torah and science, visit the web site:www.vilnagaon.org

This Article was written in Jewish Year 5774 (Secular Year 2014).

[rabbishlomonachman]

Chanukah: Jewish Festival of Lights

Chanukah: The Jewish Festival of Lights

“The mitzvah of kindling the Chanukah lights is from sunset until traffic in the marketplace ceases”

Rabbi Shlomo Nachman © November29,2018 (updated November 18,2020)

http://learnemunah.com/holidays/chanukah.html

What is Chanukah?

The Gemara asks: What is Chanukah, and why are lights kindled on it? The Gemara answers: The Sages taught in Megillat Ta’anit: "On the twenty-fifth of Kislev, the days of Chanukah are eight." One may not eulogize on them and one may not fast on them [i.e. we are prohibited from celebrating as though we accomplished something great or to mourn as though we are helpless orphans]. What is the reason? When the Greeks entered the Sanctuary they defiled all the oils that were in the Sanctuary by touching them. And when the Hasmonean monarchy overcame them and emerged victorious, they searched and found only one cruse of oil that was placed with the seal of the High Priest, undisturbed by the Greeks. There was sufficient oil there to light the Chanukiah or Temple candelabrum for only a single day. Because of the strong emunah of the Hasmonean Jewish leaders however a miracle occurred and they lit the candelabrum from that single pure stock for eight days while new oil was prepared. The next year the Sages instituted those days and made them holidays with recitations of hallel and special thanksgiving in prayer and blessings. We remember and are inspired today as we confront our current and future enemies who seek to destroy us.

When is Chanukah?

The biblical Jewish calendar is lunar based. Modern secular calendars are Pagan and solar based. In order to maintain the proper seasons of our days of observance and celebration the sages, most notably Hillel HaNasi or 'the Prince' (although he did not personally finalize the task) added an occasional leap year to our calendars in order to maintain their seasonal accuracy. This change first appears in a responsum of Rabbi Hai Gaon, written circa 992 and cited by Rabbi Abraham bar Hiyya in his work from 1123 CE, known as Sefer Ha'ibbur. This important citation specifically references "670 of the Seleucid era" as the year the adjustment was implemented. This date corresponds to the modern year 358/359 CE. Here's how it works: During a Jewish leap year, which occurs seven times in a 19-year cycle (or approximately once every three years), there is an added month called "Adar I." Adar I is inserted before the regular month of Adar (which called "Adar II" in leap years). This adjustment successfully aligns the lunar and solar yearly cycles, ensuring that the holidays fall in their proper seasons. Due to this adjustment, the twenty-fifth of Kislev, which is the first day of Chanukah, usually occurs in the month of December according to modern calendars, but varies a bit year to year. Without this change our calendar would be out of sync with the biblical and historic narrative as we find with the lunar observe of Ramadan upon the Muslims. As Rabbinic Jews we embrace the calculations of Hillel HaNasi and the insertion of the leap year.

Jewish Year 5780: sunset December 22, 2019 - nightfall December 30, 2019    (first candle: night of 12/22; last candle: night of 12/29)

   Jewish Year 5781: sunset December 10, 2020 - nightfall December 18, 2020    (first candle: night of 12/10; last candle: night of 12/17)

   Jewish Year 5782: sunset November 28, 2021 - nightfall December 6, 2021    (first candle: night of 11/28; last candle: night of 12/5)

   Jewish Year 5783: sunset December 18, 2022 - nightfall December 26, 2022    (first candle: night of 12/18; last candle: night of 12/25)

   Jewish Year 5784: sunset December 7, 2023 - nightfall December 15, 2023    (first candle: night of 12/7; last candle: night of 12/14)

How to Kindle the Lights. Despite some historic debates standard observance methodologies have largely been accepted.

Rava said: One must kindle another light in addition to the Chanukah lights in order to use its light, as it is prohibited to use the light of the Chanukah lights. And if there is a bonfire, he need not light an additional light, as he can use the light of the bonfire. However, if he is an important person, who is unaccustomed to using the light of a bonfire, even though there is a bonfire, he must kindle another light.

The Sages taught in a baraita: The basic mitzvah of Chanukah is each day to have a light kindled by a person, the head of the household, for himself and his household. [Some hold to different traditions of lighting more than one Chanukiah however the lighting a single household Chanukiah is standard and acceptable]. Traditionally, on the first night, one candle is placed at the far right of the Chanukiah. The shammus candle is lit and three berakhot (blessings) are recited: These are l'hadlik neir (a general prayer over candles), she-asah nisim (a prayer thanking G-d for performing miracles for our ancestors at this time), and she-hekhianu (a general prayer thanking G-d for allowing us to reach this time of year). After reciting the blessings, the first candle is  lit using the shammus candle, then the shammus candle is placed in its holder. The candles can be lit any time after dark but before midnight as is written: "The mitzvah of kindling the Chanukah lights is from sunset until traffic in the marketplace ceases." The candles are normally allowed to burn out on their own after a minimum of 1/2 hour, but if necessary they can be blown out at any time after that 1/2 hour. On Shabbat, Chanukah candles are normally lit before the Shabbat candles, but may be lit any time before candle lighting time (or 18 minutes before sunset Friday). Candles cannot be blown out on Shabbat (due to the sabbath rule against igniting or extinguishing a flame). Because the Chanukah candles must remain burning until a minimum of 1/2 hour after dark (about 90 minutes total burning time on Shabbat), some Chanukah candles won't get the job done. On one of the earlier nights, you might want to make sure your candles last long enough. If they don't, you might want to use something else for Chanukah on Shabbat, such as tea lights or even Shabbat candles.

The Order of Lighting.

I will share the main difference of opinion here, however it is most common and completely appropriate to observe the lighting order of the House of Hillel (or Beit Hillel). The Beit Shammai say: On the first day one kindles eight lights and, from there on, gradually decreases the number of lights until, on the last day of Chanukah, he kindles one light. And Beit Hillel say: On the first day one kindles one light, and from there on, gradually increases the number of lights until, on the last day, he kindles eight lights. Again, the later has become the standard in most communities. In either case, the candles are kindled in the opposite direction from how they are placed in the Chanukiah. They are kindled from left to right,   so that the newest candle is always lit first. The shammus (or servant candle) is always lit first and  used to light all the   other candles one by one according to the day's count.

Why this difference in opinion?

Ulla said: There were two amora’im in the West, Eretz Yisrael, who disagreed with regard to this dispute, Rabbi Yosei bar Avin and Rabbi Yosei bar Zevida. One said that the reason for Beit Shammai’s opinion is that the number of lights corresponds to the incoming days, i.e., the future. On the first day, eight days remain in Chanukah, one kindles eight lights, and on the second day seven days remain, one kindles seven, etc. The reason for Beit Hillel’s opinion is that the number of lights corresponds to the outgoing days. Each day, the number of lights corresponds to the number of the days of Chanukah that were already observed. One authority noted that the reason for Beit Shammai’s opinion is that the number of lights corresponds to the bulls of the festival of Sukkot: Thirteen were sacrificed on the first day and each succeeding day one fewer was sacrificed (Numbers 29:12–31). The rebuttal for Beit Hillel’s opinion is that the number of lights is based on the principle: One elevates to a higher level in matters of sanctity and one does not downgrade. Therefore, if the objective is to have the number of lights correspond to the number of days, there is no alternative to increasing their number with the passing of each day. Our sages debate everything of course and there is great truth to be found in all of their opinions. In the execution, it is usually minhag (one own tradition) that guides us without rejecting the other. In other words, we agree to disagree.

The Main Thing: Am Y'israel Chai!

The Sages taught in a baraita: It is a mitzvah to place the Chanukah lamp at the entrance to one’s house on the outside, so that all can see it. If one lives upstairs, one places it at the window adjacent to the public domain. However in times of danger, when the Gentiles issue decrees prohibiting the kindling of our lights for instance, one places the Chanukiah on a table and that is sufficient to fulfill the obligation. While the external performance of our various Traditions is important, we must be realistic as well. HaShem considers our emunah and kavanah (our active faith and intentions). In all things we are commanded to chose life -- Deuteronomy 30:19.

In Addition to the Lights

It is traditional to eat fried food during Chanukah because of the significance of oil to the story line. There are many traditional recipes available to choose from. Another recent tradition is the giving of modest gifts each of the eight nights. This tradition is largely influenced by the Christian holiday of Christmas. The only traditional gift of the holiday is "gelt," small amounts of money that may be given or earned playing dreidel. Giving gifts is fine but please, no Chanukah bushes! Likewise, while the electric menorahs may be cute decorations, they can not fulfill the requirement of kindling the Lights. Playing dreidel is quite popular. This is a game of chance utilizing a generally square spinning top with Hebrew letter letters. Most people play for matchsticks, pennies, candies, or chocolate coins. It is that during the time of Antiochus' oppression it was illegal to study Torah. Jews would conceal their real activity by playing gambling games with a dreidel, which was both common and legal. Whenever an official or inspector was within sight they reverted to the game lest they rouse suspicion. Dreidels are marked with four Hebrew letters: Nun, Gimel, Hei and Shin. These letters stand for the Hebrew phrase "Nes Gadol Hayah Sham", a great miracle happened there, referring to the miracle of the oil. In modern Israel the phrase is, 'A Great Miracle Happened Here - Nes Gadol Haya Poh'. The letters also stand for the Yiddish words nit (nothing), gantz (all), halb (half) and shtell (put), which are the rules of the game! There are some variations in game play, but essentially everyone puts in one coin. A person spins the dreidel. If it lands on Nun, nothing happens; on Gimel, you get the whole pot; if Hei, you get half of the pot; and if Shin, you put one in. When the pot is empty, everybody puts one in. Keep playing until one person has everything. Then, because we want only shalom, the gelt is usually redivided among everyone.

[jewishvirtuallibrary-blog]

Picture of Rabbi Shlomo Moussaieff in Jerusalem, Ottoman Syria; 1908. x

Rabbi Shlomo Moussaieeff was a Bukharan Jewish figure born in the city of Bukhara in 1852, in what is today Uzbekistan.  He studied under Rabbi David Chafin and Joshua Shushan and became a respective religious figure in the Bukharan Jewish community.  In 1888, he made aliyah to Eretz Yisrael and was one of several Bukharan Jewish persons responsible for founding the Jerusalem neighborhood of Rehovot HaBukharim - which is today known as Bukharim - in 1891.  He was involved in trade and real estate and had constructed a complex of apartments for use by 25 poor families, which included four synagogues.  Today the Moussaieff complex of synagogues, which now numbers eight synagogues, are still in use and follow a Sephardi minhag.

In the prayer book which he authored, Hukat Olam, Moussaieff described his motivation in moving to Jerusalem and his religious conviction:

"I, Shlomo Moussaieff, native of Bukhara.. My spirit moved me to leave the land of my birth, in which I grew up, and to ascend to the Holy Land, the land in which our ancestors dwelled in happiness, the land whose memory passes before us ten times each day in our prayers...We do not have any festive occasion without a memorial to Jerusalem....There is no doubt that I am required to thank G-d for all the good he has done for me. He has brought me across the sea three times. He has kept me alive, and has brought me to the place of my desire for the good life and peace to see the pleasantness of G-d and to visit his sanctuary. If the Temple was standing, I would bring a sacrifice of thanksgiving. Now because of our sins there is no temple and no priest to bring the sacrifice. Therefore I had the idea to help the many and publish these prayer books for the weekdays and Sabbath and holidays. Prayer is a substitute for sacrifice. Prayer to Go-d is what connects Israel to their Father in Heaven, although the Israelite nation has been vanquished in exile for more than eighteen hundred years".

[thebeautyoftorah]

EMOR

bs'd

Shalom.

The thought of this week of my book 'Healing Anger'

"It is natural to become angry when we have a goal and this goal is blocked in some way. Out of frustration we blame others because we don’t get our way. Maybe the reason why blaming others is so rooted in human nature is because it releases some of the frustration that we feel over a particular incident, and it frees the blamer from taking any responsibility himself..”

Buy my book at http://www.feldheim.com/healing-anger.html

If you want to buy it from me in Israel let me know.

To join the over 4,000 recipients and receive these insights free on a weekly email, feedback, comments, to support or dedicate this publication which has been all around the world, or if you know any other Jew who is interested in receiving these insights weekly, contact me. Shabbat Shalom.

EMOR Being a Role Model

The name of this week's parsha is taken from a word in its first verse: emor - "speak". The act of speech appears three times in this verse: And G-d said to Moshe: Speak to the kohanim, the sons of Aharon, and say to them: Let none [of you] defile himself for a dead person among his people (1).

The verse states that Hashem spoke to Moshe and this is one of the more common formulations in the Torah, one we have come to expect. But it is strange that the next two uses of the verb emor in this verse, translated here as "speak" and "say", create a passage that is uncharacteristic.

One possible answer of this peculiarity in the text is that the Torah's language creates an emphasis that might otherwise have been absent. By doubling the use of the verb, perhaps the message is that Moshe is charged with speaking to the kohanim in a way that will be heard, so that the message is understood, internalized and integrated.

Rashi offers an alternative explanation. He quotess a Gemara [2] that brings this verse in a discussion regarding adults' responsibilities toward children: "Say [to the Kohanim …] and say [to them]," [This double expression comes] to warn (l'hazhir) adults regarding minors. (Rashi, Vayikra 21:1)

Rashi's comments on this verse contain an uplifting message: Not only should adults take responsibility for themselves, we should invest in the next generation and guide the young and innocent away from sin. We might easily use this teaching as a springboard for a broader discussion concerning the importance of positive, proactive education and the need to take responsibility for the next generation.

As opposed to the lofty world of educational responsibility and values

we thought we had discerned in Rashi's comments on our verse, the

gemara's discussion actually contends with a far more threatening

topic: Our verse is quoted in a passage that analyzes a number of

cases in which adults actively and purposefully lead children to sin!

We may attempt to understand the mindset of the adults in these cases and to rationalize their behavior: Maybe these cases involve young children, not yet at the age of bar or bat-mitzvah, who are not legally responsible or culpable for their actions. For example, when there is a limited amount of kosher food available, an adult might conclude that the best option would be to eat the kosher food and give the underage child something non-kosher.

This scenario inevitably leads to a more abstract, and philosophical discussion about the very nature of sin and its impact on the human being. Is sin merely a question of culpability? If the transgression is not punishable, is it of any significance? In other words, can we say that sin is akin to the proverbial tree that falls in the forest; if there is no one to punish, does the sin make a sound, as it were? Or does sin affect the soul, leaving a stain that is independent of culpability? The Gemara seems to extrapolate an additional, even more far-reaching lesson from our verse: Causing someone to sin is equal to feeding them spiritual poison, and this behavior stains the soul of the instigator as well as the perpetrator, particularly when the transgression is committed by a young, unsuspecting and impressionable soul.

The conclusion we are forced to draw from a careful reading of Rashi's source is that the first verse in Parshat Emor teaches responsibility: not, as we originally thought, that we must educate the next generation, but as a warning against corrupting and causing our children to sin. This message is far more poignant and maybe more difficult to fulfill. We teach our children to do good deeds and to avoid things that are distasteful. The question is, do we transmit messages akin to "Do as I say, not as I do"? Are we somehow corrupting the next generation, causing them to sin through unspoken, non-verbal messages and by setting a poor example? The most effective method of education is serving as a role model for our children. We must set a living example of what we want them to be. They learn from what we do and say, not from what we tell them to do. A child is a constant reminder to us as parents that we must behave properly. Children learn best by modeling their parents’ conduct. What they see and hear is what we get!

In Rashi's comments on the verse, he uses the term Gedolim, which we have translated as "adults"; this same term is also used colloquially to describe our great rabbis. The Gedolim have responsibility for the ketanim, those who are underage or of lesser stature and learning. This past weeks we lost several of our Gedolim. one of them was Rabbi Dr. Aharon Lichtenstein, may his righteous memory be a blessing. Tens of thousands of his student, can attest that Rav Aharon not only educated us, he "took care" of us spiritually. He was a living, breathing model of ahavat Torah, love of Torah learning and devout observance, as well as Yirat Shamayim, and holiness. He shared with us his vision and served as a model for proper behavior, setting a very high benchmark for all Jews in the modern world, and he did all this with love, dedication, eloquence, humility and nobility. For this we will be forever indebted, and express our enduring thanks and love. ______________________________ [1] Vayikra 21:1 [2] Yevamot 114a

Le Iluy nishmat Eliahu ben Simcha, Mordechai ben Shlomo, Perla bat Simcha, Abraham Meir ben Leah, Moshe ben Gila,Yaakov ben Gila, Sara bat Gila, Yitzchak ben Perla, Leah bat Chavah, Abraham Meir ben Leah,Itamar Ben Reb Yehuda, Yehuda Ben Shmuel Tzvi, Tova Chaya bat Dovid. Refua Shelema of Mazal Tov bat Gila, Zahav Reuben ben Keyla, Yitzchak ben Mazal Tov, Mattitiahu Yered ben Miriam, Yaacov ben Miriam, Yehuda ben Simcha, Menachem Chaim ben Malka, Naftali Dovid ben Naomi Tzipora, Nechemia Efraim ben Beyla Mina, Mazal Tov Rifka bat Yitzchak, Dvir ben Leah, Sender ben Sara, Eliezer Chaim ben Chaya Batya, Shlomo Yoel ben Chaya Leah  and Dovid Yehoshua ben Leba Malka.

Atzlacha and parnasa tova to Daniel ben Mazal Tov, Debora Leah Bat Henshe Rachel, Shmuel ben Mazal tov, Yitzchak ben Mazal Tov, Yehuda ben Mazal Sara and Zivug agun to Gila bat Mazal Tov, Naftali Dovid ben Naomi Tzipora, Yehudit bat Malka, Elisheva bat Malka. For pidyon hanefesh & yeshua of Yosef Itai ben Eliana Shufra

[un-enfant-immature]

Container security startup Aqua lands $62M Series C

Aqua Security, a startup that helps customers launch containers securely, announced a $62 million Series C investment today led by Insight Partners.

Existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, M12 (Microsoft’s venture fund), TLV Partners and Shlomo Kramer also participated. With today’s investment, the startup’s investments since inception now total over $100 million, according to the company.

Early investors took a chance on the company when it was founded in 2015. Containers were barely a thing back then, but the founders had a vision of what was coming down the pike and their bet has paid off in a big way as the company now has first-mover advantage. As more companies turn to Kubernetes and containers, the need for a security product built from the ground up to secure this kind of environment is essential.

While co-founder and CEO Dror Davidoff says the company has 60 Fortune 500 customers, he’s unable to share names, but he can provide some clues like five of the world’s top banks. As companies like that turn to new technology like containers, they aren’t going to go whole hog without a solid security option. Aqua gives them that.

“Our customers are all taking very dramatic steps towards adoption of those new technologies, and they know that existing security tools that they have in place will not solve the problems,” Davidoff told TechCrunch. He said that most customers have started small, but then have expanded as container adoption increases.

You may thank that an ephemeral concept like a container would be less of a security threat, but Davidoff says that the open nature of containerization actually leaves them vulnerable to tampering. “Container lives long enough to be dangerous,” he said. He added, “They are structured in an open way, making it simple to hack, and once in, to do lateral movement. If the container holds sensitive info, it’s easy to have access to that information.”

Aqua scans container images for malware and makes sure only certified images can run, making it difficult for a bad actor to insert an insecure image, but the ephemeral nature of containers also helps if something slips through. DevOp can simply take down the faulty container and put a newly certified clean one quickly.

The company has 150 employees with offices in the Boston area and R&D in Tel Aviv in Israel. With the new influx of cash, the company plans to expand quickly, growing sales and marketing, customer support and expanding the platform into areas to cover emerging areas like serverless computing. Davidoff says the company could double in size in the next 12-18 months and he’s expecting 3x to 4x customer growth.

All of that money should provide fuel to grow the company as containerization spreads and companies look for a security solution to keep containers in production safe.

Four years after its release, Kubernetes has come a long way

[dovey-eyes-blog]

"שיר השירים אשר לשלמה:"

"Song of all songs,that owned by Solomon" (Wrote by King Solomon,son of David king.) - This is talkling about the song (this specific one:D yeah!)that most splendid then all of kind of thankful songs for g-d. "Owned by Solomon"- of the king that the peace is in his palace. "Shlomo's" name has a code for the name "Shalom"-"peace",so when he's wrote his name he didn't mean to pride himself,but to tell how much g-d bring peace to this world and the world up there.(Soul-sosiety yay!) "Everything is pretty,But my hair is stil not behave..."

[ammg-old]

Gonna steal your concept and say, every fourth question! For the identity asks~

4. Do you like your name?  Is there another name you think would fit you better? I really like my name because it’s kind of unusual but not totally weird.  I’ve only ever met three other people called Justine (funny thing, they were all music people as well...)

8. What musical artists have you most felt connected to over your lifetime? Composers - Bach, Beethoven, Berlioz, Debussy, Lilburn, Ritchie, Elgar, Handel, Palestrina.  Musicians - Emma Fraser, Neil Diamond, Billy Joel, Simon & Garfunkel, Keith Green, Peter Paul & Mary, James Galway, Jacqueline du Pré, Nightwish, the Beatles, Shlomo Mintz.  I’ve probably missed some out.

12. Dog person or cat person? CAT PERSON.  I was afraid of dogs until I was about 20, and I still really don’t like them.

16. If you’d grown up in a different environment, do you think you’d have turned out the same? Yes and no...I think I’d still fundamentally be me but in a different way.

20. Would you rather be in Middle Earth, Narnia, Hogwarts, or somewhere else?Hogwarts!!  It’s my favourite place to go in my head...not so much the story or school or characters but the world-building, I wish it was real.  I would have a little house under the Fidelius charm so only my family could visit me and lots of Kneazles and make potions all day long and learn about different magical cultures and basically be a hermit Hermione 😂

24. Have you ever felt like you had a “mind-meld” with someone? This question is a bit confusing...I’d say only when playing music (chamber group, orchestra, choir).

28. On a scale from 1 to 10, how hard is it for someone to get under your skin? Probably a 2-3 on average, which is why I’ve worked on emotionally distancing myself from people, and when I do that it’s maybe 8 or 9.  But it still takes work, which is very frustrating.

Thanks for the ask! :D

[witchofeindor]

I was tagged by my darling @tveckling, thank you babe <333 (And sorry for taking time to reply lol)

A - Age: 22

B - Biggest fear: Difficult to pick up just one lol

C - Current time: 15:47

D - Drink you last had: Vodka with redbull lmao

E - Every day starts with: Checking the time on my phone to see whether I might be able to sleep more 

F - Favourite song: Way too many

G - Ghosts: idek, man, it’s complicated ?

H - Hometown: I was born while my parents lived in Giv’atayim but we soon moved to Tel Aviv and that’s where I grew up till like the age of 13

I - In love with: No-one (Thank god)

J - Jealous of: People who don’t have adhd lol

K - Kissed anyone lately: A kiss on the cheek counts? If so, then yes, my family members XD

L - Last time you cried: Can’t recall, maybe a month or two ago? Probably some existential crisis or smt lmao (I do cry often but for some reason I haven’t cried in over a month)

M - Middle name: None

N - Number of siblings: Two (much) older brothers

O - One wish: I wish I could do things on time and not procrastinate my ass off

P - Person you last called/texted: A uni friend

Q - Question you’re always asked: Something about grammar of a given language (I know, I know)

R - Reasons to smile: The future might be bright?

S - Song last sang: חום יולי אוגוסט by שלמה ארצי (Chom-Yuli August by Shlomo Artzi lol)

T - Time you woke up: Today? Around 11 (I have the day off so I can study for my final tomorrow) (Of course I haven’t begun studying yet lmao). Usually, unfortunately around 07:30.

U - Underwear colour: Red undies (yes Carmella, the Angry Birds ones) and a denim-style bra.

V - Vacation destination: I’m going to Budapest in a week and a half!

W - Worst habit: Procrastination like there are too many tomorrows 

X - X-rays you’ve had: My back but I’m sure there were more when I was a child and I forgot

Y - Your favorite food: Too difficult to choose lol, rn I’m craving Shawarma 

Z - Zodiac sign: Scorpio

Tagging anyone who wants to be tagged?

[toomanysinks]

Container security startup Aqua lands $62M Series C

Aqua Security, a startup that helps customers launch containers securely, announced a $62 million Series C investment today led by Insight Partners.

Existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, M12 (Microsoft’s venture fund), TLV Partners and Shlomo Kramer also participated. With today’s investment, the startup’s investments since inception now total over $100 million, according to the company.

Early investors took a chance on the company when it was founded in 2015. Containers were barely a thing back then, but the founders had a vision of what was coming down the pike and their bet has paid off in a big way as the company now has first-mover advantage. As more companies turn to Kubernetes and containers, the need for a security product built from the ground up to secure this kind of environment is essential.

While co-founder and CEO Dror Davidoff says the company has 60 Fortune 500 customers, he’s unable to share names, but he can provide some clues like five of the world’s top banks. As companies like that turn to new technology like containers, they aren’t going to go whole hog without a solid security option. Aqua gives them that.

“Our customers are all taking very dramatic steps towards adoption of those new technologies, and they know that existing security tools that they have in place will not solve the problems,” Davidoff told TechCrunch. He said that most customers have started small, but then have expanded as container adoption increases.

You may thank that an ephemeral concept like a container would be less of a security threat, but Davidoff says that the open nature of containerization actually leaves them vulnerable to tampering. “Container lives long enough to be dangerous,” he said. He added, “They are structured in an open way, making it simple to hack, and once in, to do lateral movement. If the container holds sensitive info, it’s easy to have access to that information.”

Aqua scans container images for malware and makes sure only certified images can run, making it difficult for a bad actor to insert an insecure image, but the ephemeral nature of containers also helps if something slips through. DevOp can simply take down the faulty container and put a newly certified clean one quickly.

The company has 150 employees with offices in the Boston area and R&D in Tel Aviv in Israel. With the new influx of cash, the company plans to expand quickly, growing sales and marketing, customer support and expanding the platform into areas to cover emerging areas like serverless computing. Davidoff says the company could double in size in the next 12-18 months and he’s expecting 3x to 4x customer growth.

All of that money should provide fuel to grow the company as containerization spreads and companies look for a security solution to keep containers in production safe.

Four years after its release, Kubernetes has come a long way

source https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/03/container-security-startup-aqua-lands-62m-series-c/

[fmservers]

Container security startup Aqua lands $62M Series C

Aqua Security, a startup that helps customers launch containers securely, announced a $62 million Series C investment today led by Insight Partners.

Existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, M12 (Microsoft’s venture fund), TLV Partners and Shlomo Kramer also participated. With today’s investment, the startup’s investments since inception now total over $100 million, according to the company.

Early investors took a chance on the company when it was founded in 2015. Containers were barely a thing back then, but the founders had a vision of what was coming down the pike and their bet has paid off in a big way as the company now has first-mover advantage. As more companies turn to Kubernetes and containers, the need for a security product built from the ground up to secure this kind of environment is essential.

While co-founder and CEO Dror Davidoff says the company has 60 Fortune 500 customers, he’s unable to share names, but he can provide some clues like five of the world’s top banks. As companies like that turn to new technology like containers, they aren’t going to go whole hog without a solid security option. Aqua gives them that.

“Our customers are all taking very dramatic steps towards adoption of those new technologies, and they know that existing security tools that they have in place will not solve the problems,” Davidoff told TechCrunch. He said that most customers have started small, but then have expanded as container adoption increases.

You may thank that an ephemeral concept like a container would be less of a security threat, but Davidoff says that the open nature of containerization actually leaves them vulnerable to tampering. “Container lives long enough to be dangerous,” he said. He added, “They are structured in an open way, making it simple to hack, and once in, to do lateral movement. If the container holds sensitive info, it’s easy to have access to that information.”

Aqua scans container images for malware and makes sure only certified images can run, making it difficult for a bad actor to insert an insecure image, but the ephemeral nature of containers also helps if something slips through. DevOp can simply take down the faulty container and put a newly certified clean one quickly.

The company has 150 employees with offices in the Boston area and R&D in Tel Aviv in Israel. With the new influx of cash, the company plans to expand quickly, growing sales and marketing, customer support and expanding the platform into areas to cover emerging areas like serverless computing. Davidoff says the company could double in size in the next 12-18 months and he’s expecting 3x to 4x customer growth.

All of that money should provide fuel to grow the company as containerization spreads and companies look for a security solution to keep containers in production safe.

Four years after its release, Kubernetes has come a long way

Via Ron Miller https://techcrunch.com

[farkhoda]

Tagged by @rectorredux

List any seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your Tumblr along with your seven songs. BTW, you don’t have to upload the songs, but you can if you want so others could d/l them to hear.

Tagged again! Thanks for tagging, @rectorredux. i’m still not allowed listen to music til end of this Shabbath, but why not.

But it’s very difficult now, so...

1. Hugh Laurie- Louisiana Blues

2. Edith Piaf- Milord

3. Nina Simone- I put a Spell On You

4. Dalida- Je suis Malade

5. Joe Dassin- Salute

6. Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach - Hashiveinu

7. Samson Kemelmalher - Shtetele Belts