Expanding Boundaries (the essay)

Boundaries within,

 Boundaries without,

  Boundaries roundabout.

Boundaries within boundaries

 Boundaries beyond boundaries.

Do you know anything,

 Without knowing boundaries?

They tell you “truths”,

 Half truths, fuller truths,

  Never really whole truths.

Why not whole truths?

 Because of boundaries,

  Be they narrower or wider,

Some fuller truth,

 Always awaits, just beyond.

And so the pattern,

 Continues, continues n’ continues...

So why argue at all,

 When you can widen the circles?

Broaden the boundaries,

 And both circles will intersect,

  Opening an oasis of agreement.

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Truthfully, the search for truth is one of expanding the boundaries of our awareness and knowledge. We can never know the full truth. Only the Creator can, as He’s Infinite. At best what we can know are expanded or improved relative truths. With this we can find greater happiness, resolve paradoxes, solve conflicts, create advances in science, medicine and technology.

A famous example of this happened with Einstein’s relativity. He never invalidated or supplanted Newtonian physics. He simply expanded out Newton’s thought process into a wider context - exposing it as a lesser relative truth nested within a sea a greater (relative) truth.

Since the theory of relativity conflicts with other aspects of physics, it’s clear that the story isn’t over. There’s definitely a larger meta-theory which will incorporate and dwarf relativity. I don’t know what it is, but for all I know maybe somewhere in the history of exposing meta-theories, one or more of them might be introduced by the Messiah himself - as enlightening the world is one of his jobs.

This way all the world thought leaders in the physics community will be grateful to him, follow him and inspire the academic and intellectual masses to follow suit. Maybe, the gift of the Messiah to the physics community can be the ultimate resolution of their long standing internal conflicts with a more expansive meta-theory which, at once, solves and validates all that was previously known; ultimately, improving humanity’s worldview.

Every time the Talmud bumps up against an unresolvable conflict, the text proclaims, “Taiku!” - which literally means, “Let it stand (unresolved)!”. However, there is a tradition that the word, “taiku!” bears a deeper message. It’s an acronym for the, “Tishbite (i.e. Elijah) will answer questions and problems.” Since Elijah is depicted as the herald of the Messiah, the acronym is really another way of saying that the Messiah will answer these questions.

Who says that Messiah will only answer long unresolved in Judaism, why not in other areas of human life as well - including academic subjects such as physics. By answering such questions the Messiah can earn the respect and following of various diverse communities of peoples, validating everyone’s view in the midst of a broader approach in the spirit of, “These and those are words of the Living God.”

This will really get humanity’s attention in circles where it counts to finally meld the various wisdoms of the world with the Torah under the umbrella of a greater system of Divine Truth. (In Jewish mystical thought there is a lot of discussion about the distinctions between the first and second tablets.)

There is a also a personal lesson in all this which we can apply to ourselves at anytime. In our souls we all have an inner aspect of the Messiah, which probably bears a more expansive view of life than our conscious minds normally carry. We can probably improve our worldview and resolve many of our inner conflicts by making this broader perspective conscious. Spiritual study, meditation and acts of kindness help in this process.