Torah and the Speed of Light

Torah and the Speed of Light by Yosef Sebag, physicist, electrical engineer

Light is the least physical of all creations. A photon of light goes from zero to the speed of light instantly, without any acceleration time.

It is the only thing in the universe which is absolute. Even space and time yield to it, contracting and dilating to preserve its absolute speed.

When you walk down a street and you pass a moving object your speed will change relative to that. But that's not the case for light. The speed of light is absolute. This means if you travel in a spaceship moving at 1/2 the speed of light towards a light beam, you will still see light travelling at the speed of light instead of 1.5 times the speed of light. Truly amazing, right!!!

What is the secret of light's unique and amazing properties?

This question is beyond the bounds of science to answer. For this we must turn to the word of G-d - the torah.

The first time G-d speaks in the torah is "let there be light" (Gen.1:2). This reflects the sublime nature of light.

What is light? In "Derech Etz Chaim" the master Kabalist, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato (Ramchal) writes:

The torah is not like the wisdom of the nations and the secular knowledge, which are nothing more than knowledge which the intellect grasps after toiling to understand it. Rather, the Torah, behold, it is holy. It has a supernal existence in the upper spheres. And when a man toils in it below, it is a light which illuminates in his soul to elevate it to the treasures on high, the treasures of the Creator, blessed be He. And this is what the wise man said (King Solomon) "And Torah is light" (Mishlei 6:23), literally light, and not just wisdom. And not that it is called "light" as a kind of metaphor rather it is literally "light". Because this is its existence above (in the higher worlds), and when it enters the soul, the light enters it just like the sun's rays enter inside a house.

Thus, the physical light we have below is the physical counterpart of the spiritual light of the torah itself.

Armed with this knowledge, everything will make sense.

What is the spiritual light of torah? It is the light of absolute truth.

As we say in the blessing on the torah: "who gave us a torah of truth" and "Torah is truth" (Tehilim 119:142).

Thus, to understand light we need to understand truth.

The Hebrew word for truth is Emet:

Truth does not change.

This is hinted in the form of the Hebrew word for truth - Emet. It contains the first, middle, and last letter of the Hebrew alphabet and each letter stands on two legs. It looks at the whole picture of what's going on. It is universal, unchanging and endures.

Truth is objective. It does not emanate from human opinion. It emanates from G-d, the source of absolute Truth, and therefore transcends human opinion.

Falsehood on the other hand, contains 3 letters adjacent to each other in the Hebrew alphabet and each letter stands on only one leg. It is a narrow, limited view, which ignores the big picture. It does not endure. All 3 letters are all on the far end of the hebrew alphabet. It is totally lopsided, a completely one-sided way of looking at things. That's what a lie is.

With this the properties of light make sense.

The speed of light is absolute and unchanging just like truth is absolute and unchanging.

Likewise, if one travels at the speed of light, time stands still and he can traverse the whole universe instantly. This reflects that truth is timeless and spans the whole picture as before.

Thus, we have an explanation for the properties of physical light which are a manifestation of the spiritual light of torah.

The Laws of Physics

On a deeper level, the speed of light is not just the speed at which light travels. It is a fundamental physical constant that appears in many areas of physics. Change that and you change the laws of physics themselves, with potentially chaotic and catastrophic consequences for the universe.

The absolute value of the speed of light means that the physical laws themselves are uniform, applying to everything and everyone universally. They are absolute and unchanging everywhere. One universal law obeying the word of the One King of the Universe with the infinite exactness and perfection of mathematics.

So too for the Torah Law. "Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it" (Deut.4:2). The Torah Law is also universal and applies to all human beings in all generations.

Do not think it is just religious concepts. These are laws governing human conduct, which apply as rigidly as the law of gravity. When we disregard these laws in any walk of life, we distance from truth and from G-d and chaos results.

But it goes deeper than this. The Torah is not just a book of laws. It is a spiritual world. One who studies torah draws spiritual light unto himself and gains access into this spiritual realm. Without this, he walks in darkness and sees only the physical side of things.

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