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Our belief in the truth of the Torah has, as one foundation, our belief in G-d. That belief has two aspects: a - G-d is transcendental (expressed in the Torah by G-d's tetragrammaton), which means there is nothing in this universe, including the entire universe itself, that is G-d. G-d is not measurable "in" dimensions of space-time-matter-energy. This is not too difficult to prove, beginning with the notion that we are speaking of G-d Who is not limited or restricted by anything. In recent years, the conviction, supported by measurements (cosmic background radiation), that space-time-matter-energy may have come into being in "the Big Bang", supports the notion that "there is something else, other than our space-time-matter-energy universe". So I take that as proven in several ways...
I must be brief. The proof of the truth of the Torah lies in the vitality of the Oral Torah which accompanied it ab initio, and which has kept the Torah meaningfully alive for thousands of years, to this very day. It is not primitive, it is not superstitious, it is not out of date. Many hundreds of thousands (or several millions) of Jews live it daily, experiencing through its commandments the presence of G-d in our lives, both as individuals and as a people, infusing our material lives in this space-time-matter-energy universe with a deeply spiritual meaning that is difficult to convey to others who just think about it or read about it or relate to it as if it belonged in a museum. It is an intensively lived life, intellectually, sensuously, spiritually - with many daily vicissitudes and challenges, not all of which we meet to our own satisfactions, because we are human beings, not gods and not angels. But as human beings we experience the truth of Torah by living it, and by seeing what it has done to our people over the course of several thousand years, and what it is able to do and does today. G-d's presence is unmistakable, especially in the Land of Israel and the State of Israel. And this is just the beginning! [1]
We end off with some words from the Torah Sages (Gesher HaChaim pt.3 ch.2):
Every good deed, every good word, every good thought - refines a person's makeup and purifies his soul. It lightens and also delights the religious service on him. And every bad deed, word, or thought - darkens and coarses the soul; it burdens and makes hateful to him the service of G-d until he no longer senses the spiritual nor matters of holiness and nobility. He becomes entrenched in physicality - just like the instinctive and selfish animals. This is what our Sages said "the evil inclination is at first thin as a strand of spider silk, and eventually strengthens like the thick ropes of the wagons" (Sukkah 22a)... (ch.5) Another general principle. Just like everything G-d created never returns to nothing, and just like man cannot create something from nothing, so too man cannot make something into nothing. Nothing is ever lost... greater still from the torah, even the things physically intangible also never cease to exist. Nothing is ever lost from the world, not even a breath, or a single word uttered by a human being, or a cry - each and every thing has a place and abode (Zohar Mishpatim 100)...i.e. do what you can. Know that nothing is ever lost. G-d bless.
Links:
- The Marks of Divine Wisdom - the divine wisdom all around us
- Emunah (Rabbis.org, good paper)
- Divineinformation.com by Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi
- Tatty, Prove to Me that the Torah is True by Rabbi Jonathan Rietti (powerful video)
- the Role of the Jews (audio) - by the former chief Rabbi of Mexico.
- Moses (audio) - the humblest person to ever walk the earth.
- Where Was God In the Holocaust? (audio)
- Awake My Glory by Rabbi Avigdor Miller
- the Universe Testifies by Rabbi Avigdor Miller
- Nature's Destiny by Michael Denton (agnostic. for science people)
A Few More Quotes from Scientists
Many scientists who have delved deeply into the divine wisdom cannot help but experience a religious feeling. Here are some quotes.
"This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being" – Sir Isaac Newton - "General Scholium", in Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
"Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe – a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble." – Albert Einstein
"The scientist's religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is utterly insignificant reflection" – Albert Einstein
"The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books - a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects." – Albert Einstein
"Would you not say to yourself, 'Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.'" – Fred Hoyle - Astrophysicist
"The really amazing thing is not that life on Earth is balanced on a knife-edge, but that the entire universe is balanced on a knife-edge, and would be total chaos if any of the natural 'constants' were off even slightly. You see," Davies adds, "even if you dismiss man as a chance happening, the fact remains that the universe seems unreasonably suited to the existence of life-almost contrived-you might say a 'put-up job'." – Paul Davies - Professor of Theoretical Physics
"A scientific discovery is also a religious discovery. There is no conflict between science and religion. Our knowledge of G-d is made larger with every discovery we make about the world" – Joseph H. Taylor, Jr. Nobel Prize in Physics
"It may seem bizarre, but in my opinion science offers a surer path to G-d than religion. People take it for granted that the physical world is both ordered and intelligible. The underlying order in nature-the laws of physics-are simply accepted as given, as brute facts. Nobody asks where they came from; at least they do not do so in polite company. However, even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith that the universe is not absurd, that there is a rational basis to physical existence manifested as law-like order in nature that is at least partly comprehensible to us. So science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological worldview." – Physicist Paul Davies
"I think that the most impressive arguments for G-d's existence are those that are supported by recent scientific discoveries. I've never been much impressed by the Kalam cosmological argument, and I don't think it has gotten any stronger recently. However, I think the argument to Intelligent Design is enormously stronger than it was when I first met it... Absolutely. It seems to me that Richard Dawkins constantly overlooks the fact that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design." – Anthony Flew - Oxford professor, and leading champion of atheism for more than fifty years who renounced atheism in 2004
"As we look out into the universe and identify the many accidents of physics and astronomy that have worked together to our benefit, it almost seems as if the universe must in some sense have known that we were coming." – Physicist Freeman Dyson
"Astronomers who do not draw theistic or deistic conclusions are becoming rare, and even the few dissenters hint that the tide is against them." – Astrophysicist Hugh Ross
"Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover.... That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact." – Robert Jastrow, Astronomer, physicist and founder of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies
"As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency-or, rather, Agency-must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it G-d who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?" – George Greenstein - The Symbiotic, Universe: Life and Mind in the Cosmos pg.26-27
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