“Before Creation, G-d looked into the Torah and fashioned the universe. Man looks into the Torah and sustains the world.” (Zohar volume II, p. 161b) So the Torah is the blueprint for the world and thus, the source of a wealth of knowledge anyone can plumb. Although this is wholly antithetical to Darwin ’s theory of evolution, I doubt anyone reading off this website will complain. We are finally in a place, scientifically, where people can plug nature back into its Source.
The natural world has a rhythm. People who do hisbonanus (deep contemplation) will notice, for instance, that every animal represents a human characteristic. Therefore, when one hears the gemara in Eruvin (100b), “Had the Torah not been given we would not have learned modesty from the cat, honesty from the ant, or chastity from the dove etc,” he can lend an ear to the idea that everything on earth comes to teach one a lesson.
I’d like to bring this concept to new frontiers of thought. The bombardier (bom-ba-deer') beetle, at 6.5 to 9.5 mm, about half the size of one’s pinkie finger, distinguishes itself for its ability to thoroughly dissuade predators from “coming any closer.” Akin to an angry female human being, wielding her bottle of mace, these tiny bugs will emit a poisonous spray if disturbed by irritating neighbors.
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The damage caused by this chemical ejection can be fatal to attacking insects and even painful to human skin. Some bombardier beetles can spray their liquid death over a wide range of directions.
What can we learn from
the bombardier? One thing I picked up: G-d always gives us the tools to take
care of ourselves. While “you can’t always get what you want, if you try
sometime, you just might find that you get what you need,” right down to the little
ground beetle. I’d like to
challenge the reader to focus his/her attention on something in the near
future. It could be the joints in one’s fingers, which give him/her the ability
to hold a cup of coffee, type at the computer or fold his digits into a fist.
It could be the fact that some species of mosquitoes have forty-seven teeth. Whatever
it is, attach meaning to the subjects you notice; it may change your life.
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