BRUCE LICHT
FOUNDER OF MY ELEVATOR PITCH FOR GOD, ENTREPRENEUR, AND AUTHOR
Bruce grew up in Lafayette, California and received a BA in Political Science from UCLA as well as a Graduate Gemologist degree from the Gemological Institute of America. After graduating, Bruce operated his family’s 100 year-old retail fine jewelry business for twenty-two years. Bruce had a passion for computers and graphic arts, so he changed careers and joined his best friend at a national technical publishing company for seventeen-years as the company’s Publisher, where they invented the modern labor law poster industry, including the first “All- On-One Labor Law Poster” and “Labor Law Poster Compliance Plan.”
Aside from being the Founder of this website, My Elevator Pitch for God, Bruce was the co-editor of the book titled, Elevator Pitches For God: Volume 1, and author of the cookbook titled, Immediate Chef: No Previous Experience Required.
Bruce’s goals for this website are: To introduce more people all around the world to God and strengthen the faith of those who already believe in a non-political and non-religious way, to bring people together, find common ground between different faiths, create meaning in people's lives, and start to move the world in a better direction.
You can help by sending this website to friends and family and posting it on social media!
You can also connect with the website project’s LinkedIn page below:
Divine Intellect Works Backwards
BRUCE LICHT
When a very serious learner embarks on the study of Torah,(1) they always look backwards: back to ancient scholars. It is absolutely remarkable how the apex or peak of Torah knowledge resides all the way back to Moses, to Mount Sinai, in the year 1312 BCE.
It is very interesting to note that the study of the Torah is the solitary discipline where the only way to enhance your analysis and better your understanding is to delve back in time, as opposed to forward.(2) This is the only instance where we can definitely say that the ancients had a far more thorough grasp of the substance than we do today.(3)
For example, there is no one alive today whose knowledge of the Torah even remotely compares to the proficiency of understanding possessed by Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna (known as the “Gaon of Vilna”) who lived from 1720—1797 CE in Lithuania. His comprehension of the Torah was so comprehensive that it was astounding.
But even his vast expertise did not remotely compare to the twelfth-century physician to the Sultan of Cairo in Egypt, and codifier of Jewish philosophy and law, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon (known as “the Rambam” or “Maimonides”) who lived more than a half-century prior, from 1135—1204 CE. The Rambam was literally on a completely different level.
Likewise, you cannot even begin to equate the Rambam’s scholarship to that of Rabbi Akiva ben Joseph (known simply as “Rabbi Akiva”) who lived in Israel a thousand years earlier, from about 50—135 CE. He is considered one of the most prolific and inspiring teachers of Judaism in history; however, his enormous scholarship, as compared to subsequent intellectual giants, could be described as still being worlds apart.
Similarly, Rabbi Akiva did not even vaguely compare to the enormous, almost immeasurable understanding held by Moses. Regardless of what religion the academic sages throughout history followed (be it Catholicism, Protestantism, etc.), the comparison is consistently the same.
Why is it that every other discipline (philosophy, arts & humanities, biological sciences, agriculture & natural resources, physical sciences, mathematics & computer science, social sciences, business, communications, media & public relations, education, engineering, etc.) is the other way around; the further along the path of progress you get, the deeper our understanding becomes?(4)
Just look at any of the great scientists of history, like Copernicus, Galileo, Newton and others. Unquestionably, they discovered amazing things and changed the way we view our world, but we have subsequently advanced by leaps and bounds. Even some ground-breaking concepts of Albert Einstein have evolved and been further refined.(5)
However, for some reason, when it comes to the analytical equivalence that was bestowed upon humanity, as contained in the Torah, it is the complete alternative to what you would think. That is just not how things ordinarily work, but in this unique case, it surprisingly does.
Where did this previously unknown “original intelligence” that was delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai come from? I think the answer is obvious.
Footnotes:
1) The “Torah” (which means “Instructions” in Hebrew and refers especially to when it is in a scroll format) is also commonly called the “Chumash” (which means “Five” in Hebrew), the “Pentateuch” (which means “Five” in Greek), the Old Testament, or the “Five Books of Moses” (consisting of the books or Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy).
2) This idea was presented, although not originally, in “The Ethics Podcast With Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe” entitled: Godly Intellect (1:4).
3) The farther away we get from the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai in 1312 BCE, the less vivid things become. In Hebrew it is called “Yiridot HaDorot,” which means “the Decline of the Generations.” This is counterintuitive, because the Western world looks at people who are “old” as technological Neanderthals who don't know as much, but that is just not the case here. All Torah scholars will admit that they actually know nothing compared to their teachers. Can you imagine the level that people were at back then, when they actually had to learn and retain information in their minds? This is B.C. – “before cell phones” - before the smartphone that has in many ways made us all a lot dumber.
4) Not only has philosophy—especially in the analytic tradition—enjoyed significant progress through the millennia, but it often lays the groundwork for progress in other fields by addressing foundational issues. No clearer example exists than the development of logic. The Ancient Greeks provided unparalleled demonstrations of informal proof, culminating in Aristotle’s creation of formal logic. Nearly two thousand years later, logic advanced again with Port-Royal Logic in 1662, then with Boole’s symbolic approach and set theory in the 19th century, and finally with Frege’s seismic introduction of first-order logic around the turn of the 20th century. Frege’s breakthroughs opened the door to metalogic, to undecidability and incompleteness proofs (which paved the way for computer science), and to significant innovations in semantics, notably possible-worlds analyses and modal logics. Each new leap in logic created entire fields of inquiry, highlighting how philosophy refines its methods and concepts over time, rarely repeating old errors and steadily expanding the scope of human understanding.
5) Whereas there are no significant components of Einstein's theories (such as general or special Relativity) that have been completely disproven, there are specific areas of thought where his concepts and ideas have been further refined, developed, or indicated to have limitations. This is particularly the case concerning cosmic phenomena such as the initial universe, black holes, etc., where subsequent, fresh theories were needed to more fully justify observations. Some instances include his early reservations about the actuality of black holes and gravitational waves, which later experiments confirmed as being existent.