Science and Torah Conference

The fifth Miami International Torah and Science Conference, to convene December 16-18, will feature 40 world-renowned scholars. The agenda: to explore the links between Torah and science and to debunk the myth that the two cannot harmonize.

This year’s theme, “Looking for Links between the Divine, Human, Natural, Artificial and Virtual” will feature internationally recognized authorities on subjects ranging from molecular genetics to mathematics and transpersonal psychiatry to Talmud. The previous two conferences, in 1999 and 2001, drew over 1,000 attendants, and this year promises to be even bigger.

Among the featured presenters are: Professor Roald Hoffman, the 1981 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry; Rabbi Abraham Twersky MD, founder of the Gateway Rehabilitation Center; Rabbi Professor Moshe Tendler, Dean of the Rabbi Isaac Elchonon Theological Seminary; and Dr. Michael Gordon, Head of Internal Medicine, Baycrest Geriatric, Canada.

The intriguing array of topics to be explored include: Monkeying Around with Hominid Evolution; Probing the Roots of Thought, from Neuroscience to the Mind of G-d; The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Project and the Power of Prayer, and Kosher Pork and Treife Tomatoes, Genetically Modified Plants and Animals.

The conference, to be held at the Kovens Center in North Miami, is co sponsored by The Shul in Bal Harbour, Florida International University Religious Studies department, B’Or Ha’Torah Journal, Greater Miami Jewish Federation and Chabad of South Dade.

The conference, which began ten years ago with a fledgling group of scientists, now has a large waiting list of presenters and professors who want to participate. According to Rabbi Sholom Lipskar, spiritual leader of The Shul in Bal Harbour, and coordinator of the event, “this is the premier conference of its kind in the world today.”

Lipskar notes that “the most recent scientific findings and explorations both in inner and outer space and in the fields of psychology and medicine, have already determined that there is no conflict between science and Torah. In fact, science is using the language of Torah and particularly of Kabbalah, to answer or identify those areas for which there is no scientific language.”

“The phenomenon that we are seeing today is that the Torah addresses many aspects of the scientific world in a credible and valid manner, while the sciences are in a constant state of change and flux” says Lipskar.

Lipskar also added that at the time of the first Torah & Science Conference, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, of righteous memory, sent his blessings to the organizers. He also commented on the word “relativity” in the conference’s subtitle and noted that Einstein’s research, which led to his Theory of Relativity, was connected from its inception with the nature of light. The Rebbe said that the concept of physical light providing a measure of absoluteness to the physical world can be compared to another level of total absoluteness – the light of Torah and Mitzvot, a light we invoke by kindling the Chanukah candles.

All sessions are free and open to the public. For further information call The Shul at 305-868-1441.