In our last issue, we explored the Torah of time dilation, not only as a consequence of special relativity but more importantly, as a consequence of expanded consciousness or intellect [seichal]. In this issue, we will look at the Torah of length contraction, another major consequence of special relativity.
Avraham sent his servant Eliezer on a journey from Canaan to Mesopotamia (Aram Naharaim) to find a suitable wife for Yitzchak. Although the journey was ostensibly very lengthy and arduous, we read something rather amazing from Eliezer himself after he arrived at the home of Betuel, the father of Rivkah (Bereshit 24:42): וָאָבֹא הַיּוֹם אֶל־הָעָיִן (And I came today to the spring). On the surface, this doesn’t seem too unusual, but if we turn to our sages, we realize that their perception was much sharper than ours is today. Rashi comments: הַיּוֹם יָצָאתִי וְהַיּוֹם בָּאתִי מִכָּאן שֶׁקָּפְצָה לוֹ הָאָרֶץ (Today I left [Canaan] and today I came [here], from this, we learn that the earth contracted for him). What an astonishing statement! From where does Rashi learn this? It says so explicitly in the Gemara (see Sanhedrin 95a). It is also brought down in the Midrash (Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer 16:6): מקרית ארבע עד חרן מהלך שבעה עשר יום ובג’ שעות בא העבד לחרן והיה העבד תמה בלבו ואמר היום יצאתי והיום באתי שנ’ ואבא היום אל העין (From Kiryat Arba [Chevron] to Charan is a 17 day journey, and yet it took the servant [Eliezer] only three hours to get to Charan. He was astonished in his heart, and he said, ‘Today I left and today I came’, as it says [Bereshit 24:42], ‘And I came today to the spring’). We see that our Sages new about the reality of length contraction at least 2000 years before it was shown to be a consequence of special relativity by Einstein and verified experimentally by many in the following decades.
But there is another example in the Torah (Bereshit 28:10-11). וַיֵּצֵא יַעֲקֹב מִבְּאֵר שָׁבַע וַיֵּלֶךְ חָרָנָה׃ וַיִּפְגַּע בַּמָּקוֹם וַיָּלֶן שָׁם (And Yaakov departed from Beer-Sheva and he went to Charan. And he met in the place and lodged there). Later in the story, we learn that the place Yaakov lodged was Beit-El (not the current Beit-El, but the Temple Mount). So we see an apparent contradiction here. On the one hand, Yaakov came to Charan, yet immediately afterward he was back in Eretz Yisrael at the site of the future Temple, and that’s where he spent the night. The Gemara resolves the contradiction by stating that Yaakov did, in fact, make it to Charan, but then he realized that he was negligent in not stopping to pray at the place where his fathers, Avraham and Yitzchak, prayed (Chullin 91b): כד יהיב דעתיה למיהדר קפצה ליה ארעא מיד ויפגע במקום (As soon as he set his mind to return, the land contracted for him, immediately, ‘and he met in the place’). Not only this, but in spending the night there, we read what Hashem said to him in his prophetic dream (Bereshit 28:13): וְהִנֵּה יְיָ נִצָּב עָלָיו וַיֹּאמַר אֲנִי יְיָ אֱלֹקֵי אַבְרָהָם אָבִיךָ וֵאלֹקֵי יִצְחָק הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר אַתָּה שֹׁכֵב עָלֶיהָ לְךָ אֶתְּנֶנָּה וּלְזַרְעֶךָ (And behold, Hashem was standing over him, and he said, ‘I am Hashem, the G-d of Avraham your father and the G-d of Yitzchak, I will give the land upon which you are lying to you and to your descendants’). Again, there doesn’t appear to be anything unusual with these words at first glance; however, Rashi points out that this is another example of length contraction: קִפֵּל הַקָּבָּ”ה כָּל אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל תַּחְתָּיו (The Holy One, blessed be He, contracted all of Eretz Yisrael under him). The original source for this may be found in the Gemara (Chullin 91b): אמר רבי יצחק מלמד שקפלה הקב”ה לכל ארץ ישראל והניחה תחת יעקב אבינו שתהא נוחה ליכבש לבניו (R’ Yitzchak said, This teaches that the Holy One, blessed be He, contracted all of Eretz Yisrael and put it underneath our Patriarch Yaakov, [to teach] that it would be easy for his descendants to conquer).
But what is length (the one dimensional building block of space) anyway? We have no idea, but it’s clearly not absolute, whatever it is. But length contraction is a natural consequence of the special theory of relativity which states that a moving object’s length is measured to be shorter than its actual length when the object is at rest. The effect of length contraction is not noticeable at all for standard objects traveling at speeds much below the speed of light; however, when an object travels at a significant fraction of the speed of light, length contraction becomes a real issue and its effects can no longer be ignored.
In last week’s issue, we learned that an increase in intellect or consciousness [seichal] leads to time dilation, but what leads to length contraction? If we examine these examples from the Torah carefully, we will see something remarkable. Both of them involve heartfelt prayer. When Eliezer left to go to Aram Naharaim, he prayed (Bereshit 24:12-13): וַיֹּאמַר יְיָ אֱלֹקֵי אֲדֹנִי אַבְרָהָם הַקְרֵה־נָא לְפָנַי הַיּוֹם וַעֲשֵׂה־חֶסֶד עִם אֲדֹנִי אַבְרָהָם׃ הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי נִצָּב עַל־עֵין הַמָּיִם וּבְנוֹת אַנְשֵׁי הָעִיר יֹצְאֹת לִשְׁאֹב מָיִם (And he said, ‘Hashem, the G-d of my master Avraham, please let things work out well for me today, and may You do loving kindness with my master Avraham. Behold, I stand upon the spring of water and the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw water, etc.’). And why did Yaakov want to return to Eretz Yisrael before he completed his journey to Lavan? As we mentioned already, he wanted to pray on the site of the future Temple. As it is written (Bereshit 28:11): וַיִּפְגַּע בַּמָּקוֹם (And he met [vayifga] in the place). About this unusual wording, the Gemara teaches (Sanhedrin 95b): אין פגיעה אלא תפלה שנאמר ואתה אל תתפלל בעד העם הזה ואל תשא בעדם רנה ותפלה ואל תפגע בי (The word pegi’ah [meeting] only means prayer, as it says [Yirmeyahu 7:16], ‘And you, do not pray for this nation, and do not lift up song or prayer for their sake, and do not tifga [meet] me [in prayer for I will not listen to you]’). In fact, this is the moment when Yaakov instituted the evening prayer, Arvit/Maariv (see Rashi there and Berachot 26b).
So we merit a remarkable insight. Prayer is connected to length contraction. But how does it work? R’ Nachman explains (Likutei Moharan II:56): כְּשֶׁיֵּשׁ לְהָאָדָם לֵב אֵין שַׁיָּךְ אֶצְלוֹ מָקוֹם כְּלָל כִּי אַדְּרַבָּא הוּא מְקוֹמוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם וְכוּ’ כִּי הָאֱלֹקוּת הוּא בַּלֵּב כְּמוֹ שֶׁכָּתוּב צוּר לְבָבִי וְאֵצֶל הַשֵּׁם יִתְבָּרַךְ נֶאֱמַר הִנֵּה מָקוֹם אִתִּי – שֶׁהוּא מְקוֹמוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם וְאֵין הָעוֹלָם מְקוֹמוֹ (When a person has heart, makom has no more relevance to him at all, on the contrary, he is the makom of the world, etc., for godliness is in the heart, as it is written [Tehillim 73:26]: ‘The Rock of my heart’. And about Hashem, may He be blessed, it is written [Shemot 33:21]: ‘Behold, a makom with me’ – that He is the makom of the world and the world is not His makom). Therefore, as R’ Nachman continues to teach, it is just inappropriate for someone with a Jewish heart to say, “Such and such a place isn’t suitable for me” or “Such and such place is suitable for me.” To someone with a real Jewish heart, makom, i.e., the place where we live or the place where we go to work, etc., doesn’t really matter, not if godliness truly expresses itself from his heart.
But what R’ Nachman teaches is that just prayer is insufficient. We have to pray with heart. It is written in Likutei Moharan 49:4: כִּי כָּל אֶחָד מִיִּשְׂרָאֵל הוּא חֵלֶק אֱלוֹקַּ מִמַּעַל וְעִקַּר הָאֱלֹקוּת בַּלֵּב וְהָאֱלֹקוּת שֶׁבְּלֵב אִישׁ הַיִּשְׂרְאֵלִי הוּא בְּחִינַת אֵין סוֹף (For every Jew is a portion of G-d above [chelek Eloka mima’al], and the essence of godliness is in the heart, and godliness that is in the heart of a Jew is an aspect of the Infinite [Ein Sof]). And since we have within us, i.e. we are literally, a chelek Eloka mima’al, our hearts are infinite, somewhat like Hashem, the Ein Sof Himself; and therefore, we should be ‘above’ makom just as He is ‘above’ it. It should be irrelevant to us. And it is this infiniteness that we tap into during prayer, and this is the source of length contraction. So we understand now that Eliezer and Yaakov both had a tremendous heart, and they both prayed with such kavanah [concentration/intent/focus] that space itself contracted for them.
Although we tend to see ourselves as being in a specific place at a specific time, this is really not true at all. It’s an illusion—and a distraction. The more we act like Hashem, the more we are included in Him literally, and the more we find ourselves as the makom of the world, where the world is in us and not the other way around. Admittedly, this is very difficult for our intellects to grasp, but in the future, those things that are impossible for us to grasp now will become as clear to us as what we understand so easily today. May we merit to pour out our hearts to Hashem in real prayer and rise above makom, as it is written (Tehillim 62:9): בִּטְחוּ בוֹ בְכׇל־עֵת עָם שִׁפְכוּ־לְפָנָיו לְבַבְכֶם אֱלֹקִים מַחֲסֶה־לָּנוּ סֶלָה (Trust in Him at all times, O nation, pour out your hearts before Him, G-d is our refuge forever).
For those who want to explore this subject further, herein lies the secret of the tallit gadol, the prayer shawl that we wrap ourselves in during prayer, a makom which can literally transport us anywhere, and where everywhere is contracted within it, much like the holy of holies in the Temple, a place where the known laws of our universe broke down. Bli neder, we should write an article about that in the future.
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