This book clear­ly, col­or­ful­ly, and com­pre­hen­sive­ly makes a case for the align­ment of reli­gion and science. 

In the first vol­ume, one sec­tion of the Mish­na, Masech­es Bera­chos, is care­ful­ly exam­ined with strict yet exhaus­tive atten­tion to all the places with­in the Mish­na which are relat­ed to sci­ence and the nat­ur­al world. The sci­en­tif­ic prin­ci­ples behind these points of con­nec­tion are then explained. One ear­ly exam­ple is the Mishna’s treat­ment of which time of day is the prop­er one to recite the She­ma prayer. This leads to a thor­ough dis­cus­sion of day and night, light and dark­ness, and the physics on which it is based. The sci­en­tif­ic expla­na­tions are pre­sent­ed clear­ly and easy to understand. 

Oth­er top­ics addressed include col­or, human biol­o­gy, ani­mals and insects, astron­o­my, air

pres­sure, diges­tion, earth­quakes, and many more fas­ci­nat­ing phe­nom­e­na. The text is accom­pa­nied by a large array of illus­tra­tions, pho­tographs, charts, graphs, and oth­er aids to help chil­dren under­stand the sub­ject mat­ter. The lan­guage is sim­ple enough to dis­till and ampli­fy sophis­ti­cat­ed top­ics in a man­ner which illu­mi­nates them, cov­er­ing them thor­ough­ly and piquing inter­est along the way. Hebrew pas­sages from each rel­e­vant Mish­na accom­pa­ny the sci­en­tif­ic expla­na­tions, help­ing tie togeth­er the ancient writ­ings and mod­ern thought.

A com­bined index and glos­sary is append­ed, help­ing the read­er nav­i­gate the con­tent in an orga­nized and effi­cient fash­ion. A com­pre­hen­sive intro­duc­tion pre­pares the read­er to take full advan­tage of the mul­ti­tude of facts pre­sent­ed. For those who want to be sure that this trea­tise aligns with clas­sic Ortho­doxy, rab­bini­cal appro­ba­tions are included.

This syn­the­sis of Jew­ish thought and sci­en­tif­ic prin­ci­ple is valu­able and fas­ci­nat­ing. It opens worlds of thought to those who want to under­stand time­less Jew­ish writ­ings in the con­text of what sci­en­tists have learned, and it com­bines the two into a seam­less and sat­is­fy­ing whole.