New York – There is a remarkable Malbim on the book of Jonah 2:4. The Malbim discusses how Jonah was caught in a river under the sea – where the waters of the river were separate from the ocean waters. Until this month – this was generally thought to be a physical impossibility.
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Below, However, we find an article written by Richard Gray – the science editor of the British newspaper the telegraph. The results are striking. The reader is urged to see the Malbim with his or her own eyes. The term utilized by the Malbim – “Levav Yamim” clearly means sea bed.
“Researchers working in the Black Sea have found currents of water 350 times greater than the River Thames flowing along the sea bed, carving out channels much like a river on the land.
The undersea river, which is up to 115ft deep in places, even has rapids and waterfalls much like its terrestrial equivalents.
Coral reefs suffer mass bleaching If found on land, scientists estimate it would be the world’s sixth largest river in terms of the amount of water flowing through it.
The discovery could help explain how life manages to survive in the deep ocean far out to sea away from the nutrient rich waters that are found close to land, as the rivers carry sediment and nutrients with them.
The scientists, based at the University of Leeds, used a robotic submarine to study for the first time a deep channel that had been found on the sea bed.
They found a river of highly salty water flowing along the deep channel at the bottom of the Black Sea, creating river banks and flood plains much like a river found on land.
Dr Dan Parsons, from the university’s school of earth and environment, said: “The water in the channels is denser than the surrounding seawater because it has higher salinity and is carrying so much sediment.
“It flows down the sea shelf and out into the abyssal plain much like a river on land. The abyssal plains of our oceans are like the deserts of the marine world, but these channels can deliver nutrients and ingredients needed for life out over these deserts.
“This means they could be vitally important, like arteries providing life to the deep ocean.
“The key difference we found from terrestrial rivers was that as the flow goes round the bend, the water spirals in the opposite way to rivers on land.”
The undersea river discovered by Dr Parsons and his colleagues, which is yet to be named, stems from salty water spilling through the Bosphorus Strait from the Mediterranean into the Black Sea, where the water has a lower salt content.
This causes the dense water from the Mediterranean to flow like a river along the sea bed, carving a channel with banks around 115 feet deep and 0.6 of a mile wide. It is the only active undersea river to have been found so far.
Scientists have long suspected they can form, after sonar scans of the sea bed have revealed meandering channels in many of the world’s oceans, although none have been found before to have currents of water flowing through them.
Among the largest of these channels is off the coast of Brazil where the Amazon enters the Atlantic Ocean.
Most are believed to have formed when sea levels were much lower and the channels have been found to be up to 2,500 miles long and be several miles wide.
The channel in the Black Sea, although much smaller, is the only one to be found still flowing and proves that these mysterious channels are formed by underwater rivers.
Unlike ocean trenches, which are geological formations that form at the deepest parts of the ocean due to movements of the tectonic plates, the undersea river channels meander like rivers on land and form banks in the same way by eroding the silt from the bottom of the channel and building it up at the edges.
Dr Parsons found that the Black Sea river is flowing at around four miles per hour with 22,000 cubic metres of water passing through the channel every second – 350 times greater than the flow of the Thames and 10 times greater than Europe’s biggest river, the Rhine.
The Black Sea river flows only for around 37 miles until it reaches the edge of the sea shelf and dissipates into the deep sea.
Dr Parsons said data from the research will also be important for oil companies looking to drill in areas where these rivers exist.
He said: “This is the first time we have been able to show that there is a flow through a natural channel system and take direct measurements of what the flow is like and how that is linked to the shape and morphology of the channel.”
This article appeared in the August 1st edition of the Telegraph.
The Malbim, Rav Meir Leibish Ben Yechiel Michel Weiser passed away in 1879. The motif of his commentary was to prove the Divine origin of the Torah – as a counter measure to the rise of the Reform movement. The fact is that the commentary of the Malbim is filled with such gems.
This article makes me wonder what type of person reads the constant flow of new science publications and also knows the malbim in yonah.
Wow! this is really amazing!
Again we see that scientists no very very little about everything, they always sound so confident and then.. Oops we were wrong… Let realize that everything in our Torah including everything our sages teach us is Emes lamito! God looked in his Torah and then created the world…. If scientists disagree they must have not discovered the truth yet, hive em time..
moisha emes v’soirosi emes!!
Very, very cool when science confirms Torah to the secular.
#4first you should learn how to spell then you can critisize the scientists, if you cant see the obvious about scientists then youre a tottal shoita fool, this whole internet is the result of science and youre sorrounded by everyday objects that were the result of many years of scientific studies by scientists, and you have the nerve to critisize them here like this you expect them to know everything they are not g-d they dont pretend to be like you, get that through youre thick head
Sounds like a med student who fortuitously hit the correct diagnosis and all doctors scramble around him wondering what the methodical approach was. Well, there was none. It’s not like nobody ever thought about rivers in the sea. It’s just that in modern science the phenomenon wasn’t confirmed.
Anyone remember the NASA calculation of the precise distance of the moon at apogee a few years ago? They used a laser reflected off a target on the moon. This number was compared to a number that was in the Gemara, and shown to be quite different. When NASA re-calibrated the laser, they found that the number in the Gemara was precise to within a few yards of the laser measurement.
Another amazing point is the elucidation of all animals with only one kosher sign, but not two. Not a single animal has been discovered which has only one of these signs, not listed in the Torah.
Ever heard of El Nino?
It is also a river in the ocean.
But in any case, as interesting as this discovery is in plain fascination terms, it is NOT the Pshat in the river in Yonah, nor in the Malbim.
The Malbim clearly states that it was a CIRCULAR river, and that it was of regular sea water, which temporarily “detached” itself from the mass of water, and became a river around the boat and Yonah.
In other words: A whirlpool! Or maelstrom, in Melville language.
A whirlpool is essentially a “river”, (flowing water) in the middle of the sea.
Also explained with this is the Medrash that all the other boats were calmly floating, while there was a storm around Yonah’s boat, which is precisely typical of whirlpools.
Finally, the assertion that “Levav Yamim” means the ocean floor is not only incorrect, it’s almost ridiculous, the “heart of the sea” does not bring to mind the seafloor, it conjures an image of the MIDDLE of the water, where one’s heart is located.
Anyway, the Malbim says clearly that the “River” was where Yonah was thrown directly into from the boat, meaning NOT the bottom of the sea.
I applaud the effort to show proofs to the Torah, but be a little more discerning pls
#8  211; does it make you feel like a bigger person to call another person 217;s remarks  220;dumb 221;? Say that you disagree with the comments  211; that is enough. It isn 217;t necessary to demean another person. Remember that Lashon Hora is unbecoming.
9 bubi ur spelling sucks too! Besides what’s your point? Yes humans know alot but that is very little compared to chochmas haberia
Interesting thing to note (as folks hurl semi-literate invective at each other): the people who already believe that the Torah is true claim that this is a “proof.” The people who believe that the Torah is not true don’t seem to think much of this at all as a “proof.” In the end, it would be interesting to hear from someone who was completely neutral on the subject. My sense of it is that nobody’s mind is going to be changed by this. In which case, it’s really not worth all that much. As someone once said, “for the believers there are no questions, and for the skeptics, there are no answers.”
The Torah’s report of the age of the universe can be demonstrated with modern cosmology. That should be proof positive for anyone not biased against it.
Trying to “prove” the Torah by logic or empirical evidence is very dangerous, because if you conduct an investigation to prove Torah you have to accept the possibility that it could disprove Torah, chas v’shalom.
Dear #13 ,
Sorry – but you are wrong on El Nino – El Nino is a weather pattern. Look it up. Not a river in the bottom of the ocean. Read the Telegraph article carefully. The Malbim says that Yonah was tossed around. “Circling” indicates that as well. It also says Min HaTehom which indicates the bottom.
#13 – Your reading of the Malbim is that Nahar does not mean river but it means whirlpool. It is a plausible reading. The rest of us read it at face value. The word igul does mean circle, but it could also mean driven round around the ocean bottom. The other guy is also right about El Nino is not a river..
For a believer, even a scientific article 100% against Torah beliefs doesn’t raise an eyebrow. Either science will eventually come around to the torah view or Hashem stuck a characteristic in creation to maintain a level playing field regarding bechira chofshis. That does not affect a believer. For example, the age of the world. If we assume that carbon 14 dating is always accurate, is it a problem? No. The Torah tells us that Odom was a vegetarian, because there really aren’t any fruits or vegatable that grow in less than 4 days, not to mention trees that give fruit in less than 4 days, the trees therefor on day six were several years old because Odom ate from them. whether they were 4 years old or 1000 years old is of no interest to me. By definition the age will not correlate to 5770 years. The people that get excited by scientific discoveries corroborate what Hashem tells us in the Torah need to work on their emunah, not on their scientific studies.
cont’d
Cont’d
For those people with weak emunah that need to know that science eventually catches up to Torah here are few tidbits. You can find details on the web.
Eating some type of grain for breakfast lowers the risk of prostrate cancer . Sorry, we’ve been, there done that, 2000 years ago in the Gemara. Pas shacharis dispels 83 types of illness. scientists just need to catch up on the other 82.
The Tefillin straps cross all the major accupuncture sites associated with meditation.
Both too much (>8hrs) or too little (