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Speaker 1: A lot of you out there love physics and love history,

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Speaker 1: and so probably lots of you went to see the

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Speaker 1: recent movie Oppenheimer, maybe the biggest blockbuster ever starring physicists.

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Speaker 1: And some of you who know that I grew up

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Speaker 1: in Los Alamos, that I went to Los Alamos High

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Speaker 1: School and my parents worked in the weapons program at

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Speaker 1: the lab wrote in to ask me what did I

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Speaker 1: think of the movie? What's it like to see your

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Speaker 1: hometown portrayed on the big screen in such dramatic fashion. Well,

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Speaker 1: the answer is I decided to go see Barbie instead.

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Speaker 2: Hi.

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Speaker 1: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, a professor at U,

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Speaker 1: and I've been supported by the United States Department of

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Speaker 1: Energy since I was about five years old. My parents

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Speaker 1: worked at olamo's National Labs, and so the weapons program

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Speaker 1: basically put food on our table, paid for my education,

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Speaker 1: and later on, when I grew up to be a physicist,

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Speaker 1: I actually wanted to avoid the moral quagmire of designing

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Speaker 1: weapons of mass destruction, so I ended up sliding over

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Speaker 1: to the much less practically useful field of particle physics,

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Speaker 1: which of course is still funded by the Department of Energy.

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Speaker 1: Maybe the folks over there believe that eventually the Higgs

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Speaker 1: boson will have some practical use, or maybe they just

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Speaker 1: love understanding the universe. Either way, I'm a very grateful

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Speaker 1: lifelong recipient of government funding from building weapons to exploring

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Speaker 1: and understanding the nature of the universe. And welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, where we

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Speaker 1: dive deep into the issues of physics, whether or not

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Speaker 1: they have practical use. We think that understanding the universe

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Speaker 1: verse has deep inherent value to me, to you and

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Speaker 1: all of future humanity who are desperate to understand how

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Speaker 1: the world works, what the laws are that govern it

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Speaker 1: at the smallest scale, how those come together to make

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Speaker 1: our universe, whether it is in the end following some plans,

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Speaker 1: some systems, some reasons, some logic that we can deduce,

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Speaker 1: that we can understand, and that hopefully on this podcast

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Speaker 1: we can explain to you. So we ask all of

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Speaker 1: the biggest questions. We don't shy away from those that

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Speaker 1: have philosophical consequences or deep implications for the nature of

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Speaker 1: our lives. That's why we do physics, because we seek

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Speaker 1: to understand our place in the universe. And when I

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Speaker 1: was growing up in Los Almos. You know, physics was

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Speaker 1: in the air. There were physicists everywhere. People were doing

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Speaker 1: physics all over the place. You know, it's a small

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Speaker 1: mountain town and it's really dominated by the lab I

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Speaker 1: remember my mother went for jury dude one time, and

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Speaker 1: a standard question the lawyers ask is who here has

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Speaker 1: an advanced degree? But everybody in the room raised their hand,

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Speaker 1: so they couldn't just disqualify the scientists like they usually do.

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Speaker 1: Something else that's interesting about Los Almos, beyond the standard

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Speaker 1: story that it's marinated in science, is the number of

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Speaker 1: places of worship. You drive around Los Almos, you see

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Speaker 1: lots and lots of different kinds of churches and temples

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Speaker 1: and synagogues, and it's because people come from all over

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Speaker 1: the world, and so there this incredible diversity of places

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Speaker 1: of worship. It's fascinating to me how people come there

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Speaker 1: for the science but end up seeking out their cultural

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Speaker 1: and religious communities. And this, of course played a big

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Speaker 1: role in the movie Oppenheimer, the religious identities of some

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Speaker 1: of the scientists, the role that played in their fight

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Speaker 1: against the Nazis and their Jewish identity, and Los Almos

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Speaker 1: of course includes a vibrant Jewish community. When I was there,

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Speaker 1: there was a very lively population of Jews, and that

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Speaker 1: community was something I was a part of growing up.

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Speaker 1: My Eagle Scout project when I was seventeen was repainting

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Speaker 1: the Los Almost Jewish Community Center. And more broadly, there's

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Speaker 1: a fascinating connection between physics and Judaism. We all know,

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Speaker 1: of course that there are lots of famous Jewish physicists.

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Speaker 1: You've got Albert Einstein, Neils Borr had Jewish background, Polly Born,

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Speaker 1: Beta Block Landau, Robbie Wigner, von Neumann, Richard Feynman, Julian Schwinger,

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Speaker 1: Marie Gelman, Stephen Weinberg, Oppenheimer himself, Edward Teller, ed Witten,

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Speaker 1: Lisa Meiitner. All of these folks have Jewish backgrounds. And

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Speaker 1: beyond the anecdotal list of famous names, if you look

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Speaker 1: at the Nobel Prize winners in physics, fully a quarter

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Speaker 1: of them are Jews. So it makes you wonder, like,

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Speaker 1: what's the connection there between Judaism and physics? Are Jews

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Speaker 1: drawn to physics for some reason? And is it a

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Speaker 1: cultural or a religious connection? Do the folks who are

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Speaker 1: trying to unravel the mysteries of the universe to reveal

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Speaker 1: the laws that govern it. The cold heartless logic of

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Speaker 1: the universe also lead the stories of Judaism. How do

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Speaker 1: they reconcile these two things in their mind? Do they

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Speaker 1: divide them up into separate questions? Do they find them

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Speaker 1: to be in conflict? And so today on the podcast,

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Speaker 1: we're going to be exploring the question our physics and

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Speaker 1: Judaism in harmony or in conflict. This is a bit

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Speaker 1: of a departure for us where we usually dig deep

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Speaker 1: into the details of the physics, but often on the

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Speaker 1: podcast we are exploring the consequences of what physics has learned,

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Speaker 1: the philosophical implications. If the universe works this way, what

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Speaker 1: does it mean for me how I live my life,

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Speaker 1: what I should do with myself? Because physics is more

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Speaker 1: than just understanding how the world works. It gives us

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Speaker 1: a sense of our place. Learning that the Earth is

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Speaker 1: not the center of the universe, that there are billions

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Speaker 1: of planets like ours out there, gives us a context

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Speaker 1: for our lives and tells us something about how we

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Speaker 1: should live it, which of course is something religion also

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Speaker 1: speaks to. So this is a potential tricky topic. But

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Speaker 1: we're going to try to tread sensitively and explore the

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Speaker 1: overlap and understand the connection between these two ideas that

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Speaker 1: are so important to so many people. And so of

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Speaker 1: course I was curious what everybody out there thought about

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Speaker 1: these things. Our listeners to this podcast religious do they

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Speaker 1: find religion and physics to be in harmony or in conflict?

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Speaker 1: So I went out there to our community volunteers and

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Speaker 1: I asked them our physics and religion in harmony or

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Speaker 1: in conflict? So think about it for a moment yourself.

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Speaker 1: What do you think about this difficult question. Here's what

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Speaker 1: our listeners had to say. The church has done awful

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Speaker 1: things to scientists, So I would say physics and religion

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Speaker 1: are in conflict.

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Speaker 3: I think if a compartment, lize and let religion help

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Speaker 3: us with our spirituality, our faith community, and help us

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Speaker 3: get a structure in life, et cetera, while we let

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Speaker 3: physics handle are why and how of the rovers and

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Speaker 3: explain all the things we see around us.

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Speaker 1: Well, there are in how many sometimes and they are

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Speaker 1: in conflict sometimes, especially around the Newton period.

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Speaker 4: So I'm going to say in how many is conflict.

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Speaker 5: They don't need to be in conflict.

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Speaker 1: But over the last few hundred, maybe even less millennia,

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Speaker 1: they've been pushed to be in conflict with each other.

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Speaker 6: I believe that physics and religion is in conflict because

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Speaker 6: physics is based on scientific evidence and in the nicest

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Speaker 6: way possible. Religion is based on fairy tales and what

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Speaker 6: people believe to be true.

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Speaker 2: I'd say it depends on your religion and how deeply

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Speaker 2: are you believe in it. If you believe most of

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Speaker 2: your religion, then then I'd say they're in conflict. But

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Speaker 2: some people just believe that some sort of higher power

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Speaker 2: start of the universe, and then that could be in

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Speaker 2: harmony as long as you say that that creator didn't

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Speaker 2: interfere after that.

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Speaker 7: Yes, yes they are. It's both. Let me put it

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Speaker 7: this way. I love physics with my brain. It's good

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Speaker 7: for the mind. I love Jesus with my heart. He's

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Speaker 7: good for the soul. These two things live on total

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Speaker 7: opposite ends of my being. Sometimes it's hard to reconcile

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Speaker 7: my interests in both. They can butt heads on certain topics,

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Speaker 7: but at other times each one enhances the beauty of

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Speaker 7: the other. They come together, and when one informs the other,

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Speaker 7: it just makes them both so much better. So yes,

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Speaker 7: it's both.

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Speaker 8: I believe religion and physics are in conflict and pretty

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Speaker 8: much always have been. But it's interesting that both try

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Speaker 8: and understand our place in the universe and try and

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Speaker 8: give our lives meaning. So in that sense they're in harmony.

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Speaker 8: But the ideas of each are in conflict to each

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Speaker 8: other's understanding.

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Speaker 1: I'd think conflict. Physics expects imperial evidence, religion is based

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Speaker 1: on faith and intangible proof.

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Speaker 4: I guess it depends on which region we consider, but

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Speaker 4: I wouldn't say they have to be fundamentally in conflict.

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Speaker 4: I think they can be complementary, and their money can

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Speaker 4: be found in front of the wonders of the universe.

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Speaker 5: Personally, I think they are I guess in conflict given

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Speaker 5: that religion doesn't believe in any form of evolution or anything.

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Speaker 5: But then again, religion does believe that everything came from nothing.

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Speaker 5: We have no idea what happened at the moment before

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Speaker 5: the Big Bang, and we still can't explain consciousness or

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Speaker 5: human feelings, so I'm not too sure.

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Speaker 7: I would say that the amount of harmony or conflict

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Speaker 7: involved in these two ideas is dependent on the two

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Speaker 7: people who are discussing these ideas.

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Speaker 1: So I love these answers, and thank you everybody for

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Speaker 1: your honest and heartfelt replies. It really helps me to

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Speaker 1: hear what you're thinking about. And already here you see

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Speaker 1: part of the story emerging. You hear that some people

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Speaker 1: separate these things and say physics is asking some questions

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Speaker 1: and science is asking other questions, while other folks find

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Speaker 1: them to be directly in conflict and prefer to go

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Speaker 1: in one direction or the other. Personally, for me, I

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Speaker 1: think that there are a lot of questions that science

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Speaker 1: can answer and is the best equipped to answer, But

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Speaker 1: there are also lots of questions that science just cannot answer,

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Speaker 1: questions like what should I eat for lunch today? Or

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Speaker 1: should I even get out of bed this morning? Science

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Speaker 1: is not set up to answer every question in the universe.

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Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that religion is necessarily the best way

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Speaker 1: to answer it. There's lots of different ways to find

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Speaker 1: joy and value in your life, but science doesn't necessarily

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Speaker 1: answer every question out there. And while I grew up

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Speaker 1: in a Jewish community and it's part of my identity,

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Speaker 1: I'm not a terribly observant jee these days, and so

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Speaker 1: to help me figure this out. I reached out back

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Speaker 1: into my childhood and out to Los Almos to talk

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Speaker 1: to the rabbi who leads the Los Almos Jewish Center

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Speaker 1: and is a physicist himself. So I had a fascinating

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Speaker 1: conversation about Judaism and about physics, and about the Jewish

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Speaker 1: community in Los Almos after the war, and how Judaism

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Speaker 1: was portrayed in the movie Oppenheimer. So here's my interview

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Speaker 1: with rabbi and physicist Jack Schlacter. So then it's my

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Speaker 1: great pleasure to welcome to the podcast doctor Jack Schlacter,

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Speaker 1: also Rabbi Jack Schlacter. Doctor Schlacter got his PhD in

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Speaker 1: physics from the University of California at San Diego and

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Speaker 1: his worked full time at Los Almost National Laboratory as

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Speaker 1: a physicist. He's also a long standing member of the

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Speaker 1: Almost Jewish Center and recently ordained as a rabbi. Jack,

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Speaker 1: thank you very much for joining us on the podcast.

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Speaker 9: It's my pleasure and honor. Daniel, thank you very much

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Speaker 9: for inviting me.

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Speaker 1: And it's been quite a few years since you and

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Speaker 1: I have spoken. I think the last time might have

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Speaker 1: been before I left for college.

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Speaker 9: That's a while ago. Yeah, so you'll have to refresh

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Speaker 9: my memory, because that's one of the things that starts

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Speaker 9: to go with time. But my ordination actually took place

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Speaker 9: in nineteen ninety five, and I'm thinking that that's maybe

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Speaker 9: just after you disappeared from Los Almas. I don't remember now.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I graduated from high school in ninety three and

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Speaker 1: left for college and only visited occasionally back to see

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Speaker 1: my parents. So yeah, when I left, you were not

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Speaker 1: yet a rabbi. And something I only learned recently is

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Speaker 1: that you were a physicist. I knew you my whole childhood,

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Speaker 1: and I was always interested in physics, and of course,

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Speaker 1: growing up in Los Alamos, the physics is in the air.

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Speaker 1: But I wasn't really, like, concretely aware of which adults

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Speaker 1: in my sphere were actually working physicists. So I only

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Speaker 1: learned a couple of weeks ago that you've been a

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Speaker 1: physicists this whole time.

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Speaker 9: That's correct, that's right. In fact, I like to tell

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Speaker 9: people that from the age of four, I was set

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Speaker 9: on a path for the physical sciences. I actually thought

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Speaker 9: I was going to be an astronomer. And I'm a

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Speaker 9: product of the Spotnek generation and the Mercury seven astronauts

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Speaker 9: were my heroes, and I really was convinced I was

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Speaker 9: going to do some kind of astronomy or I actually

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Speaker 9: put in an application to be a mission specialist as

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Speaker 9: an astronaut along with fourteen billion other people. I was

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Speaker 9: not accepted into that program. But then when I matriculated

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Speaker 9: at Caltech, there was incredible peer pressure to go into

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Speaker 9: physics as opposed to astronomy, and so I shifted gears

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Speaker 9: and very quickly became fascinated with physics. I don't think

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Speaker 9: I knew what physics was when I showed up at Caltech,

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Speaker 9: but I quickly became interested in it.

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Speaker 1: Well that's a pretty good place to learn some physics.

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Speaker 1: So tell us a little bit about your physics expertise

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Speaker 1: and your background of your scientific career. We'll talk about

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Speaker 1: your rabbinical work in a minute, but I want to

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Speaker 1: make sure everybody has the context of you as a scientist.

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Speaker 1: What did you work on at Los Almos if you

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Speaker 1: can tell us.

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Speaker 9: Sure, absolutely so. My senior year at Caltech, I took

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Speaker 9: a class that was like an introduction to fusion by

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Speaker 9: one of the real pioneers in the field. It was

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Speaker 9: really Gould and It intrigued me. The idea of blending

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Speaker 9: a study of the physical sciences and the world around us,

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Speaker 9: which to me is kind of physics in a nutshell,

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Speaker 9: but also with doing something useful for the world. That

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Speaker 9: fusion energy seemed like a really wonderful goal. So then

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Speaker 9: when I went to graduate school, I had sought out

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Speaker 9: somebody who was working in plasma physics and magnetic confinement fusion,

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Speaker 9: and that was the area that I had my PhD in. Well,

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Speaker 9: I actually completed my PhD at Los Almos and then

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Speaker 9: was hired on as a staff member in what was

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Speaker 9: then the Magnetic Fusion division, and I worked for well

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Speaker 9: over a decade doing experimental plasma physics with the intent

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Speaker 9: of trying to make confined magnetic plasma systems for fusion energy.

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Speaker 1: Wow, amazing, it's incredible that we didn't run into each other.

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Speaker 1: Even more because plasma fusion was my first for into physics,

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Speaker 1: I joined the group working with Glenn Worden and Fred

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Speaker 1: Weisaki at Los Almos.

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Speaker 9: That was the the people I worked with at the

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Speaker 9: time that you were doing stuff with those people, My

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Speaker 9: interest was in a pretty bizarre approach to magnetic fusion.

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Speaker 9: It was a linear z pinch but at very high densities,

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Speaker 9: and the idea was to use omic heating straight up

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Speaker 9: to ignition. And what we did, in fact, probably the

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Speaker 9: most exciting day in the laboratory for me and my

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Speaker 9: whole career, was extruding a solid fiber of frozen deuterium

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Speaker 9: fifty microns in diameter and five centimeters long, so it

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Speaker 9: was like a hair of frozen deuterium, and then it

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Speaker 9: spanned an electrode gap and we did basically an exploding

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Speaker 9: wire experiment with that. You put a very high current

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Speaker 9: through initially insulating deuterium fiber, which rapidly broke down, and

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Speaker 9: then the plan was to try to heat it to

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Speaker 9: ignition by driving very high current at very short time

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Speaker 9: scale through the deuterium wire.

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Speaker 1: All right, so clearly you're working on the forefront of

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Speaker 1: plasma physics. You're working specifically on technologies that you know

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Speaker 1: could change our world if we had this kind of fusion.

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Speaker 1: Certainly it would affect the trajectory of technology and the

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Speaker 1: human race. But it sounded like you were also interested

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Speaker 1: in physics for deeper reasons. I mean, you got into

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Speaker 1: it for astronomical curiosity. Does that mean that you also

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Speaker 1: like wanted to understand the nature of reality and you know,

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Speaker 1: the fundamental fabric of space and time. Where there are

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Speaker 1: also those motivations for you.

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Speaker 9: You're probably putting me at a higher level of sophistication

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Speaker 9: than I deserve. I mean, I was totally intrigued by

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Speaker 9: the universe at large, and I think I received a

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Speaker 9: telescope when I was four years old as a sonic

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Speaker 9: at present, and you know, it was just a passion

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Speaker 9: for me to try to see things at the furthest

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Speaker 9: distances in the cosmos and to try to understand something

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Speaker 9: about the nature of the universe at large. But I

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Speaker 9: also knew my own limitations, and I knew that I

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Speaker 9: needed to have an income, and the fusion seemed like

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Speaker 9: a way to combine things where I would probably be

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Speaker 9: able to get a job. People were being hired to

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Speaker 9: do a magnetic fusion when I entered the field, and

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Speaker 9: it also had something to do with helping the world out,

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Speaker 9: And somehow I realized that life is finite and the goal,

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Speaker 9: I think is to leave the world in a somewhat

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Speaker 9: better position than when we enter it, and working on

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Speaker 9: fusion seemed like a way to do that. And this

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Speaker 9: is not at all to be critical of people who

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Speaker 9: do what I would call pure physics, but there was

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Speaker 9: no great loss to the world of physics by me

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Speaker 9: focusing in a more applied area. It seemed to me

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Speaker 9: to combine my interest in understanding things that nobody understood previously,

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Speaker 9: you know, really doing novel experiments, but also with an

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Speaker 9: end goal of something that could be useful.

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Speaker 1: All right, this is a fascinating conversation and I'd love

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Speaker 1: to hear some more, but first we have to take

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Speaker 1: a quick break. Okay, we're back and we're talking with

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Speaker 1: rabbi and physicist Jack Schlapter, who leads the Los Alamos

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Speaker 1: Jewish Center and works at Los Almos National Laboratory as

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Speaker 1: a physicist. Yeah, fascinating. One of the reasons I ask

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Speaker 1: is because I'm curious about how physics for you connects

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Speaker 1: with a desire to understand the universe and your sort

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Speaker 1: of picture of the origin of creation and all of

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Speaker 1: this stuff. Because I'd like to understand how you ended

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Speaker 1: up also becoming a rabbi. I mean, we're a scientist,

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Speaker 1: you're a physicist. You're working on practical details, manipulating the

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Speaker 1: universe using our understanding of its laws and then later

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Speaker 1: in life you became a rabbi. Is that something that

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Speaker 1: came out of physics or that's something that came out

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Speaker 1: of your feelings about Judaism and you know the role

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Speaker 1: of Judaism and telling us how to live with each

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Speaker 1: other and how to treat other people.

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Speaker 9: So it's going to be a little bit embarrassing to

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Speaker 9: be completely honest about it. But it's all serendipity, you know.

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Speaker 9: I just happened to be in the right place at

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Speaker 9: the right time for my life to end up with

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Speaker 9: the trajectory that it had. As I said earlier, I

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Speaker 9: came to Los Almos as a graduate student, and I

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Speaker 9: actually completed my PhD here at Los Alamos. My thesis

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Speaker 9: advisor had been a graduate student at Los Almos in

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Speaker 9: the fifties, and then his first staff position after he

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Speaker 9: got his PhD, which I think would have been maybe

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Speaker 9: the late fifties, was also at Los Almos, so he

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Speaker 9: still had a connection to the laboratory when I was

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Speaker 9: working for him at UC San Diego, and we had

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Speaker 9: worked on an experiment. And you can appreciate this, and

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Speaker 9: I think any of your listeners, especially in experimental physics,

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Speaker 9: can appreciate this. Had worked on an experiment for four

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Speaker 9: years and it got us nowhere, and it was basically

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Speaker 9: starting from scratch. My thesis advisor had a track record

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Speaker 9: of people taking nine and ten years to complete their PhDs,

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Speaker 9: and that was sort of hanging over my head. You know,

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Speaker 9: Oh my goodness, I'm going to be following that same trajectory.

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Speaker 9: So I had spent four years with It was a diagnostic.

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Speaker 9: It was a laser scattering diagnostic to look at very

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Speaker 9: low amplitude waves in a TOKAMAC, which is the kind

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Speaker 9: of a leading magnetic plasma confinement device to configurations. And

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Speaker 9: so we had this diagnostic and we took it up

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Speaker 9: to UCLA where there was a small tokamac and we

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Speaker 9: made it the diagnostic to the tokamac and we scattered

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Speaker 9: light off of the plasma and we got no signal

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Speaker 9: at all. And so here was four years of graduate

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Speaker 9: work going nowhere, and my thesis advisor, rather than trying

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Speaker 9: to through the laser system or do something to increase

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Speaker 9: the sensitivity of the detector, he decided to change gears altogether.

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Speaker 9: And he got interested in this dense z pinch approach

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Speaker 9: that had been pioneered at Los Almos So he sent

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Speaker 9: me to Los Almos for the summer, and the idea

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Speaker 9: was to learn something about this approach and then come

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Speaker 9: back to San Diego and we would build an experiment

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Speaker 9: and we would pursue that. He was going to be

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Speaker 9: applying for a grant while I was learning some techniques,

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Speaker 9: and it all sounded good on paper, but it did

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Speaker 9: look like this ten year trajectory might be my career.

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Speaker 9: So while I was at Los Almos two things of importance. One,

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Speaker 9: I came to the quick realization that here was a

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Speaker 9: working experiment and I could take data now and not

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Speaker 9: wait to build something and start from scratch at San Diego.

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Speaker 9: So that was piece number one, and that's what worked out.

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Speaker 9: He didn't get the grant, by the way, so it's

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Speaker 9: really lucky that I ended up staying at Los Almos.

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Speaker 9: Number two, though, and quite an unexpected change for me,

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Speaker 9: is that I came to Los Almos not knowing a

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Speaker 9: single person in town, and I showed up here. And

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Speaker 9: this was in the days where it was not so

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Speaker 9: common for people to be here as students. It's much

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Speaker 9: more common today. But back when I came, I was

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Speaker 9: a little bit of a loaner, and in my entire division.

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Speaker 9: I was the only student who was working at the time,

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Speaker 9: and I thought, Okay, I don't know anybody in town.

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Speaker 9: I could do worse than go to the synagogue and

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Speaker 9: meet a few people there. And I had probably not

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Speaker 9: really done much actively in a synagogue for about a

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Speaker 9: decade at that point. So I went to the synagogue

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Speaker 9: in Los Almos. People were very friendly and welcoming. And

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Speaker 9: then one other quirk that was to my advantage is

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Speaker 9: that I could sing reasonably well. And I don't know

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Speaker 9: if it's the altitude in Los Almos or the high

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Speaker 9: physics population or what, but most people cannot sing well here.

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Speaker 9: In fact, it generally does not sound good in the

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Speaker 9: synegague unless somebody's really leading it and pushing everybody along

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Speaker 9: to be in.

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Speaker 1: The same Let me interrupt you with a comment and

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Speaker 1: a question. First of all, you're being way too modest.

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Speaker 1: You can't just sing reasonably well. You have a beautiful voice,

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Speaker 1: like really, it's an incredible baritone. It made a huge

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Speaker 1: impression on me as a kid as part of those services.

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Speaker 1: But also I just wanted to clarify you're saying you

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Speaker 1: joined the Los Almost Jewish community as a way to

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Speaker 1: find community you're looking for people to connect with, maybe

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Speaker 1: people with a similar background. Was it a social environment

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Speaker 1: and a community you're looking for, or also a religious experience?

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Speaker 9: I mean, to be completely honest, it was not for

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Speaker 9: the religious experience. It was not because I had some

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Speaker 9: spiritual craving. It was not because I wanted to connect

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Speaker 9: with my heritage. It really was a social thing, and

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Speaker 9: because I knew nobody in town, and there weren't very

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Speaker 9: many students anyway in town. It's not like I could

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Speaker 9: easily go meet people my age. I tried the synagogue

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Speaker 9: route and what happened for me there, and I think

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Speaker 9: it's probably a confluence of being at the right place

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Speaker 9: and the right stage of life. I realized that I

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Speaker 9: did not know anything about Judaism. I knew some of

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Speaker 9: the mechanics. I knew, I could read Hebrew well, I

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Speaker 9: could chant the prayers, but I really didn't understand the

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Speaker 9: depth and profundity of Judaism. Because I had the arrogance

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Speaker 9: of a physicist to reject things as being anachronistic or mythical,

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Speaker 9: and I just didn't know what it was that I

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Speaker 9: was throwing out. So I went through the usual thing.

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Speaker 9: I had a very solid grounding in the mechanics of

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Speaker 9: Judaism through a conservative synagogue where I grew up in

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Speaker 9: a suburb of Chicago. And then, kind of like many

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Speaker 9: people in my age demographic, I sort of left synagogue

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Speaker 9: life after I became bar Mitzvah. So for about a decade,

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Speaker 9: I did almost nothing Jewishly, And when I came to

436
00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:26,480
Speaker 9: Los Almos and I started going to the synagogue, There's

437
00:26:26,520 --> 00:26:30,439
Speaker 9: a few things that happened. One, I started questioning, you know,

438
00:26:30,520 --> 00:26:33,080
Speaker 9: why are these things here, why do we do these

439
00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:35,720
Speaker 9: things this way? And is there a logic to it?

440
00:26:36,040 --> 00:26:39,760
Speaker 9: And I found out, you know, with my usual arrogance,

441
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:42,479
Speaker 9: that I had thought there was no logic to anything,

442
00:26:42,520 --> 00:26:45,560
Speaker 9: but there's actually great wisdom in Jewish tradition. That was

443
00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:48,880
Speaker 9: number one. Number two is that, as you may remember,

444
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:52,320
Speaker 9: there was a rabbi in Santa Fe, Rabbi Lendard Hellman

445
00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:55,760
Speaker 9: of Blessed Memory, who used to come up periodically to

446
00:26:55,840 --> 00:27:00,600
Speaker 9: Los Almos. And I have in my notes at home

447
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:04,920
Speaker 9: the materials from a class that he taught in nineteen

448
00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:09,560
Speaker 9: eighty one, just an adult education series that he drove

449
00:27:09,640 --> 00:27:13,239
Speaker 9: up to Los Almos and taught some classes. And I

450
00:27:13,400 --> 00:27:16,960
Speaker 9: started realizing you know, I don't know anything about what

451
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:19,080
Speaker 9: I would call and I don't mean this in an

452
00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:23,400
Speaker 9: X rated sense adult Judaism. I had experienced Judaism as

453
00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:26,240
Speaker 9: a child, and what I had been taught was appropriate

454
00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:30,600
Speaker 9: for a child, but nobody ever really explained to me

455
00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:35,160
Speaker 9: there's a lot of wisdom here on interpersonal relations, on

456
00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:39,879
Speaker 9: societal mechanics, and Judaism really has a lot to offer

457
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:43,680
Speaker 9: that I didn't realize. And even today, I learned new

458
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:47,479
Speaker 9: things every day. I realized that there just is a

459
00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:52,359
Speaker 9: lot to Judaism that I love to expose other adults

460
00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:57,399
Speaker 9: to because I think they share that same rejection of

461
00:27:57,480 --> 00:27:59,720
Speaker 9: things that they don't know what it is quite that

462
00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:03,800
Speaker 9: they're rejecting. And so I just was very, very lucky

463
00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:07,680
Speaker 9: to connect with the Jewish Center for Social Reasons, but

464
00:28:07,720 --> 00:28:11,960
Speaker 9: then to realize that if I'm going to lead some things,

465
00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:13,840
Speaker 9: it would be good if I knew what it was

466
00:28:13,840 --> 00:28:15,639
Speaker 9: that I was trying to lead. And the more I

467
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:17,960
Speaker 9: looked into it, the more I realized there's a lot

468
00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:18,320
Speaker 9: to this.

469
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:20,800
Speaker 1: So I think that's really fascinating because it's sort of

470
00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:24,320
Speaker 1: an unusual trajectory. I think a lot of people learn

471
00:28:24,359 --> 00:28:27,320
Speaker 1: about Judaism as a child, and if they have it

472
00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:29,800
Speaker 1: as an adult, it's because they grew up in the

473
00:28:29,800 --> 00:28:32,400
Speaker 1: tradition and they learned it and they sort of became

474
00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:34,960
Speaker 1: part of who they were. I think it's more rare

475
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:38,800
Speaker 1: for people to end up embracing this in adulthood, especially

476
00:28:38,800 --> 00:28:43,360
Speaker 1: if they have such a strong, rigorous scientific background. And

477
00:28:43,440 --> 00:28:46,160
Speaker 1: so that's the reason I'm very curious to hear from

478
00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:49,000
Speaker 1: your perspective, how do these two things live in your

479
00:28:49,040 --> 00:28:52,560
Speaker 1: mind simultaneously? Are these two different parts of your life

480
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:55,080
Speaker 1: the way like a physicist can also be a father

481
00:28:55,280 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 1: or a basketball player, and those don't have to necessarily

482
00:28:57,920 --> 00:29:00,600
Speaker 1: be in conflict with being a physicist. How do these

483
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 1: two things accommodate each other.

484
00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:07,719
Speaker 9: That's an excellent question, And maybe I haven't fully resolved

485
00:29:07,720 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 9: that for myself, but I think that physics is a

486
00:29:12,640 --> 00:29:16,880
Speaker 9: questioning discipline, maybe to the point of distraction. My wife

487
00:29:17,040 --> 00:29:20,800
Speaker 9: is not a scientist at all, and she finds it

488
00:29:20,840 --> 00:29:24,080
Speaker 9: frustrating at times that I need to know why that

489
00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:27,000
Speaker 9: you know, I will ask why is this? And why

490
00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:29,200
Speaker 9: do we do this this way? And why do you

491
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:32,880
Speaker 9: suppose your coffee stayed hot in the tall cup more

492
00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:34,800
Speaker 9: than a stick hot in the short cup, and maybe

493
00:29:34,800 --> 00:29:37,320
Speaker 9: we need to do some experiments here I can drive

494
00:29:37,360 --> 00:29:40,480
Speaker 9: people to distraction, I think of asking questions like that.

495
00:29:40,960 --> 00:29:48,160
Speaker 9: But for me, Judaism also encourages a questioning attitude. It's

496
00:29:48,280 --> 00:29:51,719
Speaker 9: not a dogma as such the way I view it,

497
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:55,719
Speaker 9: and I probably should have caveated everything in our conversation

498
00:29:55,840 --> 00:30:01,000
Speaker 9: here that there is no authority in GDA the way

499
00:30:01,040 --> 00:30:05,440
Speaker 9: there might be in other traditions, such that we're not

500
00:30:06,200 --> 00:30:11,120
Speaker 9: obligated to think a certain way. And asking questions I

501
00:30:11,160 --> 00:30:14,680
Speaker 9: think is inherent in Judaism, just like it is in physics.

502
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:21,520
Speaker 9: So for me, the issues that Judaism addresses are different issues,

503
00:30:21,600 --> 00:30:27,320
Speaker 9: perhaps than what a physicist looks at. Of course, things

504
00:30:27,400 --> 00:30:30,320
Speaker 9: like the origin of the universe and the nature of

505
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:33,960
Speaker 9: interaction are bread and butter for physicists and have some

506
00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:38,080
Speaker 9: overlap with Judaism. But I think by and large Judaism

507
00:30:38,160 --> 00:30:41,720
Speaker 9: is a way of life. It's not in conflict for

508
00:30:41,840 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 9: me with the rational world, if you will, the way

509
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:48,640
Speaker 9: it might be for people from other traditions.

510
00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:51,320
Speaker 1: I see. That's fascinating. So the things you take from

511
00:30:51,400 --> 00:30:54,280
Speaker 1: Judaism are how we should treat each other, how we

512
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:57,560
Speaker 1: should live our lives, how we should feel about each other,

513
00:30:57,960 --> 00:31:01,680
Speaker 1: not necessarily like the literal truth of the creation of

514
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:02,320
Speaker 1: the universe.

515
00:31:02,800 --> 00:31:05,880
Speaker 9: Yes, and I think, look texts that are thousands of

516
00:31:05,960 --> 00:31:11,320
Speaker 9: years old, who wrote them, and what languages used and

517
00:31:11,360 --> 00:31:16,960
Speaker 9: what metaphors are used obviously shifts over time. And let's

518
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:19,000
Speaker 9: just take the Five Books of Moses, which is a

519
00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:22,640
Speaker 9: central text, as you well know in Judaism and in

520
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:27,200
Speaker 9: other traditions as well. The Five Books of Moses have

521
00:31:27,440 --> 00:31:34,800
Speaker 9: been central to Jewish tradition for millennia, and very wise

522
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:39,600
Speaker 9: people have looked at those texts and interpreted them and

523
00:31:40,120 --> 00:31:44,320
Speaker 9: looked for meaning in those texts. And whether we know

524
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:49,560
Speaker 9: exactly how those texts were composed, or who wrote them,

525
00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:56,320
Speaker 9: or the details of their composition, the commentary alone brings

526
00:31:56,400 --> 00:32:01,400
Speaker 9: us in touch with brilliant people from the Jewish past

527
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:07,320
Speaker 9: who offer insights in a way that's meaningful to me

528
00:32:07,480 --> 00:32:11,000
Speaker 9: at least. So I tend not to dwell so much

529
00:32:11,160 --> 00:32:14,920
Speaker 9: on the issue of is this the hand of God?

530
00:32:15,040 --> 00:32:19,280
Speaker 9: And literal text, but it's text that can serve as

531
00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:25,680
Speaker 9: a springboard for deep inquiry and meaningful discussion. And I

532
00:32:25,760 --> 00:32:29,800
Speaker 9: think meaningful life a meaningful way to live our lives

533
00:32:30,200 --> 00:32:34,000
Speaker 9: without getting into the details about when it says the

534
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:36,280
Speaker 9: world was created in six days? What does that mean?

535
00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:40,360
Speaker 9: I mean, obviously, from a scientific point of view, I

536
00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:43,880
Speaker 9: can't take those texts literally. But I'm not the first

537
00:32:43,960 --> 00:32:48,080
Speaker 9: to say that. Within a very traditional Jewish context, there

538
00:32:48,080 --> 00:32:53,360
Speaker 9: are commentators from many, many, many years ago who well

539
00:32:53,480 --> 00:32:57,160
Speaker 9: understood that this text is not to be taken literally,

540
00:32:57,600 --> 00:33:01,000
Speaker 9: and that that's not a problem. So I don't get

541
00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:04,240
Speaker 9: hung up on those things. And as you know, we

542
00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:07,640
Speaker 9: have an annual cycle for reading the Five Books of Moses,

543
00:33:07,680 --> 00:33:11,080
Speaker 9: and last week we were in the Book of Exodus,

544
00:33:11,120 --> 00:33:14,760
Speaker 9: in a section that's filled with a bunch of detailed

545
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:21,600
Speaker 9: laws about society, one of which is something about cooking

546
00:33:21,840 --> 00:33:25,240
Speaker 9: an animal maybe it's a small goat in the milk

547
00:33:25,280 --> 00:33:29,280
Speaker 9: of its mother. And this is an interesting text because

548
00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:32,920
Speaker 9: it's actually repeated verbatim three times in the Five Books

549
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:36,680
Speaker 9: of Moses. That's unusual. That suggests there's some importance to it,

550
00:33:36,720 --> 00:33:39,560
Speaker 9: because why else would you repeat it three times. And

551
00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:43,520
Speaker 9: we had at the synagogue that I lead in Santa

552
00:33:43,560 --> 00:33:49,040
Speaker 9: Fe a half hour discussion about why that text is

553
00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:52,320
Speaker 9: there and what does it have to teach us? And

554
00:33:52,720 --> 00:33:58,800
Speaker 9: I think there are many incredibly valuable messages from that text,

555
00:33:59,080 --> 00:34:03,280
Speaker 9: whether somebody chooses to live their life following that in

556
00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:07,600
Speaker 9: either a literal sense or in maybe the more expanded

557
00:34:07,680 --> 00:34:12,399
Speaker 9: traditional sense, what somebody does with their own dietary practices

558
00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:16,320
Speaker 9: can be put aside for a bit as we explore

559
00:34:16,960 --> 00:34:20,520
Speaker 9: what value is there too a statement like that. And

560
00:34:20,560 --> 00:34:23,040
Speaker 9: I thought it was a wonderful discussion. We had somebody

561
00:34:23,080 --> 00:34:27,000
Speaker 9: talking about health reasons, we had somebody talking about idolatrous

562
00:34:27,120 --> 00:34:32,040
Speaker 9: practice of related people who were contemporaneous. We had people

563
00:34:32,120 --> 00:34:36,719
Speaker 9: talking about reasons that evoke a care for animals in

564
00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:40,960
Speaker 9: us as human beings. It was a very wide ranging discussion,

565
00:34:41,520 --> 00:34:46,760
Speaker 9: all of which are commentaries that come from the early commentators.

566
00:34:47,160 --> 00:34:50,279
Speaker 9: And to me, that was just a beautiful way to

567
00:34:50,360 --> 00:34:54,200
Speaker 9: make that text come alive, to make the text useful,

568
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:57,920
Speaker 9: and for me, as a practical matter, we incorporate that

569
00:34:58,040 --> 00:35:01,840
Speaker 9: into our practice at home. So I just found that

570
00:35:02,120 --> 00:35:06,680
Speaker 9: a fascinating way to look at an ancient text and

571
00:35:06,800 --> 00:35:10,840
Speaker 9: to derive value from it based on the wisdom of

572
00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:13,440
Speaker 9: people who have looked at it over the millennia.

573
00:35:13,520 --> 00:35:15,560
Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah, that's very insightful and it makes a

574
00:35:15,600 --> 00:35:17,719
Speaker 1: lot of sense to me. And I want to get

575
00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:21,200
Speaker 1: back to the question of how Judaism teaches us to

576
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:24,800
Speaker 1: think and to question and to discuss and to explore

577
00:35:24,880 --> 00:35:27,640
Speaker 1: the universe. But before, I just wanted to make one

578
00:35:27,680 --> 00:35:31,640
Speaker 1: clarifying question, which is you're talking about interpreting the Torrahs

579
00:35:31,640 --> 00:35:34,439
Speaker 1: a certain way and not taking it literally and maybe

580
00:35:34,520 --> 00:35:36,360
Speaker 1: using it as a way to motivate the choices we

581
00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:39,239
Speaker 1: make in life. That to me reflects something about the

582
00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:42,839
Speaker 1: specific Jewish tradition that you embraced. But of course there's

583
00:35:42,840 --> 00:35:47,360
Speaker 1: a whole spectrum from orthodox to very reform. Do you

584
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:50,200
Speaker 1: think that it's possible? And apologies if this is an

585
00:35:50,200 --> 00:35:54,160
Speaker 1: inappropriate question. Have you met anybody who is more in

586
00:35:54,239 --> 00:35:57,160
Speaker 1: the Orthodox side of things who takes literally to be

587
00:35:57,239 --> 00:36:00,799
Speaker 1: truth the story of Genesis and all also has a

588
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:04,000
Speaker 1: sort of scientific mind, a practicing scientist. Do you know

589
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:05,600
Speaker 1: anybody who lives that intersection?

590
00:36:06,280 --> 00:36:10,839
Speaker 9: I don't think I do, because the people I know

591
00:36:11,200 --> 00:36:15,799
Speaker 9: who follow what I would call orthodox practice and are

592
00:36:16,080 --> 00:36:20,880
Speaker 9: physical scientists, I don't think look at the text in

593
00:36:20,920 --> 00:36:25,040
Speaker 9: a literal sense either. I don't think they have that

594
00:36:25,160 --> 00:36:30,560
Speaker 9: kind of a dichotomy either. I think people who observe

595
00:36:30,760 --> 00:36:36,200
Speaker 9: what I would call a traditional Jewish life are doing practices,

596
00:36:36,719 --> 00:36:40,680
Speaker 9: But it does not inhibit their rational thinking. So I

597
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:46,000
Speaker 9: don't know people who we would call literalists who also

598
00:36:46,640 --> 00:36:51,560
Speaker 9: are doing physical science inquiry as part of their daily routine.

599
00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:54,520
Speaker 9: Having said that, I don't know that many people who

600
00:36:54,600 --> 00:36:59,120
Speaker 9: are both scientists and traditional practicing Jews, so I could

601
00:36:59,280 --> 00:37:03,200
Speaker 9: just be not aware of people in that category. But

602
00:37:03,320 --> 00:37:07,760
Speaker 9: I will say my approach to Judaism is that we've

603
00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:13,480
Speaker 9: never been fundamentalist. If fundamentalism is defined as people who

604
00:37:13,560 --> 00:37:17,000
Speaker 9: take the text literally, and I say that with some

605
00:37:17,160 --> 00:37:22,160
Speaker 9: degree of confidence that it's actually applicable in Judaism across

606
00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:27,000
Speaker 9: the board, because some practices, some Jewish practices, and I'd

607
00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:30,120
Speaker 9: have to work to come at a good example, are

608
00:37:30,160 --> 00:37:34,240
Speaker 9: actually at odds with the literal text. And that's because

609
00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:39,360
Speaker 9: Judaism has evolved. It's a multimillennial tradition, and I don't

610
00:37:39,360 --> 00:37:43,759
Speaker 9: think we've ever really been fundamentalists as such. I know

611
00:37:43,880 --> 00:37:46,120
Speaker 9: you know this stuff, but it may be valuable for

612
00:37:46,200 --> 00:37:51,080
Speaker 9: your listeners. There was a movement, one of many schisms

613
00:37:51,120 --> 00:37:54,200
Speaker 9: in Jewish history, this one that I'm referring to in

614
00:37:54,239 --> 00:37:57,600
Speaker 9: particular as the Karaite. So this goes back to probably

615
00:37:57,640 --> 00:38:00,920
Speaker 9: around eight hundred of the Common Era, and the Karayites

616
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:05,319
Speaker 9: I mean literally from their name were fundamentalists. They read

617
00:38:05,360 --> 00:38:08,840
Speaker 9: the text and they used the text as the basis

618
00:38:08,880 --> 00:38:14,799
Speaker 9: for their practice, and they rejected the evolution of Judaism

619
00:38:14,960 --> 00:38:19,120
Speaker 9: through the so called rabbinic period that developed the Talmud.

620
00:38:19,640 --> 00:38:22,720
Speaker 9: They said, this is just made up by human beings.

621
00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:25,080
Speaker 9: This is not what Judaism should be. We need to

622
00:38:25,120 --> 00:38:28,200
Speaker 9: go back to the literal texts. And that was a

623
00:38:28,280 --> 00:38:32,799
Speaker 9: divergence from what is today normative Judaism, and that's not

624
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:36,680
Speaker 9: Judaism of today. So I think we've always looked at

625
00:38:36,719 --> 00:38:41,400
Speaker 9: the text as a basis, but not as a dictate

626
00:38:41,640 --> 00:38:45,040
Speaker 9: for how Judaism should be practiced.

627
00:38:45,360 --> 00:38:48,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really fascinating, especially in the context of my

628
00:38:48,480 --> 00:38:51,200
Speaker 1: own family. I don't know how much you met or

629
00:38:51,280 --> 00:38:53,520
Speaker 1: knew my father, because he had basically drifted away from

630
00:38:53,560 --> 00:38:56,360
Speaker 1: Judaism by the time we moved to Los Alamos. But

631
00:38:56,520 --> 00:38:59,000
Speaker 1: he was an Orthodox Rabbi before we moved to Los

632
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:02,319
Speaker 1: Alamos and literal believer in the story of Genesis, a

633
00:39:02,360 --> 00:39:06,520
Speaker 1: Young Earth creationist. And I asked him once about why

634
00:39:06,560 --> 00:39:09,720
Speaker 1: he ended up leaving Judaism and working at Los Alamos

635
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:12,160
Speaker 1: basically as a scientist. He told me that one of

636
00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:15,400
Speaker 1: the things that attracted him to Judaism, something that you mentioned,

637
00:39:15,719 --> 00:39:19,120
Speaker 1: this spirit of debate, of questioning, of arguing, of exploration.

638
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:21,759
Speaker 1: In the end turned out to be something that really

639
00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:26,560
Speaker 1: frustrated him because instead of building up a picture of

640
00:39:26,600 --> 00:39:29,439
Speaker 1: the universe the way science does, you know, a set

641
00:39:29,480 --> 00:39:31,759
Speaker 1: of laws and ideas that have to be consistent and

642
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:36,319
Speaker 1: survive experimental tests, he found that Judaism felt more like

643
00:39:36,360 --> 00:39:39,880
Speaker 1: they were sliding away from the revelation, the moment of insight.

644
00:39:40,719 --> 00:39:43,640
Speaker 1: Instead of building up knowledge, we were like grabbing at

645
00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:47,200
Speaker 1: it to avoid losing that inspiration. And for listeners who

646
00:39:47,239 --> 00:39:50,040
Speaker 1: aren't familiar with it, you know, the Jewish tradition has,

647
00:39:50,080 --> 00:39:53,200
Speaker 1: of course Torah, but there's also the oral law that

648
00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 1: you know, Moses heard from God and passed on to

649
00:39:56,280 --> 00:40:00,920
Speaker 1: Joshua and passes on from rabbi to rabbi. And according

650
00:40:00,920 --> 00:40:04,360
Speaker 1: to my father's telling of it, it's difficult to argue

651
00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:08,239
Speaker 1: with a rabbi from a previous generation because they're closer

652
00:40:08,280 --> 00:40:11,480
Speaker 1: to the revelation and therefore have a deeper, more intuitive

653
00:40:11,560 --> 00:40:15,240
Speaker 1: insight to this valuable knowledge that we're sort of sliding

654
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:17,919
Speaker 1: away from. And to me and I think to him,

655
00:40:18,239 --> 00:40:21,040
Speaker 1: this seemed very different from the scientific approach, where it

656
00:40:21,040 --> 00:40:23,480
Speaker 1: doesn't matter whose idea it was, and old theories can

657
00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:26,279
Speaker 1: be overturned if they fail tests, and every idea has

658
00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:28,720
Speaker 1: to stand on its own, on its merits, of course,

659
00:40:29,160 --> 00:40:31,400
Speaker 1: not on the age or the authority of the thinkers,

660
00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:34,880
Speaker 1: you know. In that sense, scientists are scholars of a

661
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:38,400
Speaker 1: truth that's still being revealed, rather than an ancient truth

662
00:40:38,719 --> 00:40:41,759
Speaker 1: that we're sort of clinging to. Do you see those

663
00:40:41,920 --> 00:40:44,399
Speaker 1: traditions in conflict the same way to.

664
00:40:44,480 --> 00:40:51,279
Speaker 9: Me, there is a tension. Science generally has the appearance,

665
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:55,480
Speaker 9: if you will, maybe with some detours, but of sort

666
00:40:55,480 --> 00:41:03,960
Speaker 9: of slowly increasing knowledge with and what you described is

667
00:41:04,560 --> 00:41:09,560
Speaker 9: maybe that as we advance in time, we're drifting away

668
00:41:09,640 --> 00:41:14,920
Speaker 9: from some revelatory experience and losing something in the process,

669
00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:17,040
Speaker 9: and so there would be some tension there. And I

670
00:41:17,040 --> 00:41:21,520
Speaker 9: can understand your father grappling with that, And maybe this

671
00:41:21,719 --> 00:41:26,560
Speaker 9: touches for me on this huge issue about is Judaism

672
00:41:26,640 --> 00:41:31,560
Speaker 9: even a religion. I think of the revelatory experience that

673
00:41:31,719 --> 00:41:35,640
Speaker 9: Mount Sinai has described in the Five Books of Moses

674
00:41:36,120 --> 00:41:41,200
Speaker 9: as the formation of the Jewish people, and that's what

675
00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:44,839
Speaker 9: was the singular event, if you will, that was what

676
00:41:45,040 --> 00:41:49,320
Speaker 9: was revealed was the revelation that there is an identifiable

677
00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:53,120
Speaker 9: Jewish people. The first book of the five Books of Moses,

678
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:57,680
Speaker 9: the Book of Genesis, follows an individual family or actually

679
00:41:57,719 --> 00:42:01,680
Speaker 9: some individuals, and then the creation of somebody who is

680
00:42:01,800 --> 00:42:04,880
Speaker 9: thought of as the progenitor of the Jewish people, but

681
00:42:04,960 --> 00:42:07,440
Speaker 9: it's not a Jewish people as such, and it's the

682
00:42:07,640 --> 00:42:12,000
Speaker 9: exodus from Egypt and the revelatory experience at Sinai that

683
00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:15,920
Speaker 9: really forms the Jewish people. And so, yes, we've drifted

684
00:42:15,960 --> 00:42:19,640
Speaker 9: away from when the people were created as a people,

685
00:42:20,239 --> 00:42:25,600
Speaker 9: But have we drifted away from the teachings of that period.

686
00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:29,600
Speaker 9: I think the teaching of that period includes the fact

687
00:42:29,680 --> 00:42:33,480
Speaker 9: that it's given to us to learn now, and so

688
00:42:33,640 --> 00:42:37,280
Speaker 9: we're doing that learning by doing our physics or doing

689
00:42:37,320 --> 00:42:40,120
Speaker 9: whatever it is that we do in our lives. We're

690
00:42:40,239 --> 00:42:45,320
Speaker 9: advancing our knowledge in accordance with what the tradition would

691
00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:47,719
Speaker 9: tell me we're supposed to be doing. So I don't

692
00:42:47,800 --> 00:42:51,320
Speaker 9: quite see the dichotomy. Though I totally understand the tension

693
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:54,560
Speaker 9: that your father felt, I don't know that for me

694
00:42:54,920 --> 00:42:57,400
Speaker 9: it's the same friction, if you will.

695
00:42:57,800 --> 00:43:01,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, fascinating, Well, I think it's not so hard to

696
00:43:01,560 --> 00:43:06,279
Speaker 1: see physics and Judaism in conflict because they do have

697
00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:09,520
Speaker 1: different traditions of exploration, and of course the stories they

698
00:43:09,520 --> 00:43:12,360
Speaker 1: tell are different. But I think it's more interesting to

699
00:43:12,480 --> 00:43:16,000
Speaker 1: look for harmony, and I really appreciate the way you

700
00:43:16,160 --> 00:43:19,240
Speaker 1: find a resonance between the two traditions. So I spend

701
00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:22,399
Speaker 1: some time trying to think about the connection between these

702
00:43:22,400 --> 00:43:25,080
Speaker 1: two things and if they can serve a similar purpose

703
00:43:25,120 --> 00:43:27,680
Speaker 1: in our lives, because for me, physics is not just

704
00:43:27,719 --> 00:43:29,840
Speaker 1: about the knowledge, it's about the way we think, and

705
00:43:29,960 --> 00:43:33,040
Speaker 1: Judaism and religion are not just about the stories of

706
00:43:33,239 --> 00:43:35,040
Speaker 1: the creation of the universe, but about the way we

707
00:43:35,120 --> 00:43:38,080
Speaker 1: treat each other and all this is really about what

708
00:43:38,160 --> 00:43:40,319
Speaker 1: is it like to be human in the world and

709
00:43:40,400 --> 00:43:43,719
Speaker 1: to ask questions. So I was thinking about the intersection

710
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:45,880
Speaker 1: between the two, and for me, one of the appealing

711
00:43:45,960 --> 00:43:48,640
Speaker 1: aspects of religion, at least as a child, because I

712
00:43:48,640 --> 00:43:52,640
Speaker 1: mostly have a child's view of Judaism was the sense

713
00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:55,800
Speaker 1: of order and purpose that it brings, like, maybe you

714
00:43:55,840 --> 00:43:58,840
Speaker 1: don't understand everything, but there's supposed to be a reason

715
00:43:58,880 --> 00:44:01,680
Speaker 1: why things happen. Somebody who's in charge is a purpose

716
00:44:01,680 --> 00:44:04,359
Speaker 1: in an order of the universe is not just capricious

717
00:44:04,400 --> 00:44:08,600
Speaker 1: and cruel. And I wonder sometimes if my desire to

718
00:44:08,680 --> 00:44:12,360
Speaker 1: go into physics is a desire to find a reason

719
00:44:12,640 --> 00:44:15,600
Speaker 1: and an order in the universe. I mean, maybe physics

720
00:44:15,600 --> 00:44:19,400
Speaker 1: provides a different kind of comfort. You know, it's cold

721
00:44:19,440 --> 00:44:21,640
Speaker 1: and it's mindless, the laws of physics, but at least

722
00:44:21,680 --> 00:44:24,200
Speaker 1: it's telling you that there's a sense to the universe, right,

723
00:44:24,200 --> 00:44:27,080
Speaker 1: that there's order, There is a reason things happen. The

724
00:44:27,239 --> 00:44:30,720
Speaker 1: reason is it follows these laws of physics. In that sense,

725
00:44:30,840 --> 00:44:34,520
Speaker 1: I can find some sort of comfort in physics, not

726
00:44:34,640 --> 00:44:37,640
Speaker 1: exactly the same as one could in judaism, but to me,

727
00:44:37,719 --> 00:44:39,960
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of a resonance there. Do you

728
00:44:40,120 --> 00:44:42,239
Speaker 1: feel the same way. Do you see the same overlap

729
00:44:42,320 --> 00:44:44,560
Speaker 1: and sort of the role of these two things in

730
00:44:44,600 --> 00:44:45,920
Speaker 1: our lives.

731
00:44:46,080 --> 00:44:49,240
Speaker 9: That's very interesting how you state that. And I agree

732
00:44:49,320 --> 00:44:54,680
Speaker 9: that the laws of the universe that we uncover exploring

733
00:44:54,880 --> 00:44:59,799
Speaker 9: the world through physics do give us some comfort. I

734
00:44:59,800 --> 00:45:04,040
Speaker 9: few will that things are not just happening willy nilly.

735
00:45:04,080 --> 00:45:06,680
Speaker 9: That you know, we're not just going to float off

736
00:45:06,800 --> 00:45:09,040
Speaker 9: the surface of the Earth at a moment, because the

737
00:45:09,120 --> 00:45:12,879
Speaker 9: law of gravity dictates that things work a certain way.

738
00:45:13,360 --> 00:45:16,440
Speaker 9: But I actually think there's another thing that we haven't

739
00:45:16,480 --> 00:45:21,880
Speaker 9: touched on that's important and shows that both physics and

740
00:45:21,920 --> 00:45:25,120
Speaker 9: judaism have things to offer, but they're not necessarily the same.

741
00:45:25,600 --> 00:45:29,320
Speaker 9: And I'm probably doing a terrible job here of paraphrasing

742
00:45:29,360 --> 00:45:32,880
Speaker 9: what I think I remember reading from the great physicist

743
00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:38,440
Speaker 9: Richard Feinman. Physics does not say anything really about ethics.

744
00:45:38,760 --> 00:45:43,160
Speaker 9: It doesn't say how you should treat somebody. And in

745
00:45:43,160 --> 00:45:48,520
Speaker 9: that sense, judaism is answering different questions than physics is answering.

746
00:45:48,560 --> 00:45:51,879
Speaker 9: Physics can tell you what the implication would be if

747
00:45:51,920 --> 00:45:54,760
Speaker 9: you do a certain thing, but it doesn't say whether

748
00:45:54,840 --> 00:45:57,839
Speaker 9: that's good or bad. It doesn't do a judgment if

749
00:45:57,880 --> 00:46:03,120
Speaker 9: you will, And I think maybe adds that extra dimension

750
00:46:03,640 --> 00:46:08,080
Speaker 9: about ethics, about the proper thing to do, not just

751
00:46:08,239 --> 00:46:11,960
Speaker 9: the consequence of doing something, but what's right and what's wrong.

752
00:46:12,080 --> 00:46:15,800
Speaker 9: And I think that's very important to navigate the world

753
00:46:15,880 --> 00:46:16,799
Speaker 9: in a healthy way.

754
00:46:17,440 --> 00:46:32,960
Speaker 1: Hold that thought. We have to take another break. Okay,

755
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:36,480
Speaker 1: we're back, and I'm talking to Jack Schlackter, physicists at

756
00:46:36,520 --> 00:46:40,400
Speaker 1: Los Almos and Rabbi of the Los Alamos Jewish Center. No,

757
00:46:40,520 --> 00:46:42,799
Speaker 1: I totally agree, and that actually brings us to our

758
00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:46,560
Speaker 1: next topic, because even if physics doesn't tell us how

759
00:46:46,600 --> 00:46:50,000
Speaker 1: to live our lives, there are enormous potential consequences to

760
00:46:50,160 --> 00:46:53,200
Speaker 1: doing physics. And that, of course is the context of

761
00:46:53,280 --> 00:46:56,880
Speaker 1: Los Alamos, where you discovered your Judaism and where I

762
00:46:57,000 --> 00:46:59,919
Speaker 1: discovered my love for physics. Los Almos and the forty

763
00:47:00,120 --> 00:47:03,120
Speaker 1: and fifties is a town centered on the weapons lab,

764
00:47:03,160 --> 00:47:05,840
Speaker 1: and people who decided to live in this sort of

765
00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:07,879
Speaker 1: bizarre town in the middle of nowhere did it because

766
00:47:07,920 --> 00:47:11,120
Speaker 1: they're passionate about the physics or maybe the larger mission

767
00:47:11,160 --> 00:47:15,319
Speaker 1: of national security. But there's also a significant fraction who

768
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:18,239
Speaker 1: build this Jewish community. Do you know much about the

769
00:47:18,239 --> 00:47:21,239
Speaker 1: early Jewish community in Los Alamos. Is it made out

770
00:47:21,280 --> 00:47:24,920
Speaker 1: of observant Jews who are also world class physicists, or

771
00:47:24,960 --> 00:47:27,480
Speaker 1: is it also people like you who were just looking

772
00:47:27,520 --> 00:47:29,760
Speaker 1: for some sort of cultural community at the time.

773
00:47:30,480 --> 00:47:36,040
Speaker 9: So my exploration as an amateur historian into the Jewish

774
00:47:36,080 --> 00:47:39,520
Speaker 9: origins of Los Almos back to the days of the

775
00:47:39,520 --> 00:47:43,600
Speaker 9: Manhattan Project nineteen forty three to forty five suggest and

776
00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:47,799
Speaker 9: I titled a talk that I prepared once in kind

777
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:52,759
Speaker 9: of a tongue in cheek intentional title Jews in theory,

778
00:47:52,800 --> 00:47:56,279
Speaker 9: meaning the Jews in theoretical division, but also that they

779
00:47:56,280 --> 00:48:00,239
Speaker 9: were Jews in theory because very few, if any, were

780
00:48:00,280 --> 00:48:04,880
Speaker 9: what I would call practicing Jews with a deep religious

781
00:48:05,040 --> 00:48:09,560
Speaker 9: commitment to Jewish practice. I think by and large they

782
00:48:09,600 --> 00:48:14,160
Speaker 9: were secular Jews. That doesn't mean that they were hiding

783
00:48:14,200 --> 00:48:18,719
Speaker 9: their Jewishness at all, I think for them, certainly, in

784
00:48:18,840 --> 00:48:22,759
Speaker 9: the midst of fighting World War Two, I think they

785
00:48:22,880 --> 00:48:26,160
Speaker 9: understood full well that there was a threat to the

786
00:48:26,280 --> 00:48:30,800
Speaker 9: Jewish people, and that developing a bomb, which was the

787
00:48:30,840 --> 00:48:35,000
Speaker 9: purpose of the Manhattan Project, was in part motivated by

788
00:48:35,120 --> 00:48:39,200
Speaker 9: the need to be protective of the Jewish people. There

789
00:48:39,200 --> 00:48:43,000
Speaker 9: are some fascinating individuals. I mean, talk about we're now

790
00:48:43,080 --> 00:48:47,080
Speaker 9: distant from the giants of yesteryear. Every time I look

791
00:48:47,560 --> 00:48:52,040
Speaker 9: in depth at an individual Jewish scientist from the Manhattan

792
00:48:52,360 --> 00:48:57,760
Speaker 9: Project time I'm struck with what amazing individuals these were.

793
00:48:58,280 --> 00:49:01,600
Speaker 9: One of them, in particular, who comes to mind was

794
00:49:01,680 --> 00:49:05,000
Speaker 9: Joseph Rotblot, who went on to win the Nobel Prize

795
00:49:05,000 --> 00:49:09,120
Speaker 9: in Peace. But he came to the laboratory, barely came

796
00:49:09,200 --> 00:49:14,640
Speaker 9: to the laboratory from Warsaw, Poland, leaving Warsaw a few

797
00:49:14,719 --> 00:49:19,480
Speaker 9: weeks before September one, nineteen thirty nine, his wife was

798
00:49:19,800 --> 00:49:24,120
Speaker 9: in recovery from some illness, I don't remember what, and

799
00:49:24,239 --> 00:49:27,160
Speaker 9: the plan was for her to join him, and then

800
00:49:27,239 --> 00:49:31,000
Speaker 9: September first came, she never joined him. He spent time

801
00:49:31,160 --> 00:49:34,279
Speaker 9: while at Los almost desperately trying to find out what

802
00:49:34,400 --> 00:49:37,680
Speaker 9: had happened to her. She did actually die in a

803
00:49:37,800 --> 00:49:41,520
Speaker 9: concentration camp, it's my understanding, but he couldn't find that

804
00:49:41,680 --> 00:49:46,440
Speaker 9: out for quite some time, and he eventually went on

805
00:49:46,560 --> 00:49:51,880
Speaker 9: to put his effort into peace and was the recipient

806
00:49:51,920 --> 00:49:55,120
Speaker 9: of the Nobel Prize in Peace. So it's an interesting story,

807
00:49:55,360 --> 00:49:58,799
Speaker 9: and his Jewishness was probably not what we would call

808
00:49:58,920 --> 00:50:04,480
Speaker 9: traditional Orthodox's practice, but he knew better than anybody the

809
00:50:04,520 --> 00:50:09,200
Speaker 9: horrors of the Second World War and tragically lost his

810
00:50:09,280 --> 00:50:11,720
Speaker 9: wife and probably others in his family as well.

811
00:50:12,160 --> 00:50:14,279
Speaker 1: And there certainly were a lot of Jews in Los

812
00:50:14,320 --> 00:50:18,560
Speaker 1: Almo's participating in important roles in the Manhattan Project. But

813
00:50:18,560 --> 00:50:21,839
Speaker 1: there seems to be also a larger connection between Judaism

814
00:50:22,120 --> 00:50:25,960
Speaker 1: and physicists. Like somehow, there are a lot of physicists

815
00:50:26,000 --> 00:50:28,080
Speaker 1: who are Jews, and a lot of Jews who are physicists,

816
00:50:28,120 --> 00:50:31,239
Speaker 1: and some huge fraction of the Nobel Prize winners in

817
00:50:31,280 --> 00:50:35,839
Speaker 1: physics are Jews, at least culturally. I've heard people say

818
00:50:35,880 --> 00:50:40,719
Speaker 1: that there's a connection between Judaism and physics because Judaism

819
00:50:41,040 --> 00:50:43,480
Speaker 1: has this belief in sort of like an abstract world.

820
00:50:43,520 --> 00:50:46,200
Speaker 1: That's the foundation that the physical world is just a

821
00:50:46,200 --> 00:50:49,480
Speaker 1: reflection of the abstract world. And you can see this

822
00:50:49,600 --> 00:50:52,680
Speaker 1: and how the story of Genesis is told that God

823
00:50:52,760 --> 00:50:56,560
Speaker 1: created the world by speaking, that these words are somehow

824
00:50:56,640 --> 00:51:00,359
Speaker 1: more real than the physical world. They were primary, and

825
00:51:00,520 --> 00:51:04,480
Speaker 1: this kind of thinking lends better to abstract thought and

826
00:51:04,640 --> 00:51:07,520
Speaker 1: therefore to physics. I don't know if you think there's

827
00:51:07,520 --> 00:51:09,120
Speaker 1: any truth in that, If you have any of your

828
00:51:09,120 --> 00:51:11,480
Speaker 1: own theories about why there seems to be at least

829
00:51:11,480 --> 00:51:16,480
Speaker 1: this confluence or this overlap demographically between Jews and physics.

830
00:51:16,160 --> 00:51:18,560
Speaker 9: Well, that's an interesting take on it that I'm not

831
00:51:18,600 --> 00:51:21,960
Speaker 9: sure I had heard before about the comfort level that

832
00:51:22,080 --> 00:51:25,600
Speaker 9: Jews may have with the concept of the abstract, and

833
00:51:25,680 --> 00:51:27,920
Speaker 9: I'll keep that in mind. I will try to remember

834
00:51:27,960 --> 00:51:31,600
Speaker 9: to quote you in fact, because I'm hoping to prepare

835
00:51:31,800 --> 00:51:36,320
Speaker 9: a presentation for May of this year through the Los

836
00:51:36,360 --> 00:51:41,279
Speaker 9: Almos Public Library System, because I think may might be

837
00:51:41,600 --> 00:51:45,279
Speaker 9: Jewish American Heritage Month, and I was asked if I

838
00:51:45,280 --> 00:51:47,360
Speaker 9: would be willing to give a talk, and I wanted

839
00:51:47,400 --> 00:51:49,800
Speaker 9: to narrow it down, and I thought I would narrow

840
00:51:49,800 --> 00:51:53,040
Speaker 9: it down to what seemingly would be a tiny topic,

841
00:51:53,320 --> 00:51:58,319
Speaker 9: which was Jewish American Nobel Physics Prize winners. But that's

842
00:51:58,360 --> 00:52:02,600
Speaker 9: actually a huge talk. And so in trying to answer

843
00:52:02,600 --> 00:52:05,440
Speaker 9: the question why is that a huge topic? I think

844
00:52:05,520 --> 00:52:07,799
Speaker 9: I will keep in mind what you just said. It's

845
00:52:07,800 --> 00:52:10,800
Speaker 9: not what I would have thought of immediately. I actually

846
00:52:11,120 --> 00:52:14,279
Speaker 9: had thought it was more the questioning attitude that is

847
00:52:14,360 --> 00:52:19,040
Speaker 9: inherent in Judaism that lends itself to that same questioning

848
00:52:19,080 --> 00:52:21,960
Speaker 9: attitude in how we look at the world around us.

849
00:52:22,239 --> 00:52:26,040
Speaker 9: And I'm reminded by the way of a wonderful passage

850
00:52:26,120 --> 00:52:30,400
Speaker 9: that is captured in the Hagadad, the text that we

851
00:52:30,600 --> 00:52:35,640
Speaker 9: use that passover at the Fader, the evening ceremony for Passover.

852
00:52:36,040 --> 00:52:39,320
Speaker 9: The Hagadad that the Los Amos Jewish Center has used

853
00:52:39,400 --> 00:52:44,080
Speaker 9: on some occasions includes a passage because there's a section

854
00:52:44,440 --> 00:52:49,960
Speaker 9: in that ceremony where questions are asked and there's a quotation.

855
00:52:50,600 --> 00:52:54,120
Speaker 9: I can picture that on the page where the famous

856
00:52:54,200 --> 00:52:59,239
Speaker 9: Nobel Prize winning Jewish physicist II Robbie shares an anecdote

857
00:52:59,280 --> 00:53:03,239
Speaker 9: from his child, and he says that when the other

858
00:53:03,400 --> 00:53:06,480
Speaker 9: kids would come home from school, their mothers would ask

859
00:53:06,560 --> 00:53:09,359
Speaker 9: them what did you learn today, And when he would

860
00:53:09,400 --> 00:53:12,200
Speaker 9: come home from school, his mother would say, did you

861
00:53:12,360 --> 00:53:15,719
Speaker 9: ask any good questions today? And he believes that that

862
00:53:15,920 --> 00:53:20,360
Speaker 9: was a contributor to his passion for physics and his success.

863
00:53:20,880 --> 00:53:24,520
Speaker 9: It is this idea of asking questions. So I had

864
00:53:24,560 --> 00:53:27,680
Speaker 9: always thought that that might be the primary reason why

865
00:53:27,719 --> 00:53:32,759
Speaker 9: the overlap between physicists and Jews might be higher than

866
00:53:32,760 --> 00:53:35,800
Speaker 9: you would expect. But I like what you say about

867
00:53:35,800 --> 00:53:38,720
Speaker 9: the abstract also, I think that's equally interesting.

868
00:53:38,960 --> 00:53:41,200
Speaker 1: Well, you, Sash probably credit my father. That was definitely

869
00:53:41,200 --> 00:53:44,520
Speaker 1: an idea of his. But to me, physics is a

870
00:53:44,560 --> 00:53:48,560
Speaker 1: reflection of a search for the underlying truth of the world.

871
00:53:48,640 --> 00:53:51,319
Speaker 1: And you know, the structure, the mathematical nature of the

872
00:53:51,400 --> 00:53:54,200
Speaker 1: laws makes us wonder if we're seeing the structure of

873
00:53:54,239 --> 00:53:57,960
Speaker 1: the universe itself or whether we're just reflecting our own minds.

874
00:53:58,680 --> 00:54:01,080
Speaker 1: But to me, it definitely is a hunt for those

875
00:54:01,239 --> 00:54:05,880
Speaker 1: fundamental foundations with intellectual girders of reality. My last question

876
00:54:05,920 --> 00:54:08,880
Speaker 1: for you is also about history and the Manhattan project.

877
00:54:09,120 --> 00:54:11,880
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if you've seen the movie Oppenheimer, and what

878
00:54:11,960 --> 00:54:15,160
Speaker 1: you think of the portrayal of Los Alamos and Jews

879
00:54:15,239 --> 00:54:20,000
Speaker 1: and physicists. Being a physicist and a Jew in Los Alamos.

880
00:54:19,640 --> 00:54:22,080
Speaker 9: It would be criminal, I think if I had not

881
00:54:22,239 --> 00:54:25,319
Speaker 9: seen the movie. I actually saw the movie twice, and

882
00:54:25,640 --> 00:54:27,880
Speaker 9: I'm not much of a moviegoer, so for me to

883
00:54:27,920 --> 00:54:30,480
Speaker 9: see the movie twice, that's got a lot. And I

884
00:54:30,520 --> 00:54:33,200
Speaker 9: did enjoy the movie. I think it's three hours long,

885
00:54:33,239 --> 00:54:35,640
Speaker 9: but the three hours went by quite quickly for me.

886
00:54:35,760 --> 00:54:39,600
Speaker 9: I thought it was a very effective tool for sharing

887
00:54:39,680 --> 00:54:43,239
Speaker 9: an interesting story. I will tell you that Los Alamos

888
00:54:43,360 --> 00:54:48,240
Speaker 9: went crazy as this film was being produced and prepared

889
00:54:48,280 --> 00:54:51,839
Speaker 9: for release. My wife and I were gone to New

890
00:54:51,920 --> 00:54:54,360
Speaker 9: York for a few years, but we came back into

891
00:54:54,400 --> 00:54:57,520
Speaker 9: town in time to catch some of the filming that

892
00:54:57,680 --> 00:55:00,400
Speaker 9: was taking place in Los Almas, and the town was

893
00:55:00,600 --> 00:55:04,319
Speaker 9: completely in a tizzy over the filming. And then when

894
00:55:04,480 --> 00:55:07,080
Speaker 9: the movie was getting ready to be released, it was

895
00:55:07,120 --> 00:55:09,440
Speaker 9: in even more of a tizzy because there was this

896
00:55:09,600 --> 00:55:13,799
Speaker 9: expectation that we would be inundated with tourists. So in

897
00:55:13,880 --> 00:55:19,919
Speaker 9: conjunction with that, the J. Robert Oppenheimer Memorial committee set

898
00:55:20,000 --> 00:55:22,680
Speaker 9: up a series of talks, and I was asked by

899
00:55:22,760 --> 00:55:26,080
Speaker 9: the chair of the committee if I would give a

900
00:55:26,120 --> 00:55:31,080
Speaker 9: talk about Oppenheimer and his Jewishness. And I thought about

901
00:55:31,080 --> 00:55:34,640
Speaker 9: that for a bit, and I decided to modify the topic,

902
00:55:35,080 --> 00:55:39,880
Speaker 9: and I ended up speaking about two Jewish people, Oppenheimer

903
00:55:40,000 --> 00:55:45,720
Speaker 9: and Lewis Straws, and the contrast between the two because

904
00:55:45,760 --> 00:55:49,680
Speaker 9: of their different approaches to Judaism. It just seemed like

905
00:55:49,719 --> 00:55:53,000
Speaker 9: an intriguing topic to me, and I gave that talk

906
00:55:53,200 --> 00:55:57,200
Speaker 9: two weeks before the film was released, not knowing that

907
00:55:57,480 --> 00:56:00,759
Speaker 9: Straws played such an important role in the movie, and

908
00:56:00,800 --> 00:56:04,000
Speaker 9: I think that was fortuitous because I just happened to

909
00:56:04,200 --> 00:56:08,719
Speaker 9: again guess that this might be interesting. The movie did

910
00:56:08,760 --> 00:56:13,040
Speaker 9: not make a huge deal about the Jewishness of either

911
00:56:13,120 --> 00:56:16,680
Speaker 9: of those two individuals. Those who had heard my talk

912
00:56:16,800 --> 00:56:19,839
Speaker 9: before they saw the movie said that it gave them

913
00:56:20,200 --> 00:56:23,160
Speaker 9: a little more insight to some lines that might have

914
00:56:23,320 --> 00:56:26,560
Speaker 9: slipped past them, or some schemes that might have gone

915
00:56:26,560 --> 00:56:30,840
Speaker 9: by too quickly. Otherwise that they were prepared for paying

916
00:56:30,880 --> 00:56:34,239
Speaker 9: attention to the Jewish aspects. I don't think it was

917
00:56:34,280 --> 00:56:37,239
Speaker 9: a major part of the movie, but for me, it's

918
00:56:37,280 --> 00:56:41,440
Speaker 9: another interesting dimension of the movie that the Jewishness of

919
00:56:42,440 --> 00:56:47,360
Speaker 9: not just Oppenheimer, but Oppenheimer and Straws and Einstein and

920
00:56:47,440 --> 00:56:50,600
Speaker 9: the list goes on. Of course, Hans Beta was Jewish

921
00:56:50,600 --> 00:56:55,120
Speaker 9: by birth, though his family converted, I think, and Keller

922
00:56:55,440 --> 00:56:58,520
Speaker 9: was Jewish. You know that all these people were Jewish,

923
00:56:58,600 --> 00:57:02,520
Speaker 9: and there was some aspect of that that must have

924
00:57:02,640 --> 00:57:05,760
Speaker 9: been underlying what was going on. I think the movie

925
00:57:05,800 --> 00:57:10,080
Speaker 9: probably appropriately did not make that a major theme, but

926
00:57:10,440 --> 00:57:13,640
Speaker 9: it's there, and I think it adds to our understanding

927
00:57:13,640 --> 00:57:17,200
Speaker 9: and appreciation of that period of history to know something

928
00:57:17,280 --> 00:57:20,440
Speaker 9: about the Jewishness. And I'll just say, in a nutshell,

929
00:57:20,800 --> 00:57:25,760
Speaker 9: Oppenheimer had a very conflicted understanding of his Jewishness, which

930
00:57:25,800 --> 00:57:28,760
Speaker 9: he inherited from his parents and his upbringing at the

931
00:57:29,160 --> 00:57:32,360
Speaker 9: Ethical Cultural School in New York, and Straws had a

932
00:57:32,440 --> 00:57:36,520
Speaker 9: quite different understanding of his Jewishness. He made his way

933
00:57:36,640 --> 00:57:40,280
Speaker 9: successfully as a businessman in a world that was pretty

934
00:57:40,320 --> 00:57:43,560
Speaker 9: anti Semitic at the time, and so he wore his

935
00:57:43,680 --> 00:57:48,800
Speaker 9: Judaism proudly. Oppenheimer, I think more or less did his Judaism,

936
00:57:49,200 --> 00:57:52,720
Speaker 9: and I think that was at least one dimension of

937
00:57:52,760 --> 00:57:56,080
Speaker 9: the clash between the two. That was the tragic arc

938
00:57:56,240 --> 00:57:59,600
Speaker 9: of the movie of both of them rising to great

939
00:57:59,640 --> 00:58:04,040
Speaker 9: heights and then both of them falling down afterwards, Oppenheimer

940
00:58:04,120 --> 00:58:07,520
Speaker 9: because of the loss of his security clearance and Straws

941
00:58:07,560 --> 00:58:12,200
Speaker 9: because the nomination to the Cabinet Physicition failed.

942
00:58:12,560 --> 00:58:15,840
Speaker 1: Fascinating. Thanks very much for sharing your thoughts, and thanks

943
00:58:15,920 --> 00:58:19,680
Speaker 1: very much for sharing your personal reflections on living life

944
00:58:19,720 --> 00:58:22,720
Speaker 1: as a physicist and as a Jew. And thank you

945
00:58:22,840 --> 00:58:25,800
Speaker 1: very much for helping shape my Jewish identity. Your role

946
00:58:25,840 --> 00:58:29,960
Speaker 1: in that community there definitely changed my appreciation of Judaism

947
00:58:30,000 --> 00:58:32,680
Speaker 1: and specifically Jewish songs and melodies.

948
00:58:33,200 --> 00:58:36,240
Speaker 9: Oh, I'm so pleased to get that feedback, Daniel, and

949
00:58:36,280 --> 00:58:40,120
Speaker 9: I really do appreciate that. And I am continuing to sing.

950
00:58:40,200 --> 00:58:43,120
Speaker 9: I do some secular singing now as well, because I

951
00:58:43,160 --> 00:58:46,960
Speaker 9: am retired from the laboratory, and it's just a great

952
00:58:47,080 --> 00:58:50,000
Speaker 9: joy for me. It was just a tremendous gift to

953
00:58:50,080 --> 00:58:53,480
Speaker 9: have been given a good singing voice, and I've just

954
00:58:54,040 --> 00:58:58,000
Speaker 9: enjoyed immensely the opportunity to sing both in the synagogue

955
00:58:58,040 --> 00:59:01,000
Speaker 9: and in a secular choir. Just been grateful.

956
00:59:02,320 --> 00:59:04,600
Speaker 1: Well, it was sort of a canonical part of my experience,

957
00:59:04,600 --> 00:59:06,720
Speaker 1: and when I went on to other cities and other

958
00:59:06,840 --> 00:59:09,960
Speaker 1: Jewish communities. I was sort of looking around and I

959
00:59:10,000 --> 00:59:13,200
Speaker 1: was like, where's there, Jack Schlachter. There's nobody here with

960
00:59:13,280 --> 00:59:16,800
Speaker 1: a beautiful baritone to lead these songs. I really felt

961
00:59:16,840 --> 00:59:20,280
Speaker 1: like there was something lacking in the experience, and so

962
00:59:20,760 --> 00:59:22,400
Speaker 1: thank you. But you also sort of cursed me.

963
00:59:22,720 --> 00:59:25,440
Speaker 9: Oh no, how is that?

964
00:59:25,560 --> 00:59:25,880
Speaker 1: Nothing?

965
00:59:25,920 --> 00:59:26,120
Speaker 8: Ever?

966
00:59:26,240 --> 00:59:30,400
Speaker 1: Felt like it matched up to my childhood Jewish experience.

967
00:59:30,440 --> 00:59:33,480
Speaker 9: After that, well, I know that you have a wonderful

968
00:59:33,520 --> 00:59:37,040
Speaker 9: position and have a very successful career, but you knows

969
00:59:37,120 --> 00:59:40,440
Speaker 9: almost is still looking for physicists, and so maybe you

970
00:59:40,520 --> 00:59:43,640
Speaker 9: can get over that curse by coming back sometime.

971
00:59:43,880 --> 00:59:46,360
Speaker 1: We'll see. Well, thanks very much for spending some time

972
00:59:46,400 --> 00:59:49,880
Speaker 1: talking to us about these really fascinating topics. Really appreciate it.

973
00:59:50,040 --> 00:59:53,440
Speaker 9: My pleasure really was a distinct privilege and honor to

974
00:59:53,480 --> 00:59:55,840
Speaker 9: connect with you. Thank you so much for reaching out,

975
00:59:56,120 --> 00:59:58,320
Speaker 9: and I do hope that we cross paths at some

976
00:59:58,520 --> 00:59:59,720
Speaker 9: point as well.

977
01:00:00,440 --> 01:00:03,080
Speaker 1: So that was my conversation with Jack Schlackter, which was

978
01:00:03,080 --> 01:00:06,040
Speaker 1: fascinating for me personally because I haven't spoken to Jack

979
01:00:06,200 --> 01:00:08,560
Speaker 1: in thirty years or so, but he played a big

980
01:00:08,640 --> 01:00:12,440
Speaker 1: role in shaping my Jewish cultural identity, and so it's

981
01:00:12,440 --> 01:00:15,120
Speaker 1: fascinating to me to have physics in common with him

982
01:00:15,160 --> 01:00:18,080
Speaker 1: as well. Thanks very much for listening to this episode

983
01:00:18,120 --> 01:00:21,360
Speaker 1: about this tricky topic that connects physics to larger issues

984
01:00:21,440 --> 01:00:25,120
Speaker 1: in our lives. I hope you learned something and enjoyed it.

985
01:00:25,400 --> 01:00:33,040
Speaker 1: Thanks very much. For more science and curiosity, come find

986
01:00:33,120 --> 01:00:36,640
Speaker 1: us on social media where we answer questions and post videos.

987
01:00:36,920 --> 01:00:40,920
Speaker 1: We're on Twitter, disc Org, Instant and now TikTok. Thanks

988
01:00:40,920 --> 01:00:43,560
Speaker 1: for listening and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the

989
01:00:43,600 --> 01:00:48,360
Speaker 1: Universe is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

990
01:00:48,520 --> 01:00:52,720
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

991
01:00:52,800 --> 01:00:56,480
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.