Community Magazine June 2016

Making History The following is the translation of an article written by Guggenheim, in which the scientist describes how the experiment was performed: “When I saw the verse in Exodus: ‘And all the people saw the sounds...’ I asked myself just how it could be possible. What did the People of Israel actually see at Mount Sinai? Upon seeing Rashi’s commentary, who explains ‘They saw the audible’, I knew it had to be possible to convert sound waves into an image. The first idea was to find the relationship between the audible frequencies (20 Hz-20 kHz) and the much higher, visible frequencies of color detected by the human eye, at wavelengths from 0.35 micron (violet) to 0.75 micron (red), which encompass all the colors of the spectrum. According to the Kli Yakar, a vital commentator on the Torah, Gd’s words were grasped as visible letters of the alphabet. Therefore, I knew our conversion must retain the letters’ graphic forms, such as the round shape of the fifteenth letter ‘samech’. In addition, for the experiment to succeed, the shapes of the letters must appear as images when spoken. This means that they must appear from right to left, as in Hebrew. Thus the graphic timeline must also flow from right to left as the letters appear on the computer monitor. Through a microphone, sounds are expressed as changes in electrical current or voltage along a timeline. Out of the twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet, I produced images for seventeen letters. I must emphasize that the images were created directly from speech, through the use of a fixed mathematical conversion and the correct method of display. To make it possible for anyone to do this experiment and see this amazing phenomenon for themselves, I have produced a CD with the appropriate software. All the seventeen findings are presented on the CD with explanations and the software that makes it possible to repeat the experiment.” Another scientist who has made a very similar discovery is Chaim Ben-Harav-Chai Elbeze, a physicist who works as an engineer at Israel’s aircraft industry. In 1997, he used software called Gram X to display visually the pronunciation of the Hebrew letters. His amazing findings are displayed in the sidebar on right. The Revelation of Gd At Mount Sinai, the People of Israel saw mighty revelations. They saw into the distance, to that which lies beyond the immediate senses. They saw the spiritual with the certainty of seeing the material. They saw the ineffable as tangibly real. This means that when the Torah was given on Mount Sinai, the curtain that normally conceals nature was swept away and they witnessed the essential Name of Gd. It is this very eyewitness account that we, as Jewish People, recall every year on the approaching Holiday of Shavuot. It is an account that has withstood the test of time, infusing us with unwavering belief in the Almighty. Perhaps by enhancing our understanding of what took place on the awesome day of Matan Torah , we can better ready ourselves to once again receive our beloved Torah this year on Shavuot. This article was based on an article written by Rabbi Zamir Cohen that appeared in his book, “The Coming Revolution”. COMPUTER GENERATED IMAGES OF HEBREW AND ENGLISH LETTERS, USING THE GRAM.X PROGRAM Notice the remarkable similarity of sound image in the Hebrew letters. Ayin Lamed Tet English letters Sadik IYAR - SIVAN 5776 JUNE 2016 49