Strange, but true

Abstract

It is often stated that education in Torah must be a continual, life-long process. A child that terminates his/her Torah education at an early age remains with that minimum knowledge, which further lessens, throughout later life. The depth of discussion of a topic in an elementary or high school is much different from a subsequent discussion of the same topic, but reexamined at a later stage of intellectual development. For a child who high school , the topics discussed at these earlier ages may seem too simplistic when recalled later in life, especially when that same individual now has increased secular knowledge and sophistication without an accompanying increase in religious growth. The intent of this article is to review topics that may evoke "giggles" in an elementary or high school, but to demonstrate that with the appropriate scientific explanation such topics can be transformed from highly skeptical to very credible. This article discusses three topics: David's body coldness that occurred in his seventieth year; the lactation experienced by a poor widower and by Mordecai ; and the concept of shinuy hatevah.