GRAVITY

To me, one of the most fascinating areas of science has always been gravity. Newton described it mathematically, and Einstein's theories produced a revolution in that description that resulted in incredible predictions, like the warping of light in the presence of a strong gravitational field. Each time scientists have concocted elaborate tests to try out Einstein's predictions, they have proven true. Now the US has launched the Gravity Probe B satellite to test the idea that the rotation of a massive body (in this case the Earth) "drags" the fabric of space-time. It's taken this project 45 years from conception to launch, a testament to its great complexity and sensitivity. This orbiting laboratory required the creation of the most perfectly spherical objects yet created by man for its gyroscopes, and the development of the most precise astrometric methods ever to ensure a stable reference point.

What's amazing to me about gravity is, while mankind has gone to great theoretical and experimental lengths to describe it, no one can explain it. No "graviton" or gravity particle has ever been found, analogous to the photon or light particle. Gravity is simply a fact of the universe whose mechanism is still unknown. It's as if God is actively holding the universe together.

"... in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power."(Hebrews 1:2-3)

"He [Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together." (Colossians 1:15-17)


Praise the LORD!
Praise the LORD from the heavens;
praise him in the heights!
Praise him, all his angels;
praise him, all his hosts!
Praise him, sun and moon,
praise him, all you shining stars!
Praise him, you highest heavens,
and you waters above the heavens!
Let them praise the name of the LORD!
For he commanded and they were created.
And he established them forever and ever;
he gave a decree, and it shall not pass away. (Psalm 148:1-4)



To whom then will you compare me,
that I should be like him? says the Holy One.
Lift up your eyes on high and see:
who created these?
He who brings out their host by number,
calling them all by name,
by the greatness of his might,
and because he is strong in power
not one is missing.
Why do you say, O Jacob,
and speak, O Israel,
"My way is hidden from the LORD,
and my right is disregarded by my God"?
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable. (Isaiah 40:25-28)

REMEMBER

Die offiziellen Seiten der KZ-Gedenkst?tte Dachau:

How could it come so far in a country whose culture was admired throughout the world?

Let us recall the economic crisis between 1929-1930, which caused astronomical inflation with seven million unemployed in Germany, the absence of an effective response and the indifference of the free and democratic states in the face of the first claims raised by the Hitler regime.

National Socialism cannot be viewed as a mere accident of history that is placed in a folder and put on a shelf. The same causes can set off the same effects, the event can be repeated.

The history of the nations and the struggle for freedom must play an explicit role in the education of the coming generations.

Every kind of information gains the dimension of an act for the good of political culture.

Jeff Jacoby: Faith in the depths of Hell:

What is stunning is that men and women in the throes of such hideous suffering and brutality were still concerned about adhering to Jewish law. In the lowest depths of the Nazi hell, in a place of terror and savagery that most of us cannot fathom, here were human beings who refused to relinquish their faith -- who refused even to violate a religious precept without first asking if it was allowed.

The comic book (the author doesn't call it a graphic novel, even though he won a Pulitzer Prize for it) MAUS is required reading for all human beings. Read it.



The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day begins this year on Sunday evening, April 18th, 2004 and continues Monday, April 19th, 2004.

True righteousness:

"In 1963, Yad Vashem embarked upon a worldwide project to grant the title of Righteous Among the Nations to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. To this end, Yad Vashem set up a public committee headed by a retired Supreme Court justice, which is responsible for granting the title. This project is the only one of its kind in the world that honors, using set criteria, the actions of those individuals who rescued Jews during the war.... As of January 2003, 19,700 people have been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations. In addition, Yad Vashem has been developing a comprehensive encyclopedia - The Lexicon of the Righteous Among the Nations - that will eventually include the stories of all the Righteous Among the Nations. The Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations, in which marble plaques have been engraved with the names of the rescuers according to country, was inaugurated in 1996."

Le Chambon-sur-Lignon is a Protestant village in Haute-Loire in southern France. During World War II, it became a haven for Jews fleeing from the Nazis and their French collaborators.

The Chambonais hid Jews in their homes, sometimes for as long as four years, provided them with forged I.D. and ration cards, and helped them over the border to safety in Switzerland. With their history of persecution as a religious minority in Catholic France, empathy for Jews as the people of the Old Testament, and the powerful leadership and example of their pastor and his wife, Andre and Magda Trocme, the people of Chambon acted on their conviction that it was their duty to help their "neighbors" in need.

The Chambonais rejected any labeling of their behavior as heroic. They said: "Things had to be done and we happened to be there to do them. It was the most natural thing in the world to help these people." After the round- up and deportation of Jews in Paris in July 1942, Pastor Trocme had delivered a sermon to his parishioners, "The Christian Church should drop to its knees and beg pardon of God for its present incapacity and cowardice."

A Jew who made a documentary about this village that saved him asks some probing questions about why this tiny group acted so compassionately when most Christians ignored or assisted the Nazis:

However much the psychologists and the social scientists and traumatized secular Jews such as me will wish to minimize the spiritual and religious and hence not scientifically accessible dimensions of righteous conduct during the Holocaust, the evidence will, I submit, spill out, and will inevitably generate fundamental questions about the essential nature and specific characteristics of the religious faith of the righteous Christians.

What were their distinctive religious attitudes and perceptions? What did they, what did the peasants and villagers of Le Chambon, understand that so tragically eluded their Christian brethren from the Pope on down?

Could it be, for instance, that the righteous Christians were, in particular, Christians who were comfortable with the Jewish roots of their faith, indeed with the Jewishness of Jesus? Were they Christians for whom Christianity was, perhaps, more the religion of Jesus than the religion about Jesus? This appears to have been remarkably the case in Le Chambon, where a number of Jews never got over their astonishment at being not only sheltered but welcomed as the People of God, and where Judaism was also sheltered to some extent and not just persecuted people who happened to have been Jews.

By the way, among the ramifications of this question for today are the fact that we live in a time when some surprising Christians are proclaiming their love for the Jews and for Israel, while many and possibly most Jews doubt that such a love could have any genuine basis. I would like to suggest that if we Jews knew more about who our friends were then, we might find new ways of knowing who they might be today and tomorrow.

In other words, just what sort of Christians were the righteous Christians of the Holocaust?

God, grant us the same depth of relationship with You that we react in the same way these French believers did, if such an evil reappears among us.