Becoming an Eagle Scout, the highest-level Boy Scout, is much like stamp collecting, except that you have to do specific tasks to collect those stamps, or merit badges as they are called in Eagle-speak. There are over a hundred different areas of interest in which you can earn a badge, ranging from bugling, to dentistry, farm mechanics, Indian lore, orienteering, or textile. An Eagle Scout must earn thirteen core badges in fields such as swimming, sustainability, citizenship in the world and communication, but once the core badges are earned, you can get a badge in almost any other area of interest. That is how a young man in Commerce Township, MI almost built a nuclear reactor in his mom’s backyard; he was just trying to earn a badge in Atomic Energy.
David Hahn was a quiet kid, his parents David and Patty, divorced when he was toddler, and he shuffled between weekdays at his dad’s house and weekends with his mom. His dad, David Hahn Sr. was an automotive engineer working for GM, and his mom’s new husband Michael Polasek was a hard-drinking forklift operater for GM. Neither father figures were emotionally open, and David, who was an only child, had a lonely and withdrawn childhood. But when he was ten years, a family friend gave him a copy of The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments, and David discovered a world where he did have friends, only those friends were usually found hanging out in the periodic table of elements.
He may have not been very good at sports, but he was good with a Bunsen burner, beakers and Erlenmyer flasks. The book gave instructions on how to set up a home lab, and soon David was making rayon and alcohol. He started reading anything chemistry related he could find, and by the age of twelve, he was consuming college-level chemistry textbooks with no difficulty. By fourteen, when most chemistry tinkerers are making rudimentary gunpowder, David was producing nitroglycerine.
His lab was his bedroom in his dad’s house, but after multiple explosions and fires, David was banished by his stepmom to the basement, which suited him just fine, he felt more comfortable in the company of powdered magnesium and red phosphorous than in the company of people. But a few months later, while his dad and stepmom were watching TV in the living room, an explosion rocked the house. They rushed to the basement to find David unconscious on the floor, his eyebrows smoking. The result was that he would spend the next few months going on regular visits to the ophthalmologist to have pieces of plastic phosphorous removed from his eyes, and his dad forbade him from doing any more experiments at his house.
David moved his base of operations to his mother’s back yard, where there was a rickety wooded shack that no one used. His mom and Michael were impressed with his clear genius, and overlooked the fact that he would often emerge from the shack in the backyard wearing a gas mask, or that he would discard the clothes that he wore in his sessions in the lab that often lasted until 2am.
His father, who was desperate to see David socializing with other teens his age and doing normal teen activities, forced him to join the Boy Scouts and work toward becoming an Eagle Scout, but that was precisely what drove him deeper into his lab, as he decided that he would earn a badge in atomic energy. Most boys looking to get a badge in atomic energy would visit the local dentist’s office and learn about the X-ray machine, or perhaps make a poster showing the way a nuclear energy plant works, but David decided to build a nuclear plant, specifically a breeder plant, something never successfully done.
A breeder plant is best understood as a plant that not only makes energy, but makes fuel as well. Imagine a car leaving on a road trip with half a tank of gas, only to arrive at the destination five hundred miles later with a full tank of gas. A breeder plant is the ultimate dream of nuclear enthusiasts because it is totally self-contained. The chemistry is fascinating, and if you’d like to build your own breeder plant in your backyard, I’m sure Chat GPT can give you some pointers, but I’ll spare the rest of you from a chemistry class you didn’t sign up for. But suffice it to say that a breeder plant is far more complex because it requires a regular fuel source of radioactive material to be surrounded by a “blanket” of a different radioactive fuel, and the interplay between them, while being even more unstable, can theoretically create both fuel and energy for the next few thousand years. And while it sounds great in theory, the three attempts to build breeder facilities in the US all ended in meltdowns and shutdowns. But why should that stop David?
How does a fifteen year old boy from Commerce Township get a hold of radioactive elements, most of which are highly controlled by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission? By reaching out to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of course! David began written correspondence with members of the NRC, claiming to be Professor David Hahn, a physics instructor at Chippewa Valley High School (David’s actual school), and while the people at the NRC didn’t send him any samples, they did tell him where those items can be found. Americium-241 can be found in smoke detectors, radium-226 in antique luminous dial clocks, uranium-238 and minute quantities of uranium-235 in a black ore called pitchblende, and thorium-235 in gas lanterns.
David contacted a smoke alarm company and under the pretext of a school project was able to obtain a hundred broken detectors for a dollar each. But he didn’t know where the Americium-241 was found in the smoke detector, so he wrote to BRK electronics, a smoke detector manufacturer, also under the guise of a school project, and found out where a tiny amount of it is housed in a gold matrix to prevent corrosion, break down, and release of a radioactive element. He then corroded and broke down the gold matrix with a blowtorch to facilitate the release of a radioactive element! Next, he built a hollowed out lead core into which he deposited his Americium-241 and bored a tiny hole into it, and now he had a particle gun, sending out a stream of alpha particles. He filtered those alpha particles using a piece of aluminum foil, which absorb alpha rays and kick out neutrons, and now he had a neutron gun.
He then obtained uranium ore from a Czechoslovakian firm that sold to universities and laboratories, Thorium-232 by deconstructing hundreds of gas lanterns, beryllium by having a friend swipe it from Macomb Community College’s chemistry lab, and radium by buying up antique luminous clocks. He then concentrated the radium by cooking it with barium sulfate which he got from a hospital x-ray unit he visited while working on his merit-badge. Each new ingredient came along with dozens of new tests, but at the end he had radioactive materials 9,000 times stronger than you can find in nature, and 170 times the level that requires licensing from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
By the time David was ready to start building the nuclear breeder reactor, he was seventeen years old and had spent thousands of hours on chemistry experiments and research, often leaving himself exposed to deadly materials for hours on end. In August of 1994, he finally put the reactor together, and while he had far less nuclear material than a real plant, he knew he was slowly ramping up the radioactivity of his micro-reactor and it was clearly working. His pile of material was consistently getting hotter and hotter, and his Geiger counter was registering significant radiation from as far as five houses away.
As excited as he was to see his dream coming true, he was also smart enough to realize that his little lab on the prairie was rapidly getting out of control and he needed to shut it down. He started disassembling the various parts, and putting them in the trunk of his car, from where he planned to dump the nuclear material somewhere remote.
At 2:40am on August 31, 1994, police in David’s neighborhood stopped him after neighbors called in suspicious activity, and they sure were surprised to see what was in his trunk. David’s whole experiment came crashing to a halt. His mom’s backyard was declared a superfund site, and a short while later, members of the DOE, EPA, FBI, and NRC were swirling around the neighborhood in full HAZMAT gear.
The backyard shed, everything in it, and the ground all around it were removed from the property in thirty-nine sealed barrels and sent to a nuclear dump facility in the middle of the Great Salt Lake Desert. David wasn’t charged because he was a minor, but his parents forced him to enlist in the armed services. Today, he is a sailor stationed in Norfolk, VA and fills his free time studying his latest interests; genetic code, antioxidants, steroids, and amino acids. He reckons that he took at least five years off of his life due to exposure to radioactive material, but he doesn’t regret what he did. As a matter of fact, he looks forward to further research, this time in a proper lab.
Interestingly, if you were looking to find those “most likely to build a nuclear reactor in their backyard,” you probably would have found David Hahn on the short list. He fit the prototype to the T. The psychological profiles of almost all pioneering American physicists are remarkably similar. Usually, they are the eldest or only son of remote professional fathera, they are people who were lonely during childhood, shy and withdrawn, and voracious readers. It will surprise no one, that the HS quarterback rarely grows up to be a Nobel prize winning physicist. It is far more likely to be the boy that either no one remembers, or everyone remembers as “that weird kid.”
The Talmud tells us in Tractate Nedarim 81A, “Take heed with the sons of the poor, for from them Torah will go forth.” This is not to say that Torah can’t come out of the sons of the rich, rather it is more likely to come from the sons of the poor. This is for a few reasons. For starters, they are more likely to be diligent in their Torah study, because they don’t have the same distractions that other people with more opportunities and options have. The quarterback in HS has many distractions, the shy kid in the back of the class doesn’t. Rabbeinu Nissim, an early commentator (1320-1376CE) from Spain, adds that the sons of the poor grow up humble and humility is one of the most important traits in acquiring Torah. One cannot fill himself with G-d’s wisdom when he is busy filling himself with self-aggrandizement.
But perhaps there is another reason that the children of the poor are the ones from whom Torah shall go forth, and that is because everything they get, they get through great sacrifice. And when you sacrifice for something, the product is better, distilled through pain and discomfort.
There is an interesting statement in this weeks parsha, Parshas Vayeishev, where Rashi quotes a Medrash saying that “Jacob wished to dwell in serenity, and G-d said, ‘Is it not good enough for the righteous what is waiting for them in the World to Come, yet they also wish to sit in serenity in this world?’ Immediately, the trouble of the travail of Joseph jumped on him.”
But this seems troubling, as Rav Mattisyahu Solomon asks, because Jacob was not looking to sit back on the beach and relax, sipping a tall glass of lemonade and reading the morning newspaper! Jacob was looking to sit in peace and study Torah! Jacob was the “simple man, living in the Tents [of Torah].” Before being forced out of his home, he sat and studied Torah. After being forced out of his home, he spent fourteen years studying Torah in the Yeshiva of Shem and Ever before heading to Lavan’s home.
After all his Torah study, he spent twenty years in Lavan’s home working tirelessly for Lavan. He came back to Israel and was beset by challenges, his brother coming to kill him, his daughter kidnapped and violated. Now he’s finally settling down and all he wants to do is serve G-d in peace, learning His Torah, and praying to Him. Yet, Ha-shem rejects this and sends Jacob more pain and suffering through the story of Joseph and his brothers. Why? What was so bad about wanting to serve G-d in serenity?
Rav Mattisyahu Solomon answers, that surely it is good to serve G-d in serenity, but the Torah that would come out of someone sitting in serenity is not of the same caliber as the Torah coming out of someone beset by challenge, who has to sacrifice so much in order to be able to study Torah. Ha-shem was setting up Yaakov to be “the sons of the poor,” those beset by troubles because out of them comes the best Torah.
It is no surprise that the leading physicists in the world came out of such difficult childhoods, they were the sons of the poor. And all the more so, when we look at the greatest Torah sages alive today, all of them went through incredible deprivation and challenge, yet stuck to their Torah study.
Sometimes, when we’re trying to do the right thing, and Ha-shem sends us a challenge, we look up and say, “Why G-d? But I’m on Your team? I’m doing for You? Why are You trying to stop me?” But this idea gives us a paradigm shift. Perhaps G-d sees that we are doing for Him, loves what we are doing for Him, and is sending us those challenges to make our actions even better. He wants us to be the sons of the poor so that the product we produce is even better and more incredible!
When we go through challenges and still sacrifice to do the right thing, we create a breeder plant. Not only do we do the right thing, but we create the fuel to do more right things. We create a reality that will give light and energy for thousands of years to come!
Parsha Dvar Torah
In the end of this week’s Parsha, we find Yosef, stuck in an Egyptian jail. There, with G-d’s help, he deciphers the dreams of two of the prisoners. He tells the king’s butler that he will be returned to his position, while telling the baker that he will be hung (both of which come true immediately). As the king’s butler is about to be returned to his position, Yosef tells him, ” But remember me when things go well with you. Please deal kindly with me, and mention me to Pharaoh, and take me out of this house.” (Gen. 40:14)
We find that Rashi later comments that for a man of Yosef’s stature to put so much faith in a human being to get him out of prison was considered a sin (because he should have had more faith in G-d to get him out when the time was right) and for that Yosef was punished with two more years. As Rashi says on verse 23: “Because Yoseif depended on him (the butler) to remember him it necessitated his remaining imprisoned for two years, as is stated: “Fortunate is the man who has made G-d his trust, and has not turned to the arrogant.” [I.e.,] and does not put his trust in the Egyptians who are called arrogant.”
Rabbenu Bachaye states that Yosef had two requests, mention me to Pharaoh and and take me out of here. Because of that he was punished with two years. It is said that R’ Chaim of Brisk once asked R’ Shimon Skopp the following question “If Yosef made only one request mention me to Pharaoh, how long would he have sat in prison?” R’ Shimon answered that Yosef would have only sat for one year. R’ Chaim of Brisk, said “no, he would not have gone to prison at all, because even a tzaddik (a righteous person) who knows that everything comes from G-d, needs to show some hishtadlus, some physical effort to get what he needs, and cannot sit around waiting for G-d to make miracles for him all the time.
But if that is the case, that even Yosef should have made one request, and instead he made two, he should have only had to sit in prison for one year? The answer is that had Yosef asked only once, it would have been evident that he is one who puts his full faith in G-d, but in order to not sit around waiting for a miracle, which is something we are not allowed to do, he did his hishtadlus, his required effort, and the rest he left to G-d. However once he does more than his required effort, we see that everything he did was not to fulfill his requirement but out of a desire to get human help, and then he can be held accountable for each request.
A practical way to understand this is to look at people and their careers. Why should a person abandon his children and spouse to go to work? Isn’t our most important job in this world to be good parents and spouses? The only proper answer is that he or she needs money to help support their family, and maybe also to be able to give charity. However, when a person starts working very long hours, way beyond the time needed to support his family comfortably and give charity, we see that he wants the money for money’s sake. Once you realize that, you understand that even the hours that he works that are required to support aren’t being done for the proper reason, and the biggest proof is that he doesn’t stop when he should.
The same applies to Yosef, once he made two requests we see that even the first request was for the wrong reason, because had it been for the right reason he would have stopped there. This lesson applies in many areas of life. It can be the strictness we use to discipline our children, the amount of time we work, or the way we interact with family members. We may tell ourselves that we are doing it for one reason, but if we see we are going too far to fit the aforementioned reason, chances are, we need to rethink our entire approach to the issue.
Parsha Summary
This week’s Parsha sort of breaks new ground by beginning to discuss in depth the lives of people other than the patriarchs. Now we start to talk about the lives of their children, the Twelve Tribes. This week’s Parsha begins with the tense relationship between Yosef and his siblings. He felt they were doing certain things wrong, and told his father about it. The brothers became angry with him. Then he had two dreams, the gist of which were that all the brothers were bowing down to him, and these dreams further infuriated the brothers as they felt he was trying to force his rule over them.
One time when Yosef was sent to check on them, while they were tending sheep in Shechem, they made an ad hoc court and condemned him to death for what they felt were serious crimes. Reuven persuaded them out of it, convincing them to throw him into a pit instead. Reuven’s plans was to come back and get Yosef out, but while Reuven went back to serve his father, Yehuda convinced the brothers to sell Yosef to a passing caravan of Ismaelites. Yosef was traded from one group to the next until eventually he was bought by Potiphar, the Chamberlain of Pharaoh.
The brothers brought back Yosef’s tunic to their father covered in blood, which made Yaakov believe that his son was killed by a wild animal. He was deeply grieved and no one was able to properly console him. At this point, Yehuda fell out of favor in the eyes of his brothers for his role in the sale of Yosef, so he moves away from them. In his new land, he marries and builds a family. Through an interesting twist of events, Yehuda ends up living with someone, who he thought was someone else, and one of the resulting offspring ends up being the ancestor of King David and by definition, Moshiach.
In the meantime, Yosef runs into some trouble at his new workplace. He is enormously successful as a servant and soon Potiphar’s house is being run by Yosef. However Potiphar’s wife was attracted to Yosef who was very beautiful and she tried daily to seduce him. Finally one day when everyone was at a pagan festival she came home and tried to force herself onto him. He ran out leaving his coat in her hands. She made a big stink claiming that it was Yosef who tried to force himself onto her, and Yosef gets thrown into jail.
Even in jail he wass very successful and soon he was in charge of the whole jail. One day he notices two of his fellow inmates, the royal butler and baker look depressed. He asked them what was wrong and they said that they had dreams they couldn’t interpret. Yosef interprets them both properly. The Parsha concludes with Yosef asking the butler to remind Pharaoh about his, and to get him out of jail, however the butler totally forget Yosef for two years! That’s all Folks!
Quote of the week: The more you say, the less people remember.- François Fénelon
Random Fact of the Week: The average bank teller loses about $250 a year!
Funny Line of the Week: I want my children to have all the things I couldn’t afford. Then I want to move in with them
Have a Glowing Shabbos,
R’ Leiby Burnham
