Stuck in Traffic? Use the Time to Think Differently! 5 Points for Thought

How to Learn a Language... from a One-Year-Old!

Recently, while visiting the playground with my little daughter, there was a father of Chinese origin who approached his daughter and began to talk to her: "Kaching Chinchin Huaaa..." - the father spoke to her in Chinese! I was amazed to see a three-year-old girl having a fluent conversation with her father in one of the most complex languages, naturally and easily.

I suddenly realized that we take it for granted that our young children learn a language and have fluent conversations with us by the age of two or three! If you think about it, acquiring a language at age two is an incredible phenomenon. In general, learning a new language is not a simple task: you have to repeat words until you learn to pronounce them correctly, and sometimes it's difficult and confusing. You need to put words together into sentences and understand syntactic structures and grammatical rules...

An adult, as intelligent as they may be, will have difficulty mastering a new language perfectly as their native tongue. Nonetheless, astonishingly, two-year-old toddlers can do this in any language, even the most complex, quickly and efficiently. At six months, they can learn the sounds that make up words in Hebrew. By age three, toddlers can converse with parents, friends, and strangers.

How can this be? It defies logic!

Small children have an amazing, fleeting talent: the ability to master a language quickly. Most babies absorb languages without help or instructions, thanks to a special mechanism located in the brain of each of us, and also through learning and imitation of their immediate environment.

Even after many years of research on child development, their ability to move from random babbling to words and full sentences within a few years is still astonishing, a proficiency acquired more quickly than any other complex skill throughout life.

In the latter half of the first year of life, a 'mysterious door' opens in the child’s brain: they enter a 'sensitive period,' as brain researchers call it, during which the young brain is miraculously ready to absorb language.

To learn to speak, babies need to know which phonemes create the words they hear around them. This task requires an incredible ability to recognize subtle differences in spoken sounds to learn to speak their native language.

Who is responsible for creating this marvelous mechanism responsible for absorbing language, as difficult as it may be, in babies? Why can't educated adults quickly, easily, and efficiently learn a new language like a two-year-old toddler?

Where's the Logic?

Some think the Torah was written by a human.

Let’s assume... But there’s something unclear to me: anyone who examines the Torah will discover that about 80% of the Torah's commandments are not understood by human intellect, and one could even say they are contrary to human logic.

Now, let’s assume there was once a charlatan, who, out of a desire for control, stood and forged a book, falsely claiming that the Creator of the world gave him the book (like Muhammad and thousands of others). Surely you would agree with me that the first thing he would do is not write too many laws in the book he wrote: "Why bother the entire nation with 613 laws? They’ll hate me! I’ll give them 5-10 laws, and that’s enough!"...

Moreover, he would ensure that those 5-10 laws that he invented were logical, laws needed by a proper society, laws everyone understands and can identify with, like "do not murder" and "do not steal," so people will listen to him.

Therefore, it is unclear to me what sane and intelligent person would invent 613 laws and restrictions, most of which are contrary to human intellect and cause great resistance among people? What person would invent a commandment to scrub the house on a specific date each year, ensuring there is not a crumb of bread for a week, and if there is, you’ll be punished! Surely everyone would react: "Buddy, there’s an asylum across the street!... How did this crazy law occur to you?".

Who would invent a commandment to slaughter a lamb on the altar and splash its blood? No one would understand the logic in that! They would say, "Isn’t it a waste of money? And what did the lamb do to deserve this?". What person would invent the duty to take four species of plants (the 'four species') and shake them in four directions? Or – to tie leather straps to their arm (tefillin)? And so on. What would everyone say if they heard of these laws? – "The guy has lost his mind!"...

There are many more such examples.

Anyone sensible understands that no person would invent these things, because there’s nothing to gain, only to lose, and as long as he lives, people would revolt against him!

If we reflect, we come to the conclusion that only a great and significant event – like a divine revelation to an entire nation – could cause an entire nation to agree and take upon themselves many obligations that defy human logic, such as performing a *brit milah* on an eight-day-old baby, who to marry, what to eat and not to eat, Shabbat observance, and family purity. For without such a great, significant, and powerful event that touched the hearts of an entire nation, no nation would be willing to accept so many restrictions, and for good reason...

Incidentally, the argument is well demonstrated in Islam and Christianity, proving that humans invented these religions and not the Creator of the world. In Christianity, there are no commandments. Believe in your heart – and you have earned the afterlife. In the Quran, there are only five 'commandments,' all of which are logical and acceptable to human reasoning (the commandments of *Shahada* - belief in one God and Muhammad as his messenger, prayer, charity, Ramadan fasting, and pilgrimage to Mecca – the Hajj).

"Traffic Jams" on the Way to Work

This morning, on my way to work toward Givat Shaul in Jerusalem, I stood in traffic for many long minutes, while on the opposite road, countless vehicles passed by, car after car....

Seemingly a mundane morning picture, but while I stood in the traffic jam, I observed the fast movement on the opposite lane and suddenly thought to myself: Blessed be His name forever! How many people had the merit to get up in the morning! How many people see, hear and move their limbs to operate the car... So many merited to have a car and are not traveling by bus or walking in the heat... So many have been blessed with a livelihood, a workplace... I was happy to see that countless drivers have a reason to wake up in the morning!

Friends, our vision often focuses only on what is missing and what isn’t there. We have become accustomed to seeing the negative side in every matter, to the point that we don’t notice the positive side at all, and thus, we dwell constantly in great sadness.

Undoubtedly, standing in a traffic jam is an unpleasant experience, but why do we only see what is missing? We must learn to find the good in every situation. This is exactly the work of Hashem – in every situation that seems apparently bad, we must reflect on how much kindness Hashem does with us - in that very situation!

What can I say, after such important reflections in the morning, who remembers the traffic jam I was in? :-)

A 15-cm³ Cube

If an engineer were asked to create a device similar to an ear, he would have to compress into a cube with a volume of about 15 cm³ an auditory system including an impedance match, a wide-range mechanical transducer, a mobile amplification and transmission unit, a multi-channel transducer for converting mechanical energy into electrical energy, a system for maintaining a refined hydraulic balance, and a two-way internal communication system.

Even if our engineer succeeded in performing this miracle of miniaturization, he would still be far from the remarkable performances of the ear.

The ear can be adjusted to hear at one end of its range the low wailing of a foghorn and at the other end the piercing shrill of a jet engine.

It can make the fine distinction between the melodies emanating from the harps and violins of a symphony orchestra.

It can ignore all the hubbub of a cocktail party and focus only on one familiar voice.

Even during sleep, the ear can function with incredible efficiency: since the brain is capable of interpreting and sorting signals transmitted to it by the ear, a person can sleep well amid the noise of a busy street and the sharp sounds emanating from the neighbor's television but leap out of bed at the slightest ring of an alarm clock.

The ear, an engineering masterpiece! Of all the body’s organs, only a few can compare to the ear’s remarkable performances within such a small space... Undoubtedly, the grandeur of the creation speaks to the greatness of the Creator - Blessed be His name forever!

"A 3-Million-Year-Old Skeleton Found..."

Date methodologies for fossil layers, rocks, and skeletons are presented in schools and textbooks as fact. For example, encyclopedias, articles, and science programs state, "Dinosaurs lived 65 million years ago," or "A 3-million-year-old skeleton was found!"

The public, of course, believes them blindly.

Few ask themselves: One moment, how can scientists actually know the age of a skeleton or rock found in the ground? Were they there and counted the years? Can you see a difference between an old rock and a young rock? Is there a date written on every stone?...

Now we will explain how scientists determine the age of a rock or fossil. It begins with factual science and continues into pseudo-science.

Rocks and fossils contain varying amounts of radioactive materials, and scientists observe the rate of decay of these radioactive materials in the present – so far, this is fact. But from this point onward, the "scientists" engage in a guessing game.

The "scientist" finds a certain amount of carbon-14 in the fossil, estimates how much carbon-14 was initially present, and based on the current decay rate of the carbon in the present, the scientist concludes that the fossil is millions of years old!

The most serious error of the "scientists" is, when dating according to this method to ages of tens of thousands of years. In such cases, it can be known for certain that it is not science but imagination. While the method (carbon-14) is more or less accurate for dating a few thousand years, it is not accurate at all for high ages of tens of thousands of years (the half-life of carbon-14 is about 5,000 years, and even that is not certain).

Another mistake is dating millions of years using statistical methods for dating ancient times – extrapolation – a technique for predicting the age of the world, whose foundation is in error, undermining the entire measurement process.

To what is this similar? To the development process of a child: It is found that a child in their early years grows on average at a rate of 12.5 centimeters per year. Is it logical to assume that by age 40 the child will reach the height of a giraffe? Of course not, because the growth rate of living beings changes.                              

So how exactly can "scientists" determine the age of a tree when they don't know at what rate the tree's rings grew? Maybe in its youth, rings grew quickly, and in old age slowly? Has it never occurred to them to think about this?

The dating methods they use are based on theories and assumptions, not on proven facts.

In essence, the "scientists" merely estimate the ages of rocks and fossils based on the rate of processes occurring in the present. To do so, they must estimate the initial amount of materials, assume that the rate of processes was always uniform as in the present, and additionally – believe that no process has altered the decay rate of those materials to this day.

We have no idea what exact processes operated in the past, how they operated, or how long they operated. Therefore, we have no way to determine ages with certainty based on the decay rate of materials today or according to various "scientific" guesses...