Ops & Blogs | The Times of Israel » Allen S. Maller

More evidence for extraterrestrial life

Allen S. Maller — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 09:32:58 +0000

Recently astronomers found one of the most important building blocks of life around a young star like our own. The news was reported in ScienceDaily. The molecules of glycolaldehyde, a simple form of sugar (the common name for a range of small carbohydrate molecules containing carbon, hydrogen and oxygen), were found in the gas surrounding [...]

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36+ unknown righteous people

Allen S. Maller — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 09:25:51 +0000

Many Jews have heard of the 36 unknown righteous men whose existence sustains the world. But this is not completely true. First of all, in Hebrew, a mixed group of men and woman are always called men even if 35 of the 36 are women. Second, there are at least 36 righteous people, but usually [...]

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The miracle of Jewish survival

Allen S. Maller — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 15:36:26 +0000

As we approach Tisha B’Av, it is important to remember that destruction need not lead to despair and surrender. Each day should be a day of hope and faith in our future. Jewish survival is in itself a miracle, as even a German chaplain knew. The king of Prussia, Frederick the Great, in a discussion [...]

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The Higgs boson and Lurianic Kabbalah

Allen S. Maller — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 11:35:40 +0000

The discovery of a boson-like particle is evidence for Higgs’ mathematical theory that energy becomes matter due to a field that provides resistance to some massless particles, thus giving them the mass that allows them to bind together and form most sub-atomic particles, atoms and molecules, stars, planets and people rather than whizzing around the [...]

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Two rabbis sit together in God’s name

Allen S. Maller — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 12:27:13 +0000

A few days before Tisha B’Av, two Jews who had never met each other found themselves sitting next to one another on a train. This was not unusual in 1937 Poland. What was unusual was that one was a Progressive rabbi from Krakow, and the other was a Hassidic rabbi from Warsaw. At first they [...]

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The presidential election and the Mayan endtime

Allen S. Maller — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 13:24:46 +0000

The year 2012 is going to end in November with one of the most bitterly fought American elections in decades, followed by the Mayan calendar endtime prophecy on December 21, 2012. A recent poll for Reuters reported that “Nearly 15 percent of people worldwide believe the world will end during their lifetime and 10 percent think [...]

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Abraham and Sarah: Making converts

Allen S. Maller — Sun, 20 May 2012 13:23:06 +0000

Only God can make a soul. So what does it mean when the Torah states that when Avram and Sarai left Haran to go to the land of Canaan, they took with them some members of their family, and “the souls that they made in Haran”. (Genesis 12:5) How can any human make a soul? [...]

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Interested in Judaism? Choose the Hillel way

Allen S. Maller — Wed, 02 May 2012 11:54:16 +0000

The Talmud relates that three non-Jews once discussed their path to Judaism; and how a key role was a rabbi’s willingness to take a chance and welcome a problematic non-Jew. The importance off a willingness to take a chance with a potential Ger became apparent to me when for two months in the fall of [...]

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