Community Magazine May 2013

In the article attached to the headline, Vladimir Chertkov, one of the most important journalists at Pravda, described in vivid detail his visit to the climate laboratory at the famous Moscow Agricultural Academy, Timiriazev. Among other things, he recalled a sheaf of wheat crying out in terror as its roots were boiled in steaming water. A highly sensitive electronic meter, similar to an EKG utilized for measuring human heartbeats, registered each and every cry of the plant, as red ink jumped across rolls of white paper. Chertkov also described Russian experiments suggesting that plants could comprehend signs sent to them from their environment and were able to offer signs of their own to the world around in return. These were incredible discoveries, marvels of the world of modern science aided by highly sensitive, delicate electronic devices. But now I want to ask a question. Before the invention of electricity and highly complex sensory equipment, could it have been possible for someone to have known this amazing secret of nature – to say with complete confidence that plants experience feelings and pain that force them to cry out in tiny unheard voices? About 1,500 years ago, when the Oral Torah was being transcribed, the following teaching was recorded in the midrashic text, Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer (Chapter 34): “When a tree is felled, its voice travels from one end of the earth to the other, though it is not heard.” How could these teachers of Torah have known a secret of nature that was only recently discovered by means of complex electronic devices? Throughout its history, the Jewish people have always known the answer: The One who created the world knows the mysteries and secrets of creation, and every detail He deemed appropriate to reveal in the Written or Oral Torah has been preserved and passed on by the sages from generation to generation. Let us suggest that despite their many advances, scientific discoveries are still in their “infancy.” The electronic devices that exist today are primitive when compared to the Torah’s understanding. Modern-day equipment does not have the ability to measure the distance that the voice of a chopped tree can travel. Yet, the Creator of the world revealed it to us: The voice of the tree travels around the entire globe. (Let me state the obvious here: The pain and suffering of plants is not exactly like that of other living creatures. Rather, what was discovered were particular frequencies which are similar in form to emotional responses. For this reason, we don’t find a Torah prohibition against causing plants suffering, as we do regarding other living creatures.) Can Plants Perceive? Another important section fromThe Secret Life of Plants describes how the incredible world of plants was discovered “accidentally” in another part of the world – this time in the United States. In 1966, Cleve Backster, an American expert in the use of polygraphs (lie detector machines), decided to attach a polygraph machine to a plant in his office as he watered it. To his utter amazement, the needle on the polygraph jumped in a manner similar to a person who had become mildly excited. The slightly dismayed expert wanted to check if he would be able to create stronger reaction and he decided to burn the plant. Before he could even say a word about his plan, let alone put it into action, the needle of the polygraph shot up dramatically. The plant was behaving just like a person being tested and exhibiting a strong emotional response. Apparently, the plant was able to perceive the approaching danger more than if it could if it had human eyes. This was only the beginning. The American expert dropped all his other pursuits and dedicated himself to experiments concerning plants and their stunning mysteries. “I soon discovered that plants can see better without eyes, and sense better without a nervous system,” he said. Backster then formulated a “blind” test, devoid of all human intervention, in order to exclude the possibility that the experimenter was somehow influencing the polygraph needle. He assembled a special device that randomly spilled the contents of various containers into a pot of boiling water every few minutes. Some of the containers held water, the others goldfish. Three types of philodendron were placed alone in a room with these containers and connected to a galvanometer, a device used for measuring weak electric signals. The results of this experiment were startling. Each time the fish were poured into the pot of boiling water, all the plants responded as if in great distress. This discovery created a stir in the scientific world and resulted in worldwide recognition for Backster. Thousands of scientists requested printed results of his work, and researchers throughout America began to speculate about potential uses of his findings. This brings us to a teaching from the sages, which describes how one of our great rabbis understood plants’ ability to perceive, and reveals his deep understanding of plants’ emotional intelligence: There once was a date tree that stood in the village of Hammatan that never produced fruit. People tried grafting [other date shoots] onto it, but still there was no fruit. Rabbi Tanhuma Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858-1937) - J.C. Bose was a Bengali polymath: a physicist, biologist, botanist, archeologist, as well as a writer. He pioneered the investigation of radio and microwave optics, and made very significant contributions to plant science. By the end of the 19th century, Bose had been studying the plant responses to various stimuli in their environment. Bose dedicated himself to investigating his findings, revealing that many plants and vegetables expressed sensations in ways that were measurable by science. Crescograph - Bose used his own invention, the crescograph, to measure plant response to various stimuli, and thereby scientifically proved that plants responded as if they had nervous systems like that of animals. 48 Community magazine