The Scientist Who Discovered 'Divine Physics': 'It Shook Me and Brought Me Back to Faith'

It was in an advanced neuroscience course at one of the most prestigious private universities in California, USA. Yonatan Bentovaish participated as part of his doctoral studies, and the lecturer chose to open the class with several striking statements: "Once we thought there was something called a 'soul', but today we know there isn't," she told her students. "Once we thought there were thoughts and emotions, but today we know there aren't." Silence filled the classroom as she concluded: "So what exists? Only electrical and chemical activity in the brain."

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Although Bentovaish was at the beginning of his doctoral journey, and the esteemed lecturer had long achieved professorship, he couldn't tolerate it. "I stood up and argued that even without discussing the soul, people undeniably have thoughts, emotions, and desires. This was felt not just in the past but still today, and not everything is material," he says. To him, the lecturer was not particularly impressed, but Bentovaish already knew personally that he would research and try to understand how our brains truly function and the place of the higher power in this composition.

The Proof: There Is a Higher Power

When Bentovaish talks about himself, he wants to return to his childhood years: "I grew up in a traditional home, in a family that always valued education and science, and it is not by chance. My family, with all its roots, is well-known in these fields. My great-grandfather is the famous doctor Hillel Yaffe, after whom the medical center is named, and my grandfather on the other side is Yosef Bentwich, who was the principal of the Reali School in Haifa and won the Israel Prize for Life's Work in education. His sister, Telma Yelin, was one of the well-known musicians in the country. My father, Professor Zvi Bentwich, is a senior internal medicine doctor, and my late mother was a dietitian who treated many people."

Still, Bentovaish notes that certain things in his home connected him to Torah and tradition, like attending the Shabbat welcoming prayer at Grandpa Yosef's. He still nostalgically recalls his grandfather's voice singing "Lecha Dodi" and the family Shabbat meals. Incidentally, his great-grandfather, the father of Grandpa Yosef, Tzvi Herbert Bentovish, was a proud Torah-observant Jew who lived in London before immigrating to Israel in his last days, and he was likely a descendant of the holy Baal Shem Tov.

As a child, Bentovaish lived in a wide variety of neighborhoods and places, some in Israel and some abroad, but spent most of his childhood in the city of Rehovot, where he also studied during his school years. "I enlisted in the army and was an armored corps officer," he says, "I later studied behavioral sciences in an honors program in Beersheba, focusing mainly on psychology and brain research. Afterwards, I went to the USA for doctoral studies at one of the top ten private universities in the USA, and I conducted my postdoctoral research at one of the leading research institutes in New York, where six Nobel laureates studied. In my work, I focused on fields that have always accompanied me—the research side of psychology and the brain."

Simultaneously, he also engaged in the particularly fascinating field of theoretical physics, which emerged precisely from his deep research in neuroscience—a theory known as 'Divine Physics', currently revolutionizing science. Some claim it's on the scale of Einstein's relativity revolution from a hundred years ago.

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What does that mean?

Bentovaish tries to simplify the idea: "In my neuroscience studies, I discovered the 'Principle of Duality', which indicates that the brain doesn't operate purely materially, as the older scientific viewpoint assumed, which held that everything happening in the world was due to random material causes and effects. For instance, under that old perspective, it was common to argue that 'a person is depressed because a chemical is missing in their brain.' Meaning, the reason someone is depressed is solely due to material and environmental causes in their brain, without leaving room for the spirit, soul, and higher factors. While working on my postdoc, I proved there's no randomness here, and the brain doesn't operate on a purely material cause-and-effect basis. If we take depression, for instance, it's not that a person is depressed because a certain chemical is missing in their brain; rather, it stems from experiencing something within the soul or needing a correction in thinking."

How do you prove such a thing?

"There's a known phenomenon in neuroscience when researchers investigate 'psychophysical' laws, questioning the relationship between the stimulus's intensity that stimulates the brain and the way it impacts you so that you notice the change. For example, they investigate the stimulus intensity needed for someone entering a dark room to notice the light turning on. Researchers examine the relationship between physical stimuli and the brain's perception processing.

"I managed to show that according to psychophysical laws, the brain does not function purely through internal cause-and-effect, but there's something additional outside the brain—the soul, the spiritual part. Of course, this explanation is very deep and well-founded, which I elaborate on during my professional lectures for hours. It will also be published in the 'Divine Physics' book I wrote, printed in thousands of copies worldwide, and will soon be published in Hebrew in Israel."

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The things sound very theoretical. Can you simplify them for us?

"Sure. I'll give you an example I wrote in the book: Let's try to imagine an alien arrives on Earth without any understanding of how things work here. It enters a car and sees it driving but doesn't see the driver. Therefore, when attempting to understand how the car operates, it believes the key is what's doing the work. We know this is a fundamental error, as what controls the car is the driver, whom the alien, for some reason, cannot see, not the key. This is exactly what's happening in our contemporary research, assuming the brain operates randomly via external stimuli and material activity, while, in truth, the soul guided by a higher power controls the brain."

But why is it important for you to prove that things operate differently? Why is it significant scientifically?

"The problem with the old scientific approach is mainly that it assumes the entire world operates through random cause-and-effect: for example, the old scientific perception assumes the whole world was created by a random big bang. But if everything operates only through random material causes and effects, including the operation of the human brain, what ability do we, as humans, have to choose good? According to this old scientific view, we seemingly have no ability to choose or control our decisions and actions, since all our actions and decisions are ostensibly managed solely by chemical actions in the brain."

Bentovaish emphasizes that according to the new scientific perception of "Divine Physics", both the whole world and the human brain are managed by the same supreme oversight, and thus, the entire world is led by the same moral, good supreme oversight towards a repaired, improved state, and we, as humans, have the ability to choose good and live lives of meaning and moral choice.

A Discovery in the Tanya Book

As a result of the extensive engagement around the topic of the higher power and its influence on humans, Bentovaish felt that his personal life was beginning to change as well. "On one Shabbat," he recounts, "shortly after our second son was born, we were guests at a Chabad emissary's home in the New York area where we lived and an in-depth conversation developed around the table, where I spoke about my research and discoveries.

"Unlike many people who don’t delve deeply into matters, the emissary surprised me by grasping every calculation and explanation, eventually pointing out things that supported these groundbreaking discoveries of 'Divine Physics'. When I wondered about his extensive knowledge, he told me: 'Everything you speak of in 'Divine Physics' is written in the holy Tanya.' Afterwards, he seated me next to him and showed me passages in Tanya that truly impressed me and completed the details that I missed in all my scientific research. At that moment, I was struck by a life-changing wonder: 'How is it possible that righteous men like the Baal Shem Tov and the author of the Tanya understand these deep matters much earlier than the sophisticated science of today? It seems there is eternal wisdom and truth in the holy Torah and Hasidism'. If so, I realized I needed to learn and delve into Judaism and Hasidism deeper and discovered vast treasures through regular study of the holy Tanya book. This led me closer to Chabad Hasidism and Torah observance."

That was the great turning point in his life, leading him to become one of the world's leading scientists in neuroscience and theoretical physics, yet he is also a Chabad Hasid, residing in Kfar Chabad, and finds a wondrous similarity between his groundbreaking scientific discoveries of 'Divine Physics', considered the new scientific perception of this century, and the eternal truth revealed in Hasidism and Judaism.

To date, Bentovaish has published over a hundred articles on 'Divine Physics', and he is invited to open international scientific conferences where he lectures on the new Divine Physics. At the end of the coming month, he is expected to deliver the opening lecture at the sixth International Conference on Astronomy, Astrophysics, and Space Science to be held in Budapest, Hungary.

"The theory of Divine Physics has, for the first time in science, managed to unify relativity theory with quantum mechanics, and the four basic elements of time, space, mass, and energy," he says, "Additionally, it presented a model of a new, rectified world governed by the highest principle, which is Hashem."

Does it not challenge you that there are parts of science that seem to conflict with Judaism?

"It doesn't challenge me, rather the opposite. When I encounter topics that seemingly present such a conflict, I often discover that one can delve deeper and deeper into that specific subject to reveal the eternal truth of the Torah, which ultimately also illuminates the eyes of science. For me, being a God-fearing scientist is a great privilege. I have the privilege of leading the Divine Physics revolution, whose revelations provide deep hope and meaning to our lives as humans and Jews."

Bentovaish believes the revolution brought about by Divine Physics is very significant and relevant to all of humanity, and therefore his aspiration is to spread it worldwide, as he indeed achieves, including to non-Jews. "It is told of the Baal Shem Tov that he had a 'soul ascension', rising until he reached the 'Chamber of the Messiah', where he asked the Messiah: 'When is my Lord coming?', and he was told: 'When your wellsprings will spread outside.' This means, when the inner essence of the Torah is revealed and influences all of Israel and even reaches the nations, the world will be illuminated with the light of redemption. This is part of my life's mission; may I succeed in fulfilling it."