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Well, we want to dedicate this lesson to the ascent of the soul of Chalfo Padzur Padi ben Luli, Chalfo Bat Zur Padi ben Luli. That with God's help, these words will also be for the ascent of his holy and pure soul. He was
Rabbi Meir Eliyahu discusses the Torah's creation narrative, dinosaurs, and reconciling science with Jewish tradition.
Key Takeaways
- The Torah’s creation narrative is foundational to understanding God's sovereignty over the world.
- Scientific evidence for the age of the earth can be reconciled with Jewish tradition by understanding creation as occurring in full form.
- Dinosaurs existed but are not detailed in the Torah because only relevant information was included.
- Popular myths about dinosaurs are often exaggerated or fictional.
- The extinction of dinosaurs aligns with scientific consensus and Torah teachings.
What the video covers
- The lesson is dedicated to the ascent of the soul of Chalfo Padzur Padi ben Luli and Chalfo Bat Zur Padi ben Luli.
- Explains why the Torah begins with Bereishit (Genesis) emphasizing God's ownership and creation of the world.
- Discusses the age of the world, addressing scientific claims like carbon-14 dating and the Big Bang theory.
- Explains that the world was created in full form, similar to Adam being created as an adult, reconciling scientific evidence with Torah chronology.
- Addresses the existence of dinosaurs and why they are not mentioned explicitly in the Torah.
- Rejects the idea that God created dinosaurs to test humanity and critiques some scientific and popular myths about dinosaurs.
- Shares personal experience visiting a dinosaur museum and discusses the reality versus fictional portrayals of dinosaurs.
- Explains that the Torah only includes relevant information, with some details preserved in the Oral Torah or Midrash.
- Mentions the extinction of dinosaurs as a global disaster acknowledged by scientists and relates it to Torah teachings.
- Highlights the importance of gratitude and worship of the living God, contrasting it with idol worship.
Chapters
- 00:00Dedication and Introduction to Parashat Bereishit
- 01:52God’s Sovereignty and Creation of the World
- 04:16Age of the World and Carbon-14 Dating
- 06:37Creation of Adam and the World in Full Form
- 09:17Dinosaurs: Reality vs. Myths
- 11:36Extinction of Dinosaurs and Scientific Views
- 17:45Gratitude and Worship of the Living God
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
buried today. At one o'clock was the funeral, and he was a very dear man. He truly left behind a child, Ariel, whom I love very much, and God willing, these things will be for the ascent of his holy and pure soul. We have already
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reached Parashat Bereishit; it is one of the most interesting holy portions. It is long, but on the other hand, it is full of matters and moral lessons.
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And Rabbi Yitzhak said: It did not need to start with this month, "This month shall be to you the head of months," so why did it open with Bereishit? To tell the power of His works to His people,
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that the entire earth belongs to the Holy One, Blessed be He, to the Lord of the earth, and all that dwells therein.
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And what our teacher Moses said to Pharaoh: "For this I have stood you up, to show you that there is none like Me in all the earth," for the earth belongs to God. The Holy One, Blessed be He, is the Master, He is the Ruler,
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He is the owner of the house, it is His property, it is the world He created.
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There is no one to tell Him what to do, what to act, everything is the work of His hands. So in this portion, why did He open for us with these sections?
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From Bereishit until the portion of "This month," all this seemingly did not have to enter the Torah. Seemingly, if it had not entered the Torah, then what would you say about the Name? What would you say about the commandments?
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These are things learned from before that. So one must say that He would have inserted it after that. But why did He reveal to us the whole story about the holy patriarchs? How would we know where we came from? How would the
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Midrashim have been? There are many Midrashim in the Oral Torah. So the story of the holy patriarchs would also be in the Midrashim. So what is the point? Why did He reveal everything to us? He gave us the Torah in writing to
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tell us that this world is entirely His. By His will He gave it to them, and by His will He will take it from them and give it to us. From this you will understand how much we need to thank,
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and praise, and glorify, and exalt, and sanctify the One who spoke and the world came to be, who privileged us to worship the living God, not like the nations of idols who bow down to vanity and emptiness, a god that cannot save,
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which will not help us nor rescue us. We bow down to a living and existing God, high and exalted, great and awesome. The work of God is awesome; He revealed His works in this portion, that He created the heavens and the
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earth. And one of the interesting things that all wise-hearted people asked: He created now also all the animals, He created for us the fish, He created the beasts, He created the...
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the...the sheep, the cattle. Everything appears in our portion, Parashat Bereishit. And many people, all wise-hearted, asked, why do we not see the giant mammoths in the weekly portion, we do not see giant birds, primeval creatures, it is not written
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that He created the dinosaurs. Where are the dinosaurs? And seemingly, one must say that the dinosaurs are real.
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Because if they were not real, how do we dig up such large skeletons? How, how can we deny archaeological findings? We can deny theories, such as the theory regarding the age of the world, which is already a strong assertion by
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scientists who say that the world was created... that this world has already existed for trillions of years since the Big Bang, the great explosion, which is nonsense. Well, nonsense, not something else. You have to deal with academic evidence, you have to deal
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with substantive claims. Take the soil, take rocks, perform carbon-14 testing on them, and you will see with your own eyes that the world has existed for trillions of years. So what is your answer to that? What is your answer to
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that? We say in Judaism, we are in the year 5785 today, we say the world has existed for almost 6,000 years, but carbon-14 tests prove that the world has existed for much longer. So what is your answer to that? It is not
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difficult at all. Not at all. The Holy One, blessed be He, created His world here in the book of Genesis in its stature, in its full form. I ask you, how old was the first man when he was
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created? Was he a baby? Ah, was he a one-year-old baby when he was created?
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How could that be? He created him as an adult. That is not what the Gemara says on page 38b of tractate Sanhedrin. The Gemara brings there that on the day he was born, he was created, he sinned, and that same day he was cast out of
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the Garden of Eden. So the first man sinned. How do you punish a one-day-old child? He is a one-day-old child. No.
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Rather, he is necessarily not a one-day-old child. So what, is he an adult? I cannot punish someone who is small, that wouldn't make sense. So what? So he is an adult. If he is an adult, then just as He created the
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first man as an adult, He also created the world as an adult. So it was no problem for the Creator to create a world that already has existed for trillions of years. So even with carbon-14 testing and all kinds of deep-soil
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tests, where they take circular drills, drill kilometers deep into the ground, pull out layers of earth and show me that, indeed, this world has existed for so many years, far beyond the Jewish tradition that says 6,000 years.
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It doesn't move me, your tests don't excite me at all. Why? Because the world was created in its full form.
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Just as the first man was not born a baby, the world was not created a baby.
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God created an old world just as He created the first man, as an adult. So if that is the case, we have no question regarding the age of the world. The question will arise: what about the dinosaurs? When you dig, you find
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giant bones and skeletons in the depths of the earth, mega-giant ones. I was in London, they invited me to give classes there, so they took me to some museum there. I usually don't go out to museums and such, but the Rabbanit was
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with me, so I said: I must take her out a little. If it were up to me, I would sit and study, but she took me out.
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They took me to see a museum of dinosaur bones—a cemetery, but of dinosaurs. A cemetery! Do you see the size of this room? Dinosaurs the size of this room. Look, not everything you see in Jurassic Park or various
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Hollywood movies—a dinosaur breathing fire, or some dinosaur having special powers—is real. Often, people are given an inch, they take the whole body; they let their imagination run wild.
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Many of the things you see in movies—I hope you... that they don't watch movies—but a lot of what they show you in Hollywood scripts is often just a product of human imagination. Things like that didn't exist, they didn't
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exist. A fire-breathing dinosaur didn't exist. Dinosaur... there were flying creatures, but a giant flying dinosaur certainly didn't exist, because there are no wings large enough that could lift such weight. And therefore, certainly, some of these things, even scientists are aware that all of these
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are just wild tales. Right, that’s a wild tale. What would you answer regarding real dinosaurs? They find skeletons, well, they find giant skeletons. So, uh, some of them really were in the world, but this needs to be explained. So why doesn't the Torah in
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the book of Genesis mention them? You have to provide evidence as to why the Torah doesn't mention that He created the dinosaurs. Why isn't it written? So there are those who said, first of all, that the Holy One, blessed be He,
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supposedly created this world with dinosaurs inside to test us. It is utter nonsense to say such a thing. I don't believe that this explanation would be accepted in any scientific circle, that the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world with dinosaurs
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inside, with bones, to test us. If we believe that the world is truly 6,000 years old, it’s extremely weak. There are the
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bringing it up—I am bringing up this theory and I am refuting it, I am dismissing it. So what really happened?
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Why isn't it mentioned? There are those who wanted to say: Why isn't it mentioned? Because the Creator It only writes what is necessary, not what is unnecessary, so He didn't mention the dinosaurs. What was with Moses our teacher until age 80? Ah, what was with
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him until the age of 80? He appears in the Torah as a baby, right? Three months, he couldn't...and then, later, we see him at the burning bush at age 80, he took the people of Israel for 40 years, died at 120; what happened in
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those 80 years? Come on, you’re talking about 80 years! Did the most important chapter in human history just disappear? From three months old, he grew up in Pharaoh's house, then he killed the Egyptian, Pharaoh heard about it, Moses fled. Where did he flee
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to? To Midian. He didn't flee to Midian at age 20! 80 years—where is the time until age 80? What did he do there? Why aren't you telling us? What is relevant is written, what is irrelevant is not written? What do you want us to write,
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everything that is needed? So if that's the case, what happened to the people of Israel for 38 years in the desert?
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You have one book in the desert: Bamidbar, Naso, Beha'alotcha, Shlach, Korach, Chukat, Balak, Pinchas. That is what is written, the disputes of 38 years. Why isn't it written what happened with them? Because it's irrelevant. The relevant events: Korach
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, Balak, Pinchas—the relevant events were written in the book. What is irrelevant was not written. If it had secondary relevance, it was written in the Oral Torah, and if it had no relevance at all, it wasn't mentioned by our Sages at all. Not everything
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needs to be written, so if that's the case, even assuming dinosaurs weren't mentioned in the world—it's not mentioned in the Torah, that doesn't mean they didn't exist; it's possible they did. So why doesn't the Torah write about them? Ladies and gentlemen?
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They dated the bones; they took dinosaur bones and put them through laboratory tests. They claim their composition is millions of years old.
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Do you understand what millions of years means? So here you won't be able to tell me that the Holy One, Blessed be He, created them in their present form. Maybe He created the first dinosaurs in their present form. But
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what about the little babies? You find a lot of dinosaurs in the world. I'll give you numbers in a moment, you won't believe it. So what do we do with them?
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How do we answer this claim? First of all, we aren't moved by any archaeological finding; no lab test will move us from the blind faith that Moses is true, and his Torah is true.
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Archaeologists and anything they ever find will not move us from the blind faith that God created the world. We aren't moved by it at all. We cover our eyes during "Shema Yisrael." We have blind faith; even if we don't see, even
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if we don't understand, we believe in the Creator, blessed be He. So that the Torah is true and Moses is true—it's obvious! But now, when I am grounded, you must answer the skeptic now. A skeptic comes, asks me—what should I
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tell him? "I don't know," and that's it ? You need to answer him: "Blunt his teeth." It doesn't say "answer the skeptic," it says "know what to answer the skeptic"—meaning for yourself, clarify it for yourself, so you won't
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have doubts in your faith. A small doubt becomes a big doubt. What is a big doubt? A small hole will become a big hole. What is a big hole? A root canal, an extraction, decay in the whole mouth. What, do we have some
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question we don't know how to answer? We need to know how to answer it. So what, what's the issue? So what will we do? Didn't Rabbi Eliezer say in Berakhot 28b, "Keep your children from logic." Sometimes it's best not to
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think. But now I want to know, to clarify it for myself. Fine, I'm not going to convince any of the "shells" now that the Torah is true. There are such people, there's nothing to be done with them. The Erev Rav writes, it says
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in Tikkunei Zohar, the Erev Rav, their appearance is just as it was in the beginning. Like the cows, the cows that ate the cows and their appearance was just as it was in the beginning. The Erev Rav, no matter what efforts you
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make to bring him to repentance, you will not succeed. On the contrary, he is liable to harm you. So, in any case, blind faith is better. And there are some whom it is better not to even try to bring to repentance. If they have
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merit, they will repent on their own. You should not start talking to them, especially if you are not strong, if you lack knowledge, if you are not sharp, if you do not have knowledge of the academic world to refute his claims
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. On the contrary, he will leave the argument feeling strengthened and that he won, while you just throw together a jumble of words. So it is better to be silent and not speak. But now I ask you , we are all living here today, we are
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here in the Beit Midrash, we need to clarify for ourselves how there could be such a thing called dinosaurs, yet we don't see it in the Torah. Why doesn't the Torah write about it?
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Actually, with all the technology and progress, we have found more than once that the scientific world only goes and confirms the Torah. To this day, world-renowned archaeologists—not Israeli archaeologists, but American archaeologists who have much more resources, budgets, knowledge, and
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power—admit that to this day, not a single archaeological finding has been found that contradicted the stories of the Bible. Not one; on the contrary, all the archaeological findings that are discovered only confirm the Torah.
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When Josephus wrote numbers about the sizes of the Holy Temple, the amounts of people who visited it on the festivals, all the complex system of the entrance gates to the Temple Mount, everyone who read it said he was
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exaggerating. And through the excavations of all those who dug around Jerusalem, whether it was Parker or Barclay or many other gates named after the excavators, they saw that not only is what he wrote correct, it is entirely accurate. So when I tell you
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that the walls of Jericho fell into the ground, and they find a wall inside the ground, it confirms the Torah. When I tell you that Moses our teacher brought water out of the rock, today there is that place where you can really see in
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the rocks in the Sinai Desert streams of water that passed through there, and you see a stone split in two. When I look at the event of Mount Sinai, you see stones that have the shape of a year on them, and you break them and
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they have the shape of a year, and you break them and see another shape of a year—there is no such thing, not a single example of such a phenomenon in the entire world; you realize that the hand of God is here. So we are not
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moved by scientists; on the contrary, science only keeps proving that the Torah is a Torah of truth and is correct. So, how...how do you, how will you deal with this contradiction regarding the dinosaurs? Well, so how will you deal with it? Science proves
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it, so how will you deal with it? So when I have such a contradiction, it stems from one of two things. Either the scientists are wrong or the religious figures are not interpreting the Torah correctly. The Torah is the
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truth. The data is the truth. Now, if you see contradictions, then either the rabbis did not interpret what is written in the correct way, or the scientists do not know how to interpret their findings in the correct way. But
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the short circuit here is in human beings, not in the Torah, you see. So if that's the case, then many scientific theories that seemed to contradict the Torah turned out to be completely inaccurate during the course of research. In other words, they made
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some claim, said "aha, here is something against the Torah," and later , when they found more advanced instruments, they discovered their initial finding was void, and therefore , they had no argument against the Torah. Do you understand what I'm
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talking about? So that's how it was. So what do we do about the dinosaurs? So gentlemen, today we want to fly back in time. Not millions of years back, just to a different era. A few thousand years back. When giant creatures walked
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on the Earth. First question, Parashat Bereshit. Why aren't dinosaurs mentioned? Oh, come on, dinosaurs? Do you want to call them by their name?
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It's actually a name for a lizard. " Deinos" is terror and "sauros" is lizard. It’s in Latin: Deinosaurus, deinos meaning terror, sauros meaning lizard; a terrible lizard, a big, scary lizard. So what do you want? For the Torah to write "dinosaurs"? You want it
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to use the words of the...the words of the Latins who would come later, after the Generation of Dispersion, when they confused the languages of the whole earth? There are those who wanted to say "And God created the great sea
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monsters (tanninim) and every living creature that crawls." Here in our Torah portion. What are the "great sea monsters"? Only a fool and an idiot would tell you, "Ah, crocodiles." Like a crocodile, a tannin. That the crocodiles...yes, sure. Yeah, that’s
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how you interpret it? Tell me, do you presume to say that you understand the language of the Bible based on the spoken Hebrew of today, which is entirely a garbled version of Ben-Yehuda's? Oh, what is this, a joke?
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Even the cities—Bnei Brak, Modi'in, Tzippori, Ashkelon, Ashdod—they aren't the cities that existed back then; they aren't the same places at all. Maccabim, yes, the Maccabean caves were found there, everything was found there. Jerusalem yes, Hebron yes, but you have cities like Bnei Brak. Do you
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think the Bnei Brak of Rabbi Akiva, where they sat for the Passover Seder near the house of Danizia in Bnei Brak, is the Bnei Brak of today? Where is Ramat Gan? You've made me laugh out loud! You made me laugh. How could that
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be? Clearly these aren't the same cities, let alone the translation of the Bible. You’re coming to translate the Bible for me and tell me "great crocodiles"? Is that what you know? A crocodile? That certainly cannot be. So what is it then? So what is it? It is
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obvious that the Torah refers here to giant creatures. Why does it say "great monsters" and not "great elephants"?
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Why does it say "the great monsters"? Here the Torah is referring to crawling animals that are especially giant and large. And that is self-evident. I want to tell you why it isn't written in the Torah, in our portion, Parashat
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Bereshit, "And He created the sheep, and He created the goats, and He created the giraffes." Rather, what did He say in general? "And God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind." He
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said in general: Even with fish, it doesn't say He created the salmon and He created the shark, it doesn't say that; rather, it says in general, "Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures" in general; for birds, it
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doesn't say He created the parrot and the bat and the raven, but rather. He said in general, "And every winged bird of its kind." The same applies here, " And God created the great sea monsters (tanninim)." Are you trying to tell me
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this is a specific animal? After all, he doesn't...he doesn't mention specific animals, he mentions groups, right? He didn't mention any animal, he didn't say sheep, crocodiles, parrots, salmon, but rather he mentioned what groups? "Living creatures of the land
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of its kind,""swarms of the waters,"" living creatures," and "all winged birds of its kind" are general group names, with many things under them. " Great sea monsters" is a group name, with many things under it. They were all mentioned here under a collective
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name, sea monsters. This is certainly not a proper name. Just as we didn't see any proper names for any animal.
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Everything was just a group name. A general name for the reptile group. And the proof, the proof, "Take this staff with you, with which you will perform the signs." The Holy One, blessed be He , says to Moses. Later it is written, "
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And it became a snake (tannin)." I don't understand what's going on here. Was it a crocodile (tannin) or was it a snake (nachash)? What is going on here?
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What's going on? "And the staff that turned into a snake, take it as a crocodile." Rashi writes that a 'tannin ' is a snake. Wait, but in your spoken Hebrew, what you wanted to explain to me about "He created the great sea
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monsters (tanninim)," 'tannin' is a crocodile and 'nachash' is a snake. So how can you describe this thing to me as a 'tannin' that is a snake?
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Seemingly, these are two different creatures. But what then? But what then ? Rashi wants to say 'tannin'. It is a generic name. Reptiles are called ' tanninim'. Anything that crawls on the ground is called a 'tannin'. That is
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the general name for reptiles. Tannin. 'Nachash'(snake) is the specific name. Exactly on the same scale as what I'll tell you. And take the salmon in your hand. And he threw the salmon and it became a fish. But he threw the staff
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and it became a fish. How can that be? But what about 'fish'? What about ' salmon'? A salmon is a fish. That is exactly what Rashi wanted to say. Take the 'tanninim', the staff. The staff turned into a 'tannin'. And after that,
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he calls it a 'nachash'. A 'tannin' is a 'nachash'. 'Tannin' is the category name. 'Nachash' is the specific name.
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Did you understand what I'm saying? Does someone want to turn off that phone? I'm talking to you. You've been hearing that for half an hour and you're not turning it off. No, I didn't understand why you're ignoring it at
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all. Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, by Whose word all things exist.
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Amen. No. They are probably calling to take you, Moses. They want you to go there. Wait, wait, I don't have time, I don't have time. Even in the Sages 'writings, we find dinosaurs, but again, not by the Latin name' dinosaurs '. Other names.
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In Bava Batra 73b, Rabba bar Bar Hana said: I myself saw a Reem, one day old, as big as Mount Tabor. It was as huge as Mount Tabor. And Mount Tabor, how big is Mount Tabor? Four parasangs. A
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giant, 4 parasangs, and his neck alone, the Reem's neck, is three parasangs. Each parasang is 4 parasangs, say 12 parasangs is his neck, and where he rests his head when lying on the ground is a parasang and a half, he had to
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relieve himself. To do his business, he went to the Jordan, dropped his load there, dropped his business there, excreted so much waste that he blocked the Jordan. That is the language of the Gemara in Bava Batra. What do you see?
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That he is as big as Mount Tabor, and we saw it. It is in the Midrash or in Tehillim, Psalm 22. Rav Huna bar Idi said: When David was tending the flock, he went and found the Reem sleeping in
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the desert. He thought it was a mountain, David climbed onto the mountain and was grazing. The Reem shook. And David thought it was an earthquake. David ran along its neck until he reached its horns and grabbed both its horns, and the Reem grew tall
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and reached the heavens, an expression of hyperbole. At that moment, David said: Master of the Universe, I am dying of fear! If You bring me down from this Reem, I will build You a temple of 100 cubits like the Reem's
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horns. If. Skin for skin, all that a man has he will give for his soul. Do you know what kind of fear that was?
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When I was a little boy, I always had a dream to fly in a hot air balloon, I always had a dream to fly in a hot air balloon. There was one, Uzi Hitman, he once had a show called "A Dream for You
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," meaning you send him your dreams and he would make your dreams come true.
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Then he passed away, may he rest in peace, but to this day I haven't received an invitation. I wrote to him that I want to fly in a hot air balloon . Today I am dying of fear, I have a
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fear of heights. As a child I was brave , today I wouldn't do it. Today I also wouldn't get on a flight to Dubai. But you understand that there is a fear of God. Do you know what it is for a plane
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to drop 8 kilometers? I tell you, if all the passengers on the plane don't repent, I don't know what kind of ingratitude toward Heaven that is. At the speed that he stabilized the plane.
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The plane should have broken in the air . Do you know what that plane is? Metal . When I fly on a plane from Miami to Israel, there is air turbulence. It is always like that. The whole plane is
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like that. Your heart drops from the turbulence, those people plunged to their deaths. How are they not all Haredim in Mea Shearim today? I have no idea. This is the proof that a person could be at the Red Sea, see the sea
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split, and not repent. He could be at Mount Sinai, see the seven heavens open , and not repent. Those who were on the plane, it’s not the half-million you’re getting, that’s the wake-up call. Repent, that’s the wake-up call
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. That is the gratitude to the Holy One , blessed be He. But who, who mentioned the Holy One, blessed be He? Will the secular reporters mention the Holy One, blessed be He, to say a big thank you
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to the Creator of the world who did the unbelievable? He did the unbelievable; something like this will be remembered for generations, they’ll even make a movie about it. About this thing, it just shows you who Ishmael is. Anyway,
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let’s go back to our topic: so King David was afraid, he saw every horn from the cubit, he said: if you take me down from here, I’ll build You a Temple. If a cubit is 45 centimeters, 100 is 50 meters, and that is just the
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length of the diameter around the belly , 50, 50 meters. Researchers estimate the largest dinosaur was 36 meters long , weighing 100 tons, that’s the biggest dinosaur; according to this, the biggest dinosaur in the world hasn't been discovered yet. Another
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giant animal mentioned by our Sages is the Tachash. It is written in the Gemara, Shabbat 28b: Rabbi Meir said, there was a Tachash in the days of Moses, a creature of its own, it had one horn on its forehead, and it was
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provided for Moses for that time, he used it for the Tabernacle, and then it was hidden away. The Tabernacle was huge, and it is written that the curtains of the Tabernacle were made from the skin of one animal; now, there
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is no animal big enough to cover it with its skin without seams, everything was from the skin of that same animal.
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So the Gemara says that Rabbi Meir brings that there was a beast created for the needs of that time; call it a dinosaur, call it a thunder-beast, call it a Tachash, it doesn’t matter what.
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Rabbi Meir took this Tachash, slaughtered it, took the skin, and from it, he covered the Tabernacle. We also find giant birds in the Sages’ writings with all the stories of Rabbah bar Bar Hana, that he saw a frog—like
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a toad—but it was flying, and it was as huge as 60 houses. A crocodile came and swallowed the crocodile. Meaning: reptile, you have to say crocodile here too. It’s…a giant reptile. Did you see the dinosaur catching the bird in
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the air? Where did it catch it, are you kidding? A giant bird came, swallowed the crocodile, swallowed the reptile.
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The bird went up. It sat on a tree, do you understand what’s going on here?
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There was a giant creature here, a bird ate it, the crocodile. An even more giant bird ate it; the crocodile was probably small, and in the end, the giant bird sat with everyone in its belly on a tree. It went up and sat on
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a tree, see how strong the tree is— see what a strong tree it is that it didn't collapse! How does he end it? " And if I hadn't been there"—meaning, if I hadn't been there, I wouldn't have believed this story. That’s how,
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that’s how he ends it in Bava Batra 73. What will you say? They spoke of secrets and not simple meaning, the Ein Yaakov writes what the practical difference is for one who says it in Masechet Shavuot, what is a false oath?
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I heard, if I didn't see a snake like a beam. Or a fish or a camel flying in the air, that is a false oath. This story comes to teach us that if he swore he saw a snake as thick as an oil
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press beam, or a camel flying in the air, it is not considered a false oath.
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A halachic practical difference! This story is not just for show. You see that the Ein Yaakov understood that these things really happened; there are such giant birds. Because a person who makes a false oath (swearing that today is Saturday) is liable; but if he
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swears he saw a giant creature like a dinosaur, he is not liable. Why? Because the Sages bring that such a thing existed. Here, this is what the Ein Yaakov brings, that there is a halachic difference here. He also
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continues later, I am reading: and also that surely there are secrets, hints, and wonders in all these matters, but in truth, most of these stories are also on the literal level, for all the words of the Sages are like the words
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of the Torah, that a verse does not depart from its literal meaning and everything is also according to the plain sense. He also said there, concluding: the things do not depart from their literal meaning. Even though the commentators elaborated on
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homiletics, simple is simple. Giant birds existed, giant dinosaurs existed, there were also giant fish described by the Sages. Rabbah bar Bar Hana said, once we traveled on a ship, we saw a giant fish that a small insect entered
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into its nostril and the big fish died because of the insect that entered its nose. And then it was pushed from the sea to the shore as is the way of all waters. The water, as if the fish
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floated up, and then from the waves— the waves pulled this giant fish to the sea. And they built 60 districts, 60 houses, from the bones of the fish.
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Tell me, I once asked a fisherman: there are smelly fish, do you know about that? You buy a fish from the fisherman, come home, come to prepare it, the whole house smells foul. They tell you: put lemon, put salt, put this
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. And still, you put it in this, you made it a sauce, a Moroccan sauce, that if it knew it would end its day like that, that fish wouldn't have wanted to wake up in the morning. But you see,
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you made it a Moroccan sauce and it still smells. I asked the fisherman, why do fish smell? What did he answer me? Why are there smelly fish? When they ask the fish in the net, they won't now start—what do you think,
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everyone will do an imitation for you? Every fish like that empties the sea. That's why in China they eat everything because the fish are finished there, how many fish there do they make, so they are allowed to eat everything.
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They emptied the whole sea. They emptied the whole sea. So now sometimes when they empty the sea, they take giant nets into the water and pull fish out from there. It could be that one of the fish is dead and all the fish are
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fluttering, dying, and it is dead too. The one that died and was smelly in the water—that is the same one. That— and it was served to your plate, therefore the fish smells. That’s what he said, this fisherman. I don't
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know, I don't understand fish, that's what he said. So fish stink; therefore, if there is a stinking fish, it is better to return it to the fisherman so you don't eat a dead fish. Anyway, the story there ends: when we returned to
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that same place 12 months later, we saw them sawing beams from the fish's bones , and the bones hadn't run out.
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Afterward, he, Rav Hannah, tells surreal stories. He tells you: We saw an island in the sea, we went down to the island, we had a barbecue and lounged on the island, and we had snacks, we ate, we drank coconut, and
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we put on necklaces of flowers like in Hawaii, na na na ni ni, we sunbathed, and suddenly the island shook. We were terrified by the shaking of the island, and the island flipped over, and we realized it was a giant fish, and if
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the ship hadn't been close—we would have died. The Me'or Einayim writes about this story that it alludes to the End of Days, that the people of Israel will come to the Land of Israel, drink, eat, enjoy, and not know, and they have
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a nation that is crouching beneath them —Ishmael—and they don't notice that this nation is a giant shark, and they sit, eat, march, Shenkin, all enjoying this world without knowing what they are sitting on. One day this nation will flip over on them, and then, if
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the ship isn't close, if the redemption isn't close—we would be dead. So, understand that this complacency against the stranger in your midst who rises higher and higher, it is most sad . Why? Because it seems to you as if
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you are in control of it, but in reality, the island has flipped over on you. So we need (to shed) tears over this. Anyway gentlemen, there are many more stories like this. I don't have time, it's a pity, it's a pity that I
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won't get to explain the issue. In the distant past, whoever read these tales was considered naive. It is interesting that it was only in modern times that they found dinosaurs. The year 1676? 1600 76, say 400 years back,
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well, a giant bone was discovered in England during excavations conducted by Professor Robert Plot from Oxford University. Before that, any talk of giant creatures was in the realm of myth and imagination. With time, more and more skeletons were found. A
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concentration of dinosaur bones was found in North America, Belgium, Nigeria, China, Montana in the United States there; they found bones of 10 dinosaurs, and from here scientists made dramatic declarations that these creatures lived millions of years ago.
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Also, the dating of the bone age led them to this conclusion and we, as religious people who believe in the Torah and the Sages, have to provide an answer. So we need to explain the world , the age of the world we explained as
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"created in its fullness." What will you explain to me now regarding dinosaurs? So, so, so now we need to examine this. However we resolve this, we are talking about findings of bones, not a small number of bones subject to
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interpretation. You are talking here about hundreds of bones. Some of the bones were completed in an objective way. You found this half of the dinosaur, now you have to complete it in a different color, its other half.
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In some of the museums in the world, what they found they left in the same color. And the parts they completed with artificial symmetry, they put in a different color and tell you, "The green color is what we completed." All
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the white is what we found; we didn't touch it. Now, you cannot deny it; you see giant animals with your own eyes.
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What are you going to do? Around the world, over 900 different species of dinosaurs have been classified to this day. They also found the remains, the dinosaur eggs. They claim the dinosaur skeletons are 65 million years old. I
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ask: If that’s true, if it’s true —where are all the intermediate creatures? All those from three million years ago? They say: "Here are the dinosaurs; according to the research we've done, they're 65 million years old." And we say: "Yes, yes." And where
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is what was there three million years ago? Where are those creatures? They don't produce them. You have to provide me with something; you are talking about chronology here, you must provide me with a chronological order. Have you ever found a bone of an animal that,
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according to your tests, is from three million years ago? A bone that, according to your tests, is 20 million years old? They haven't found any. But they found the dinosaurs. They said it was 65 million years ago, and then
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there's the new era. That's it. It's finished. How does that work? So where did all those 65 million years disappear to? They don't answer that.
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They don't answer that. I’m not even talking about the theory of evolution, where to this day they haven't found remains between man and ape. Darwin, who said that humans came from the ape, no problem. He came from the ape. So we
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have no problem that he came from the ape. But you are a human and you were an ape. Where are all the...all the evolutionary skeletons between man and ape? It’s not like the ape suddenly decided to give birth to a human. Right
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. Do you agree with that? An ape doesn't give birth to a human. So you want to tell me there was development here. To this day, they haven't found a single skeleton that is between an ape and a human. Let alone skeletons, all
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sorts of stages. So this theory has already been proven by scientists today to be nonsense. Let alone the dinosaur.
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How did a dinosaur evolve? Then into birds, then into fish; there are no skeletons of such hybrids. So what animal is the closest to dinosaurs that you can recognize today?
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Lizards and crocodiles. These are the most similar in physical appearance to all the dinosaurs. I’m not talking about what you saw in Jurassic Park. I am talking about the dinosaurs in museums around the world that they dug up. The closest matches are iguanas. An
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iguana is a lizard. So all lizards of all kinds and all crocodiles—now they found the biggest crocodile; they looked for it for such a long time, they found it in California. I think that's where it was. Even assuming that
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we found lizard remains, they are dinosaurs that survived. How is it possible that there is no scientific evidence in skeletons or excavations of any development, any intermediate stage —nothing. So there were those who saw the dinosaur as a reinforcement of
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faith, since our Sages said that the Holy One, blessed be He, would create worlds and destroy them. So, it's like these were from previous worlds before He created this world. Beautiful. I don’t have time to explain this topic
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, so I’ll skip it. What caused the extinction of the dinosaurs in the world? According to the scientists' view. All scientists acknowledge there was some global disaster here that led to their extinction. The dinosaurs were wiped out. So what caused it for them?
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Some say global warming brought about their extinction. Some say the opposite —the Earth cooled down, and these were warm-blooded animals, so they died . Do you see how it’s a theory from one extreme to the other? This one says
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because of the warming. That one says, on the contrary, because of the cooling . Well, some say volcanic eruptions brought about their extinction, because amounts of ash and volcanic gas were emitted that choked them to death. Fine , so tell me one place in the world
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where there is a volcano in England where they found this bone? If you tell me one place that has a volcano, we found the dinosaur graveyard—that would make sense. But they found dinosaurs in other places too, so it’s certainly not that. All of this
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is difficult, why? Because let's assume the extinction was fast: they found fossils in the middle of eating. You understand? That they found a dinosaur with a bird in its mouth. What does that mean? That it died suddenly! It
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didn't...it was something that happened in a panic, something that happened quickly. Therefore, the prevailing opinion among researchers is that there was some meteoric collision of a massive asteroid that caused one of the highest earthquakes on the Richter scale and brought a heavy cloud over
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the Earth for many years. And this cloud blocked the sun's rays, and consequently, there was no photosynthesis for plants, and consequently, the dinosaurs had nothing to eat, and consequently, all the dinosaurs died. That is also, it's charming, but you can't justify it with
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a rapid extinction. Do you understand what I'm saying? That could be a slow extinction, but a rapid extinction is still difficult. There are several giant craters in the world. Does anyone know of a giant crater in the world? In
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Mexico, there is a giant crater. You see that it’s something extraordinary . Some asteroid hit the Earth. All of these, gentlemen, are groundless theories. In short, they are just backed by all kinds of historical facts and the connection of things from their
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false reasoning. And from the perspective of Judaism, we agree with the basic assumption that a worldwide disaster, a global catastrophe, caused it. What is the catastrophe? The global one that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. What global catastrophe is
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there next week in the weekly Torah portion? The Flood. And that is the global catastrophe that wiped out the giant animals called the great dragons that the Torah speaks about. Those who could enter Noah's ark did enter. And all
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those great dragons that were created in the six days of creation, that is, on the fifth day when He created the reptiles, could not enter the ark. And therefore they were wiped out, perhaps from this point on, because there was
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no longer a need for them in the general plan of the world. Only the Re'em (wild ox) was saved by a miracle, as the Midrash says that it didn't enter the ark, but it was outside and it survived. According to this,
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gentlemen, according to this, it is possible that all the scientists ' opinions are correct: the heat killed them from the waters that came up from below, the cold killed them from the waters that came down from above.
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That’s not what the Sages say in Rosh Hashanah 12a: "They sinned with boiling water, so they shall be judged with boiling water"? The cold killed them from the waters above, and heat from the waters below. A volcanic eruption
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is the equivalent of intense heat; a meteor collision led to the extinction of their food source, as described in Tractate Rosh Hashanah 11b: "It is wonderful; because they changed their deeds, the Holy One, blessed be He, changed the work of creation for them,
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bringing up the constellation of Kimah by day and taking two stars from Kimah and bringing a flood upon the world." So, there were changes in the stars, in the alignment of the stars. And perhaps when He took two stars, that was the
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meteor collision, which is what the scientists are trying to say. Either way, an ecological chain reaction came with a tsunami of water, bringing global chaos, opening the floodgates of heaven, and with no food for the dinosaurs, they all went extinct. Did
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you grasp the idea so far? Marvelous. So, according to this, we could also find why they went extinct. I have so much more material on this, and it’s such a shame there’s no time, but it all appears in my book, "Merkavot
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Argaman." You can see it there. There, I was asked if it’s permissible to take children to various museums.
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Because a child might ask questions. If you don’t know how to answer him, you might lose the child’s faith. So perhaps, if you don’t have the answers, prepare yourself with them beforehand. But ultimately, you see that His name be praised forever, there
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are ways to explain it. Also, everything I said is still open to interpretation; it can be refined, debated, countered, or reconciled— that’s not a problem. But the fact that the Torah is truth—is truth. Now , go deal with the findings. Gentlemen,
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there is much more to talk about regarding this issue on other occasions . At least we tried to cover what we could in the limited time available to us. Whoever wants my books—the full collection, all types, is with Aaron
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outside, including a USB drive with all the Torah lectures. May we rejoice and be glad with the final redemption, speedily and in our days, and let us say Amen.
Topics:Rabbi Meir EliyahuTorahBereishitCreationDinosaursScience and ReligionJewish TraditionCarbon-14 DatingBig BangMidrash
