#161 - The X Factor

Guess that I had to pick a catchy title for this post.  But as you will soon see, the source for the title of this post in essence has nothing to do with the topic that I will be writing about today.

When a major tragic event happens in the world, or more specifically in Israel, one who looks for the truth can see the message that Hashem intends to bring to us; for after all, if we could not figure out the message that Hashem wants to relay to us, then there would be no reason for Hashem to punish other than to punish.  However, when Hashem does punish a nation, even if it is meant for that nation to perish once and for all, it is still a lesson for others to improve their ways so they would not be punished likewise too.  In any case, we often see Hashgacha Peratit (Divine Providence) in how Hashem brings on these forces of nature - where for example, at times when a person either just escapes being hurt or killed, while another arrives at the scene just in time to be hurt or killed.

Even in what may seem totally secular, we see amazing parallels that even leave atheists wondering.  For example, there are amazing parallels between the assassinations of U.S. presidents Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy; however this post will not be the post for these events.  However, I will be writing about two other non-Jews who were assassinated, and the similarities between the two of them.

I am referring specifically to Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., two black leaders, if they are to be called leaders, who spoke up for rights of blacks, though their methods of doing so were quite a bit different.  But as much as they had amazingly in common, perhaps what we can learn most from are the differences between them.

Two black rights or civil rights leaders who were contemporaries of one another. Two leaders whose names begin with the letter M. Two leaders who were assassinated. Two leaders who were gunned down in their 40th year.  Two leaders who were the sandwich babies in their families -  Malcolm X was the middle of seven siblings, and MLK was the middle of three siblings.      

We see that in Malcolm X's first name, it begins and ends with the letter M.  And as for MLK's last name, the Hebrew for the word king is Melech, which begins with the letter Mem.  In any case, we know that as per these two people whose lives were suddenly cut short in their 40th year, the numerical value of Mem - and the letter M of the alphabet is the obvious corresponding letter - is 40.

So as you can see, the letter Mem/M with its corresponding number 40 clearly shows up between these two people, and one is left wondering like, yes, it seems that there is a message here, but what is it?

I will address the answer to this in just a bit.  But first, I want to note the differences between these two leaders.  You see, they both preached civil rights for blacks as whites had received.  However, while MLK was more based on EQUAL rights, that is, upgrading the level of rights for blacks to what whites were receiving, Malcolm X's focus was that blacks should be superior.

You see, Malcolm X, who was raised in a Christian environment, converted to Islam.  And in the Islam religion, perhaps more than in any other religion, those who practice Islam are the good guys, and everyone else is dirt to say the least, and of course, the Jews are the worst.  And so, while Malcolm X may have been preaching for equal rights for blacks, he was really for blacks, especially the ones who practice Islam, to be on top of the world.  He also was an anti-Semite, part of the Nation of Islam group that produced another well known anti-Semitic black Islam preacher Louis Farrakhan.

In sharp contrast, Martin Luther King, Jr., though ironically named after an anti-Semite, a Lutheran minister from hundreds of years earlier, was quite fair in his speeches dreaming of the day that whites and blacks could live together in peace.  Moreover, liberal Jews were welcome and joined him in his marches, though some of these Jews who risked arrest would never have done the same for Rabbi Kahane, but at least for MLK, this was his good side.  However, in terms of being a worthy non-Jew, he messed up by committing adultery, which is one of the seven sins for non-Jews for which they are liable to death if a court were to properly administer punishment, and so he not only is not considered among the righteous gentiles, but rather, he damned himself to hell for doing so.

One thing that we do see in sharp contrast between these two leaders is that while one would be hard pressed to find a street named after Malcolm X, one will find hundreds of streets named after MLK, and there is a national holiday in the United States that started since 1986 named Martin Luther King Day.  You see, our rabbis tell us that Hashem does not hold back reward from any creature that does good.  And so, while Malcolm X was a bit older than MLK and was early on the scene in terms of preaching civil rights for blacks, his hatred for others didn't help him much in being appreciated by the world at large.  However, MLK was a bit smarter than him, and knew that in order to receive what you want, you have to consider everyone equal.  And so, because he did accomplish good in helping people, in helping blacks, he was also an advocate of unity for all.  And so, in reward for this, Hashem paid him back with hundreds of streets being named after him, and an established national holiday in the States.

Now for Malcolm X, I should note the history behind the letter X.  But first, pronouncing the letter X in Hebrew as a word, using the letters Aleph-Koof-Samech, this word in Hebrew is the Gematria of 161, and this is my 161st Post.  Now in fact, I am not making any special relationship of this number 161 to anything else.  However, I do want to focus on why he is known as Malcolm X.

The truth is that his family name was Little.  However, being that he didn't want to remain with a name given to his ancestors who were slaves in the States, he changed it to X, symbolizing him wanting to erase his ancestors' slave past.  Now, we see that Ham, ancestor of the blacks, is called HaKatan, which literally means "the LITTLE one", and he was the youngest of the three sons of Noah.  However, it is important to note the context of where this title of Ham is written.  Following Ham sexually mistreating his father Noah was was lying naked from a drunken stupor, the verse states that "Noah awake from his wine, and was aware of what his little son had done to him" (Genesis 9:24).  Rashi defines the word HaKatan as "the unfit and the disgraceful one", backing this up from a verse in Jeremiah (49:15) using this word Katan in reference of disgrace.  Following this, Noah cursed Ham's descendants that they would be slaves in world history.

And so, we see that Malcolm X refused to accept the yoke of slavery bearing the name given to his slave ancestors by their master, fulfilling the curse that Noah had led on Ham's descendants, thereby violating the wishes of a righteous person, and is considered as though one refuses to accept the punishment that Hashem gives him, for which one deserves even more punishment.  What is worse is that he gave himself the letter X as the family name to spite this, and not simply a normal different name.  Ultimately, he behaved just the opposite of how a slave is supposed to behave, and made himself a leader, looking down on whites, and especially Jews, something that MLK never did.

Now technically, one could say that MLK also attempted to negate the slavery status of blacks, even though they already were no longer slaves for many decades.  However, since his ultimate goal was unity, this is a most worthy trait among people, and as we see regarding the people who built the Tower of Babel in their rebellion against Hashem, since they stared with unity between each other, even though it was misused to rebel against Hashem, they were not punished anywhere near the level that the generation of the Flood, who mistreated one another, were punished being drowned in total annihilation.

In any case, there is a very practical side to Malcolm X that simply cannot be ignored.  You see, he had spoken at one point about having a secret son who would be raised with his ideals.  And guess who this "secret son" is?  You guessed it - our present United States president Islam follower Barack Hussein Obama!

Now, whether it is actually true that Obama's real father is Malcolm X or not, which would be real significant since he was known to only have daughters (six of them), there are several pictures that show the look-a-likes between the two of them.  But even if Obama is in fact not his real son, in terms of theology, Obama thinks very much like Malcolm X.  You see, Malcolm X hated the United States.  Similarly, Obama used to be a vivid listener of  Christian minister Jeremiah Wright for some 10 years, who instead of saying "G-d bless America", he spoke statements more like "G-d damn America".  In any case, what is well known is that Obama's face looks very similar to the Egyptian king Pharaoh, under whose rule was the Exodus of the Jews after his many refusals to let them out of his land; and both of their respectives wives also look very much similar to each other.  Indeed, it has been said that Obama and his wife are the reincarnates of this Pharaoh and his wife, respectively.

With the above said, we see that the Hebrew word for Egypt is Mitzrayim, and this word begins and ends with a Mem.  Accordingly, Malcolm X's first name also begins and ends with a M/Mem, who is at least the spiritual father, if not also the physical father, of Obama, who in turn is considered the reincarnate of the king of Mitzrayim.

O.K., we see numerous connections here with the letter Mem/M, but what does this have to do with the number 40 other than being the numerical value of Mem?

Let me take you to the Haftara reading for Parshat Ve'aira, the Parsha in which Egypt gets hit with the first seven of 10 plagues for their refusal to let the Jews leave their land.  As we see in Ezekiel Chapter 28, at the time of the prophecy in this book, Hashem said that he was going to make Egypt totally desolate for 40 years.  The ultimate purpose of this was that so Egypt would no longer ever be a world power again as it was at one time.  In any case, we see that 40 such years of desolation was imposed on Mitzrayim, whose name begins and ends with the letter that has the numerical value of 40.

Now, while Egypt was beset with 40 years of physical desolation, no doubt that this also refers to Egypt's spiritual desolation.  And hence, at least in terms of Malcolm X, he lived a life devoid of spiritualism as being devoted to G-d, but rather, chose superiority that he had no right to, and so in essence, his life that spanned close to 40 years represents these "40 years of desolation", whose name beginning and ending with the letter Mem is the same as Mitzrayim, the name of the country which was hit with 40 years of desolation.  And as we know from our rabbis, all prophecies that are mentioned in the Bible are not only applicable for the time that they were mentioned, but are also prophecies for some future date.  And so, this future date had arrived in recent times, and hence, this prophecy about 40 years of desolation hints to Malcolm X's life, if symbolized by the near 40 years of his life, until a bullet ended the life of one who really preached hatred for everyone, especially of Jews, except for his own type of race, the same way that Hitler praised the Aryan race above all, while at the same time, had hatred for other groups who far from fit this category (ironically, he himself didn't fit the exact features of whom he called the Aryan race), and most certainly the Jews.  Hence, regardless of religion, Malcolm X's philosophy was hardly different than Hitler's, except that he didn't have the chance like Hitler had to demonstrate his level of hatred of others whom he was intolerable of.

As we see with Hitler, the Gematria of his last name, using the letters Hei-Teit-Lamed-Reish , is 244, being the antithesis of the 244th Mitzva of the Torah - "Thou shalt love your fellow (Jew) as thyself".  In a similar way, Malcom's new family name as X symbolises the hatred of one spouse for another who are presently divorced as being called one's ex, the pronounciation of the 24th letter of the alphabet; for as it happens in life, the hatred that one has for someone that one once lived is typically far greater than the hatred one has for others whom he never liked to begin with.  Now, while not all divorces happen this way, this is only because in these recent times, people have what are called these "friendly divorces", but really comes to show the lack of seriousness that some have for marriages, or committed lifetime relationships.

So, while one may feel more connected to certain Jews based on one's culture, at the very least, one is forbidden to hate others who aren't like him.  No one may ever ask of him or his children to marry from what seem a different culture, even as today, Jews are no longer living a lifetime in the small area that they grew up in, the way that it was for Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews for the most part until recent times between modern technology and being chased out of various countries until the majority of them left for Israel or the Americas; but at the very least, to have respect for other Jews, even if one would never feel comfortable hanging out with them being that they may be so different than his culture.  Because if one does have hatred of Jews not like him, this is exactly what is called Sinat Chinam (baseless hatred), even if one would never dream to do to others what Malcolm X wished to do, and what Hitler accomplished.  For that matter, the word Sinah (hatred) shares the same Gematria as the word America in Hebrew - 356.  Though the name America refers to the whole land from the north where Alaska and Canada is to the bottom of South America, it is used quite often to refer to the United States, a country that is supposed to represent unity among all nations.  And as the name of Ham consists of the letters that is the number 48 in Hebrew, this co-relates to the 48 states of the continental United States, the one country in the world that is so tolerant of blacks in a way that never happened before in history in terms of so many nations living together, that they have just hired Obama, the first black president of the United States, for a second term, despite much evidence of his ineligibility of his being able to be president due to major challenges of his citizenship which a good percentage of United States citizens wished to overlook, despite violation of the Constitution.

In conclusion, we see an amazing thing in this week's Parshat Vayishlach.  Despite Esau having gone out of his way so many years earlier in his attempt to murder his brother Jacob, via his son Eliphaz who instead robbed Jacob of everything that he had on him except for his stick, which was the result of Jacob having received the birthright blessings instead of Esau, we see that at least for a few moments, he was able to stop hating.  We see that after 36 years since Jacob left his parents' home, he finally came back, and Esau was on his way to greet him - which was really for the purpose of doing away with him, that at actually greeting one another, that Esau hugged him, kissed him, and they both cried.  Rashi, noting the dots on top of the letters "he kissed him", as written in the Sefer Torah (Torah Scroll), mentions the Midrash in which Rabbi Shimon Ben Yochai (author of the teachings of the Zohar) states that it is a Halacha that is known that Esau hates Jacob, but at that moment, his mercies became aroused, and he kissed him with all his heart.

Amazing!  Esau had the greatest hatred for Jacob in the last 36 years, and all of a sudden, his feelings for him changed over 180 degrees in virtually split second.  Was this simply Hashem who changed Esau's feelings all of a sudden, or did Esau find a reason why Jacob no longer deserved to be hated?

To note, Esau's hatred of Jacob had long bearing applications, and as we see, his own grandson was Amalek, ancestors of a nation who was the very first nation to dare attack the Jews following the Exodus, and following this, Hashem gave orders to one day get rid of this nation, even the little babies, and that meanwhile, we are to remember and not forget what Amalek did to us, in effect, we are ordered to hate Amalek.  However, he himself had a spark of Jewishness within himself, and so, when he saw Jacob for who he was, and not someone wishing to get back at others as Esau was, he then felt the truth, and all of Esau's baseless hatred of Jacob, for hating him despite having willing sold him his birthright, went out the window the moment that he was able to feel Jacob for all that he was.

And so if others, who were so wicked, were able to stop hating for once, than certainly we, the Jewish people, having gone through so much from other nations who truly hated us, are expected to be beyond the reasons that cause hatred, and if anything, to love other Jews despite the outward differences.

12 Kislev 5773