by Dr. David Fialk, Editor / Publisher

Unlike bees, we cannot see ultraviolet light, nor echo-locate like bats, nor smell scents like a dog. The reliability of our perception is a problem that has plagued the greatest scientists and philosophers (Newton, Hume, Chomsky...). Given our imperfect senses, our picture of the world is necessarily imperfect. We make "sense" of it all the best we can.

So too with our conception, with the way we think. Given our limited ability to conceive, our understanding of our experience is imperfect. It is astounding, for example, that our brains can fathom higher mathematics, when such capacity would have conferred no survival advantage to our ancient ancestors on the African savannah.

Here we are not speaking of incorrect knowledge, of mistaken ideas that can be corrected. Nor are we talking about incomplete knowledge that might one day be filled in. The most basic things cannot be known, material reality, for instance. Most of us adhere to the dictum, "We must know. We will know." But Galileo and Newton were both tortured by the realization that nature would forever remain mysterious.

Like the denizens of Plato's Cave, we perceive, at best, only the outline of things. We have only the most general representations of what is going on.

Art, poetry and religion, at their best, point to truth that is beyond our ability to understand. They are not the thing in itself, but resonate "the thing" as it is inside of us.

Two thousand years ago, a gentile approached Rabbi Hillel and mockingly asked him to explain the whole Torah (the Jewish religion) while standing on one foot. Hillel replied, "What is hateful unto you, do not do unto others. The rest is commentary. Go learn." So imbued are we in Judeo-Christian values that we take this Golden Rule for granted. But, it changed the Roman Empire; and its communal message might just save Western society from the forces of intolerance trying to destroy it.

The Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, just came and went. Besides the obligatory feasting, the traditional observation of the holiday involves three aspects: Rulership, Remembrance and Shofar, the sounding of the ram's horn.

Rulership implies that there are rules. The world is not the result of random chance, the happenstance of blind, chaotic errors. There is purpose, order and meaning. That people who believe in purpose and meaning live healthier, longer lives, could be taken as proof of the efficacy of prayer.

Mathematically, this world could not have randomly come into being. That is, unless there is a Multiverse, a nearly infinite number of other universes in each of which there is nothing but hydrogen. Twenty-six distinct cosmic forces, must all be exquisitely, unbelievably fine-tuned, as they are, to allow for any complex material reality to even exist. And that's not taking into account the intricate factors specifically necessary for life.

Remembrance, the second principle of the Jewish New Year, refers to the fact that the Cosmic Mind (yes, scientists are finally conceding that there is a cosmic mind force - see panpsychism) is concerned with how we behave. It is paying attention to us, remembering us. Ethical systems around the world are the result of religion. Charity, justice, tolerance, community, to the extent that they do exist, exist due to transcendental ideals first embodied in religion.

Remembrance affirms that there are positive results from behaving in accordance with the rules of existence; goodness is its own reward. The greatest detractors of religion admit that the much-maligned institution has positive social benefits, for example, in its emphasis on family. A sense of community and belonging also leads to healthier, longer lives.

I remember a conversation I had with Anado over my famous miso soup, during which he asserted, "We don't need religion," while stirring another dollop of miso into his bowl. "You qqq don't need religion," I countered, "Without religion people would be eating each other." Secular humanism, society itself, is founded on religious values.

Rulership is the rules (of physics, biology, psychology, music...). These are the beautiful, benevolent underpinnings of our experience, the way that Cosmic Order projects into the world. Remembrance is our acknowledgement of this order, our reflecting it, primarily through respecting ourselves and tolerating others.

Shofar, the sounding of the ram's horn, the third main principle of the Jewish New Year, is communication. Beyond and before words, the shofar's call is the cry of the soul: a sob, a sigh, a blast of triumph.

While the Hindu Om is behind creation, the sound of the shofar reverberates within creation. The sound of God's shofar comes down from heaven, as it did at Sinai, and we respond, on Rosh Hashanah, with the not unimpressive sounds emitted from our hollowed-out ram's horn.

With our own imperfect understanding, we resonate. We reflect, as best we can. We affirm, as do both the physicists and the rabbis, the perfection, the sometimes too inhuman perfection, that is the basis of the universe. It's a good way to start another year, a qqq new year.

Happy New Year.

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