How Does the Beetle Bombard? 5 Points to Ponder

"The Cockpit" of the Bird

Have you ever seen the cockpit of an airplane? All the switches, dials, handles, and control systems—it's a highly technological cabin with countless gauges and displays, buttons and levers, all of which the pilot needs to know by heart. In addition, there is a need for a control tower to give instructions to the pilot, and overall, it takes years to learn how to operate and fly a plane...

Can you imagine all this is contained in a tiny part of a bird's brain, enabling it to navigate and migrate over long distances?

(Photo: shutterstock)

This is certainly a wonderful natural phenomenon that only the Creator of the World can create. Only He can give such amazing abilities and mysterious wisdom to small creatures like birds, to cover vast distances without getting lost, just to live and survive...

So next time someone mockingly says to you "bird brain," say thank you!...

Where Did the Beetle Study Chemistry?

Tigers and bears are universally considered frightening animals. Even in the insect world, there are plenty of intimidating representatives: wasps, dragonflies, even cockroaches. But beetles? What's there to fear from an innocent beetle?

Well, meet the Bombardier Beetle (Bombardier Beetle).

This small beetle, less than a centimeter in size, has a unique explosive device—when attacked by an enemy, it launches a controlled explosion against it. At the rear of its body are two tubes, and when threatened, jets of boiling and foul-smelling liquid shoot out, striking the enemy and paralyzing it. This defense mechanism is accompanied by a characteristic popping sound, which earned the beetle its name.

How does the mechanism work?

The beetle's body has glands that produce two different substances—one containing 10% hydroquinone and the other containing 23% hydrogen peroxide. When these two materials are mixed in a laboratory, an explosion occurs immediately. Surprisingly, in the beetle's body, these two substances are secreted into a "storage chamber" where they remain peacefully without exploding and destroying the beetle. It turns out that a third substance exists in this "chamber," which inhibits and prevents the explosion.

When an enemy appears and attacks, the storage chamber opens and the explosive mixture flows into the explosion cells. There, a special enzyme is released, disabling the inhibitor's action, and then the explosion occurs: a loud bang is heard, and two jets of foul and boiling liquid shoot directly at the stunned enemy, leaving it temporarily paralyzed while the beetle calmly continues on its way as if nothing happened...

Who designed the layout of the lab rooms, storage chambers, and explosion cells in the right and intelligent order? Who built the explosion cells to withstand the necessary pressure without blowing up themselves, when the beetle fires its load at its foes?

Who is the chemist who prepared the exact formulas for producing hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide? Who is the chemist who prepared the recipe for producing the explosion inhibitor and the enzyme that neutralizes the inhibitor? Who determined the precise amount needed for the mixture of different substances?

How does the beetle know how to perform the explosion accurately and controlledly, so it's not too strong—not to blow up the beetle itself, and not too weak—to allow the jet to burst out with enough force? And how is it that the beetle bombards but is not harmed by the blast or the force of the explosion?

Who Said the Torah Isn't a Human Invention?

For the sake of argument, let's assume the Torah is a human invention.

Suppose a person, or a group of very wise people who studied science before there were tools to do so, decided to write a wise book and make everyone follow it. After writing the book, these people would need to persuade as many people as possible that this is their Torah to reach the state we have reached today. But here, they would have to face very serious problems...

One of the problems they would have to resolve is the persuasion to observe the commandments.

Let's assume someone was tempted because he saw they were giving away a book for free... They told him how good his life would be with this book and how meaningful it would be, and so on... He agreed to have the book and kept it at his home. How will they now convince him to get up every day in the morning and put on tefillin? How will they make him stop working, his livelihood, and keep Shabbat? Who would agree to perform an unnecessary surgery on his small son on one of the most sensitive organs of the human body at only eight days old? Who would agree to be told whom to marry, which foods he will not be allowed to eat, and how he should behave in family purity matters? How would anyone agree to observe commandments that so limit a person? People aren't foolish enough to enter all this willingly without knowing for sure it's the truth.

(Photo: shutterstock)

After we see how our people kept their Judaism meticulously for thousands of years, kept the commandments and holidays, and passed them from father to son; how, during 2000 years of exile, all the Jews, who were separated from each other, each within a different nation at different ends of the world, kept the same commandments and studied the same Talmuds, read and taught their sons from the same Torah scroll, donned the same tefillin, and celebrated the same holidays; how the Jewish people live miraculously against all odds, without an army and without any self-defense capability, unlike all the nations and empires that existed and collapsed before them; how we Jews are known to all and always make headlines, despite our negligible percentage in the world's population—after seeing all this, there is no doubt that the Torah indeed was given by the Creator, and all that is written in it is indeed true!

If we look closely, we conclude that only a significant and monumental event—like a divine revelation to an entire nation—could penetrate the hearts of an entire people and make them agree and accept upon themselves the observance of 613 commandments, which so restrict a person. After all, without such a significant and powerful event, no nation would be willing to accept so many restrictions on itself, and rightfully so...

A Dot at the End of a Sentence

Do you see this dot?.

Did you know that we were all once a small cell the size of the dot at the end of a sentence? Subsequently, this single cell doubles itself and divides into two cells, where each cell doubles and creates another cell and so forth.

How does this cell know how to build a body with trillions of cells, thousands of different types of cells, each with a nano-chemical mechanism whose operation is too complex to understand, encoded with instructions on how to build and operate every part of this marvelous body?!

Our entire body is made up of cells, and each cell functions as a tiny city. When we consider that the human body is made of trillions of cells functioning as one unit, we should feel awe and admiration before the Creator's attention to detail and His perfect wisdom.

Observation of the biological process reveals a precise plan that enables life. There is genius in every cell, every tissue, every organ, and every action of the living organism. Our body is a marvelous system testifying to the existence of a plan and intent in creation, as it is said "and from my flesh, I see G-d" (Job 19:26).

Placing a Mezuzah Without the Mezuzah

I have a friend who, unfortunately, denies the Torah and the Creator of the World. Sometimes events with him reach unimaginable extremes.

This week he moved to a new house, and in this context, I asked him if I could give him a mezuzah as a gift for the new house.

He said no. I asked him why. He explained that his partner (they are not married) inquired if it was possible to write the mezuzah on regular paper instead of parchment made from animal skin—because she is vegan and opposes the killing of animals. She was told it is not possible. In response, they (she) decided not to place a mezuzah in the house.

I was shocked by what he told me. I said to him: "It’s not an ‘as-you-wish’ program; the Creator of the World is the one who decides how the mezuzah should be, and that's how He commanded us." He replied: "You say G-d says this, did you see Him say it? No! So enough with your nonsense!"

(Photo: shutterstock)

And then he added another ridiculous detail: they will only install the "mezuzah case" (without the mezuzah) at the entrance of the apartment and not in every room of the house. I asked him: "What's the logic? Without a mezuzah, there's no meaning to the mezuzah case!" So he told me that he would use the "mezuzah case" because his mother forces him to put a "mezuzah case," and not to be different and unusual among the people in the place where he lives.

Sadly for his response and the enormous missed opportunity of my interlocutor, I wondered to myself: why does his partner vehemently oppose bringing a mezuzah made of animal skin into her home, yet at the same time she agrees to live with him in the same house, even though he himself eats meat frequently?

In observing Torah and mitzvot, we cannot just do whatever seems right to us. The Creator of the World, who is responsible for every breath we take, for every heartbeat, knows what is good for us, even if in our limited intellect we do not understand it.