The Torah, or old Testament, was written in Hebrew. Some people think of it as a history book. Others see it not as history per se but as examples of what to do and what not to do. Others see it as law. Torah means law. Actually, it is all the same. The basic benefit of History is to learn from other's example and from other's mistakes. Right from wrong. So, history, law- it's all the same.
Like any book, or art, it is a communication from the creator. It only has life if you understand it as best as you can. It is on its terms but it is also on your terms, not because of your free will but because of your limitation. It is no mistake that in the daily prayers, G-d is said to be the G-d of Abraham, the G-d of Isaac and the G-d of Jacob, not the G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Each forefather had a specific and unique relationship to G-d and G-d was his G-d, each to his own. And yet the laws are universal.
Everything and Nothing are incomprehensible
Some people take the stories as verbatim. That is reasonable. You have to start somewhere. And there is some unbelievable stuff in there. For example, how can G-d make everything from nothing? I cannot imagine nothing and I cannot imagine everything. So I certainly cannot imagine how He can make everything from nothing. And if I cannot imagine it, you can't reasonably ask me to believe it. And, in fact, the Torah doesn't ask you to believe it. It simply focuses on doing, i.e. doing the mitzvot (commandments).
The unbelievable/ miracles within comprehension
Other things that are more deceptively close to my comprehension but are, similarly, unbelievable to me are the first man being created from the earth with G-d's breath of a soul. If G-d is one, how can he blow a part of Himself into another person? How does that separation process occur to an entity of unity? And how is the first woman born in full from a man's side?
And how did Noah build an Arc big enough for all the living things and how did they all sit in their rooms so well behaved during the entire time?
How did G-d split the sea?
There are many many more things in the bible that I find to be unbelievable. And then, I must admit that I have found things that have occurred in real life to be unbelievable. For example, how reproduction occurs- how the first 2 cells combine and then set off an amazing complex chain reaction to create an embryo to fetus to baby- We are at a loss to name what we are seeing using these terms. How do you expect us to actually understand this miraculous event? I don't even understand gravity despite my countless exposures to educational resources on the topic. I feel it so I believe it. But I don't understand it. If I didn't feel it, I would find it unbelievable.
And what is the benefit to reading about these unbelievable things? They are memorable. They are sticky. If we had a book of the mundane with examples of behavior and legal code, it would not have been passed down from generation to generation. Those books exist but they stay on the shelves. They are not known to most, not treasured and not sticky. And they get lost over the milenia.
An example of what I am trying to explain here was illustrated by Trump in the debates with Kamala. Remember when he said, "They're eating the cats! They're eating the dogs!" That became memelicious. It was sticky. They may not remember what he was talking about but they remembered that. He actually was talking about illegal aliens in a certain place, saying that they were eating the cats and dogs. This was unbelievable and outrageous. But it was more powerful as something to remember than if he had just recited the stat that 300K illegal aliens who were minors were lost, many of whom are likely being human trafficked.
Aside from the bible being the foundation of the most successful book club in history, and being the foundation of a worldwide family of people (Jews) with a behavioral code which was also adopted into Christianity and has had an influence on Billions of people, the bible is also a literal code.
So, it is meant to be understood on the top line communication. It is meant to be understood verbatim. It is meant to challenge your assumptions and yourself. It is meant to make you question and to leave you uneasy at times where you just cannot reconcile an unbelievable story with your own understanding of reality and what can be believed.
Perhaps when that happens or especially when that happens, it is begging you to understand it on a deeper level. This is where the idea of hyperlinks to other biblical stories, abstract thinking, analogy and even code in the form of numerical values of the letters and words.
As the Torah is something that is understood to transcend time, we can play in that sandbox.
Torah as prophecy and how might some Torah stories apply to today?
Noah's Ark- Space travel and planetary expansion of humanity and other life. This, to me, is very obvious. And, by expansion, the earth can be understood to represent the garden of Eden in comparison to the other less hospitable planets.
Tower of Babel, and rocket launching association
Tower of Babel, universal language and disruption- now we can, through Google translate, undo G-d's action of disrupting people based on difference in language. What will happen now? My guess is that we still have people that don't understand each other, not because of actual language but because of the news/ propaganda that they watch.
Being created, Eve from Adam- resembles cellular asexual reproduction, not sexual reproduction. This would make sense because Adam is not the father of Eve, he is a contemporary to her. Also, he isn't her mother, giving birth to her centrally, both because he is not female and because he is not her parent. So the side makes sense from a philosophical and psychological perspective even if it is hard to understand and accept it on a surface level.
It is also interesting that in real life, all life is born from the woman. The woman comes first. But here the woman is born from the man- not born but created from. That was the first and last time that ever happened.
Garden of Eden and being thrown out- G-d took us out of the Garden of Eden and that was reciprocal. In so doing, He took the Garden of Eden out of us. The result is that we have people who are not at peace inside. Terms like anxiety, depression and any other term that would describe internal disquiet would be explained by this.
Garden continued - since being kicked out, man has been cursed to work by the sweat of his brow. Although that has been true for most people up until very recently, it appears that soon it will not be true as we know work to be. This has followed a steady trajectory. For example, my father's father worked hard doing physical labor. He was a kosher butcher and would have to physically lift parts of cows. He had to chop the meat. This was before slicing machines were invented. One time when he was cutting meat he cut off the tip of his pointer finger and his nail grew over the tip. I remember that finger. He would even have to carry refrigerators up flights up steps. He was maybe 5'6" but he was strong. My father told me that he would wake up early, before it was light out, take 2 shots of schnapps to warm up (in the winter) and start his day. He worked long days. When he was home he would fix things.
Recently, my father told me the story that he had broken his arm when he was around 4 years old. They went to the doctor who took an Xray. My grandfather looked at it and immediately saw the break and showed it to the doctor. That was pretty good for someone who wasn't trained to read films. If anything it shows that he was at least partly enslaved. He had the potential to do other more useful, fulfilling and less dangerous work. Maybe he would have been a good radiologist. But we will never know.
Then my father came along and he was encouraged to spend his time learning but not working. He was never handy as a result. However, he went to medical school and became an eye surgeon. He worked hard as a doctor but it was nothing in comparison to the difficulty of work of his father.
Then I came along and studied and became a psychiatrist. It is a different kind of work hard work but I don't even do surgery.
And now, soon we will have robots infused with AI and everyone is wondering what people will do for work. How will they earn their keep? In the meantime will we finally break out of the prediction that man will always have to work? First of all, I don't know the answer. However, I think that work will always be there. It will be different. I think that the good work that Viktor Frankl did will once again have great utility. Dr. Frankl saw it even then, 70 years ago, that things were becoming automated and people would have more free time. As a result they would have the increased challenge of looking for meaning in their lives. That is work, for sure. Failure in that capacity could lead to nihilism, great psychological pain and suicide.
Space-
1. The stars: G-d would make Abraham's descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky.
2. The moon: specifically the new moon, is a sign of a new month. It is recognized, and prayers are said, not to the moon itself but in appreciation of it, and of the new month, outside in the night. The stars and planets are known to follow certain pathways, mazalot, which are fixed or secular, if you will. There is an astrological aspect to this and apparently people who are knowledgable can predict the future based on their understanding of these matters. However, as it was written when G-d said that he would bless Abraham and Sarah with a child, there was a confounding issue: They were both elderly- Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90 when she gave birth to Isaac. But this miracle shows that we are not limited to the natural laws of the universe. We are not limited to "what is written in the stars" as we can overcome what is written with our free will choice and with G-d's blessing. When you wish someone, "Mazel Tov!" you are wishing them a good Mazel, a good future and it can be a better future than was originally written. And this is why I never had an interest in astrology or tried to explore it, even for one moment. Why should I learn eventualities that need not apply to me?
Other questions with respect to celestial bodies:
Practically speaking, how will people be able to make a prayer on the new moon when they are living on the moon? What time will Shabbat start on the moon? What time will Shabbat start on Mars? I already have some thoughts on that. But we are ahead of the rabbis on this one. As of yet, this has never been addressed. There is no mention of how to keep Shabbat when living on celestial bodies other than the earth. So it isn't just the miraculous parts of the bible that may make it hard to believe but it may be what the bible doesn't say that also may make it hard to believe. If it were a complete work, good for all time, would it not cover these questions? Or perhaps the point that it doesn't address them is for a good reason?
But the deeper we go and the more that the future unfolds we will find out how the stories and lessons from the Torah will apply. I am a student, just like you, reaching out in the darkness and trying my best.
Do the ends justify the means?
Is the Torah like DNA code that has some crucial parts and some "extra" parts that are apparently superfluous that are just brought along for the ride? In that case, do the ends justify the means? That is, do we accept the unbelievable parts because no harm was done but it was worth it to accept those in exchange for the other parts that are more apparently useful, important and believable? Keep in mind, that employs the idea of beauty being in the eye of the beholder- and no existence of objective beauty. In other words, who am I to judge which parts of the bible are "useful" "important" or believable?
When it comes to the Torah, it is all or none. It isn't a compromise and accepting nonsense because the sense parts are so sensical. As in the movie, The Matrix, it isn't the spoon that bends. It is we. Parts will always be a challenge it seems. Perhaps AI will help us to further mine the Torah for clarity and understanding.
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