Scientists in Synagogues

El Paso’s Temple Mount Sinai is launching a 2021 international speaker series titled “Higher Meanings: Exploring Connections Between Religion and Mathematics.” This online series of six talks targets a general audience of adults and older teens seeking more nuanced appreciation for the two domains and how they may overlap.

Each presentation explores connections between religion and a different area of the mathematical sciences such as infinity, geometry, logic, and computer science. The 2021 presenters are internationally-recognized STEM faculty Drs. Larry Lesser, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich, and David Novick from The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) as well as Dr. Kim Jongerius, Northwestern College; Dr. Victor Katz, University of the District of Columbia; and Dr. Snezana Lawrence, UK’s Middlesex University.

UTEP Distinguished Teaching Professor Larry Lesser kicks off the series by exploring connections between mathematical and theological infinity on Thursday, March 18 at 6:30pm Mountain Time (MT).  Northwestern College’s Dr. Kim Jongerius follows that on Sunday, April 25 at 6pm MT with a talk on the nature of proof, truth, and dimension. More details on these and subsequent talks are posted at https://www.templemountsinai.com/Learning/SiS.

Temple Mount Sinai’s Rabbi Ben Zeidman and Dr. Lesser wrote this project’s grant proposal funded as part of a national program entitled “Scientists in Synagogues,” a grassroots initiative run by Sinai and Synapses supported by CLAL (The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership) in consultation with the Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (the world’s largest scientific society), and funded by the John Templeton Foundation along with other individual donors. Other supporters include the UTEP Religious Studies program, UTEP Mathematical Sciences Department, and the UTEP Computer Science Department.

Scientists in Synagogues programs have been hosted by 34 congregations of all major denominations over the last few years, but this is the first time a program has focused on mathematics as its particular science. As Sinai and Synapses’ Founding Director Rabbi Geoffrey A. Mitelman said, “The interaction of mathematics and Judaism touch on everything from questions of truth to the Infinite to the ‘unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences’ (as physicist Eugene Wigner once said). This project will allow the El Paso community and beyond to gain insights on how these two realms can come together in unexpected and beautiful ways.” For more detail and to register (at no charge) for the Zoom link for each presentation, go to https://www.templemountsinai.com/Learning/SiS.

Supported by: Temple Mount Sinai; Sinai and Synapses’ Scientists in Synagogues Project; CLAL (The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership); Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; John Templeton Foundation; UTEP Religious Studies program; UTEP Mathematical Sciences Department; and UTEP Computer Science Department.