Does physical reality change according to human knowledge?
In science, physicist Werner Heisenberg expressed the idea that theoretical ideas which have no consequences that can be tested by measurement, have no reality in our physical world. He is even more famous for his Uncertainty Principle: if one measures a subatomic particle's position, one cannot at the same moment measure it's speed. The Uncertainty Principle thus forces particles the subatomic world to exist only as probabilities (with many positions, or "superpositions"), until measured.
Heisenberg himself was not a member of the Nazi Party- but Hitler (may his name be obliterated) put Heisenberg in charge of building a Nazi atomic bomb. Luckily, German engineers were not as successful as America's engineers, and Heisenberg failed. He and other German physicists were certainly antisemitic no-goods (Google Heisenberg, Hahn and the betrayal of Lise Meitner), but the consequences of Heisenberg's ideas run deeper:
Many unscrupulous social sciences "experts" latched onto Heisenberg's ideas (and misused Einstein's Relativity) to claim that what applies in the micro, subatomic world can be extrapolated to our macro world. Thus, if I can't see and measure a soul, or a conscience, such entities must not exist. Similarly, ALL is relative, and NO absolutes exist.
This is one small step removed from the barbarism of Nazism.
Einstein, Schrodinger and others, by 1935, were already warning not to apply principles from the subatomic world to the visible world around us. Interestingly, even the world of atoms, a world between Heisenberg's subatomic world and our gross, physical world, has properties unconnected to our world; nanochemistry makes use of this phenomenon (single atoms and aggregations of atoms have unique electrical and catalytic powers not seen in their bulk metal counterparts; attachment to the Klal allows "miracles"-see later).
Of course, the human soul and human conscience, character and ethics are not physical, measurable entities, but immeasurable, invisible phenomena that emerge from the physical world. This is the spiritual world that our Jewish Sages have dealt with throughout our history; it is the world that we entered when we walked into a Beit Hamikdash, the Temple- a world that every "ben Olam Haba " Jew inhabits as he lives a very REAL life on this earth.
Chazal, our Sages, had a unique view of פרטים - details (from physic's particles to human beings)- that unite to constitute a system, or a כלל (Klal). See my dvar Torah on this website: " Rav Wozner, Rav Kook and the Omer (published April 11, 2015). Indeed, Rav Matis Weinberg has elucidated this "systems analysis " in his explanation of the days of Sefirat Ha'Omer (the 49 days between Pesach and Shavuot; see my article on this website: Counting the Omer, Then and Today- May 1, 2012; both articles are under the name Dr. Aryeh Hirsch ).
Weekly, we have been reading about this formation of Klal from peratim (details) for two months, since Parshat Bamidbar. Bamidbar tells of the anatomy of the Klal: how the encampment of the Jews in the desert was constituted, with Reuven in the south, Dan in the west, Judah in the east, etc. Parshat Naso gave us the physiology of that camp, that Klal: how it worked (Mishkan, the Tabernacle, and how its influence spread throughout the Nation, via laws of separation of those who were טמא - impure; Sotah: etc.).
That leads us to Parshat Chukat.
It deals with laws that are not easy for us to understand. The Chok (law) that Parshat Chukat deals with lies at the very essence of our invisible, spiritual world of souls; in Chukat, G-d gives us history and laws dealing with Death itself. Chukat details the deaths of our first three leaders of the Klal, the siblings Moses, Aaron and Miriam. And in describing the reason for the Almighty punishing Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses) and Aaron with death, the Ibn Ezra says the most amazing statement about prat and Klal (Bamidbar, 20; verse 8) :
" דע כי ידע החלק את הכל - When a DETAIL becomes conscious of the ALL , it becomes attached to the ALL and gains new ( חידוש) powers in the realm of the ALL to achieve miracles… but because of the arguing between the people and Moshe the DETAILS (detached and ) were reduced to details".
Attached mentally and spiritually to the Lord, and to the Olam Haba/ world of souls, one takes on the powers of the Almighty, capable of doing miracles; detach, and a prat even as holy as a Moses enters the world of Death. That world was the world Mankind entered when Adam ate of the Tree of (Human) Knowledge.
Rav Matis Weinberg points out that, of course, Adam had to eat, or else he would have remained absorbed in the ALL that is the Almighty, to never have the Life of an Individual- a unique Prat. However, the Prat, detached, leaves the Source of Immortality (G-d, the ALL), and so he must die. A true Chok, an unknowable mystery, a mind-blowing paradox.
So, the question is: does Rabbinic law give us an example of human knowledge creating Reality, and realities? I believe it does:
One of the Chukim (Chok in plural) is the Torah law forbidding the Jew to eat meat and milk: Basar B' Chalav. The Gemara in Chulin refers to it as a חידוש , a Chidush ( the same word used by Ibn Ezra). In Yoreh Deah, siman 92, se'if 2, the Shulchan Aruch introduces the law of חתיכה נעשית נבילה - for short, Chanan. Chanan says that if a drop of milk falls onto a piece of meat in a Cholent (a stew made for Shabbos lunch), that piece becomes prohibited נבילה , neveilah . Once prohibited, the only way that that Cholent is allowed to be eaten, is if the rest of the Cholent has a volume sixty times that piece of meat.
The Taz (seif katan 6) brings up an interesting Rambam : if when the drop of milk fell into the Cholent, the Jew was stirring the pot, then the whole pot of Cholent is now the antagonizing entity that is neutralizing (mevatel) the drop of milk, allowing one to eat the stew. One needs in the entire stew not sixty times the piece of meat that the drop fell upon, but rather only sixty times the drop of milk to mevatel the milk- obviously, a much smaller amount of total stew, and one can eat it.
The Taz also says that if one didn't know which piece of meat is the one that the drop of milk fell on, the entire pot of Cholent becomes our sphere of doubt (like the box in which lies a Schrodinger cat, whose life is in doubt). When we can identify, and thus know, which piece became neveilah (due to the drop of milk), we are NOT allowed to stir the pot. However, LACK of knowledge in the case that we know not which piece is neveilah, allows us to stir the pot, and changes that piece of neveilah meat (wherever it is in the pot) to non-neveilah since in this case we only need sixty times the drop to mevatel (neutralize) the drop , and we allow the Cholent to be eaten- i.e., a little "miracle"( Ibn Ezra).
Human knowledge is the ingredient that can change Reality. From non-neveilah to neveilah (when you have knowledge), or from neveilah to non-neveilah (when you don't know).
Jews with knowledge of their history, their heritage, their legacy in this Land can change Reality and make miracles, if only they have the courage to follow where that knowledge leads them, and their fellow Jews don't hold them back .