There is a lazy assumption in much of the modern West that faith and science are natural enemies.
Religion, we are told, belongs to the past. Innovation belongs to the future. One is supposed to be mystical, inward and ancient; the other rational, outward and advanced. The enlightened person must eventually choose between them.
Israel quietly disproves the premise every day.
Here is a state that argues loudly about theology, observes ancient festivals, shuts down public life for Yom Kippur, studies texts written millennia ago and sends its sons and daughters to defend a land promised in those same texts. And yet this same state is also a global leader in cyber, medicine, agriculture, water technology, defense systems, artificial intelligence and high-tech entrepreneurship.
Apparently, no one told the Jews that faith and innovation were supposed to be opposites.
President Isaac Herzog recently paid a visit to the Jerusalem College of Technology, an institution that represents something profoundly Israeli: the integration of Torah learning with serious academic excellence. JCT educates thousands of religious and ultra-Orthodox students in engineering, life sciences, management,...
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