History of
The Miami Internations Torah & Science Conference

THE MIAMI INTERNATIONAL TORAH & SCIENCE CONFERENCES
ABSOLUTE STANDARDS IN A WORLD OF RELATIVITY

When the Lubavitcher Rebbe blessed Rabbi Sholom Dovber Lipskar and Professor Herman Branover for organizing the First Miami International Torah & Science Conference, he circled the word “relativity” in the conference subtitle. The Rebbe noted that Einstein’s research probed the nature of light. Just as the speed of physical light provides a measure of absoluteness to the physical world, the light of the Torah commandments, invoked by kindling the Chanukkah candles, signifies another level of absoluteness. Thus the First Miami Torah & Science Conference was held during Chanukkah of 1987 at the Sheraton Hotel of Bal Harbour. Its proceedings, entitledFusion, were published in 1990 by Feldheim Publishers. The Second Miami Torah & Science Conference was held at the same venue on December 24-26, 1989.

Professor Nathan Katz of the Florida International University (FIU) and Ilana Attia of B’Or Ha’Torah Journal of Science, Life and Art in the Light of the Torah (BHT) joined the organizing committee for the third conference, held December 14-16, 1999, at FIU. Its discussions on the ethical problems of human cloning and genetic engineering were published in BHT 12 and 13. The theme of the fourth conference (December 18-20, 2001) was “Time, Space, and Being;” its papers were published in B’Or Ha’Torah 14 and 15. “Looking for Links between the Divine, Human, Natural, Artificial, and Virtual” was the theme of the fifth conference that took place on December 16-18, 2003. Its proceedings were published in BHT 16, 17, and 18. The theme of the sixth conference, held on December 13-15, 2005, “Unity, Duality, and Multiplicity” generated provocative discussion on how Jewish schools should respond to the Intelligent Design versus Evolution debate. These papers were published in BHT 17, 18, and 19. On December 12-15, 2007, for the seventh conference the venue moved to The Shul of Bal Harbour, where the theme was “Through the Two-Way Looking Glass: Looking at Nature through the Torah & at Torah through Nature.” Most of these papers were published in BHT 19. In 2009, the eighth conference, under the banner of “Judaism at the Cutting Edge of Medicine, Genetics, Physics & Culture” was held at The Shul, and its papers were published in BHT 20, which heralded its new publisher, the Jerusalem College of Technology (Machon Lev) and editor-in-chief Professor Joseph S. Bodenheimer. The ninth conference, focused on “Memory, Soul, and Brain,” was held at The Shul on December 22-25, 2011. Its papers were published in BHT 22.

We regret that Professor Herman Branover’s health does not enable him to continue his work with BHT and the Miami conferences.

The written papers of the Torah & Science Conferences can be ordered from B’Or Ha’Torah at www.jct.ac.il/en/bor-hatorah-home.