#110 - ONE Way Up

Typically, when people are counting the moments to something exciting, they have what's called a countdown - such as from ten to one. The most classical example of this is when the moments are being counted until the space rocket is going to be travelling up to the sky and beyond.

In our Torah, we count things the reverse - from one and up. As our rabbis tell us time and again in the Talmud - "We go up in holiness, but we do not decrease". Hence, when it comes to a spiritual journey which is an elevation, a going up of some sort, we go up in the numbers. Among the prime examples of this is Sephirat HaOmer - counting of the days from when the Omer offering was brought on the second day of Passover until the 50th day which is celebrated as Shavuot/Pentacost - in which we count the days as Day 1 through Day 49. Another example of this in a little different way is lighting the Menorah on Chanuka from one candle on the first day to eight candles on the eighth day.

As the number in this post - the number 110 is composed with the numbers 1 & 10. But before I continue elaborating on the above concept of going up on numbers, let us mention today about two Biblical figures who both lived 110 years - Joseph & Joshua.
In fact, Joshua was a parental descendant of Joseph (see I Chronicles 7:27).

To note, Joseph & Joshua have quite a few things in common, which are the following:
1)Both of their names start with the letter Yud - which is the numerical value of 10.
2)Both of them were leaders - Joseph was the viceroy to Pharaoh, and took care of his entire Jewish family, and Joshua led the Jewish people as the successor to Moses.
3)Both got married later in life than most others in their respective generation: Joseph got married at age 30 after spending 13 years between slavery and imprisonment, and as we see with his younger brother Benjamin, he came to Egypt nine years later with 10 sons, so undoubtedly, even the youngest of the brothers of Joseph was already married long before age 30. Joshua was a bachelor until after he led the Jews into Israel which was already in his seventies. He already was a grown man at the time of the Exodus, and faithfully served Moses for 40 years, not having time for a married life. It was only after entering Israel that he married the convert Rachav who was saved with her family while everyone in Jericho was killed by the Jews in their first war in Israel because she saved the two spies sent by Joshua from the king of Jericho who sought their arrest.

On the other hand, we see a sharp contrast between Joseph & Joshua. Joseph spent only the first 17 years of his life in Israel until he was sold into slavery by his brothers, the least amount of time that he spent living in Israel compared with the rest of his family. On the other hand, after the ugly incident with the spies that Moses sent, only Joshua & Caleb of the men between ages 20-60 aside from the Tribe of Levi lived to enter Israel, and so while most other men in Joshua's generation never even stepped foot in Israel, he lived on to enter Israel and live in the Holy Land for 28 years.

It seems that over time, that Hashem made it up to Joseph for the years that he missed out living in the Holy Land. The only other time that Joseph was in Israel since being sold into slavery was for Jacob's funeral. However, he made his brothers swear to him that when the time would come for the Jews to leave Egypt, that they would not leave without removing his bones, as he was going to be buried in Egypt as the viceroy to Pharoah, and did expect to be allowed to be buried outside of Egypt, especially as he had to fight to even get his father Jacob to be buried in Israel, as related in the Midrash. As we are writing about Joseph's request to be buried in Israel when the time would come, he was finally laid to rest in Shechem, whose burial place has been one of a big challenge in the last many years thanks to Arab pressure, and is a big deal to the Communist secular Israeli government that a little more than a few Jews want to visit Joseph's burial site. In fact, it was not even three months ago that a young Breslover guy was murdered by Arabs at the site on the sixth day of Passover.

While it may not be that noticeable to everyone, this week's Parshat Pinchas is very related to Joseph. When Pinchas behaved as a brave Jew should be and slew the evil Zimri, leader of the tribe of Shimon, for daring to have relations with the princess of Midian in defiance of Moses, there were those Jews who dared to criticize Pinchas, excusing themselves by stating, as noted in the very first Rashi on this Parsha, that since Pinchas' grandfather Jethro was someone who fattened calves for idolatery (though he since converted to Judaism as Moses' father-in-law), that he had no right in his "lowly" background (of course forgetting that his other grandfather was none other than Aaron the High Priest who recently passed away) to "murder" the leader of one of the tribes of Israel. Of course we see that right from the start of the Parsha, Hashem rewarded Pinchas for his brave, righteous act and declared him from henceforth to be a Cohen, something that he was not granted to be up to that point in time.

But the question can be asked, why was the particular complaint from those Jews who would today be called anti-Kahane Jews, or left-wing Jews, that Pinchas' grandfather Jethro fattened calves for idolatry? Why couldn't they simply say that his grandfather was an idolworshipper. Who cares about the particular details of what Jethro did in his worship of idolatry, unless he would have shown some cruel way of behavior such as human sacrifice?

First, let's rewind back to Parshat Va'era, the first time that Pinchas' name is mentioned. It states in the verse (Exodus 6:25) that his father Elazar married one of the daughters of Putiel - one of the names of Jethro. On this, Rashi has a double meaning to this name. The first ist that this is referring to Jethro who fattened calves for idolatry, as in Hebrew, the word similar to Putiel is Peetame - "fattened". The other meaning is on a very positive note, that this name Putiel refers to Joseph who opposed his evil inclination (especially when it came to sexual immorality), as in Hebrew, the word similar to Putiel is Pitpate - "opposed".

It is true that it is very important not to criticize others before examining one's one behavior. But that is it - one's own behavior. Even if at the worst scenario, Pinchas wouldn't be considered 100% holy like his grandfather Aaron the High Priest because his other grandfather was an idolworshipper, Pinchas himself was a righteous individual, and his pedigree did not have to define his own virtuous life. In fact, there are those today who claim that they are descended from some big rabbi, but at the same time, they don't want to make the effort to follow in that rabbi's footsteps, not even being a basic observant Jew such as keeping the Sabbath or eating only kosher food. The truth is that almost everyone has some sort of "skeletons" in their backyard, and there are some great rabbis today whose own parents or grandparents were not observant Jews.

The point that the Jews who dared criticize the righteous Pinchas were attempting to bring out is that Jethro wasn't just another idol worshipper in the congregation. He was someone whose whole life was devoted to everything that was impure in terms of idolatry, and made business by fattening calves to have more meat to offer as sacrifices. In fact, our rabbis tell us that Jethro worshipped all the idols of the world at that time, as implied by the statement that he made when he came to convert to Judaism "Now I know that Hashem is greater than ALL of the gods..." (Exodus 18:11). However, Jethro himself already came to the correct conclusion nearly 40 years earlier. But in any case, even Jethro wasn't such an evil person; for in fact, he was motivated by the truth, and worshipped the various idols in his quest for the truth, and at the end, he found it.

Joseph, on the other hand, was raised in the holiest family in the world at that time, and had a unique relationship with his father Jacob, especially when it came to learning Torah from him. In fact, we learn that the very last thing that Joseph learned from his father before being sold into slavery was the portion in the Torah about a calf being decapitated to atone for a slain individual found on the road whose murderer has yet to be found. While there is an obvious connection between the calves that Jethro fattened and the Torah about a calf that is decapitated, there is a deep significance here. You see, while Joseph had sexual temptation when he was far removed from his righteous father stuck in Egypt, a land of idolatry and sexual immorality, it was the image of his father that stuck in his that reminded him not to give in to temptation; and hence, opposed his evil inclination. He never forgot that last piece of Torah that his father taught him, considering the fact that he didn't know at the time that that would be his last Torah lesson. He never forgot where he last came from, and so he would not brake the chain and sleep and live with a non-Jewish woman.

And so, if anything, Pinchas had every right to slay the evil Zimri who did give in to temptation, not just for the lust of it, but also in defiance of Moses, whom Zimri challenged as Moses did in fact marry a daughter from the land of Midian, the same place where the woman that Zimri started mating with came from. But what Zimri and the Jews who criticized Pinchas forgot is that besides the fact that Moses' wife, daughter of Jethro, did convert to Judaism, but that once someone takes upon himself or herself to live a holy, Jewish life and lives accordingly henceforth, then they are no less important than any other Jew. If anything, there is a Mitzvah in the Torah to love a convert to Judaism, hence, earning twice the reward of loving a fellow Jew when loving a convert - and NOT the other way around, as some "observant" Jews to this day who think otherwise, and look down on converts, and refuse them to be part of their own family, or don't treat them the same as other Jews who were born as such. They forget - or wish to forget - that these converts to Judaism - though these "religious from birth" Jews have no problem reading the story of Ruth every year on Shavuot, whose own great grandson was none other than King David - are JEWS BY CHOICE.

And so, Pinchas, who was born as a Jew no less than the other Jews in Egypt, and in fact, descended from the Tribe of Levi on his parental side, so he never was a slave in Egypt, but instead had all the time in the world to learn Torah, was certainly in a great spiritual position to slay the evil Zimri, as also evidenced from the fact that he also was descended from Joseph who conquered his evil inclination when it came to sexual immorality. And so, Pinchas was certainly no hypocrite; and if anything, he was the very one fit for the job of doing away with evil people, especially someone who was sexually immoral such as Zimri who was a leader of a tribe in Israel, who not only did not set a good example, but set a most evil example to possibly cause other Jews in his tribe to follow in the same evil path.


THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LETTERS PEI & TEIT

As we see the two significant meanings of the name Putiel as provided by Rashi - one of a negative nature & the other of a positive nature, we see that there are two letters that are the center of attraction here - Pei & Teit. Together, it is the number 89 in Hebrew. Very significantly, it is the Gematria of the name of the holiday Chanukah. Of course the questions begs to be offered - what does all this have to do with Chanukah?

For those who don't keep a whole lot of traditions of Judaism, and don't even go to synagogue on Saturday morning, let alone keep the Sabbath, they could never guess. You see, the Parshiyot of the Torah that fall out during Chanukah focus on one person - Joseph! These are the Parshiyot of Vayeishev, Mikeitz & Vayigash - beginning with Joseph's slavery to his rise to power to reuniting with his family and supporting them, along with his managing the affairs in Egypt to keep everyone from starving to death. In some years - the first and the second Parsha fall out during Chanukah, during other years - it is the second and third Parsha (though we never read Parshat Vayigash on a Shabbat Chanukah, in some years the week of Parshat Vayigash falls out during the remaining days of Chanukah).

This is all very nice - but what does Joseph in particular have to do with Chanukah other than the fact that we happen to read all about him during this holiday?

You see, the reason why we have Chanukah to begin with is because the Syrian-Greeks wanted us Jews to adopt their evil and immoral lifestyle, but some brave Jews refused to not only give in, but to fight them in battle to put an end to their spiritual and physical domination. The basis of this lifestyle was that in essence, though of course the Syrian Greeks worshipped various gods, they worshipped their body. Now, while in Judaism, we are supposed to take good care of our bodies, including to be health conscious, as even the Torah says "You shall take care of your beings", and there are some observant Jews who use the gym to stay fit, this is not supposed to be the end means of our lives. Our ultimate purpose of taking care of our bodies and health is in order to serve Hashem properly. However, the Syrian Greeks made this the main focus, and exemplifying this, they held the Olympic games (where the Olympics of today comes from) and men raced on the track while being naked.

Another prime example showing the immoral lifestyle of this evil nation is that they worshiped various gods about whom they wrote fictional stories of them fooling around with women; hence, justifying their own immoral, lustful behavior, since if the gods were doing what they wanted with women, then what could be wrong with it for anyone else?

Now, getting to the wording that Rashi used for Joseph opposing his evil inclination - Pitpate, this word spells the number and letters Pei Teit - which is the Gematria of the name Chanuka - twice! So as you can see, there is an intrinsic connection between Chanuka and the concept of conquering one's evil inclination, especially when it comes to sexual immorality.

And the significance of this being twice - we see this a number of times in the Torah connoting a strong confirmation, such as in oaths, and in Parshat Mikeitz - the week of this Parsha ALWAYS falling out during Chanuka - where Pharaoh had two different dreams connoting the same interpretation, about which Joseph noting that this was Hashem's way of making it clear that there was going to be seven years of plenty to be followed by seven years of famine, and not just a couple of random dreams. Also significantly, in the beginning of the section in the Torah about what sexual relationships are forbidden that we read especially on the afternoon of Yom Kippur (Leviticus Chapter 18), it begins with (beginning Shishi of Parshat Acharei-Mot) -
Ish Ish which literally means the word man twice. While the Torah may write in similar fashion in other places in the Torah as the way it is written grammatically, we know that the Torah isn't just a fine piece of well written literature or stories.
In fact, the Torah does not use seemingly extra words unless it comes to teach us a lesson.

You see, sexual immorality doesn't compare with most other sins. Sex, women, and all are very tempting issues, and hence, we need extra guarding from falling into temptation. Hence, it isn't enough just to resolve not to sin with women, but that we take steps to ensure that this won't happen. Even Joseph after continuous attempts from Potifar's wife almost gave in, as the Midrash tells us, until Jacob's image came to his mind warning him not to sin. And so, the particular word in Hebrew used for Joseph winning the battle against sinning, as related to the name Putiel, is Pitpate, reminding us of Chanukah which was due to the Maccabbees fighting for the spiritual rights of the Jewish people, putting their lives on the line.

In fact, we see that the name Potifar, the name of Joseph's master whose wife attempting to lure Joseph with sleeping with her, also bears the letters Pei & Teit!
And as the rabbis tell us, one's wife is like one's body; and hence, it is Potifar's wife that was using the spiritual impure side of the letters Pei & Teit, the same letters used for the Hebrew word for FATTENING the calves of idolatry as the other meaning of the name Putiel. And as we know in Kabbala, there are equal forces of good & evil, as exemplified in words of opposite sides of the track with the same Gematria, such as the name Esav, Jacob's evil brother who represented bloodshed & the word Shalom/peace - both having the Gematria of 376. Another prime example is the word Nachash/snake, the creature that caused mankind to sin and allow the world the way that it is today & the word Moshiach, the Messiah who will come to rectify everything that was put on a bad spin due to the snake - both words having the Gematria of 358.

One more aspect as it relates to Joseph, is that he is commonly referred to in the writings of the Talmud, Midrash, etc. as Yosef HaTzadik - Joseph the righteous one. Not just any Biblical figure is given this special title, though there were many righteous people. As Joseph showed special strength in conquering the sexual temptation that was placed in his way, he earn this special title.

In connection with Chanukah, the word Tzadik shines out through the spiritual lights of this holiday. As there are eight days of Chanuka, and we light one additional light each night, what we do is that we multiply the first eight numbers by their same number. Hence, when we add up 1*1, 2*2, 3*3, 4*4, 5*5, 6*6, 7*7, 8*8, the total is 204, the Gematria of the word Tzadik! And as we see here, the first eight numbers are repetitive to bring out the Gematria of this word, connoting the concept of repetitiveness or being extra vigilant to prevent ourselves from sinning, which is a mark of the Tzadik, who does not want to take a chance being tempted to sin, and so unlike most others who may live as simple, nice Jews, the righteous person goes the extra mile to do everything right.

On this note, we see that though we always refer to Joseph as Yosef in Hebrew; in fact, there was a Hei added to his name, as we see in Tehillim (Psalms 81:6) in the Psalm for the FIFTH day of the week, the letter Hei - which is the numerical value of FIVE - is added to Joseph's name as Yehosef (Jehoseph). And pertaining to the seven active Sephirot, Chanuka corresponds to the Sephira of Hod/splendor - the FIFTH Sephira.

We see that the letter Hei, the letter that Hashem used to create this world which is full of materialism, is a letter that is open on the bottom, signifying that the letter is open for repentance (see Rashi on Genesis 2:4) so that even if people get caught up with the materialism in this world and are rock bottom spiritually, so long as they are breathing, they have a chance to repent. Perhaps the fact that the letter Hei appears twice in Hashem's main four letter name YKVK shows that no matter how materialistic this world seems to be, we can convert the materialism to something spiritual, and the fact that the letter Hei is repeated in Hashem's name echoes what I wrote earlier here about taking extra steps to maintain our high level of spirituality.


WHAT ELSE ABOUT JOSEPH IN PARSHAT PINCHAS?

One thing to note off the bat is that the Yahrzeit of Joseph is in the month of Tammuz. There are varied differences of opinion as to what date of this month this is - 1st, 2nd or 27th. But what is also true is that Parshat Pinchas is ALWAYS read during this month of Tammuz.

Hence, it's not surprising that aside from the fact that Pinchas is descended from Joseph, this Parsha mentions good things as related to Joseph from BOTH of his sons (remember what I wrote earlier about the spiritual significance of something being repeated or being double) - Menashe & Ephraim. When the Parsha mentions the story of the five daughters of Tzelaphchad requesting a portion in the Land of Israel being that their father had no sons, as the laws of inheritance in Judaism grants the sons of any given family the inheritance, Rashi notes that Joseph was someone who cherished the Land of Israel, as implied in his statement to his brothers when he said to "bring up my bones from here (Egypt)" (Genesis 50:25) to eventually being buried in Israel; and similarly, these women who were descended from Joseph's son Menashe exclaimed to Moses "Give us an inheritance".

And then from Joseph's son Ephraim, we have Joshua whose name as "Joshua son of Noon" is immediately followed by the story of the women from Joseph's other son Menashe. In this context, the verse notes that the generation of the wilderness, which were the ages of 20-60 all died in the wilderness (aside from the Tribe of Levi who was all righteous) except for Caleb & Joshua, the two spies who didn't fall for the rhetoric about the Land of Israel that the other 10 evil spies poisoned the Jewish people with to the point that not only the grown up men cried as babies, but some of them even suggested to return to Egypt, and as Rashi notes, they wanted to turn to idolatry. And then immediately after the story about these five women, Moses asks Hashem to appoint a leader for the Jews after his passing. In response to this, Hashem tells Moses that Joshua would be the man for this position.

So as you see, there is a very strong connection between Joseph & Joshua pertaining to Israel. And as I mentioned in the beginning of this post about both of their names beginning with the letter Yud=10, the Land of Israel possesses 10 levels of holiness (Mishna Tractate Keilim 1:6-9), the holiest of which is the Kodesh Kodoshim/Holy of Holies, the room in the Temple in which only the Cohen Gadol/High Priest was allowed to enter, and at that, only on Yom Kippur, which is the 10th of Tishrei.

Now, getting back to the same age of 110 that both Joseph & Joshua passed away, we learn in the Midrash about both of them (mentioned in their respective places) that Hashem shortened their lives by 10 years for something that they each had done.

We learn that because Joseph heard his brothers, before knowing that Joseph as the viceroy to Pharaoh was their long lost brother, called their father "Your servant" 10 times, and hence correspondingly, he lived 10 years less than he was originally was supposed to live. While Joseph was not making it known to his brothers as of yet that he was their brother, and objecting to their saying this could have possibly made them suspicious, as he wanted to first make sure that they were truly sorry for their sin of selling him into slavery, he was still held accountable by Hashem for not protesting this lack of respect that he silently implied hearing his father being called a servant, because Hashem held the righteous Joseph to high spiritual standards, but he failed to uphold his father's honor.

Then, we learn about Joshua that the verse in the Book of Joshua states that he took a long time to fight the battles that the Jews had over the course of seven years. Now, while some people would think that indeed, it takes a nice while to fight 31 kings, and that seven years sounds pretty reasonable, but Hashem knew differently. You see, it seems that Joshua was informed early on that his passing would be dependent on fighting the wars; meaning, that he would die after finishing the battles that he was supposed to fight in order for the Jews to inherit the Land. Now we do see that in fact, Joshua lived another 21 years - seven years of dividing the Land for the Jews according to their tribes, and 14 years of retirement. However, these years were going to be granted to him anyways, and the only years in question were the time that it would take him to fight the battles. This means, that had Joshua would have let's say done everything in three years - he still would have lived another 21 years PLUS 10 more years, a total of 31 years. However, since Joshua thought he was smart by taking his time fighting in order to increase his amount of years of living, Hashem showed him who was smarter.

You see, the sooner that Joshua would have finished the wars, the sooner the Jewish people would be able to inherit the land, and move on with their lives at home with their families, their work, and their spiritual service. But this was not possible so long as the Jewish people had wars to fight. Sure, Hashem could have made things easier for them, but he wanted them to WORK for it. However, Joshua took advantage of this to so to speak prolong his life.

For this, Hashem deducted 10 years from the total life that he was meant to live. Why 10 years? Why not just deduct the amount of years that Joshua tried to save beyond the years that he actually needed to do all the fighting; meaning, the amount of the extra years that he didn't need, plus the corresponding amount of years to make it less than the total amount of years originally meant for him? But as I mentioned just a little earlier, this was about the delaying the Jews from inherting the land to continue their spiritual life instead of just fighting being away from their families to have more Jewish children - and the Land consists of TEN levels of holiness, which the Jews were deprived from benefiting so long as they couldn't continue just living on the land as Jewish families. Hence, it was also "measure for measure" that Hashem deducted 10 years from Joshua's life, the same way that Hashem deducted 10 years of life from his ancestor Joseph.

Now, while Joshua may have had good intentions, since after all, the longer he lived in this world as a righteous person doing the Mitzvot/Commandments, the better it would be, not only in terms of spiritual accomplishment, but in more spiritual eternal bliss, when Hashem tells us to do something, we are not supposed to be smart and do things our way. Joshua had a responsibility to take care of the Jews in the best way possible, but in this instance, he thought selfishly about himself, howbeit with what we would say good intentions. However, this was not for him to decide, this was up to Hashem. And so, since Joshua didn't behave properly in this regard, he indeed lost out - not just in the physical sense of the amount of years, but obviously in the spiritual sense, since years were deducted from his life to be able to earn more eternal brownie points.

On the positive side, the number of the amount of years that Joseph & Joshua lived - 110 - hints to the ascent in holiness, though it may not be the number in Hebrew, as nothing is a coincidence. As we mentioned earlier, both Joseph & Joshua were very connected with Israel. Now, we call moving to Israel as "making Aliyah". The word Aliyah means an elevation, just as we say that someone who is called up to the Torah receives an Aliyah, as it is a spiritual elevation. Indeed, as I mentioned earlier, Joseph told his brothers to "bring UP my bones..." as in Hebrew, the word for "Bring up" is V'Ha'alitem, cognate of the word Aliyah.

And as I mentioned earlier, there are 10 levels of holiness connected with Israel; hence from one (1) to ten (10), the 10th one being the Holy of Holies that the High Priest entered on Yom Kippur, which is the TENTH of Tishrei (this word being the Gematria of nine hundred and TEN!), the holiest date of the year. Indeed, "we go up in holiness, but we don't decrease". In fact, the Hebrew number for 110 is Koof Yud, the first letters of the words Yud Kedushot - TEN (levels of) HOLINESS.


13 Tamuz 5771

P.S. Stay tuned for my upcoming special post celebrating...All I will say is that I will be writing this timely post, G-d willing, on Sunday night or on Monday, but I promise you, it will be a most special post on www.gematriot.blogspot.com.

#109 - Why Hashem Keeps Punishing Japan

While we have seen in the last several years all kinds of unusual high level of disasters happening in various part of the world; in the last several months, Japan has been in the forefront to sustain blow after blow. First it was the nuclear plant explosion, then we heard about an earthquake accompanied with a tzunami, and the latest that occurred in the week of Parshat Korach- which records the very first earthquake in world history- another major earthquake struck Japan on a Thursday morning at 6:51 AM.

As our rabbis tell us, all the punishments that occur in the world is because of us Jews. You see, the truth is that virtually all the nations of the world are considered evil people, though of course there are many good non-Jewish individuals who exist on this planet who will be granted a share of Heaven in the world to come. Why I say this is because generally, wicked people are punished for their sins in Hell in the world to come, though sometimes they may be punished in this world as well. With this said, there are times that G-d may not wait to punish a country until its evildoers reach the gates of Hell. It is addressing precisely this situation that the rabbis tell us that the punishment that occurs in the world is due to Jews.

Now normally, the reason for this is to awaken Jews to repent. You see, Hashem in his mercy for His people whom He considers as His children doesn't want us to suffer all the time for every sin that we commit. Sometimes, Hashem has ways of awakening us up without needing to endlessly punish us. Hence, the nations - especially the ones who have inflicted on us anti-Semitism - are sometimes afflicted with punishment in addition to their eternal damnation.

However, there are times that nations may be punished - not just in order to awaken us Jews, but to get them to take action to make things better for us. The prime example of this is Hashem afflicting the Egyptians with plague after plague to get them to allow us to leave Egypt once and for all.


THE HASIDIC BOYS IN A JAPANESE PRISON

Over three years ago, three Hasidic teenagers from Israel were on a so-called charity mission from which they were supposed to receive money. This meant travelling abroad with suitcases with supposed antiques, as was assured by a "friend". It turns out that when they arrived in Japan, the suitcases were discovered to be containing some 90,000 ecstasy pills. Mind you, these naive Hasidic boys, being raised in a confined Hasidic environment not allowing them to know many things about the outside world, had no idea what they were carrying abroad themselves, and relied on their so called friend who lied to them about what they were carrying.

Next thing you know, the Hasidic boys get arrested and thrown in a Japanese prison, which is far below human standards, at least compared to an Israeli prison. With virtually no kosher food aside from fruits and vegetables, these Hasidic boys, including one who was a legal minor at the time of the incident, were trapped in a spiritual and physical exile. A lie detector test administered by the Japanese government showed that indeed, these Hasidic boys had no awareness of what they were carrying. Nevertheless, it made no difference as far as the government was concerned, and these boys kept languishing in prison, while the anti-Semitic and self-hating Jews were having a field day criticizing these frail boys who had no awareness of what even Ecstasy was, let alone know that they were carrying drugs.

Now, for any "honest" parent, if it was one of his or her OWN children involved in a crime, regardless of the level of crime, he or she would move heaven and earth to do everything humanly possible to prove that his or her child is innocent or at least not so guilty as claimed. Yet, when it comes to someone else, especially if it's not only someone Jewish, or just plain "religious" or "Orthodox", but "Ultra-Orthodox" or Hasidic, who got in trouble with the law, that same parent who would attempt to find every excuse in the world to exonerate his or her child, and is not on that cultural or religious level as the Hasidic boys who got arrested, will most likely judge them in the most critical way, as in fact has happened.

Today, there is truly no excuse for someone who is an internet user to blindly blame someone for a crime without reading the facts on the internet. But I don't mean just any website that could feed them with lies or spiritual poisoning. I mean that one has to see BOTH sides of the picture before making a true judgment against others. At least then, even if one is critical of others after reading both sides of the story, has at least done some homework without blindly looking to find fault with someone else because the two don't share the same religion or set of beliefs.

The truth is that this whole mess happened thanks to a lowlife named Bentzion Miller who screwed up the lives of these three Hasidic boys, who have or will not be able to learn Torah in a Yeshiva for the next several years or get married by the time they are 20 as many if not most Hasidic boys by that age are already married. Even if and when these Hasidic boys (the one who was a minor when they were first arrested was since allowed to return to Israel to serve his sentence in prison and was already released) are eventually released and allowed to live a "normal" life in Israel once again, and assuming that they could find themselves married in a short time, the psychological scars which they sustained as a result of the years of imprisonment will no doubt remain with them for life unless they seek serious treatment which would help them be able to live a half decent life being married with children, and perhaps be able to be employed unless they choose to return learning in Yeshiva.

With all the faults of the Communist Israeli government, at least it did the right thing and arrested this lowlife who was only concerned about his own pocket, having ties with the Israeli mofia. This government also arranged for the Hasidic minor boy to continue his sentence in an Israeli prison, allowing him to be in a better spiritual and physical environment. It is true that he was released from prison a year earlier than what the Japanese government agreed to, and it upset the Japanese government very much, and may G-d forbid affect the eventual sentencing of the other two Hasidic boys.

So you probably guessed by now - I am saying that the reason why Japan keeps receiving disasters is because of the imprisonment of the Hasidic boys. That is right, my friends! Indeed, I came to this conclusion all on my own. But more than this, Rabbi Dovid Twersky, Shlita, the Rachmastrivka Rebbe announced this past Purim the same exact thing as I just wrote here. You see, if these Hasidic boys would have known what they were carrying and knew that it is considered wrong for smuggling these in, then that would be a different story, and a pure Chilul Hashem/desecration of G-d's name. However, as the Japanese government itself administered a lie detector test that proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt, these naive Hasidic boys had no idea what they were even carrying, let alone know that they were doing something illegal, where is the beginning of justice, taking this fact into consideration? And like it or not, all the Japanese (aside from the few Jewish Japanese who do exist) are not worth the life of ONE OBSERVANT JEW - who is part of the reason of the world's continued existence - in the eyes of G-d! So before Jews - and especially Israel - want to continue rushing aid to the idol worshiping Japan following receiving G-d's wrath, they should FIRST be concerned about the lives of these Hasidic boys, and make it clear to Japan that the only way it will receive further help is if these boys are released.

If the Japanese government wanted to REALLY do the right thing, especially since it already was in touch with the Israeli government, it would exchange the Hasidic boys for the lowlife mobster Bentzion Miller who was FULLY aware of what he was doing to smuggle drugs for a profit, risking other people's freedom to hide his own crime. Why can't that evil government have this lowlife in prison for the combined amount of years that they intend or going to intend to sentence the Hasidic boys for? After all, the two Hasidic boys have already been rotting in prison for over three years already, ruining the prime time of their lives when they would have no doubt already been married and could have each brought at least one or two Jewish children into the world, and perhaps continuing to learn Torah in a Yeshiva, and this is for a crime that was proven that they had no intention of doing.

Indeed, as far as Hashem is concerned, after hearing the cries of these two Hasidic boys living on faith in Hashem for some 1,000 days, enough is enough. You see, if the Japanese government was smart, it would save money supporting two or three Hasidic boys, along with the expensive trial, and demand just the imprisonment of ONE lowlife who had FULL intention of going against the law. But since this is not all about justice, and it certainly does not love Jews to say the least, it is willing to spend MORE money for food and whatever else on more than one person who wouldn't be living in Japan otherwise, because it is not concerned about justice but to be anti-Semitic (and it doesn't matter if it would do the same for others who aren't Jewish) and pretend that it is doing everything under the guise of justice.

And so, one blow after another, you would think that maybe, just maybe, the evil Japanese who are running the government and political world, with their idol-worshipping religion in which they would understand in their way of thinking that gods do things when they get angry, that they would think about the possibility that the G-d of the Jews is also angry, even if the Japanese aren't followers of G-d, and would think twice before continuing to let these Hasidic boys rot in prison, which includes not even allowing the Hasidic boys to see each other, and the government went out of its way TO MAKE SURE that G-d forbid the boys would dare be allowed to see each other even for a second, and the only reason that this is so is because the Japanese government is anti-Semitic and want to do things beyond what their laws say, as long as it is Jews who are being tortured physically and mentally, not to even have some kind of hope or wait to look forward to seeing the only Hasidic friend each one has living around FOR OVER THREE YEARS, when they are both very close in the same prison. WHAT CRUELTY!

And so, while the Japanese government is busy screaming at Israel for releasing the Hasidic minor from Israeli prison one year early, the G-d of the Jews has other news for the Japanese. And since the Japanese are all idol worshippers, even if they don't know better, that's just too bad. If a nation is not doing its part to help Israel, then G-d has no reason to help it when He wants to punish the nation's country; and according to the Torah, when a non-Jew violates one of the seven Noahide laws, there is no patience granted for a non-Jew to repent of his or her ways, and is supposed to be sentenced to immediate death - no questions asked! After all, when a Jew in the times of the Sanhedrin of long ago purposely committed a crime that deserved the death penalty, it was immediately granted, so why should non-Jews have it better when they only have a few commandments to fulfill compared to a Jew who is commanded with 613 Mitzvot, and the non-Jews don't keep even the few that they were given?

Indeed, it was no mere coincidence that a second earthquake in the recent months in Japan took place in the week that Parshat Korach was read where we learn about the first earthquake that took place as a result of the rebellion of Korach against Moses and Aaron, his own cousins, in his jealousy for a prominent position of leadership. Meanwhile, doing these months, tens of thousands of Japanese died, became homeless, became penniless; and Japan, despite relief from various countries, still has to deal in the long term with the mess that was created, beginning with the nuclear plant that blew up, in effect, imprisoning people, not being able to be exposed to even fresh air. And as we know, the type of punishment that G-d grants is the way of Midah Knegged Midah - measure for measure. However, the evil idol-worshipping Japanese have yet to learn this lesson, and many if not most Japanese citizens no doubt know the news about the Hasidic boys, regardless of what propaganda info was fed to them.

Now, in case anyone reading what I wrote thinks that I am very prejudiced pertaining to Jews and the evil idol-worshipping Japanese, and still think that the naive Hasidic boys, even if they didn't know what they were doing, still deserve being punished, this is nothing new to me. It's just like the case of Jonathan Pollard, though according to the American law, he wasn't supposed to be in prison for more than two to four years, and was nevertheless sentenced to a life imprisonment despite a plea bargaining, there are those self hating Jews, who ignore this legal fact, as well as the fact that others who have done much worse in the way of spying for another country were only sentenced to a fraction of the sentence of Mr. Pollard, only because they don't fear G-d, and are jealous of other Jews who sacrificed their freedom to save other Jews' lives. For these rotten self-hating Jews, no legal or logical answer will satisfy their evil and twisted mind. However, I am reminded of another story that occurred many years ago.

In 1994, an American teenager by the name of Michael P. Fay, was arrested in Singapore for theft and vandalism. He was sentenced to a few months in prison, a fine of a few thousand dollars, and...caning - which is flogging administered to the butt, cutting off pieces of flesh. Meanwhile, Fay's father begged then President Clinton to ask the Singapore government not to administer this "cruel" punishment. In the end, the spoiled teenager Fay received only four lashes instead of six, and was in prison for only a few months for multiple charges of his crimes.

A little while later, I was travelling on a plane, and found myself sitting next to a guy from Singapore. The subject about the teenager in Singapore came up, and I told the guy that this boy deserved what he got. The guy was actually a little surprised that an American would say this about another American citizen. He explained to me that really, the Singapore government didn't have to listen to the American government, but was being very nice when usually, the punishment is administered accordingly.

Yes, it's very understandable that a parent such as Michael Fay's father was very concerned about what would happen to his son, and succeeded in reaching the president of the United States himself to have him agree to intercede on his behalf. Now, as far as I am concerned, this teenager should have been on his knees thanking the Singapore government for punishing him the way they did, because if he would have been in Saudi Arabia, he probably would have at least had his hands cut off. And for the multiple counts of crime that he performed between theft and vandalism, how much time did he serve in prison - a freakin' mere FOUR MONTHS! Yes, this is for what he knew FULLY WELL that this is wrong, but for extra gain and/or fun, he did what he did, and then was free to return to the United States!

Now, for these naive Hasidic boys who had NO AWARENESS of what they were doing wrong or carrying, they (two of the three) have been languishing in prison for over three years now. In the latest news, one of the two- Yaakov Yosef Greenwald, was sentenced to SIX YEARS OF HARD LABOR, which will not allow him any time to even pray, let alone learn a little Torah, as at least he had a little chance to do until now, along with a $50,000 fine - as though he had money to pay it, which was already paid by others who will be the ones to suffer financially, in effect punishing others for something that they didn't do at all. And for the other one- Yoel Zev Goldstein, only G-d knows how many more years G-d forbid he will have to endure this world's Hell upon his sentencing on August 29. So indeed, the Japanese can't claim, in comparison or rather in contrast to the Singapore government, that they are only concerned about justice. Also, why is or was the Japanese court delaying so long in making a court decision? It didn't take more than a few months for Singapore to lay out the sentence after being presented with all the facts for the evil teenager boy, which included MULTIPLE accounts of crimes that he performed. So, why is/was the endless wait, after around three years, making it worse for the Hasidic boys mentally and emotionally, worrying about what is going to be, not already being faced with the facts or sentence to deal with? As we see in Jewish law, it is forbidden to delay the deciding of a person's verdict, because it is unduly making the person in question suffer the agony of not knowing what is going to be. Of course in the legal system of most countries, there are times that a wait is necessary in order to put together all the facts, but part of this is in order for a person not to be sentenced unjustly. But after this, there are times that delays happen because of politics or more money for the judge and lawyers, having a field day based on someone else's expense.

So, what does all this have to do with Gematria? You see, this is my 109th Post, and one has to only look at Psalm 109, which I believe is the Psalm with the most graphic curse wishes for the evil that King David composed. But without getting into details about what the psalm says, why don't I just post it here for all to see crystal clear that the curses that King David declared for the wicked is what I wish the evil Japanese until they repent and release the Hasidic boys back to Israel where they truly belong. In fact, mark my words - THINGS WILL KEEP HAPPENING TO JAPAN UNTIL THE HASIDIC BOYS WILL RETURN HOME TO ISRAEL!


1. For the conductor. Of David, a song. O God of my praise, be not silent.
2. For the mouth of a wicked man and the mouth of a deceitful man have opened upon me; they spoke with me with a lying tongue.
3. And with words of hatred they have surrounded me, and they have fought with me without cause.
4. Instead of my love, they persecute me, but I am at prayer.
5. They have imposed upon me evil instead of good and hatred instead of my love.
6. Set a wicked man over him, and let an adversary stand at his right hand.
7. When he is judged, let him emerge guilty, and let his prayer be accounted as a sin.
8. May his days be few, and may someone else take his office of dignity.
9. May his sons be orphans and his wife a widow.
10. May his sons wander, and [people] should ask and search from their ruins.
11. May a creditor search out all he has, and may strangers despoil his labor.
12. May he have none who extends kindness, and may no one be gracious to his orphans.
13. May his end be to be cut off; in another generation may their name be blotted out.
14. May the iniquity against his forefathers be remembered by the Lord, and may the sin against his mother not be erased.
15. May they be before the Lord constantly, and may He cut off their remembrance from the earth.
16. Because he did not remember to do kindness, and he pursued a poor and needy man, and a broken-hearted one, to kill [him].
17. And he loved a curse, and it came upon him; and he did not desire a blessing, and it distanced itself from him.
18. And he donned a curse like his garment, and it came into his midst like water and into his bones like oil.
19. May it be to him as a garment with which he envelops himself and as a girdle with which he constantly girds himself.
20. This is the recompense of my adversaries from the Lord, and those who speak evil upon my soul.
21. But You, O God, my Lord, do with me for Your name's sake, for Your kindness is good; save me.
22. For I am poor and needy, and my heart has died within me.
23. Like a shadow when it lengthens, I was driven about; I was stirred up like a locust.
24. My knees stumbled from fasting, and my flesh became emaciated from fat.
25. And I was a disgrace to them; they would see me, they would shake their head.
26. Help me, O Lord, my God; save me according to Your kindness.
27. And they should know that this is Your hand; You, O Lord, have done it.
28. Let them curse and You will bless; they rose up and were ashamed, but Your servant will rejoice.
29. May my adversaries don disgrace and enwrap themselves with their shame like a cloak.
30. I shall thank the Lord exceedingly with my mouth, and among many people I shall praise Him.
31. For He will stand to the right of the needy to save [him] from those who judge his soul.


Now, some of you will ask. This is all very nice that you are very concerned about the plight and suffering of other Jews. But, is there anything that we can do?

Absolutely! First of all, you can pray for these two Hasidic boys - Yaacov Yosef ben Raizel (Greenwald) and Yoel Zev ben Mirel Risa Chava (Goldstein). Also, there was a website that was launched a few months ago to help them- www.thejapansong.com which includes a JEWISH song (in Yiddish & English) about the plight of these boys, and also a website www.japanpidyon.org. Of course, both of these websites ask the Jewish public to help these boys financially, which will include paying for their legal fees. And to note, the Mitzva of Pidyon Shevuyim - redemption of captives - is the GREATEST Mitzvah of kindness. And to contact the Japan embassy in Israel - whether it is to phone or fax what is on your mind about the grotesque injustice that is happening to the Hasidic boys, including the fact that G-d keeps punishing Japan for this but has yet to learn its lesson, or hold a protest, here is the information: Embassy of Japan in Israel
4 Berkowitz St., Museum Tower, Tel Aviv 64238
Tel: +972-3-6957293 Fax: +972-3-6910516

And speaking of praying for these boys, there is a unique division of the 150 chapters of Psalms that is presented in a chart based on what someone's last name is, as you can check it out here http://www.japanpidyon.org/tehillim.pdf. Based on my last name, the psalms offered for me are Psalm 13 & Psalm 14. Though I wrote this post based on the theme of Psalm 109, these two psalms perhaps most describe the suffering that these boys are going through. Psalm 13 hints to the four exiles that the Jewish people have endured, ending off with one's trust in Hashem's salvation; and Psalm 14 speaks of the ones who deny G-d while making others suffer, ending off with the request of Hashem returning the captives of His people. How fitting!

I have said this long ago, but people wonder why there is terrorism in the world. Well, if we can't even love each other, our own people, to put ourselves in other people's shoes to feel the pain that they are going through - even if truly deserved (though I am not saying that we have to go out of our way for certain Jews who openly rebel against our own people or publicly violate civil law) - then of course why should people whose lives are based on committing terrorism on anyone who doesn't agree with their philosophy should care about the lives that they wreck, G-d forbid?
I think that it is about time that people should take a second look at life, and before judging others without at least spending the time getting all the facts together, and spend a little more time examining themselves, and write down all the faults that they have themselves, and to make amends where possible. Indeed, quite often, it is the very ones who are critical of others who are guilty in one way or another of the very things that they accuse others of.

After all, for those bashers of the Hasidic boys or of Jonathan Pollard, was there ever a time in your life that you PURPOSELY SNEAKED extra time that you claimed that you worked when you didn't while accusing others of sneaking drugs that they weren't even aware that they were carrying? Or, have you ever eavesdropped on a conversation that you heard behind doors, only to make trouble for certain people based on what you heard WITHOUT THE KNOWLEDGE of the ones who were talking, while demanding that someone who was charged with one count of handing over classified information to an allied nation should be imprisoned for life for spying? It's about time that we are honest about ourselves, and think what it is like being imprisoned - but not just for a few months or a few years - but ETERNAL imprisonment in Hell or FOREVER being without a share in the world to come, most probably for all the evil slander that we said about others without giving a hoot about what we do wrong ourselves.

Indeed, it is so easy to accuse others, but how quick are way to make an honest determination about how we live our lives, even as we pass by the High Holidays every year - confessing to the same sins that we keep repeating without making a true, sincere effort to better our ways in some way? At least these Hasidic boys and Jonathan Pollard will most likely have whatever sins they may have had be atoned for, taking in consideration for all the unjust suffering that they have sustained. But for the rest of us, unless we are willing to at least feel another Jew's pain, why should we be considered any better than they who have truly suffered for whatever wrongs that they committed, while we go on enjoying our lives as though we did nothing wrong and manage not to violate the "Eleventh Commandment" - Thou shalt not get caught? Let us set the record right, and start with the observance of the Mitzvah of Ahavat Yisrael - Love of our fellow Jew, which we will learn about what it truly means when studying the Torah sources about what this includes. Then, and only then, can we hope for some true justice in this world, beginning with ourselves.


10 Tammuz 5771

#108 - "Take the Levites...and Purify them"

In this fourth Sefer of the Torah - Bamidbar, the Book of Numbers, we see a unique thing. Every single one of the 10 Parshiyot of this book either mentions the Tribe of Levi, or highlights the Cohanim. Though the basis of this post is actually based on last week's Parshat Be'Ha'alotcha as I will begin momentarily, this week's Parshat Shlach, though it does not mention this explicitly, but unlike the cry babies of all the other tribes who fell for the evil report about Israel from the Spies, who consequently died in the desert before reaching the age of 60, the Levites were spared from this decree, because all of them had faith in Hashem, all of the younger ones living for nearly 40 years to enter the Promised Land.

The very beginning of Parshat B'Ha'alotcha is the commandment for Aaron the Cohen Gadol/High Priest to light the Menorah daily. Following this, is a whole long section (Numbers 8:4-26) about the consecration of the Levites, from whom incidentally I am descended by parental line, making me a Levite, as this status is strictly from the father's side.

Kach Et HaLevi'im "Take the Levites" (Numbers 8:5) - Hashem's orders to Moses. First to note, the first word of Hashem's set of instructions for the one-time consecration of the Levites is Kach - "Take". This also spells the number 108, and this is my 108th post on www.gematriot.blogspot.com.

What does it mean by "Take"? Did Hashem really mean that Moshe should take them physically by the hand and lead them to their consecration? Indeed, we see that it was Aaron himself, in his mid-eighties, who physically lifted 22,300 Levites as part of this consecration! Moses' job was a little different. The first thing that needed to be done was to "take" them, as Rashi notes, using words, telling them "How fortunate are you to be serving the Omnipresent!"

Now, the question can be asked, we know that this unique tribe of Levi was always faithful to Hashem. They were also learning Torah in Egypt, didn't fall for Pharaoh's scheme of working the bricks himself to convince the rest of the Jews to work as well, and not only did not even a single member of this tribe worship the Golden Calf, but went out on Moses' orders with no questions asked to even kill relatives (who were not Levites) if need be if they worshipped the idol. So, why would they need convincing about this consecration ceremony if this is what would lead to them serving in the Tabernacle? They already demonstrated their eagerness to do what Hashem wanted in the past, so what was new in telling them this?

The truth is that originally, the ones to serve in the Tabernacle/Temple were supposed to be the firstborn males. We see that Jacob, the younger brother of Esau, realizing what his older brother was really like, convinced him to sell him the "birthright" which means the special privileges associated with serving Hashem as the firstborn. And right before the Torah was given, we see in Parshat Mishpatim that the firstborn offered sacrifices on the altar. So in fact, it was really the right of the firstborn up until this point to be the "Cohanim".

With the worship of the Golden Calf, this would change. As the Levites followed Moses' orders as per the Golden Calf, they now earned the right to be the ones to serve Hashem in His inner sanctuary. However, this was not due to them to begin with, but only because others had failed to live up to their mission - which included some of the firstborn Jews. So, it wasn't like the Levites were meant to be part of the "Inner Circle" from day one. With this said, they would now be benefiting from the failure of others. Hence, there was room that perhaps, some of the Levites would feel rather uncomfortable to be in this new position.

Hence, it was crucial that Moses would address them accordingly, telling them how fortunate they are to be servants of Hashem in His holy Sanctuary (Note - this would explain why Rashi used the word Makom "Omnipresent" which literally means "place", as serving Hashem in the capacity of Levites involved being in the most Holy Place). In other words, the reason why they are now in this position is because indeed, they were worthy of it, and not to worry about others who failed to maintain their high spiritual level. After all, they were to serve Hashem, so if Hashem is asking them to be consecrated for this, then this was Hashem's will and orders, not just because the Levites would be taking someone else's position away for their own personal gain. If anything, it was about time that Hashem had the right set of people to serve Him; and hence, they should consider themselves fortunate to be in the right place at the right time.

We see another rather interesting observation here. It is not entirely new - but in verse 19, where the mention of "Children of Israel" is written five times in the same verse, Rashi notes from the Midrash (Bereshit Rabba 3:5) that this shows Hashem's affection for the Jewish people, mentioning them as the amount of books in the Chumash.

This is all very nice, but why specifically in this section of the Torah about the big day of the Levites being consecrated, which really happened as a result of the failings of the other Tribes of Israel. Couldn't Hashem have picked another place in the Torah to show His special love for the Jewish people?

Yes, the Jews had faults. Yes, some of the Jews partook of the worship of the Golden Calf. Yes, adjustments had to be made, and now it would be the Levites instead of the firstborn who would assume the role of serving Hashem in His holy abode on earth. However, Hashem still loved His people very much. The rest of them deserved to feel special, even as the firstborn were clearly traded with the Levites physically one-by-one, leaving an excess of 273 Jews about whom we see in Parshat Bamidbar that they had to give five coins to redeem themselves, because now the firstborn were now unworthy of continuing their special spritual privileges from the past. However, this was a technicality that did not have to define or change Hashem's relationship with the Jews "My son, My firstborn Israel", as Hashem had Moses tell Pharaoh. Hashem still cared for them so much that it was in this very verse that Hashem made sure that the non-Levitical Jews would be careful not to touch or be on sanctified property that they were forbidden to tread in order that they would not die.

Speaking of the five books of the Chumash, we know that there are a total of 24 books of the Tanach/Bible. It is the first five books of the Tanach that are the holiest books of them all, as this is what was directly from Hashem, dictated to Moses to be written into the holiest article - the Sefer Torah/Torah Scroll. Accordingly, let's divide the 12 months of the Jewish calendar, which we begin counting from the month of Nissan, into two, to make 24 even parts of half months each. What comes out is that today - 15 Sivan - marks the end of the fifth period of the 24 half months of the year, corresponding to the first five books of the Chumash of the total of 24 books of the Tanach.

And the month of Sivan isn't just another month in the Jewish calendar. This was the month that the Torah was given to the Jewish people. And as we know, the moon appears bigger until the middle of the month, from which point is waxes and wanes. So is it with the Torah. We have to increase our excitement and love for the Torah, the same way that the Levites were to be filled with excitement of their new spiritual post and Hashem's continued love for the Jewish people. Yes, there would be waxing and waning spiritual periods that the Jews would go through. However, Hashem wanted to remind them that despite their failings and His need to punish them and redirect them, He still loves them very much, and they just need to follow the example of others living the right type of spiritual life, and then they will have everything good for themselves. Hashem is willing and wanting to give the Jews everything that they need and want that is not to their disadvantage; but the Jews have to merely live up to the standards that Hashem expects from them in serving Hashem with the commandments that they were given; irrespective if they are Cohanim/Levites or not, because at the end of the day, we are ALL part of the "Children of Israel".


"TAKE THE LEVITES...AND PURIFY THEM" (NUMBERS 8:6)

A recent scandal has shook the greater New York area, and in a sense, the United States, as well as the World Wide Web.

Before getting into details and my comments on this - which is all based on the Torah's way of thinking - I wish to begin with the word V'Tiharta - "and purify".
In Hebrew, when this word is rearranged, it spelled the word Taharot, plural for purities, the name of the sixth and final order or volume of the Mishnayot. This part of the Mishnayot deals with the various spiritual impurities that people and items are able to be contaminated with or not. Kabbalistically, this part of the Mishnayot corresponds to the Sephirah called Yesod/Foundation which is related to sexual purity.

While some people on the web got a bit obsessed with what happened with now ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner, there are in fact a number of things involved in his case which have revelations of what is going behind this in the spiritual world as evidenced through Gematria.

First things first, some people think that Weiner is not Jewish because some claim that his mother is not Jewish. Well, in checking this out, I saw a video on youtube where his mother said outright that she is Jewish. So, unless someone wants to claim that she is lying about being Weiner's mother or being Jewish herself, I don't think that anything else needs to be said and nothing can be attempted to prove otherwise.

With this said, what happened here caused tremendous shame to the Jewish people in the eyes of non-Jews, as well as increased anti-Semitism, which in Torah terms is called a Chillul Hashem/desecration of Hashem's name. Of course, had the same things been done by a congregational rabbi, it would have been far, far worse. However, being that Weiner was in the public eye, and being that his Jewish family name is a slang word for the part of the body that the world has a field day with, the whole incident with him spun way out of control.

In Weiner's case, the number six, a word which is most similar to the word sex, really shined out (didn't anyone notice?). It was on June 6, which is when abbreviated in numbers as 6/6, that he made his public confession, which included the fact that he had online "sexting" with SIX women.

Actually, the word six, being similar to the word sex, is also similar to the word SICK. Yes, someone who is not behaving in terms of sexual purity is definitely spiritually sick, which is represented by the spiritual impurity that one receives until one purifies himself. During Temple times, when these laws had to be practiced because entering the Temple while impure incurred being liable to death by Heaven, becoming spiritually pure was for the most part practiced by dunking oneself in a Mikva/ritualarium. However, this alone will not in an inner sense purify oneself without the proper spiritual preparation and resolution not to repeat the sin that brought oneself to be spiritually contaminated.

As I mentioned a little earlier, the name of the sixth order of Mishnayot is Taharot, and as connected with spiritual purity. It seems that the words six and sex are related to one another etymologically. Whether this is so, or pure "coincidence", we see that such coincidences no doubt have G-d's hand in this. Now, the word for pure in the singular in Hebrew is Tahor. Lo and behold, the word Tahor and the word for sex in Hebrew - spelled Samech, Koof, Samech - have the same Gematria (220)! Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that sex is a bad thing; on the contrary, it could be a very good thing, and is a Mitzvah when having in mind that one is performing it in order to have Jewish children - the very first Mitzvah of the Torah. It is only in this way of thinking and performing accordingly that sex is being done after being spiritually purified, not diluted with thinking about other women, but only with the woman that one is with.

In Weiner's case, the number 220 is shown in another dimension. One of these six women that he was "sexting" with is in fact a Jewish woman. I'll will not mention her name not because there is a sin about talking bad about other Jews, since after all, her name was already released in the public, and she deserves to have her name disgraced for the great shame that she caused the Jewish people. In fact, her whole living, being a blackjack dealer, is forbidden according to the Torah, because being involved in a living that causes others to loose money is forbidden, and so much so, that such a person is invalidated from giving testimony in a Jewish court, as being in the category of a Rasha/wicked person. However, for spiritual reasons, I will not mention her name here.

Anyways, bearing in mind that the word for sex in Hebrew is the Gematria of 220, it was noted that there were exactly 220 text messages between this Jewish woman and Weiner! No, it didn't have to be actual sex, but the conversations between the two was certainly largely based on this concept, using very foul language. And the ironic thing here is that it was the Jewish lady that began writing to Weiner, her last message stating that Weiner should thank her for not spilling the beans on him. Well, the next thing you know, she ratted on him, which is the henious sin of Lashon Hara/evil speech about another. Of course, this is typical of women dates, even in the observant Jewish sector, where they are not honest with their man date, making up lies about her not wishing to meet with him, or not any more, or lying about why she is not, or no longer, interested in him, while slandering him by telling all her girlfriends the real reason, leaving him in the dark not knowing why he may be accidentally turning women off from himself.

Now, in case anyone will exclaim "Well, she is not religious, so she doesn't know much better about writing foul language about sex or the laws of forbidden speech", I have news. You see, if someone who is not and was not raised as an observant Jew will claim one day upstairs after one's time on earth that he/she didn't know about certain Jewish rituals, perhaps Hashem will cut slack for such a person. However, just about everyone knows that the type of activities that this evil lady (and yes, she is an evil person, believe it or not, as evidenced by what she did!) performed, as she knew damn well that this is not proper behavior, but that she was following her animalistic instincts. And so, this evil lady will one day be held liable for EVERYTHING that she did or didn't do that went against the Torah.

Now, while Weiner and this Jewish lady never actually met, this was OK with the Yetzer Hara/evil inclination. You see, if they would have actually met which would have meant that Weiner would have cheated on his wife, that could have turned out to be a good spiritual thing for him. You see, if these two would have gotten together and all, this could have ended his marriage with the Moslem woman that he married, and hence, this would have stopped him from sleeping all the time with his shiktza (which literally means, a disgusting person, and is indeed true, because here, a non-Jew(ess) is causing a Jew to sin by sleeping together, and so is a very spiritually disgusting person) wife.

Yes, there are claims about Weiner being an outspoken Congressman on behalf of Israel, bearing in mind his representation of a good sizable community of Jews in part of the Brooklyn and Queens areas. In fact, there are even claims that he has a rabbi that he refers to and has gone to Torah classes of his. So, even if it were to be true that he isn't such a bad "Jewish boy", but it's just that he has some weaknesses which cost him his annual $174,000 job, then certainly, what is his excuse, to not only marry just any shiktza, but a Moslem one at that?! Even if she herself is obviously not a very practicing Moslem because she doesn't cover her hair, her parents are not only Moslem but also have ties to the Muslem Brotherhood. This is not to mention that she serves as an aid and "body woman" for the anti-Semitic Hillary Clinton, who seethes with anti-Semitism against Israel for the troubles that Israel gives the "poor Palestinians" in her perspective.

As further related to the concept of spiritual impurity, we see that there is a pattern here in relationship to the Clinton family, especially to the former Democratic President Bill Clinton. Of course all the liberal Democratic Jews want to claim that Clinton loves Jews. Perhaps he has his Jewish "friends" in the Democratic party who have been there for him. But in reality, his anti-Semitism for Jews, is perhaps even more evident that his past anti-Semitic policies towards Israel - just like his senator wife, when it comes to causing Jews to sin. It may be a subconscious thing, but the reason he is doing this is because deep down inside, he hates Jews, and he knows that by causing Jews to sin, that they will, G-d forbid, be worthy of spiritual and physical destruction, as evidenced in the arena of causing Jews to be contaminated with sexual impurity.

Now, it is noteworthy to note that both the evil Jewish lady intern whose performed sexual actions on Clinton and Weiner's wife (who is certainly evil and anti-Semitic, because she is causing Weiner to sin by being married to her and having sex with her) became White House interns the same time. As it takes two to tango, Clinton was causing the Jewish lady intern to sin with her lewd behavior. Then, it was thanks to the evil Clinton couple who did the "Shidduch" for Weiner and his now Moslem wife, and on top of this, Bill Clinton performed the ceremony for this couple. And then in the midst of last summer, the Clintons' only child, their daughter, married a Jew. Now normally, almost every country leader would not dare allow a Jew to marry into his high profile and important family, because most country leaders hate Jews. However, Bill Clinton (as well as his wife of course) though was the former U.S. president, bearing in mind that the United States is the world leader, didn't mind his only child marrying a Jew, even though he actually hates Jews, and is only friendly to them for his selfish purposes. But deep down inside, he doesn't mind his own family being associated with Jews, and the only explanation for this is that in his subconscious, he knows that he is causing a Jew to sin, so much so, that he was even willing for his only child to marry a Jew. This is very similar to the king of Midian, in the times of Moses, willing to allow his daughter Cozbi Bat-Zur to sleep with the leader of the Jews (Moses, but it wound up that Zimri Ben-Salu, leader of the tribe of Shimon whom she started mating with until these two evil people were killed by Pinchas), in order to make the Jews sin to be liable to destruction.

So, now that Bill Clinton directly caused at least three Jews to be contaminated with sexual impurity - the Jewish lady intern who perform lewd sexual acts on him, Weiner who married the Moslem lady intern, and the liberal Democraric self-hating Jew who married his daughter, we see that this is no mere coincidence about Clinton. In fact, since he left office, in a future election, he endorsed Democratic candidate John Kerry, whose last name in Hebrew, spelled (and pronounce with the same vowels) Koof, Reish, Yud, is the very word associated with sexual impurity!

Just a brief word on politics in the United States as it relates to Judaism, the Democratic party believes in abortion rights and gay rights, while the Republican party is against these rights that cause unborn babies to be murdered or people to be sinning sexually, but believing much more instead in family values. Hence, a good percentage if not most Jews who belong to a political party in the States are Republicans, who look to vote for the presidential candidate who will most represent the values of the Torah.

Now, getting back to Weiner, we see that it was on the (first) day of Shavuot, the holiday marking the Giving of the Torah, that the first member of Democratic leadership who called upon Weiner to resign, Rep. Allyson Schwartz, is a Jew(ess). Yes, it was one Jew asking another Jew to resign from his post following his sexual impedes. It didn't have to be someone who is "religious", because all Jews are supposed to be this way anyways. Also to note, Weiner's middle name is David. Now, whether his Hebrew name is David (as Dovid) or not, it is true that King David was both born and passed away on Shavuot, on the very holiday that Weiner was first asked to resign. As we know about King David, he had some sexual challenges in his life, but through repentence and fasting, he totally conquered his evil inclination. Not that Weiner could care less or even if he ever got to make these connections as I just made, that this would make any practical difference to him or become an Orthodox Jew as a result, but Hashem has His ways of shaking people, and if Weiner would do repentance by first of all shagging his Moslem wife - and not if she shags him - if he has true remorse for the sins that he did, this would certainly be a major step of walking on the right path. Let's certainly hope that he will not continue his sexual impedes by taking up the recent offer of a job related to sinning sexually.

There is one more aspect here about the number six as it relates to Weiner. You see, what really got him into the big trouble that faced him was his lying in his attempt to cover up what he did. Indeed, the word for six in Hebrew, Sheish, has the same Gematria as Sheker/falsehood - SIX HUNDRED! And so, it was on the date of 6/6 (though this is the secular date and not the Hebrew date, but since Weiner has lived a secular life, this would mean much more to him than the Jewish date) that he confessed, admitting to not only being involved with his online sexual activities with six women, but that he lied about what he had done. So as you can see, there is a whole patter of the number six as related to everything that Weiner has done wrong here. Though this confession in itself is not Teshuva since he certainly did not have in mind that he is doing repentance because Hashem commands to do so in the Torah, and even at that, this was only because he felt that he did not have a choice and hoped that now all the distractions would go away, but if he were to do some serious spiritual arousing and awakening, he would think about what it means to be a Jew, which he certainly has connections with, especially living in the largest Jewish populated area in the United States.

And so, of all people, and of all Jews, these news shaking events happened to someone whose very Jewish family name is slang for the organ that is responsible for the life of all creation, though this word being used in a slang sense as related to sexual impurity. However, what we can learn from here, aside from not repeating the types of mistakes that Weiner did, is that we can give meaning to our Jewish names by our performance of the right way of life, beginning with purifying our thoughts and thinking of the proper way to serve Hashem. As the moment of truth faced Weiner when he confessed and was first asked to resign on Shavuot, both things happening in the week of Parshat B'Ha'alotcha when we read about the Levites being purified and consecrated for Hashem's service, Shavuot - the day of Matan Torah/Giving of the Torah also fell out this year during this Parsha.

To note, the word for impurity in Hebrew is Tamei which is the Gematria of 50. When the Jews left Egypt, they had 49 levels of impurity to shed; hence counting the days from after the Exodus until they would receive the Torah on the "Fifitieth Day", on which the Torah - which combats spiritual impurity - was given to the Jewish people. This is reminiscent of a Jewish woman who after her days of menstruation, counts seven days - as the Jews counted seven weeks - after which she goes into a Mikva to be spiritually pure for her husband, which is followed by the sexual action that is part of Hashem's first Mitzva in the Torah to bring Jewish children into the world (unlike when a Jewish man marries a Shiktza, bringing non-Jewish children into the world also brings spiritual contamination to the world).

On a final note, mentioning about King David in this post, he was in the parental line a descendant of Judah, who was born on today's date - 15 Sivan.


15 Sivan, 5771

#107 - Jerusalem From The Beginning of Time

Beginning this post today - which is Rosh Chodesh Sivan, my focus will also be on the fact that today is the 45th day of the Sephira. You see, two days ago, Yom Yerushalayim/Jerusalem Day began the 45th year since Jerusalem's Liberation. I certainly was not able to write everything in one day, or even in one post for that matter, for that would have taken too long. But most importantly, we need a separate post for today's topic because while there will be some connections of the contents in this post with the previous one, this deserves its separate attention.

The number 45 is a most special number. Well for one thing, it is the Gematria of one of the formats of Hashem's name when the letters of the names of the four letters of YKVK is spelled out. But for today's purposes, it is also the Gematria of the name of the first human being - Adam. And what makes the 45th day of the Sephira in this year be most significant, besides being in the beginning of Jerusalem's 45 year, but this also falls out on the sixth day of the week - the day of the week that Adam, whose name is the Gematria of 45, was created! Moreover, as it has been pointed out, there are exactly 45 words for the Shir Shel Yom/Song of the Day (Psalm 93) that was sung by the Levites in the Temple on Friday, corresponding to Adam, whose name is the Gematria of 45, who was created on this day.

To note for a minute, the kabbalistic Sephira for the 45th day of the Sephira is Tiferet She'B'Malchut - Beauty within Kingship. Indeed, this psalm for Friday begins with YKVK (Hashem) Malach Geiut Laveish - "Hashem has reigned, dressed with pride", symbolizing the very concept of the beauty of clothes, especially as it pertains to a king, as noted in the following words of this first verse. Now, looking at the first letters of these first four words in Hebrew, these spell the word Gimel, the name of the third letter of the Alef Beit. Accordingly, today's Sephira is the third day of this week of Malchut/kingship.

Now, as to how kingship relates to Adam, the first person, who was created on Friday, we know that the head is called "the king of the limbs" since it is on top of the body and its brain inside directs the bodily activities. Accordingly, Adam was in essence the king of the human beings since he is the ancestor of all mankind, and the whole world belonged to him, since at first, it was only Adam & Eve. Also, when there is an event for which the king shows up, everything else is prepared for that final moment when the king finally shows his face. Accordingly, Hashem created everything else in this world until they were completed; and then and only then when everything was ready for Adam, did Hashem create him and fed him the breath of life.

Now, the word Rosh/head is also used to describe the first day of the month - Rosh Chodesh - as well as the first day of the year - Rosh Hashanah. Now, the truth is that nowadays, Rosh Chodesh can sometimes be two days - the last day of the first month and the first day of the second month which occurs around every other month, and Rosh Hashanah is celebrated on the first two days of Tishrei. The reason why we celebrate these days like this is because of the early times when the new month was determined upon witnessing the new moon, but the day in question was not called Rosh Chodesh until the Jewish court officially declared it as such, and at that, it took time for people - even just in Israel - to find out the Jewish court's decision. Hence, when a Jewish month consists of 30 days, two days of Rosh Chodesh are celebrated, since theoretically, if we were to have the new month declared with the witnessing of the moon and all, the 30th day would possibly be the first day of the coming month. Likewise, since Rosh Hashanah - the only holiday of the Torah to occur on Rosh Chodesh (of Tishrei) - faces the same issue, when the Jewish calendar was set up in lieu of the sanctification of the moon, it was arranged that the first two days of Tishrei would be Rosh Hashanah, though in the Torah, Rosh Hashanah is only on the first day of Tishrei.

Traditionally, the 1st of Tishrei - which we today observe as Rosh Hashanah - was the date of the creation of mankind. Hence, it was on the date of what is now ROSH Hashanah, that the ROSH of mankind was created - which in effect includes both Adam & Eve, since they were the ancestor - the head(s) - of all human beings. And in the Jewish calendar, bearing in mind that the name Adam is the Gematria of 45, the 45th day of the Sephirah falls out on ROSH Chodesh Sivan! Hence, we see that the concept of Rosh/head is especially highlighted on Rosh Chodesh Sivan. And as it falls out in some years, including this year, this date falls out on the sixth day of the week (Friday), the same day of the week as Adam was created (Note: In today's Jewish calendar, the 1st of Tishrei never falls out on the sixth day of the week due to Halachic technicalities). AND IN THIS YEAR, Rosh Chodesh Sivan - the 45th day of the Sephira - falling out on the day of the week that Adam, whose name is the Gematria of 45, was created, OCCURS IN THE 45th YEAR FROM THE LIBERATION OF THE HOLIEST AREA IN THE WORLD!

As we know, this holiest area in the world is the grounds of the Beit HaMikdash/Holy Temple, may it be speedily rebuilt in our days. With this being said, both the Midrash (Bereishit Rabba 14) and the Zohar (Volume 1, page 34) state that Adam was created from the earth from where the Beit HaMikdash would be built. This is to note that is was Adam specifically - not Eve who was later created from Adam's rib - who was created from the Holy Temple grounds.

Being that this year, the third day from this Yom Yerushalayim which began the 45th day of the Holy Temple grounds is the 45th day of the Sephira, I am reminded of a verse in the Tanach/Bible "He (Hashem) will revive us in two days, ON THE THIRD DAY He will raise us up and we will live in front of Him" (Hosea 6:2). To be sure, there are various interpretations on this verse. Rashi, considered the best commentary on the Torah, writes that the two days refers to the first two Temples which were destroyed, and THE THIRD DAY refers to the future THIRD TEMPLE. According to Targum Yonatan (an Aramaic translation of the Prophets written by Yonatan Ben Uziel from around 2,000 years ago), the two days refers to the future Redemption and THE THIRD DAY refers to Techiyat HaMeitim/Resurrection of the Dead.

Hence, in a figurative sense, we have three days here, in this year beginning and ending with the number 45 - Yom Yerushalayim which is 28 Iyar, 29 Iyar - the end of the month of Iyar, and Rosh Chodesh Sivan which is 1 Sivan. Just like in the verse, the first two days are in one category and the third day is in another category, so too in this case, the first two days are the end days of Iyar and the third day is the beginning of a new month.

Now, taking the interpretions of both Rashi & the Targum of THE THIRD DAY - the Third Temple and the Resurrection of the Dead, we already mentioned that Adam was created from the earth of the future grounds of the Temple. And just as Hashem had the ability from the beginning of time to create a human being from the earth - and to note by the way that the name Adam is based on the word Adamah/earth - and instill life into him; so too in the End of Days, people will be resurrected back to life, being created anew from the earth to be instilled with life once more.

As we mentioned from the Targum about both the Redemption and the Resurrection, these two concepts are the last two of the 13 Principles of Faith as laid out by the Rambam/Maimonides. One who does not believe in these concepts is considered by the rabbis as a disbeliever in the Torah, since these are fundamental beliefs of Judaism. In fact, one who does not believe in the Resurrection, among other categories of sinners, will not merit to be revived in the Resurrection.

Now, making the connection between the beginning of days and the end of days of this 6,000 year period of this world's existance, the letters of the name Adam begin the names of Adam, David, and Moshiach. The significance of this is that since Adam sinned with the eating of the forbidden fruit, it would take his descendants - his fruit being what descended from him as fruit are descended or grows from a tree - to rectify his sin. As it turns out, from his originally alloted 1,000 years, he granted 70 years from this to King David, who was destined to live for only three hours - as Hashem showed Adam the future of his descendants, hence having lived for 930 years as written in the Chumash/Penteteuch, and in turn, the Messiah is supposed to be a descendant of King David.

We see with these three characters that Adam lived in the beginning of time, King David lived close to the middle point of the alloted 6,000 years of the world's existance (2855-2925), and the Messiah will be arriving shortly - in the End of Days - G-d willing, as we have only 230 years left, and a lot needs to take place before the end of the 6,000 years (Note: King David first was annointed to be king around the year 2885 when he was 30 years old. This number 2885 times two is 5770, the number of last year. Hence, it could very well be that the Moshiach (which means anointed in Hebrew) will reveal himself in exactly twice the amount of years as when King David was first annointed, which is just around the corner if that time hasn't passed yet! Do bear in mind that it took seven years until King David relocated his kingdom to Jerusalem when he became king over all of Israel, so don't dispair if G-d forbid, Moshiach doesn't come in this coming year or so).

As Rosh Chodesh Sivan relates to King David, he was both born and passed away on the holiday of Shavuot, which occurs in this month of Sivan. With this being said, not only is Rosh Chodesh Sivan the head of this month which spiritually includes the whole month, but it was on this date that the Jewish people arrived at Mt. Sinai following their victory over Amalek on the 28th of Iyar (see my previous post), which by the way also highlights the concept of "THREE DAYS", which was the place that the Torah was going to be given on Shavuot. In fact, where the Torah speaks of the Creation of the world concluding on the sixth day - Yom HaShishi - unlike the other days of the week, the Torah writes the letter Hei - "the" - in front of the number of the day of the week for the sixth day, the day on which Adam was created. As Rashi points out from the Talmud of Tractate Shabbat 88a, this hints to the sixth day of Sivan, the destined date of the Giving of the Torah (though in fact, the Torah was given on the following day - 7 Sivan - as detailed in the Talmud of Tractate Shabbat, pages 87-88), as Rabbi Shimon Ben Lakish states, Hashem made a condition with the newly created world that it would only continue exist pending the future acceptance of the Torah by the Jewish people.

And as I have mentioned the concept of three days in more than one context, this is certainly most applicable when it comes to Shavuot, the holiday of Matan Torah/Giving of the Torah. As the Talmud (Shabbat 87a) writes on the verse "They shall be ready for THE THIRD DAY", Hashem's command to Moses to spiritually prepare the Jewish people to receive the Torah, this third day was referring to the day that Hashem was planning on giving the Torah. However, Moses wishing to give the Jews an extra day to prepare, Hashem consented to this, and it wound up that the Torah was given only after three days. It should be noted that in fact, in today's Jewish calendar, the third through the fifth days of Sivan are called the Sheloshet Y'mei Hagbalah, reflecting this extra day of preparation given. Though in fact, the preparatory days began on the fourth of Sivan - and not the third of Sivan - it is the concept of three days preparation that is represented here, since in today's Jewish calendar, Shavuot is set to always begin on the sixth of Sivan, rather than the seventh of Sivan (Note: The fact that outside of Israel, the sixth and seventh days of Sivan are both celebrated as Shavuot has nothing to do with the fact that the Torah was given on the seventh of Sivan, but rather having to do with the concept of two days of Yom Tov/Jewish holiday based on the doubt as to when Rosh Chodesh began during earlier times when it took time to inform the Jews living outside of Israel as to what day was Rosh Chodesh declared, necessitating them as times to refrain from work for two days instead of one, not knowing the true date of the month).

And as noted in this part of the Talmud, there are a string of threes here - "THE THIRD DAY" which was the name of the sloted date of the Giving of the Torah until Moses changed it, in the THIRD month, on which the threefold Torah - Bible, Mishna, Talmud (Note: The teachings of the Mishna & Talmud weren't written down for some 1,500 plus years, but were transmitted orally from one generation to the next) handed down from the third born (Moses being born after his sister Miriam and his brother Aaron) to the threefold people (Jews consisting of Cohanim, Levites, and the rest of the Jews).

And just as we know that the existance of the world was contingent on the Jews accepting the Torah; in a similar vein, Adam was warned not to eat of the forbidden fruit for "on the day that you eat of it, you will die". Nevertheless, Adam fell for Eve's pleadings to eat of it, since Eve ate of it already, and she was jealous of Adam that for all that she knew, she would die for the sin while he would live, so he gave in to Eve's pleadings. In fact, while Hashem would have been perfectly just in literally keeping his promise of having Adam (and Eve) that very day, since in a spiritual sense, a 1,000 years of this world's existance is considered one day in
"G-d's eyes", Hashem granted Adam a 1,000 years of life. But more than this, as the Attribute of Justice demanded Adam's immediate death, it was the Sabbath, which was to begin shortly after the sixth day was nearly ending, that pleaded for Adam to remain alive, so it would not be alone as the first Sabbath of the world's existance. Hence, as the Sabbath, as the first lawyer of the world, victoriously defended Adam's chance to live, he praised the Sabbath "A hymn song for the day of Sabbath..." the beginning of the words of Psalm 92.

Accordingly, the Torah, based on which the world was allowed to continue living, was given to the Jewish people on the Sabbath. In fact, if it would have been left up to Hashem, it would have been on Friday, but as once of Moses' reasonings for delaying the Giving of the Torah by one day was in order for it to be given on the Holy Day of the week, Hashem agreed to this. After all, in the Ten Commandments that Hashem declared on that momentous day, it states "Remember the day of Sabbath to sanctify it..." In fact, this was not the first time that Moses showed a special affinity towards the Sabbath. When the Jews were slaves in Egypt, he reasoned with Pharoah that if he wanted his Jewish slaves not to be burned out totally, then he would need to give them one day of the week for them to rest (and recuperate from the hard brick braking work!) which would be the Sabbath, to which Pharoah agreed until near the end when Moses came to him with orders from Hashem to let the Jews leave Egypt when Pharoah became spiteful and took away this resting privilege. In any case, the Midrash notes that it was during the Sabbath that the hard working Jews had a chance to learn Torah from the scrolls that they had, even though the Torah had yet to be officially given to them.

Then we see that with King David, something that we see with no other person in history, Hashem told him straight out as to what day of the week he would die - the Sabbath. While King David's pleadings with Hashem not to let him die on this holy day of the week fell on "deaf ears", we know in the Kabbala that when a righteous person passes away, there is in fact a holy force that is released in the world, and then the righteous are able to do more to help Jews after their passing than before, being that they are not limited in their earthly body. Moreover, just as the Sabbath is the seventh day of the week, so too, King David is the seventh of the "Seven Shepherds" (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, David) as are displaced as Ushpizin/Heavenly Guests in the seven days of Succot in the Succah. Similarly, the Torah was given not only on the seventh day of the week - Shabbat, but it was also the seventh of Sivan, due to which we celebrate Shavuot, the holiday on which King David was both born and passed away on. Hence, both the Giving of the Torah and the passing of King David took place on Shabbat Shavuot (Note - In earlier times, Shavuot could have fallen out on either the fifth, sixth or seventh of Sivan, as Shavuot is actually mentioned in the Torah as the 50th day from the beginning of the count from the day that the Omer offering was brought in the Temple on the 16th of Nissan. Hence, we do not know for sure as to what date of the month that King David passed away, but it is very clear that this took place on Shavuot).

And while the eternal bliss of when it will be all rest, as enumerated in the end of Tractate Tamid of the Mishna, will take place after the 6,000 years of the world's existance, the beginning of the true "New World Order" when life will truly change for the better - both spiritually and physically - will begin with the coming of the Messiah while it is still with the sixth millenium, this millenium corresponds to the sixth day of the week, the same day of the week that Adam was created, and it is Adam/mankind who will fulfill the ultimate purpose of this world's existance which is serving Hashem, it is the sixth millenium, in which the Messiah will appear, which will end on the good note of the ultimate purpose of the Redemption, which is the observance of Hashem's Commandments the way that is was originally meant to be kept in the beautiful utopian world which was forfeited with the first sin. Hence, the Messiah will come to finish the rectification of Adam's sin, and the time will come that there will be no more death with the Resurrection, the final topic of the 13 principles of the Jewish faith, at which time, the world will be in its ultimate state of perfection before the End of Days of the 6,000 years of the world's existance.

Along these lines, it seems that there was a little debate between Hashem and Moses.
Hashem wanted the Torah to be given on the sixth of Sivan, which fell out on the sixth day of the week, and as we see, this was in fact hinted to where it states in the Torah about the completion of creation on this day "THE SIXTH DAY", hinted to this day that Hashem intended on giving the Torah. In another words, the Torah would be given to the Jews as something that would help them maintain the level of not being tempted by the world's pleasures "turn away from evil", but it would be the Torah as we know it only in this world, without so much holiness to ensure that the Jews would always remain faithful to it. Thus came Moses, who realized that as Adam, who was newly created, despite Hashem's direct orders to him, find himself sinning in no time, he pleaded with Hashem to give the Jews one extra day.

If one would just read the words of the Talmud, one would ask, why did Moses ask for one extra day? After all, if Hashem felt it was only necessary for the Jews to have two days to prepare, why contradict what Hashem intended, especially to delay the Giving of the Torah, the raison d'etre of the world's existance? For that matter, why not a few days, a week, etc.?

But as I mentioned earlier, by granting this one extra day, it would be on the Holy Sabbath that the Torah would be given. You see, Moses would the Jews, unlike Adam, to have a good shot at it. Indeed, it states that the impurity that came to mankind as a result of the first sin was removed from the Jews who would have lived forever as Adam would have had he not sinned, except that they messed up 40 days later with the sin of the Golden Calf when that impurity returned to allow death for them once more. Morever, the earthly Sabbath represents the ultimate Sabbath when the world after 6,000 years will cease to exist, and then the righteous will live forever in the eternal world of rest and bliss. It was in THIS state that Moses wanted the Torah to be given, not just the concept of constantly fighting temptations, but also "doing good", not just as a means of fighting tempation, but doing good for the sake of doing good. It was to this that Hashem agreed, being that Moses fought for the rights of the Jewish people, just as the Sabbath spoke up for the right of Adam to live despite his sin at least for a while, and as Moses spoke up for the right of the Jews to observe the Sabbath while yet slaves in Egypt.

Indeed, as we know in Kabbala, each of the Jewish months are represented by one of the letters of the Alef Beit. The letter Vav, the numerical value of six, represents the month of Iyar, virtually near the end of the month which still had the challenge of fighting Amalek as a result of the Jews' lack of faith in Hashem. And it is the letter Zayin, the numerical value of seven, that represents the month of Sivan, the beginning of this month when the Jews came to Mt. Sinai "as one person, with one heart" (Rashi). And just as the Torah would be given in the month represented by the number seven, so too would the Torah be given on the seventh of this month represented by the number seven, on the seventh day of the week, the sanctified day of Sabbath.

It is interesting to note that in this particular year, unlike in most years, Shavuot falls out in the week of Parshat Naso; in this year, it fell out in the week of Parshat B'Ha'alotcha. Why I mention this here is because there is a two verse section (Numbers 10:35-36) in this coming week of Parshat B'Ha'alotcha that is seperated in the Sefer Torah/Torah scroll each in the beginning and at the end of this section with an upside down letter Noon. Without getting into all kinds of explanation as to why it is like this, and why the Noon is upside down, it is true that the letter Noon is the numerical value of 50, just as Shavuot is called "The Fiftieth Day" in the Torah. Our rabbis note that in once sense, as this two verse section in the Torah - the two verses recited upon taking out the Sefer Torah and returning the Sefer Torah to the Ark in the synagogue, respectively - that separates the earlier part of the Book of Numbers and the later part of the Book of Numbers, the Chumash - while is known to be five books of the Chumash - is considered in this sense to be SEVEN books of the Chumash. Hence, we see that it is the number seven, representing the eternal rest and bliss, that is most associated with the Giving of the Torah, for the Torah is the ultimate rest, as opposed to the physical work that we do to make money - anywhere from hard breaking work to making ends meet to spending hours on end making fortunes, but with little enjoyment from the money at the end without the disciplines of the Torah which tells us that the money is not an end of itself, but rather, to be used in serving Hashem, which includes supporting Torah scholars.

And having said this, the months of the Torah are kabbalistically also represented by the Tribes of Israel. According to Kabbala, Iyar is represented by Yissaschar, the brother or tribe who learned Torah all day, while Sivan - the month in which the Torah was given - is represented by Zevulun, the one who worked to support Yissaschar. Of course, the question can be asked (as I have mentioned this in the past in my Gematriot blogspot), how come the month of Sivan in which the Torah was given is represented specifically by the brother or tribe who worked to support Torah learning, rather than the one who actually learned the Torah all day?

In this post, I will answer this question from another perspective, or in a little different way from how I answered this the previous time. You see, following the Exodus, the entire month of Iyar was devoted to preparing the Jewish people to receive the Torah. Towards this end, they received the manna - spiritual food that got totally absorbed in the body with no waste material, fresh water, and learning the lesson of Emunah/faith in Hashem, via the manna and the war from Amalek which happened because the Jews questioned Hashem about His providence over them. If they were to receive the Torah, they had to believe 100% in not only in Hashem's existance, but in His abilities of controlling the world as the King of Kings; otherwise, they would not take His Wisdom - the Torah - and His commandments seriously. And so, we see that the Jews had to be prepared to receive the Torah - spiritually and physically. Thus, the fact that the month of Iyar is represented by the Tribe of Yissaschar tell us that yes, the Torah is of paramount importance, but we must have basic tools in order to be able to learn it. Accordingly, in order that Yissaschar would be able to learn and teach Torah all day is if they got supported by the brother/tribe Zevulun.

And for the month of Sivan, the month of the giving of the Torah being represented by the working man Zevulun, rather than the Torah scholar par excellence Yissaschar, tells us that the whole reason why we work to begin with, or do other physical matters when not learning Torah, is to support and help with learning the Torah. But even more than just this, noting that we received the 613 Commandments in the Torah package deal, we have to also realize that learning Torah without fulfilling its commandments does not have any more meaning than a lecture given by a professor who is talking about theoretical concepts that lead to no practical solutions at the end. It is Zevulun who represents this concept of following Hashem's commandments, the tribe who showed non-Jews by way of example of how Jewish life is supposed to be, convincing their non-Jewish business partners to convert to Judaism (see Rashi on the blessing of Zevulun in Deutronomy 33).

Learning and even teaching Torah doesn't always convince everyone - some only learn looking at how scholarly, righteous people live their lives, indeed proving the dictum "Monkey see, monkey do". Otherwise, the Torah would be no better than any other philosophy, whose early Greek teachers slept with prostitutes declaring "Yesterday I was a philosopher, today I am only a man". However, the Torah teaches quite the opposite, indeed the rabbis declaring Derech Eretz Kadma L'Torah - "Manners come before the Torah". This is not to say that one should not learn to live an observant Jewish life before being perfect in manners; however, one needs to bear in mind that learning Torah without behaving like a man, rather than an animal, will G-d forbid lead to disastrous results, including G-d turning people away from the Torah. Hence, it is Zevulun who is the man par excellence who is not just a savvy businessman, but is an honest businessman realizing that it is Hashem Who gives him his livelihood, for certainly, if he is in a position to be supporting Torah scholars, then he doesn't have to try to crook others making money; Hashem will give him what he needs to fulfill Hashem's mission. Ultimately, it is Zevulun being in the outside world - while perhaps not so deep in Torah learning as Yissaschar is - can set a prime example of how a Torah way of life is supposed to appear, being the one to do outreach to other Jews, as well as making a positive impression on non-Jews, having the eternal merit of having other people coming close to Hashem, just as Abraham the first Jew did.

With this being said, the name of the fourth Sefer of the Torah - Bamidbar - which means "in the wilderness", the Sefer that we are in the midst of reading and learning during which the holiday of Shavuot which marks the giving of the Torah, is the same Gematria as Abraham (248); for indeed, it was Abraham, both in a physical wilderness and in a spiritual wilderness, spread the believe in one G-d to other people, which included inviting guests to his sumptuous meals in the middle of the desert where such food was scarce, convincing his satisfied guests that indeed it was Hashem who ultimately was the One who provided them with food. It was Abraham's actions that led to the Torah to be given to his descendants some 400 plus years later, for it would be his descendants who would continue to carry on the tradition of both learning the Torah, and teaching the Torah both in words and in action, the latter being the primary factor of the tribe of Zevulun, who came back with his non-Jewish business partners to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, where they got convinced with the truth of the Torah, and subsequently converted.

The difference between Adam - the first working man, and Zevulun - the working tribe is represented by the difference of the Gematriot between their two names. Adam is the Gematria of 45. Adding 50 to this number, representing the "Fiftieth Day" when we received the Torah during the month of Sivan which begins with the 45th day of the Sephira, the total is 95, the Gematria of Zevulun, who didn't just work to survive as Adam - who was created from the dust of the grounds of the future Holy Temple - had to do following his sin, but showed the beauty of Judaism via the Temple to others, to help with the physical and spiritual survival of his brother Yissaschar, and the ultimate survival of the Jewish people with the learning of Torah and observing its commandments.


"THE FAITH"

Before I tell you something about this subtitle, I want to mention something about Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook (1865-1935), may the memory of the righteous be for a blessing. While few in the ultra-Orthodox world will have good words to say about him if not malign him, this is because they did like his stance on the newly Zionistic movement, about which he was very much in favor of Jews moving to Israel. Of course had many more listened to him, many would have been spared of perishing in the Holocaust, but the fact that Jews moving to Israel turned away from Judaism had nothing to do with his activities, but with the secular Jewish "leaders" who did tricks, including promising poor observant Jewish families that they would take "good care" of their children, which meant cutting off the Jewish look of skullcap (Kipa in Hebrew, Yarmulke in Yiddish) and side curls (Peyot in Hebrew), and throwing them into an anti-religious Kibbutz, forcing them to eat ham and work on the Sabbath.

It is most unfortunate that most if not all of the ultra-Orthodox sources that lists dates of Jewish events, especially the passing of righteous Jews, does not include Rabbi Kook's name and date of passing, partly due of fear of being labeled "Zionist", a label which very unfortunately has been associated with secular Jews attempting to wipe out Judaism in Israel. Of course if these self proclaimed ultra-Orthodox Jews would meet up with the Chofetz Chaim, who refused to meet with people who started maligning Rabbi Kook when he was serving as the first Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel, perhaps some of them would wake up and repent for their baseless hatred of a rabbi who totally ignored his own honor in his great love for all Jews, even the ones who acted as zealots throwing sewage water on him, refusing to take any action against them.

With this being said, Rabbi Kook's ultimate dream was that Israel should be a Torah state. Towards this end, he composed a poem which he hoped would be the future national anthem of Israel, but instead, the secular homeland song of HaTikva "the hope" got to be the national anthem. It's a bit ironic that Jerusalem is actually mentioned as the very last word of HaTikva, while this name is not used in Rabbi Kook's HaEmunah "The Faith" However, he refers to Jerusalem as the "City of David", which reminds us of King David who conquered Jerusalem, paving the way for the Holy Temple which would be consecrated by his son King Solomon.

The following is Rabbi Kook's "The Faith". Yes, in this poem, unlike the HaTikva, he mentions serving G-d and the Torah, ending with this theme.

Eternally there lives in our hearts,
The steadfast faith
That we will return to our holy land,
The city in which David settled.
There we shall fulfill our destiny,
[which the] Father of many [nations] acquired,
There we shall live our life
The life of the nation of multitudes.
There we shall serve our G-d
With joy, happiness and song
There we shall pilgrimage
Three times each year.
The Torah of life is our desire,
Given by a Heavenly voice,
Forever it is our heritage,
A gift acquired in the desert.


The name of HaEmunah "The Faith" is the Gematria of 107, and this is my 107th Post. But as related to Rabbi Kook, this year marks another instance of 107. You see, Rabbi Kook made Aliyah in 5664/1904, which was 107 years ago - on 28 Iyar, the future date of Yom Yerushalayim! In fact, he used to celebrate his Aliyah annually on this date, little knowing that 63 years later, this date would become another major reason to celebrate.

And on a final note, the connection between Yerushalayim and Torah, aside from where it says in the Book of Isaiah "the word of Hashem (the Torah) from Jerusalem", is that Yom Yerushalayim begins the seventh and final week of the Sephirah, this week corresponding to the seventh day, which is the Sabbath. Accordingly, the Giving of the Torah happened on a Sabbath, and the holiday Shavuot marking this event is based on the words Shavua/week and Sheva/seven, for a week consists of seven days; the name of the holiday also including the letters spelling Shabbat. And so just as the Torah is the holiest of Hashem's wisdom (which includes mathematics, science, etc.), and the Sabbath is the holiest day of the week, Jerusalem is the holiest city in the world, destined to be such from the day that Adam was created from the dust of the grounds of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, from THE BEGINNING OF TIME.


Rosh Chodesh Sivan, 5771 - The 45th day of the Sephira