SHELACH LECHA - SUPERSTRINGS

 May 20, 1992

"Speak to the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them throughout their generations fringes in the corners of their garments, and that they put with the fringe of each corner a thread of blue.  And it shall be unto you a fringe, that you may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them;  and that you go not about after your own heart and your own eyes, after which you use to go astray; that you may remember and do all My commandments, and be holy unto your G-d."  Numbers 35:37

The third paragraph of the Shema contains the section from theChumash that talks about tzitzis (Numbers 15:37).  It says we should make tzitzis and 'see it and remember all the commandments of Hashem and perform them'.

The question can be raised as to what about the tzitzis encourages us to remember the commandments of Hashem?  The Gemorrah in Menachos (48?) suggests that the blue in the tzitzis reminds of us Heaven.  And Rashi there adds that the number of knots adds up to the number of commandments.  We want to suggest that it is possible that there is additional symbolism going on with relation to tzitzis.

In the morning prayers, the paragraph before the Shema asks Hashem to bring us back from the 'arba konfos haaretz', the four corners of the world.  This language bears a striking similarity to the four cornered garment that the tzitzis is attached to, the 'arba konfos'.  Perhaps the Shema is saying that the four cornered garment that we clothe ourselves to protect our body represents the physical gashmius world, just like the four corners of the world.  But, reminds the Shema, that is not all that the world consists of.  There is also a spiritual dimension to this world, that may not be as visible to the untrained eye, but is as real nevertheless.  This spiritual dimension, while not being at the center of our vision when we deal with the physical world, in a sense 'flies' out of the corners of the physical world, at its perifery so-to-speak, just like the strings of the tzitzis fly off the corners of the arba confos, the four cornered garment.

Then when we look at the tzitzis, we are to remember that the world we live in is not all physical, but has an extremely important spiritual dimension that we should keep in our eyes and hearts at all times.  Mindful of this spiritual dimension, we will remember the commandments of Hashem.  That would be why, when looking at the tzitzis, we would think of Hashem and His commandments, as the Shema suggests.

This suggestion of the importance of the spiritual dimension of the world in addition to the physical dimensions, echoes the other two paragraphs of the the Shema.  The first paragraph says we should love Hashem with all our heart, soul, and 'meodecha' (translated might, strength, or resources).  And specifically, as the next few sentences elaborate, we should think of this spiritual connection to Hashem when we are involved with our physical tasks of the day, such as lying down, getting up, walking around, and when involved with tasks involving our houses and cities and the work of our arms.

The second paragraph of the Shema brings the point home even further by saying that if you are only involved with the physical, and forget the spiritual aspect of life, then Hashem will destroy our physical livelihood by withholding rain and driving us from the land.  Be ever cognizant, Hashem tells us, that our physical well being depends on our paying attention to the importance of the spiritual dimension of the world.

In this light, it is very interesting to describe a revolution that is now occurring in theoretical physics.  In the 1920's Neils Bohr formulated the atomic model, with electrons spinning around a nucleus composed of protons and neutrons.  It was felt that the atom was the building block of the universe.  As time went on, however, hundreds of smaller particles were found, forming a veritable zoo of particles such as positrons, mu-mesons, borons, and on and on.  Cyclotrons have the power of smashing atoms together with such tremendous force that part of their mass actually temporarily converts into energy.  When, a few billionths of a second later, the energy coalesces back into matter, it forms all kinds of sub-atomic particles.  By the late 1970's, theoretical physics was in a quandary, trying to make order of this plethora of particles.  There seemed to be no rhyme or reason as to why there were so many particles, and it was difficult to understand how to categorize them.

In 1985, Jonathan Schwartz from the California Institute of Technology and Michael Green from the University of London jointly came out with a theory that explained everything.  It took the world of theoretical physics by storm, and has been tentatively accepted by a large portion of the community of physicists.  The theory is quite amazing.

They suggest that the fundamental building block of the universe is much, much smaller than the atom, or even the electron.  It is a tiny STRING that is 10 to the minus 33 centimeters long.  To imagine how small that is, if we were to reduce ourselves down the size of the atom, we would have to reduce ourselves that much further again to reach the size of the string.  Schwartz and Green called their strings SUPERSTRINGS.  The world as we know it is made up of these strings combining and separating in all kinds of ways.

The most remarkable aspect of these superstrings was that the mathematics say that they each are composed of 10 dimensions.  In the first instant of the universe, 6 of the dimensions 'curled up' and became non-physical, leaving the four physical dimensions of the world that we know, namely length, height, width, and time.

The mathematics in their two volume work published in 1987 shows why these superstrings have ten dimensions, 4 physical and 6 non-physical.  But few theoretical physicists have yet ventured to suggest what these 6 non-physical dimensions are.  They are non-plussed, to say the least, to relate these 6 non-physical dimensions to the world that we see and feel.

Now let's get back to the tzitzis and the Shema.  The talis, as we have mentioned, consists of a four cornered garment representing the physical world, such as the four corners of the earth, and the four corners of the garment that we clothe our body in.  Out of the corners we attach STRINGS that are to remind us of the non-physical world, the spiritual world.  How many strings are attached to each corner? There are actually four that are doubled over to form 8 strings.

Eight strings! If, by some chance, we would want a grand unification theory between Chumash and theoretical physics, then perhaps Schwartz and Green made a mistake in their mathematics and superstrings really have 8 non-physical dimensions.

This anomaly is quite simply solved when we remember that 2 of thes trings are colored blue with tchelis to remind us of Shemayim.  That leaves us with 6 strings, and the grand unification between Chumash and theoretical physics can proceed.

Let us first state the obvious.  Schwartz and Green's superstrings are STRINGS, just like our tzitzis are strings.  And even more important, both the tzitzis and superstring theory suggest that there are 6 non-physical dimensions to the world we live in, in addition to the more familiar 4 dimensions.  In fact, a talis with its tzitzis is an extremely good representation of superstring theory.  (Perhaps physicists will scratch their heads in amazement and wonder how the Jews knew about superstring theory so long ago.)

Interestingly enough, we can find other similar 'models' in the Chumash suggesting that there are 4 physical dimensions and 6 spiritual dimensions, anticipating superstring therory.  In the Haichel, the inner sanctum of Temple, there were two objects on either side of the golden altar.  There was the Shulchan (table) that had placed on it every erev Shabbos the 12 loaves of bread.  The Gemorrah in Menachos says that this table was lifted up to the Jewish population to show Hashem's blessing of physical plenty to us, represented by the fact that the bread stayed fresh all week long.  The table, with its four corners, represented the physical world, the 'arba confos haaretz'.  On the other side of the Haichel stood the Menorah, with its 6 curved arms reaching to Heaven.  The Medresh says that the Menorah was so other worldly and spiritual, that Moses had to be brought to Heaven to understand how it was made, and even then it had to drop directly from Heaven.  The 6 arms (that curve like strings) represent the 6 spiritual dimensions.

Even a Succah can be seen as a similar model.  We eat our meals within the four walls of the Succah, again a rectangle representing the four physical dimensions.  And from within the Succah we look up and see the Schach, string like objects such as sticks that is to remind us of the spiritual aspect of the world.

For another model contrasting the physical and spiritual, there is the field where we harvest the grain that we eat for our physical nourishment, and the 'peyah', the 'strings' of grain left in its corners representing our spiritual obligations to God and our fellow man.  Similarly, there are the 'strings' of hair left in the corners of our face that represent and remind us of God's commandments that we are to obey.  Just like with the talis and tzitzis, here we also have strings representing the spiritual dimensions of life 'flying out' of the corners of something physical.

A questions that naturally arises, then, is what are these 6 spiritual dimensions?  We know that the mystics talk about the 10 spheros, again remarkably similar to the 10 dimensions of the superstrings.  We can only surmise that in these 6 non-physical dimensions resides all the non-physical aspects of life that scientists have heretofore either scoffed at or found difficult to explain, such as nefesh, neshama, kedusha, love, feelings, and consciousness.