The Torch Magazine,
The Journal and Magazine of the
International Association of Torch Clubs
For 83 Years
A Peer-Reviewed
Quality Controlled
Publication
ISSN Print 0040-9440
ISSN Online 2330-9261
Winter
2015
Volume 88, Issue 2
Articles in the
Winter 2015 Issue
- Why is There
Something Rather Than Nothing?
by Robert G. Neuhauser
There is no
question that the universe exists.
Each bit and piece of the universe
exists and seems to be stable and to
exist perpetually. In the realm of
physics, however, a quandary remains.
Some of what we (and physicists) know
suggests to us that the bits and
pieces that make up the universe
should not have continued to exist
after they were created. The question
is, why do they continue to
persist? A
pdf version of the article is
avilable here.
- Keeping on
Keepin 'On: The disruption
of Institutional Forces and
Economic Progress
by
William Snyder
To keep on keepin' on
is what all species have tried
to do. The human branch
has struggled, and with a bit of
luck, has joined the large list
of species that are still
keepin' on. Where humans differ
is in their ability to control
their biological environment, as
well as their social, political,
and economic institutions, as
means to keep on. This paper
takes a look at the role of
power as it shapes social,
political, and economic
institutions. The power to alter
these institutions determines
the material success of the
society while selecting the
individual winners and
losers. A pdf
version of the article is
available here.
- Food or
Pharma: How our American Diet
is Making us Sick
by Kathleen June Mullins
In light of the declining
state of health and the cost of
healthcare in the U. S., it is time
to take a critical look at our food
choices. Heart disease, cancer
and diabetes began to increase
dramatically in the 1950s, and even
though death rates have declined due
to improved medical intervention,
disease rates (along with
pharmaceutical use) have continued
to increase. Prior to 1930, Coronary
Heart Disease did not appear to be a
major cause of death. How have
our diets changed since then?
A pdf version
of the article is available here.
- My Dream: A
Casteless India
by Thilagavathi Chandulal
Sixty-six
years after India's independence
and fifty years after Dr. Martin
Luther King's iconic Dream Speech,
my dream of a casteless India
still remains unrealized. I
am proud of Mother India's most
ancient civilization and her
brilliant history of philosophy,
art, literature, mathematics and
science. I am delighted at
her recent economic progress and
her being the world's largest
democracy. Nonetheless, I am
distressed at her cancer, the
caste system, which requires
urgent, complete and permanent
eradication. A pdf
version of the article is
available here.
- The Children
of Outsiders: Insights into an
Immigration
by Norman J. Kansfield
For the telling of this
tale, I choose Exodus 22.21: "God
told the people of Israel: 'You
shall not wrong a foreigner or
oppress him/her in any way, because
you were foreigners yourself in the
land of Egypt.'" God wanted God's
people to remember what it felt like
to be an "outsider", and to allow
that awareness to form their
attitude toward the "outsiders"
present among them. God's word
of insight to God's people continues
to have relevance today. The
story that I now tell makes clear
how important it is to remember
God's command not to oppress the
stranger.
A
pdf version of the article is
available here.
- Tracing
America's Forgotten First
Abolitionist
by Donald F. Nelson
The
sesquicentennial year of Lincoln's
signing of the Emancipation
Proclamation rekindled interest in the
abolitionist movement and to the
several notable figures who
contributed mightily to its
realization; a three-part PBS
television series in 2013 was built
around the contributions of William
Lloyd Garrison, Angelina Grimké,
Frederick Douglass, John Brown, and,
of course, Abraham Lincoln. But the
movement did not begin suddenly with
Garrison, as I learned through my
research of an 1826 letter and its
original recipient, one Benjamin
Lundy. A
pdf version of the article is
available here.
- The Confederate
Soldiers Section of the Hebrew
Cemetery of Richmond: A Personal
Journey of Historical and Moral
Discovery
by Rabbi Scott Sperling
For more than thirty years
as a rabbi and educator, I taught
American Jewish history to every age
group from elementary school through
adults. I used an excellent textbook
that included a seventeen-page
section on the Civil War,
highlighting the internal political
debate within the Southern and
Northern Jewish communities,
providing a sophisticated and
nuanced approach to the debate
regarding the Jewish views of
slavery. Yet, in my classes, I
regularly sped through this chapter,
giving it remarkably short shrift. I
did not want to acknowledge that
there were prominent Jews in the
Confederate government, that there
were Jews who were slave traders and
slave owners, that there were Jews
who fought on the side of the
Confederacy, and that some of my
spiritual forbearers, that is 19th
century Reform rabbis, found
biblical support for the evil
institution of slavery within the
philosophy of our
denomination. A pdf version
of the article is available here.
- Indices for
Volumes 84, 86 and 87 of The
Torch
©2015 by the International
Association of Torch Clubs
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