Know God
Commandment #1. Our souls first order of business.
Installment #1 of a series on the commandments of the Torah.
We are commanded to acquire knowledge of G‑d's existence, i.e., to understand that He is the Original Cause and Source of reality Who brings all creations into being.
The source of this commandment is God's statement,
"I am your Lord." - Exodus 20:2
The prime directive of the human soul is to gain knowledge of God and His existence, but this is not easy. God's existence is intentionally concealed so that each soul can freely decide to love and follow Him. If He revealed Himself even slightly more than He already has, our freedom to choose would be lost. Thus, in order to maintain our freedom, God remains largely concealed, enabling us to make choices based on our own volition.
Therefore, God's existence must be inferred through logical, verifiable proofs that can be observed in nature and its phenomena. As Rabbi Shaul (also known as the Apostle Paul) writes in Romans 1,
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
In addition, we have the testimony of the Jewish people and their holy scriptures, which were revealed to them by God. The entire nation of Israel experienced God and gained a powerful understanding of His essence at Mt. Sinai. This collective experience has been passed down from generation to generation for millennia until the present day. Moses writes in Deuteronomy 4:9,
You shall not forget the things you saw with your own eyes…and you shall make them known to your children and your children’s children.
In addition to preserving the experience at Sinai, the fact that the Jewish people have survived for 4,000 years also attests to a power beyond themselves. This defies all probabilities and even inspired Mark Twain, known as the "Father of American literature," to marvel at this phenomenon.
"If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one-quarter of one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk.
His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine and abstruse learning are also very out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world in all ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself and be excused for it. The Egyptians, the Babylonians and the Persians rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greeks and Romans followed and made a vast noise, and they were gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, and have vanished.
The Jew saw them all, survived them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmaties, of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert but aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jews; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality? "
If the wonders of nature, the existence of the Jewish people, and their scriptures are not sufficient evidence for the existence of God, then perhaps the intricate design and extraordinary engineering of the human eye can be considered additional proof.
Here are 15 eye-opening facts:
The average blink is 1/10 of a second
The eyes are the second most complex part of your body—only surpassed in complexity by the brain
Only 1/6th of the eye is exposed to the human world
A fingerprint contains 40 unique traits, and eyes contain 256, hence the reason retina security scans are more secure
The length of the eye determines how good your vision is
When it comes to sight, 50% or more of your brain gets involved
Newborns have audible cries but no tears to go along with them until about four months old
Eye scratches heal quickly—usually within 48 hours unless infection occurs
Humans are blind for about 40 minutes per day because of Saccadic masking—the body’s way of reducing motion blur as objects and eyes move
20/20 isn’t perfect vision; it’s actually normal vision—it means you can see what an average person sees from 20 feet
Eyes manage 80 percent of all information you will ever take in
An average person blinks 5.2 million times per year (17 times per minute, 14,280 times in 14 hours, 5.2M times per year)
Diabetes can be detected through eye exams
An eye has more than 2,000,000 working parts
If one of your eyes were a digital camera, it’d have 576 megapixels. I-phone 14 has 48.1
If we stumbled upon a machine that mimicked the human eye's capabilities in the forest, we would not attribute its creation to random natural forces. The engineering of the human eye is so complex that it makes the construction of a Rolex watch seem elementary by comparison. Nevertheless, if we were to find a Rolex watch in the forest, we would not assume it was created randomly or purely by chance. Common sense dictates we would conclude a master engineer.
Although complicated by His concealment, it is still possible to fulfill the first commandment of knowing Him. God has provided us with sufficient evidence to rationally and logically conclude that He exists and can be known. The preponderance of evidence points to the reality of His existence.
Therefore, Know God.
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Ty
https://selecthealth.org/blog/2016/08/15-things-about-the-eye