Other Worlds in Torah, Hashgachah Pratis, and Hilchos Tekias Shofar

Topics

• Other Worlds and the Torah
• “Those Who Are Not Here Today”
• Meroz: A Man or a Star?
• Why I Said It
• Kayin and the Hidden Regions
• How Long Should a Tekiah Be?
• Practical Measurements of the Tekios
• If the Shevarim-Teruah Is Longer
• What About Tekiah Gedolah?
• The Halachah People Often Miss: Teruah Gedolah

Transcript

## Other Worlds and the Torah

I want to add something to what we discussed on Shabbos. The subject sounds unusual—other worlds and other forms of life—but I did not raise it merely for entertainment. It came up because of the pasuk in the bris:

**“Es asher yeshno po imanu omeid hayom lifnei Hashem Elokeinu, v’es asher einenu po imanu hayom”**—“with those who are standing here with us today before Hashem our God, and with those who are not here with us today” (Devarim 29:14).

The broader question is whether the existence of other beings elsewhere in creation would contradict anything fundamental in Yahadus.

I do not think the question can be dismissed so quickly.

The fact that Klal Yisrael is the **am hanivchar** in our world does not automatically answer every philosophical question about what Hashem may have created elsewhere. One would have to define what *am hanivchar* means and what role our world occupies within the totality of creation.

The Zohar in Bereishis contains passages describing multiple *aratzos* or worlds, with beings that possess recognition of the Ribbono Shel Olam. The language is striking. Rabbi Yosi and Rabbi Chiya are described as encountering a being associated with one of these other regions. The exact meaning of those passages requires great care. They may be physical, spiritual, or language of sod. I am not claiming that the Zohar is giving us modern astronomy.

But the source exists, and therefore the subject itself is not foreign to Torah.

I also heard an account about a great talmid chacham at the time of the moon landing. While millions of people were waiting to discover whether any life would be found on the moon, he reportedly said with certainty that nothing would be found there.

Why was he so confident?

Because, he said, there is no hint in Chazal of life on the moon.

The point of that story is not astronomy. The point is **yedias haTorah**. A person can know Chazal so thoroughly that he is prepared to reason from the absence of a source.

Afterward I thought to myself: perhaps he meant specifically the moon. That would not necessarily address every other possible world mentioned in Torah sources.

So I am leaving the question open.

The purpose here is not to build a theology of extraterrestrial life. It is to recognize that Torah contains sources broad enough to force us to think carefully before declaring what Hashem could or could not have created.

## “Those Who Are Not Here Today”

Rashi explains **“v’es asher einenu po”** as referring to the future generations who had not yet entered this world (Rashi to Devarim 29:14).

That creates an obvious difficulty.

If those future generations were present only as neshamos, how could a bris accepted in the world of neshamos obligate them once they entered physical bodies and faced the nisyonos of Olam HaZeh?

Rabbeinu Bachya addresses this by explaining that the father is the **shoresh** and the children are the **anafim**. The descendants emerge from the root, and therefore the acceptance of the root can bind the branches (Rabbeinu Bachya to Devarim 29:14). The Malbim also develops this question at length.

But the Zohar presents the matter differently.

The Zohar describes the neshamos that were destined to enter this world as standing before HaKadosh Baruch Hu in the very *diyuk*—the form—they would later possess in this world. In that description, the future generations were not merely abstract souls without relation to their eventual human form.

That would explain how they could be genuinely included in the covenant.

Then why does the Torah call them **“those who are not here”**?

The Zohar answers that they were present but not visible to the ordinary participants. Klal Yisrael stood overwhelmed by the revelation of Hashem; the future generations were not part of what the eye perceived.

This discussion also touches the broader question of other worlds.

R. Yosef Albo, in *Sefer HaIkkarim*, cites his teacher R. Chasdai Crescas as entertaining the possibility of other inhabited worlds. The Gemara says that HaKadosh Baruch Hu traverses eighteen thousand worlds (Avodah Zarah 3b), and this is brought into the philosophical discussion.

R. Yosef Albo himself does not simply accept his teacher’s conclusion. He argues from the centrality of Adam and the human purpose of creation.

So already within our classic Torah literature, the question is not treated superficially.

There are sources pointing in different directions, and they have to be learned seriously.

## Meroz: A Man or a Star?

There is another fascinating source.

In Shiras Devorah, the pasuk says:

**“Oru Meroz, amar Malach Hashem; oru aror yoshveha, ki lo va’u l’ezras Hashem”**—“Curse Meroz, said the angel of Hashem; curse its inhabitants, because they did not come to the aid of Hashem” (Shoftim 5:23).

The Gemara asks: who—or what—was Meroz?

One opinion says it was a **gavra rabba**, a prominent person.

Another opinion says it was a **kochav**, a star (Moed Katan 16a).

That immediately raises the question:

If Meroz was a star, what does **“yoshveha”**, “its inhabitants,” mean?

Some later writers tried to use this Gemara as evidence for inhabited worlds.

But even that proof is not simple.

“Yoshveha” could refer to associated bodies, surrounding regions, or something other than biological inhabitants in the modern sense. If Meroz was a person, then “its inhabitants” can refer to those attached to him or living around him.

A later sefer, *Sefer HaBris*, is cited as discussing this proof and the broader question of life elsewhere in creation. The exact source should be checked before publication.

So I am not bringing Meroz as a proof.

I am bringing it because it shows again that the Torah literature contains categories broad enough to generate the question.

That itself is worth knowing.

A person should be very careful before saying, “Torah has nothing to say about this subject.”

Sometimes one line of Gemara opens an entire philosophical discussion.

## Why I Said It

I want to tell you why this whole subject stayed with me.

Before the shiur, I kept telling myself:

Do not say it.

It is unusual.

It is not a standard topic.

It may not be the right thing for this audience.

But it kept pressing on me.

I have a kabbalah from Rav Sholom Schwadron that when a thought suddenly forces itself into a shiur, sometimes there is a reason that someone present needs to hear it. That does not mean a person should say every thought that crosses his mind. A maggid shiur still needs seichel.

But sometimes the hashgachah becomes visible afterward.

The next morning a mashgiach called me and told me that the very same issue had come up in his own shiur. Someone there had asked almost the identical question that had been raised here.

Then, not long afterward, someone who had heard my shiur came to speak with me. He had been deeply troubled by these very subjects—Olam HaNeshamos, the Zohar, and the larger philosophical questions—and had not known with whom he could discuss them.

He heard the shiur and thought:

Maybe this is the person I can ask.

For me, that was a tremendous lesson.

I had been eating myself up: Why did I say this? Why could I not hold myself back?

And then Hashem showed me that perhaps somebody really did need it.

A person never knows.

**Everything is b’hashgachah pratis.**

## Kayin and the Hidden Regions

There is also a Zohar connected to Kayin.

After the murder of Hevel, the Torah says:

**“Vayeitzei Kayin milifnei Hashem, vayeishev b’eretz Nod”**—“Kayin went out from before Hashem and dwelled in the land of Nod” (Bereishis 4:16).

The Zohar associates Kayin’s wandering with remote regions and unusual beings. The exact meaning of the passage requires careful study. I do not want to pretend that every line of Zohar can simply be translated into modern physical geography.

But it is another source that belongs to this wider discussion.

And now, after all of that, let us come back to what we actually have to finish:

**Hilchos Tekias Shofar.**

## How Long Should a Tekiah Be?

The Shulchan Aruch establishes the shiur of a tekiah in relation to the shevarim and teruah (Orach Chaim 590:3). A tekiah may certainly be longer than its minimum shiur.

The practical question is whether longer is actually better.

Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach is quoted as being careful not to extend the tekios unnecessarily. Once the sound is already kosher, continued blowing can introduce cracks or distortions and create new she’eilos.

There is also a very practical point:

the baal tokea needs strength for the entire seder.

On the other hand, the Meiri speaks positively about extending a clear tekiah beyond the minimum. A long, beautiful, controlled sound can be a *davar tov*.

So the issue is not “long versus short.”

The issue is:

**Is the kol still clean, controlled, and unquestionably kosher?**

A short kosher tekiah is better than a dramatic tekiah that begins beautifully and ends in a safek.

## Practical Measurements of the Tekios

The sugya becomes more complicated because the required tekiah depends on what stands between the two tekios.

In **tashrat**, the middle unit is shevarim-teruah.

In **tashat**, it is shevarim.

In **tarat**, it is teruah.

The Shulchan Aruch discusses these shiurim in Orach Chaim 590:3.

I was zocheh to ask **Rav Yisrael Belsky** directly about the practical measurement.

He told me that for **tashrat**, a tekiah of approximately **four seconds** is sufficient.

For **tashat** and **tarat**, he gave approximately **three seconds** as a practical measure.

I also asked whether the distinction between the tekios d’meyushav and the tekios d’me’umad changes the calculation, especially where shevarim-teruah is done with different breath patterns.

He told me that the four-second measure for tashrat remains sufficient.

These are oral practical measurements and should be verified carefully before being printed as psak, but that is the mesorah I received.

There are other traditions.

I heard a practice attributed to Rav Moshe Feinstein in which the tekiah of tashrat is closer to four or five seconds, while the tekios of tashat and tarat may be around two to two-and-a-half seconds.

That sounds astonishingly short until one actually times it.

A few seconds in this sugya can make a major difference.

That is why a baal tokea should not rely on instinct.

He needs a clear mesorah and practice.

## If the Shevarim-Teruah Is Longer

Another question is what happens when the shevarim or teruah is blown longer than the minimum.

Must the accompanying tekiah be lengthened to match the actual sound that was produced?

Rav Elyashiv is quoted as saying that lengthening the tekiah is a good practice, an **eitzah tovah**, though not necessarily an absolute chiyuv in every case.

When I asked Rav Belsky, he indicated that once the tekiah itself contains the required kosher shiur, one need not become overly anxious simply because the shevarim or teruah was somewhat longer.

Again, these practical details require proper review by a qualified posek.

## What About Tekiah Gedolah?

Then there is the famous **tekiah gedolah**.

Everyone knows the custom, but not every community practices it in the same place—or practices it at all.

Some yeshivos did not emphasize a tekiah gedolah.

Others blow one only at the conclusion of Mussaf.

Some traditions place it in a different part of the seder.

The Maharil is cited as an early source for an extended blast, but the local minhagim vary significantly.

The important point is that the popular custom of tekiah gedolah must not be confused with an entirely separate explicit ruling in the Shulchan Aruch concerning a **teruah gedolah**.

## The Halachah People Often Miss: Teruah Gedolah

People speak constantly about **tekiah gedolah**.

But there is another halachah that is written explicitly and is much less widely known.

The Shulchan Aruch says:

**“L’achar hatefillah mari’im teruah gedolah b’lo tekiah.”**

After the tefillah, one sounds a **teruah gedolah** without a tekiah (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 596:1).

Read the words carefully.

It does not say **tekiah gedolah**.

It says **teruah gedolah**.

That distinction is important.

The Mishnah Berurah discusses the customs surrounding the conclusion of the tekios, and different communities developed different practices. Some make an extended tekiah. Some do not. Some place it after one series; others only at the end.

But the explicit language of the Mechaber is about an extended **teruah** after the tefillah.

So a baal tekiah should know what is actually written in Shulchan Aruch and what belongs to minhag.

And here too, “gedolah” does not mean uncontrolled.

A long teruah still has to remain a proper teruah.

Length does not replace form.

The entire sugya of shofar teaches the same thing:

**A mitzvah becomes beautiful through precision, not through exaggeration.**

The sound has to be kosher first.

Only afterward do we discuss how long, how beautiful, or how dramatic it should be.