Landing on the Moon - Part 2

00:00 The hemsach in continuation to the earlier installment in regards to landing on the moon, where we discussed a letter of the Rebbe from Tafshin Chaf Alef 1961. We continue now with installment number two, discussing a yechides, a private audience that the Rebbe had with a journalist from Eretz Yisrael discussing the flying to the moon. One of the first to heard the Rebbe's perspective on this matter was the journalist Shlomo Nagdimon. And this took place seven years before they actually landed on the moon. It was in the year Tafshin Chaf Beis 1962. And the article was publicized in the newspaper Cherut in Eretz Yisrael. The article had its header as follows, with which other Rebbe would you be able to discuss flying to outer space? And Nagdimon begins, I asked the Rebbe to the moon, the smaller luminary, HaMoira Koten, will they be able to reach? The Rebbe said, yes, they will be able to reach the moon. So I asked, what will they find by the moon when they get there? The Rebbe says, what they will find there, we will see when they get there. If I will tell you now what they will find there, they will not want to go to the moon. So I asked, Nagdimon continues, how does the Torah look at these nisyanes, these initiatives that human beings are trying to project? What is the view, the perspective of Torah? So the Rebbe continues. The new revelations in science in regards to the atom and the particles of the

02:13 atom and the rules, everything that relates to it, are more pertaining to the view of the Jewish world than conquering space. Conquering outer space is an additional step to the advancement of science and technology. But the revelations in the laws of the atom dispute the foundations of the science on which they based and worked with till now. Up till now, they stated that science is something which is strong and Torah is only a belief. Now they realize that the foundations of science up till now and the scientific conclusions in physics and in technology don't really have an authentic solid foundation. And this was revealed exclusively in the philosophy of the atom. And this is where all the questions of science falls away when they come to challenge religion. Because by science, they need to again review it from anew. And the Meileh, the Rebbe continues, this shows that every additional successful advancement that they had in science will only bring contradictions to what they knew up till then. So I asked the Rebbe, does Torah allow experimenting in outer space? The Rebbe answered, Torah does not have any opposition in continuing to explore outer space. In a later year, Tafshin and Beis, this is 30 years later, the Rebbe expressed in a sicha that not only he does not see a contradiction between the new developments in science in comparison to Torah, in relationship to Torah, but he also finds a support and a contribution to Torah. The Rebbe continues and explains that we see

04:54 in Mukhash realistically that as a result of the new developments that were discovered in the world in the later generations, there were additional matters, halachas in Torah that were developed based on that. And such matters which in generations before these discoveries, there was no talk about them. And although heaven knows everything, but Torah is applied to this physical world. And therefore, these inyonim were not revealed in Torah till it was actually revealed in science. And this is when we discover and reveal it in Torah as Torah already has it. The Rebbe brings the example when we see the new aspect that we have in our generation that a person could fly outer space and land on the moon. The Rebbe says, and there are new shailas in halacha. How does a person conduct himself while he's on the moon when he gets to Kiddush Levana? And the Rebbe continues in the sicha, what does he need to do when the time comes of Kiddush Levana in the place where he came from, which is from Earth? And that is when people on Earth are making the bracha for Kiddush Levana. Does he also have to do it and follow what they do on Earth? Or it would seem like it doesn't make any sense to be mekadesh the Levana when a person finds himself on the Levana. As the Rebbe continues in the sicha, mitzveshem, we will continue in the next installment.