Yes, today is the 44th anniversary of Yom Yerushalayim/Jerusalem Day, the special date in Jewish history commemorating the return of the holiest area in the world to the Jewish people. This past year, especially in terms of Israel, had its set of challenges, but if there is any vestige of authentic Jewish pride among secular Jewish soldiers in Israel, it's about Jerusalem.
While it may be unfortunate that in listings of events in Jewish history as printed by some Ultra-Orthodox groups, there is no mention of Jerusalem Day, not wishing to give recognition to the Jewish army in Israel, some of whom were secular, when they finally conquered East Jerusalem from the Arabs, many if not most of the Ultra-Orthodox camp at the very least feel grateful that they have full access to the Western Wall - 24/7, and there are some who don't fall for those political rabbis who claim that it is forbidden to ascend the Temple Mount, though there are areas on the Temple Mount that are forbidden to be trodden upon because of impurity of the dead, which all of us have today, and can only be removed by the ashes of the Red Heifer, as noted in Numbers Chapter 19.
While there is something especially significant about the 45, as today begins the 45th year from the liberation of Jerusalem, today I will focus on the number 44 being that this is the 44th anniversary of Jerusalem Day, along with recent developments as related to this number. While of course I do have Obama, the evil 44th president of the United States, in mind; there is much more to it than just meets the eye.
As I have mentioned in the past, the number 44 in Hebrew are the same letters as the word Dam/blood. In last year's post #69 (May '10) about Jerusalem Day, I went into detail pertaining to this concept. You may recall that I had, let's say, kind of predicted that this past year would be the year that Obama President #44 would wage war with Jerusalem in its 44th year. While thank G-d, there was no direct bloodshed or war on Obama's part, it's interesting to note how that just within the last couple of weeks of the end of this 44th year, he was at it again with Baby Bibi to pressure him as usual to make concessions for "peace". And even if let's say Obama isn't pressuring to give parts of Jerusalem away in contrast to other parts of Israel; ultimately, he is in fact fighting Jerusalem no less.
Now before I continue about Obama, many in the political world in Israel - which includes both secular and "religious" Jews - have used Jerusalem as a front to pretend that they are right-wing, when at the same time, they lacked the faith in Hashem when it came to other parts of Israel. Perhaps this is how Olmert, former mayor of Jerusalem, got elected as Prime Monster of Israel, and Bibi - who already showed how dangerous he is to Israel by handing over sovereignty to the Arabs over Hebron, the first Jewish city in Israel - to be re-elected as Prime Monster, who was very unfortunately re-elected by some "religious" or "right-wing" Jews who all of a sudden "forgot" Bibi's track record.
Among the "religious" politics, you have one famed rabbi who claimed in the name of Jewish Law that parts of Israel should be handed over to the Arabs because of "endangerment of life", when time proved just the opposite, and finally after many years, did he change his mind, at least outwardly. By the way, he is one of those political rabbis who claim that it is forbidden to go up the Temple Mount because "the Divine Presence hovers over it", but I guess that according to him, there was no Divine Presence over it when Maimonides of several hundred years ago ascended the Holy Mount, who even celebrated the date that he ascended it as an annual date of celebration; however, this same rabbi isn't too bothered by the fact that the Moslem Arabs are constantly making a desecration of G-d's name by even their mere presence there, while observant Jews are only sometimes allowed on the Mount, but G-d forbid that they should move their lips even looking like they're praying, or they will be dully arrested by the Israeli police, while non-observant Jews who are tourists are freely allowed on the Mount to walk even on the places that are forbidden to Jews to walk on until we are purified by the ashes of the Red Heifer. And for the political party that he planted in the Knesset, this party uses Jerusalem as a front and cover up for their suicidal decisions pertaining to other parts of Israel, so long as they receive their tainted money from the corrupt Israeli government/politicians to support their own network of Jewish synagogues, schools and institutions.
The truth is that this whole mess about giving land for peace actually started with - believe it or not - with the Temple Mount itself, when the one-eyed Moshe Dayan could also not see with two spiritual eyes when he handed over control of the holiest area in the world to the wakf, not long after the big victory. It was since then that the Arabs smelled weakness among Israel; and Sadat who less than six years earlier, fought us Jews in the Yom Kippur War, convinced Menachem Begin, who was at one time a strong willed person, to give in to giving land to Egypt in exchange for "peace".
With this being said, the opposite of peace, or what equals "peace", is war. Mind you, war doesn't have to necessarily be about bloodshed, but actitivites opposing someone else, which at times do cause bloodshed. Hence, Obama in fact has set the foundation for causing untold bloodshed, G-d forbid.
And speaking of war, I purchased a Sefer, a Torah book, some months back listing the chronology of events that happened in the Chumash/Penteteuch. Lo and behold, the war of Amalek, the very first war against the Jews following the Exodus, took place on - 28 Iyar! While it may be said that indeed, there is Hashgacha Peratit/Divine Providence that thousands of years later, this very date of the very first war against Jews became the date of Jerusalem Day, there is an extra dimention here. You see, Rashi points out where it says that Moses' had his hands up in prayer until sunset "for the Amalekites reckoned the hours according to astrology as to which hour they would be victorious, so Moses had the sun stand still and confused the hours" (Exodus 17:12).
Yes, the Amalekites would have won the war against us, but it was thanks to Moses who was one step ahead of them, and daytime did not end, being that Moses who was most righteous had control over nature, and did not allow the sun to continue its natural course of action until the war would be won. This means that 28 Iyar became an elongated day, in order that the Amalekites would not finish us Jews off the next date of 29 Iyar, the 44th day of the Sephira, being that 44 is the Gematria of Dam - bloodshed!
Along these lines, the 43rd day of the Sephira, which is 28 Iyar, is represented by the Hebrew letters, when spelled in reverse, is the word Gam/ALSO. This word signifies something additional. In this case, there were two additional things. First, this day was elongated by Moses to win the battle against Amalek, gaining ADDITIONAL hours. And second, this date in the future history of the Jews nearly 3,300 years later would be a day of winning an ADDITIONAL war - the Jews regaining power over the holiest area in the world that was controlled by the Arabs (Note: The Six Day War was still days from being over, but this part of the war was the highlight victory of the Jewish nation, which would be followed by regaining other parts of Israel, some of which was very unfortunately handed back to the Arabs, partly in thanks to the corrupt politicians who used Jerusalem as a front to convince others to agree to this); and hence, became an ADDITIONAL annual date of celebration for Jews in the Jewish calendar.
And speaking of this day being the 43rd day of the Sefira marking the war of Amalek, in the blessing preceding the Shema recited in the morning, there is a phrase L'Shimcha HaGadol "for Your Great Name". The Magen Abraham in the name of the kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Luria states that when reciting this, we are supposed to have in mind to remember the evil deed of Amalek attacking the Jews; and it is thanks to Amalek that the Name of Hashem is not complete (G-d forbid we should say that His powers became weakened as a result or anything of this sort, as this is in figurative terms. But what is implied is that as a result of the Chillul Hashem, desecration of Hashem's name that Amalek caused, there is a cover up of the holiness of Hashem's name to mankind that will only be revealed once again when Amalek is finished off once and for all).
Anyways, the word Gadol/great is the Gematria of 43, corresponding to this 43rd day of the Sefirah when Amalek faught Hashem's beloved people. Perhaps what Amalek forgot is that the Hebrew date that it chose to fight us is Kaf Cheit, which is the Hebrew number that spells the word Ko-ach/power! Indeed, the verse which Rashi brings in his commentary on the very first verse of the Torah proving our rights to the Holy Land is Ko-ach Ma'asav Higid L'Amo Latet Lahem Nachalat Goyim "The power of His deeds - He told to His people, to give them the inheritance of nations (Israel)" (Psalms 111:6). Indeed, on 28 Iyar, 5727 (1967), this verse became fulfilled in a major way - the return of the holiest area in the world that is located in Israel!
There is another major resemblance here. Both Amalek and Arabs are among the closest BLOOD related of the nations of the world nations to the Jewish people. It's interesting to note that when people talk about relatives being related to one another, they mention either in terms of blood related, or marriage related. In this case, BOTH of these concepts apply. You see, Amalek was the grandson of Esau, son of Isaac, and brother of Jacob, and Ishmael - ancestor of the Arab race - was the son of Abraham and brother of Isaac. And in terms of marriage, Esau married Ishmael's daughter Machalath.
Now, getting back to the United States (only in conversation, NOT RETURNING to live in this soon-to-be Holocaust zone!), Obama, while claiming ties to the Christian community, is in fact an Arab Muslim from his father's side. And while Obama is president of what is in essence a Christian country (regardless of the claims of separation of church and state), a recent video revealed in various ways as to him being a Moslem - including him keep calling the Koran - "The Holy Koran", and being dressed in the traditional Arab dress, including the head covering! And being that he is the 44th President as is related to the concept of blood, both of these concept of blood and marriage - or union of religions - is applicable here (Note: Amalek is descended of Esau who is associated with Edom, which in time became Rome, which later became the headquarters of Christianity).
THE MAGNUM OPUS OF MAIMONIDES SHOWS THE WORLD TIMELINE
Not only the Rambam/Maimonides, but his magnum opus, the Mishne Torah, a compendium of all the laws of the Torah, are far from strangers at www.gematriot.blogspot.com. But today, I will reveal a shocking revelation from some of the names of the volumes, as well as names of sections of this holy work, that we are indeed just about to face the End of Times which includes the war of Gog U'Magog & the coming of the Messiah. In fact, this became most obvious exactly one month ago, as I will soon explain. Forgetting about the number of the year, or whatever dates that kabbalistic rabbis will claim will be THE YEAR that Moshiach is supposed to come, when we see afterwards that he didn't come, and then they say that he was supposed to come, but we weren't worthy of it, and therefore now, G-d forbid... You will see for yourself today that this is the REAL thing, dates and Gematriot will only be secondary to this. Keep your eyes REAL open on what I'm about to reveal.
It is true that I myself mentioned a prediction - not about the coming of Moshiach, but pertaining to the birthpangs of Moshiach - that is, the year that this will either start, or will accelerate, which was last year 5770, as I saw in the Hidden Codes of the Torah, and particularly during Succot. As it turns out, I was not the only one to say something along these lines, except I had my unique way of finding this out. As it turn out, this was indeed the time - during Succot of 5770 - that Obama, who was not in the Presidency of the United States for even one year, to be elected for a Nobel Peace prize. While this may not seem like such a big deal to some people as far as the after effects are concerned, this was a MAJOR step for him gaining world obedience to him, since as has been predicted by others - based on the Hidden Codes of the Torah, that he is indeed Gog U'Magog, who will be fighting Israel at the End of Days. In fact, this peace prize for him is anything but peace for Jews in the future. We will be speaking more about him as we proceed with the history of the world as shown in the work of the Rambam.
The truth is that one can see that the very beginning of the work of the Rambam speaks of G-d and the details of the Creation of the world, and it ends with how life will be with the coming of Moshiach. So, the question can be asked, is there in fact a timetable here corresponding to the laws of the Rambam?
Actually, there are more pieces of info that immediately meets the eye proving this to be the case. For example, a little later on in the first of the 14 volumes of the Rambam, there is the section about idolatry. The Rambam writes how it all started, which first took place a few hundred years into the history of the world, and how it continued until the time of Abraham when he preached the believe in one G-d.
To make a study of this project for the timetable could perhaps take days to connect many dots together. However, fastforwarding towards close to the second half of the Rambam's 14 volume work, we will see obvious connections between this work and the time period in world history; so stay tight in your seats - everyone!
Actually, this can be explained in more than one plane. Well, we know that there will be 6,000 years of this world's existance as we know it to be. With this being said, we know that the building and dedication of the first Temple took place between the years 2928-2935, which is close to half of the world's slotted 6,000 years. Now, the second half of the Rambam, in terms of the number of volumes, is the volume of Avoda/Temple Service, which begins with Hilchot Beit HaBechira/Laws of the Holy Temple. Mind you, there are exactly 1,000 chapters of the Rambam's work, and while if you were to divide the years of the world by the number of the chapters, which is exactly by six, it would come to hundreds of years earlier (beginning with the 424th chapter), the sum total will be hundreds of years before the Temple era, you will start to see the picture here.
Now, the volume preceding this one is called Zeraim/seeds, which is about the various laws relating to the land of Israel. Now, counting the number of chapters, in contrast to the number of volumes, we see that this volume starts with the 339th chapter; thus, corresponding to the years, this comes out to 2,028 (338*6) which was when Abraham was 80 years old, as it was only five years earlier when Hashem told him to move to Israel! Now, moving forward in this volume, the final section is Hilchot Shemitta V'Yoveil, the Laws of the Sabbatical & Jubilee Years. These are the 411th thru the 423rd chapter. The timeline corresponding to this are the years 2461-2538. During the midst of this time, Joshua led the Jews to Israel in 2488, and the year 2503 began the first year of the Sabbatical/Jubilee cycle of 50 years. Pretty close in timing!
Now, looking at this from another angle, the last eight volumes of the Rambam correspond to the recent history of the Jews, forgetting about the exact amount of volumes or chapters. This is where it starts getting hot in terms of showing how close we are to the End of Days. And there does not have to be a contradiction here - there is more than one way that something can be hinted to in the same words of the Torah. Accordingly, while the Rambam himself may have not realized this, but being that his work was no doubt composed with Divine Assistance, Divine Providence, and Divine Spirit (this is not the post to get into details about these concepts), there are many things hinted in his work that go beyond the basic interpretation of the laws of this work.
OK, so starting with the 7th volume Seder Zeraim, the volume of "Seeds" about the laws of the land of Israel, it was in recent history that Jews moved to Israel in mass numbers. The fact that a significant percentage of them were non-observant Jews; nay, some of them came from observant homes, but rejected their home Judaism to be part of the Zionistic movement, some of whom hated the Jewish religion and observant Jews, which very unfortunately surfaced in the early history of Zionism in Israel along with the creation of the "State of Israel", it can be borne in mind that indeed, many Jews who are children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of these early Zionists later became observant Jews, living both in Israel and abroad; thus, we cannot just brush off this part of Jewish history as something that went against the Torah, as fringe groups such as the Neturei Karta will claim. After all, if it wasn't for some of these early Zionists who cleared away the malaria infested swamps, taking a chance of dying themselves to make the land beneficial for everyone else, not to speak of the soldiers who fought with blood and tears - thousands of whom gave up their lives fighting the blood thirsty British and Arabs, how would living in Israel be today? After all, what percentage of these self sacrificing Jews were observant Jews? Certainly not the percentage that we have in today's Israeli army. Indeed, these early Zionist "planted the SEEDS" to make the land clean, fit, and sanitary for everyone else to live in Israel.
Now, this obviously involved much Avoda/service or WORK, the name of the 8th volume of Rambam, and many of them were Korbanot/SACRIFICES, the name of the 9th volume, many of whom gave up their lives, but in essence, all of them sacrificed of their lives instead of furthering their college education or enjoying their lives. This did include cleaning the land, including the malaria infested swamps - corresponding to the 10th volume Tahara/pure or CLEAN.
Now, looking at it from another perspective in this recent history, the Zionistic movement with Theodore Herzl (though was a non-observant Jew, he certainly was a saint compared to all of today's Israeli crooked politicians!) began in the late 1800s - "SEEDS", which was decades before the Holocaust. Hitler had the Jews work as slaves in the concentration camps - "WORK", and very unfortunately, there were some 6,000,000 Jews who became "Sacrifices". And what was Hitler's intentions behind this - "ethnic cleansing" - "CLEAN" (Note: The one place in the Torah that Hitler's name can be spelled in consecutive letters is at the end of Parshat Tazria, which deals with people or clothing contraction Tza'ra'at, an ailment that is similar to leprosy which was a punishment in Temple times for certain sins - Ohr L'Taharo "skin to make pure (clean)" where the letters spelled backwards - Hei,Teit,Lamed,Reish - spells Hitler! Indeed, Hitler, and his ethnic (related to skin color) cleansing, which by the way also included blacks and gypsies!) As you can see, I brought here three or four different ways of interpreting some of the names of these Rambam volumes in the context of world history.
So, in terms of the last two interpretations between the Holocaust and the revival of Jewish life in Israel with masses of Jews coming to Israel, there was no doubt much physical DAMAGE, corresponding to the 11th volume - Nezikin/damages - Holocaust survivals scarred with lost relatives, emotional, mental and physical damage, Jews by the thousands died fighting for Israel; and there was much spiritual damage - Jewish children from observant homes were thrown into the secular Kibbutzim, Jewish Yemenite babies were kidnapped and thrown into a totally different environment which was totally secular in sharp contrast to how it was in Yemen, many of whom would never know or be able to reunite with their real parents or other relatives, and some observant Jews had a hard time finding work because the secular Israeli government was anti-religious for the most part.
Fortunately, there were brighter moments in Jewish history, when Jews were able to acquire or POSSESS additional parts of the Holy Land following the various war with the Arabs - including the Sinai, Gaza, and of course the Old City of Jerusalem which includes the Temple Mount and Western Wall - corresponding to the 12th volume called Kinyan/possession. And then, things started going downhill. As I mentioned earlier, it really started with the Temple Mount, but in a much larger scale and much more world attention, it began with the evil Egyptian Prime Minister Sadat who convinced the Israeli government to give back the Sinai in exchange for peace - indeed, a major mistake in JUDGEMENT - corresponding to the 13th volume Mishpatim/judgments. This would be the first of several such "judgments" in error, but it started with Mitzrayim/Egypt, beginning with the letter Mem and ending with the letter Mem Sofit, just as the word Mishpatim! How ironic that in Parshat Mishpatim in the Torah, Hashem tells us that I will "set your border from the Reed Sea to the Philistine Sea" (Exodus 23:31), but the majority of the voters in the Knesset about giving Holy Land away closed their Tanach/Bible before voting.
And now comes the major treat - the 14th and final volume of the Rambam, which is Shoftim/Judges. In a major sense, we can say that we are now in the period of history that Hashem is clearly JUDGING the world, with the major tumult going around the world. More on this shortly.
This final volume is divided into five parts:
1)Hilchot Sanhedrin - Laws of Sanhedrein, the largest Jewish judicial body, consisting of 71 judges. On 10 Shevat, 5765 ('05), today's SANHEDRIN was reinstituted. Now mind you, this Sanhedrin has as of yet to have the same powers as the Sanhedrin of 2,000 years ago. This Sanhedrin does not have the power to put people to death for various sins, or flog them, so long as they are controlled by the Israeli government consisting of the Knesset, the unSupreme Court, and the police. In fact, one or more of these Sanhedrin members have since been arrested or detained for questioning. However, this is the beginning of some resemblance of justice, which according to rabbis, is a prerequisite to the coming of Moshiach.
2)Hilchot Eidut - Laws of Testimony. Especially in these last few years, Hashem has shown his Divine wrath on the world - between the amount and magnitude of earthquakes, hurricanes, tzunamis, and as it happened last year on 1 Iyar, 5770, my 40th birthday, a major volcanic eruption that filled the skies in Europe, making it impossible to fly for a bit of time. As the Torah states regarding punishing the Jews, G-d forbid, for misbehavior "I will call on to TESTIFY against them (Jews) - the heavens and the earth" (Deutronomy 31:28). Indeed, Hashem has used both the heavens and the earth as a testimony of Hashem's powers and punishments for evil people; which is also bearing in mind that whatever happens in the world, at least in the way of punishment, is due to the Jews, for sometimes, Hashem makes others scapegoats (who are worthy of punishment away) as scapegoats for us Jews in His mercy for us. I must add here that the various tragedies in Japan in the last few minutes is no doubt in punishment for the idol worshipping Japanese government keeping two Hasidic boys in prison for over three years now for something that they had no knowledge of was wrong, not realizing that they were carrying drugs instead of antiques as was claimed to them by a Hasidic "friend" for "charity" purposes, as was proven in the lie detector tests, but no doubt that the Hasidic boys' cries for help and salvation from all the torture that they have endured have reached Hashem, and He will - MARK MY WORDS - continue pouring Divine wrath on this evil idolatrous country until these Hasidic boys are freed from the Japan torture cells to return to the Holy Land.
3)Hilchot Mamrim - Laws of Rebels. It was just a number of months ago in this year of 5771 that citizens of various Arab countries started REBELLING against the dictator of their respective country. Most notably (aside from Khadafi in Libya about which we have yet to know how this will end), it was Egypt that attracted the most worldwide attention, which would be weeks before President Muhammad Hosni Mubarak would finally resign. And just as I noted earlier the connection of the word Mitzrayim/Egypt with another Hebrew word beginning with a Mem and ending with a Mem Sofit, so does this apply with the word Mamrim/REBELS! To note, it was on 7 Adar I, the birthday/passing of Moses, who led the Jews out of Egypt, when Mubarak stepped down. The announcement of this in Egypt took exactly 49 seconds - corresponding to the 49 levels of impurity that the Jews had upon leaving Egypt, taking them 49 days following the day of the Exodus to shed a level of impurity a day until receiving the Torah. Truly amazing! And now, for the big shock...
4)Hilchot Eivel - Laws of Mourning. Exactly one month ago - on 28 Nissan, came the major news - THE DEATH OF OSAMA BIN LADEN. Before I comment further on this event, this date of 28 Nissan marks the FIRST victory of the Jews fighting their enemies i ISRAEL, beginning with Joshua knocking down the wall of Jericho. This is also bearing in mind of the date of Kaf Cheit, spelling Ko-ach/power, and as mentioned in a verse pertaining to the Jews being given the "inheritance of the nations". Anyways, most of the world, aside from the mourning Hamas in Israel, rejoiced at the death of Osama Bin Laden, knowing how he directed a major terrorist group to fight the world, which included the big tragedy of 9/11. But the MAJOR hint here is that the letters of the word Eivel/mourning spell the inital letters - Alef,Beit(Veit),
Lamed - of Osama Bin Laden's name spelled in Hebrew! While he didn't get to accomplish to murder millions of people such as Hitler and Stalin, his Al-Aqeda terrorist organization, G-d forbid, has the potential to murder so many more people with infinitely much more in quality and quantity in terms of resources, being a worldwide network with today's sophisticated technology, including of course using the internet. The 9/11 tragedy not only caused mourning to the relatives and friends of the few thousand who perished, but in fact caused all of the United States, the world power, to MOURN. By the way, the Hebrew word for mourning, Eivel, is similar to the English word EVIL. While Obama who is a Moslem Arab played a major role in killing another Moslem Arab, stating "Osama Bin Laden killed thousands of Moslems", it has been pointed out that the phrase in the verse following the one that I mentioned in terms of TESTIFYING, "The evil will happen to you in the End of Days" (Deutronomy 31:29) that this refers to Obama (I will not get into this now, but you can refer to www.redemption5768.com for more on this), which leads to the FINAL STAGE IN WORLD HISTORY...
5)Hilchot Melachim U'Milchamoteihem - Laws of Kings and Their Wars. In today's world for the most part, the kings are the presidents or the prime ministers. The United States is still at war after nearly 10 years since 9/11, and Obama defeated Osama (started writing this the opposite way!). Now, in this final section of the Rambam, it writes about the role of Jewish kings and the laws of wars fighting our enemies, concluding with the final two chapters about King Moshiach. Indeed, as we saw how the timetable of just a little over six years is hinted in the first four sections of the final volume of the Rambam, no doubt that accordingly, the final stage of the war of Gog U'Magog consisting of the nations coming to Israel to fight it, being led by Obama who is Gog, IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER, corresponding to the FINAL SECTION OF THE MISHNE TORAH! The truth is that Moshiach can come today; but no doubt that if G-d forbid, Moshiach doesn't come sooner, it will happen at the culmination of this war which will end with the Jews being victorious, as you can read in Ezekiel Chapters 38 & 39.
And now that I have mentioned my say on what will take place in the near future in relationship to the Rambam, there is in fact an event that happened in the Rambam's life that occurred on today's date of 28 Iyar. He discovered a Sefer Torah/Torah Scroll that was written by Ezra the Scribe some 1,500 years ago - on 28 Iyar! Just as the Rambam celebrated annually the dates that he ascended the Temple Mount and his visit to the Me'arat HaMachpeila - the Cave of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, where also Adam & Eve is buried (Note: Adam's name is the Gematria of 45, and today marks the beginning of the 45th year of the Liberation of Jerusalem), so too did he annually celebrate the 28th of Iyar of this Sefer Torah discovery. The connection of the two events of the Sefer Torah & Jerusalem are obvious - the Sefer Torah is the holiest object, and Jerusalem is the holiest city in the world, as it includes the Beit HaMidkash/Holy Temple, the holiest building/area in the world. And his own holy work, the Mishne Torah, ends off with the section about the Mitzvot/Commandments pertaining to fighting our enemies, which includes the three Mitzvot pertaining to Amalek - remembering what this nation did to us, not to forget it, and wiping out its memory by eradicating it. And when did this nation begin the FIRST war against the Jews - of which we were victorious at the end - on 28 Iyar. And before I forget, today's date begins the SEVENTH week of the Sephira, and in Hebrew, the word for seven is Zayin, which also means weapon. Weapons can also be a good thing - if we use them in obedience of Hashem's orders to kill our enemies, showing no fear of them or what the world's claims of the Jews performing "genocide". After receiving nearly 2,000 years of Christian "love", we know who are the ones who have performed genocide, not speaking of what Moslem Arabs want to do not just to Jews, but to everyone else whom they also call infidels.
And on a concluding note, just when you thought it was all over, 28 Iyar marks another event in Jewish history, the passing of Shmuel HaNavi/Samuel the Prophet. He was the one who anointed two kings - Saul & David. Samuel the Prophet was given orders by Hashem to tell King Saul to eradicate Amalek once and for all, unlike a few centuries earlier when Hashem didn't allow for all of Amalek, for whatever reason, to be eradicated at that time. Anyways, King Saul thought he was a little smart, and he allowed the Amalekite king to remain alive as a trophy, and allowed some of the Amalekite animals, who were also supposed to be killed, to be allowed to live, so they could be brought as animal sacrifices. King Saul failing his mission, Samuel the Prophet received Hashem's next order to anoint King David for the kingship for after King Saul would die. Anyways, the Gematria of Samuel's name is the same as the word Shiva/seven, and his Yahrzeit falls out at the beginning of the 7th week of the Sephirah. Also, as connected to Jerusalem and the Temple area, it was Samuel & King David, for the brief period that they knew each other personally, who figured out from the Torah as to where the exact location of the future Temple would be. By the way, the Gematria of King David's name is 14, and it is the concluding section of the Mishne Torah, of the 14th and final volume of this work, that is about the laws of Jewish kings, whose ancestor is King David, and from whom Moshiach, the concluding topic of the Mishneh Torah, is a descendant of King David.
One final thing about Samuel the Prophet, it states that when the Jews entered Israel, they were given three national Mitzvot - building the Temple, annointing a king, and eradicating Amalek. Samuel, one of the greatest righteous people and prophets of all times, had a chance to be a part if not be able to literally fulfill all of these three Mitzvot.
My next post will be so to speak a continuation about Jerusalem Day - but from a little different perspective, focusing on being the beginning of the 45th year from Jerusalem's Liberation.
28 Iyar, 5771 - 44th Aniversary of Jerusalem Day
P.S. The time listed for this post is 7:43PM. Today begins the 7th week of the Sephira, and is the 43rd day of the Sephira. Coincidence? I know that Hashem wanted me to write this special post.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Thursday, May 12, 2011
#105 - The B'nai B'rith
Today being the date of my Brit Mila/circumcision on my 8th day of life - 8 Iyar (which was also on a Thursday), the words of the 8th verse of Psalm 105 (and this is my 105th Post), repeated in Divrei HaYomim/Book of Chronicles, come to mind "He (Hashem) remembered his Brit/covenant forever - the word that He commanded to the thousandth generation".
In the entire Mishnah, the foundation of the Oral Torah/Law, the word Brit/Brith is mentioned only two times. The first is in the 3rd chapter of Tractate Makkot - and by the way, the word Makkot is the same Gematria as my name Shimon (466) - where it quotes the verse "You shall observe the words of this Brit/covenant (Deutronomy Chapter 29, Verse 8), taken from the final verse of Parshat Ki Tavo, recited in the midst of giving lashes to a sinner in a Beit Din/Jewish court as one of three verses consisting of 13 words each to correspond to the 39 lashes; and additionally, the word Brit is written 13 times in the section of the Torah of Hashem commanding Abraham to perform the commandment of circumcision. The only other time in the Mishnah is in the first chapter of Tractate Bava Kama, where it mentions the phrase B'nai Brit/B'rith as referring to Jews in terms of doing damage to them in contrast to doing damages to non-Jews (certain laws differ, but I do not wish to delve into this in this post).
Whether intentionally or unintentionally, the founders of the B'nai B'rith movement, "the oldest continually operating Jewish service organization in the world", coined this very phrase naming this organization, the way it is in Tractate Bava Kama, where it is used to differentiate between Jews and non-Jews. Indeed, this worldwide Jewish community service organization was founded to fight against antisemitism and anti-Israel bias. How much good they actually do today, and how they compare to the original JDL that was founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane HY"D to do this very thing of defending Jews and anti-Semitic bias, I am not going to discuss here or say anything that could give reason for anyone to want to sue me, but my point is that this phrase B'nai B'rith is a distinguishing title to us to contrast us with non-Jews, since it is only we Jews who have been the commandment to perform Brit Mila which is one of the few distinguishing signs of a Jew (the fact that non-Jews, especially in the United States, have circumcisions does not make them anymore Jewish, as this is done only for health reasons, and they have no intention of doing this as the Covenant of Abraham our Forefather).
As we see in the Torah, the word Brit does not refer exclusively to circumcision. The original meaning of this word is covenant, because whether this refers to circumcision, the Land of Israel, or the Torah, in their respective places in the Tanach/Bible; in essence, Hashem has made a covenant with us as the Jewish nation with these various factors. In fact, as pointed out by my Rav who gave me Semicha/rabbinic ordination - Rabbi Mordechai Friedman, Shlita, the raison d'etre for the commandment of circumcision is in order for us Jews to inherit the Land of Israel. The proof - "I (Hashem) will establish my covenant between Me & you (Abraham) and your descendants...I will give you and your descendants the land of your sojournings, the Land of Canaan (now Israel)...You shall observe my covenant, you and your descendants...This is my covenant that you shall observe between Me and you and your descendants, you shall circumcise every male" (Genesis 17:7-10). You see, Hashem mentions the Land of Israel, as part of the covenant, BEFORE the commandment of circumcision. So, the ultimate purpose of circumcision is IN ORDER TO INHERIT THE LAND OF ISRAEL!
In fact, a couple of chapters earlier, the other source for my Rabbi's explanation on this subject, in the same Parsha of Lech Lecha, it states that Hashem established a Brit/covenant with Abraham that He will grant the Land of Israel to his descendants (see Genesis 15:18-21). Hence, 29 years earlier (as we learn out in the Midrash), this covenant, using the word Brit, was used EXCLUSIVELY to refer to Israel!
To further prove this point, referring back to Psalm 105 or in Chronicles, the verses continue to explain what this "covenant" is, "which He established with Abraham...to give the Land of Cana'an" (verses 9-11). So, there is no question as to where Jews are supposed to live to prove that they are Jews - the Land of Israel being the ultimate physical sign that we are a Jewish nation.
As pointed out in Likutei Halachot, a Hasidic explanation on the Shulchan Aruch/Code of Jewish law, authored by Rabbi Nathan Steinhartz, main disciple of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, explains that these two concepts of Israel & Brit Mila have something in common. We see that before the Jews took over the conquest of Israel, there were seven (Cana'anite) nations who were living in there, and that we as the 8th nation took it over. In a similar vein, the baby boy passes through seven days, and then is given a Brit Mila on the 8th day. In terms of Gematria, as the word for eighth - Shemimi, is the Gematria of Kadosh or Kodesh - holy, one has to pass through seven units before reaching the sanctified level of the eighth, representing a number that is above nature, revealing open miracles, as seen in the writings of the Maharal of Prague. (The concept of the Holy Sabbath being the 7th day, rather than the 8th day, is that it is a day that within the time frame of nature, being part of the weekly routine of resting on a day that we would otherwise work on, and hence the challenge of the Mitzvah resting on this day, even if miracles don't seem obvious).
Now, in another sense, just as the verse in Deutronomy where the word Brit is mentioned refers to the Torah, so another meaning of this word of the verse in Psalms & Chronicles is also the Torah. As explained in the Midrash, there were previously 974 generations in existance before Hashem created this world. Now, I am not going to get into what is beyond me as to whether this means literally that there used to be (an)other world(s) with other people or some spiritual explanation, but suffice it to say that it was the 26th generation from the time Hashem created this world, counting Moses the Lawgiver as the 26th generation from Adam & Eve, which received the Torah; hence, that generation being the 1,000th generation that Hashem gave the Torah to based on the word of the Midrash "The WORD that He COMMANDED (the Torah consisting of 613 Commandments) to the thousandth generation".
Now getting back to the Bnai Brith organization for a minute, I looked up the Hebrew date that this organization was founded - 19 Tishrei. This is the fifth day of Succot, the day that Aaron the High Priest is the featured spiritual guest(of the seven Ushpizin) in the Succah. His special quality was making peace among Jews,and as Moses his brother, Aaron was also the 26th generation from Adam & Eve.
Why do I mention this? The Bnai Brith was founded as an organization to help defend Jews against anti-Semitism. While everyone is to be commended for making the world a better place, and certainly for Jews, one does need to bear in mind as to why anti-Semitism happens to begin with. You see, it is a disease formed from jealousy which sometimes in fact has no logic to it. Whether it is the black plague in the Middle Ages which occurred because of a lack of hygiene which was the least problem with Jews due to constant hand washing, or the blood libel with the Matzot which are only permitted to consist of flour and water, or that the Jews are controlling the world with their money when the three richest people in the world are not Jews, this makes no difference to people who wish to hate Jews, and it doesn't need to be logical.
The only thing that is logical here is that Hashem allows non-Jews to hate us - especially when we don't remember that we are Jews or when there is fighting and discard among ourselves. Unfortunately, it sometimes takes opposing forces to remind
us of our responsible position in this world and what raw hatred can cause. Certainly, we need to take a role in not allowing ourselves to be defamed in the media with the double standards that are especially used when it comes to the Jews and the poor "Palestinians", even as the democratic for Arabs only government controlling Israel sends humanitarian aid to the blood thirsty Arabs in Gaza in the midst of its war with them, while these biggest enemies of the Jews don't stop a pace sending fatal rockets to Sederot. The world media at large is most cunning in twisting the facts around, in essence, blaming us Jews for being the victims who are doing a "crime" killing Arabs even in war.
What I have found that this bothers non-observant Jews even more than observant Jews. And the reason for this is very simple. Truly, it is not logical not just the fact, but the way that non-Jews hate us. After all, there are Jewish-Christian alliances, and there are those who will even boast of certain places or organizations where there is unity between Jews and Arabs. Of course, not too many of them will remember or care about the Hebron massacre in 1929 when the Arabs, who seems to be friendly with the neighboring Jews one day, attacked them the next day, resulting in the murder of 67 Jews. To this day, Jews only live in 3% of Hebron, surrounded by some 100,000 Arabs in the rest of this first Jewish city in Israel. And this is not to even mention about the double standards of the rights of Moslem Arabs in the Holy Cave of the Patriarchs & Matriarchs in this city over the rights of Jews. Yet, the left-wing media will make us Jews in Hebron look bad any day, even as Germany sends money for Arab construction and interests in Hebron.
Perhaps a good percentage of today's journalistic anti-Semitism is thanks to the self-hating Jews who wish for a Palestine that never existed according to the Bible. The fact that Christians who have read the Bible push for this is not too surprising because their only "love" for us is when we G-d forbid convert, or "you will burn in hell". So in fact, why is it so surprising that the world is turned against the Bnai Brith - "People of the Covenant", since after all, we're accused of killing their "Savior", who was in fact one of our own? And what does the stubborn left-wing Israeli government - pushing for a "peace" plan with Moslem Arabs, unlike Aaron's peace plan which was just for Jews - expect when the Koran does not mention our capitol Jerusalem EVEN ONCE?
You see, to Jews who keep the Covenant, which of course includes living in Israel, but certainly does include keeping the Sabbath, eating kosher, observing the laws of family purity, anti-Semitism isn't so hard to understand. After all, they understand that Hashem is running the show, which includes the Holocaust, 9-11, and the murder of Jews in Israel. We may not know the reason why any one person gets murdered, injured, or maimed for life, but we do know that everything is for a purpose, whether we like it or not. But one thing we do know for sure - this is only a temporary world, while the next world is where we receive our ETERNAL reward for our good Jewish life in this world.
Yes, quite often times, it is very unfortunate that it is the good "who die young", while the ones in the corrupt political government are causing this to happen, accumulating much Jewish bloodshed on their hands, especially Bibi and his cohorts, but one thing we must remember, is that we are the "Sons of the Covenant", which is in fact giving up blood from the membrane which leads to future life, and occasionally, babies have died from this. If only today's Israeli government would remember what their fathers and grandfathers fought for - even if not all of them observed the Covenant all the way - but at least they fought for the rights of Jews living in the Land of the Covenant - and a land of miracles which was shown time and again in the early wars when Jews weren't afraid to fight the Arab enemy - with their blood, tears, sweat, and much fighting, because they knew that they had a purpose for doing this, and it was well worth the sacrifice.
To end off on a good note, the Gematria of Brit Mila is 697, which is the number of chapters in the first section of the Shulchan Aruch/Code of Jewish Law called Orach Chaim "Path of Life", which is about the laws of daily Jewish living - blessings, prayers, the Sabbath and holidays. Yes, Judaism is not just about a bunch of Jews at parties of the Brit Mila, Bar-Mitzvah, and weddings. It involves long life sacrifice - which includes living one's life according to the Torah way, and included in this is living in the Land of Israel, which may be a land of sacrifice physically and monetarily, but which is certainly today an oasis of the greatest Torah learning and living as the ultimate Jew following the Covenant of the Torah.
8 Iyar, 5771 - The anniversary date that I entered the Covenant of Abraham our Forefather
In the entire Mishnah, the foundation of the Oral Torah/Law, the word Brit/Brith is mentioned only two times. The first is in the 3rd chapter of Tractate Makkot - and by the way, the word Makkot is the same Gematria as my name Shimon (466) - where it quotes the verse "You shall observe the words of this Brit/covenant (Deutronomy Chapter 29, Verse 8), taken from the final verse of Parshat Ki Tavo, recited in the midst of giving lashes to a sinner in a Beit Din/Jewish court as one of three verses consisting of 13 words each to correspond to the 39 lashes; and additionally, the word Brit is written 13 times in the section of the Torah of Hashem commanding Abraham to perform the commandment of circumcision. The only other time in the Mishnah is in the first chapter of Tractate Bava Kama, where it mentions the phrase B'nai Brit/B'rith as referring to Jews in terms of doing damage to them in contrast to doing damages to non-Jews (certain laws differ, but I do not wish to delve into this in this post).
Whether intentionally or unintentionally, the founders of the B'nai B'rith movement, "the oldest continually operating Jewish service organization in the world", coined this very phrase naming this organization, the way it is in Tractate Bava Kama, where it is used to differentiate between Jews and non-Jews. Indeed, this worldwide Jewish community service organization was founded to fight against antisemitism and anti-Israel bias. How much good they actually do today, and how they compare to the original JDL that was founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane HY"D to do this very thing of defending Jews and anti-Semitic bias, I am not going to discuss here or say anything that could give reason for anyone to want to sue me, but my point is that this phrase B'nai B'rith is a distinguishing title to us to contrast us with non-Jews, since it is only we Jews who have been the commandment to perform Brit Mila which is one of the few distinguishing signs of a Jew (the fact that non-Jews, especially in the United States, have circumcisions does not make them anymore Jewish, as this is done only for health reasons, and they have no intention of doing this as the Covenant of Abraham our Forefather).
As we see in the Torah, the word Brit does not refer exclusively to circumcision. The original meaning of this word is covenant, because whether this refers to circumcision, the Land of Israel, or the Torah, in their respective places in the Tanach/Bible; in essence, Hashem has made a covenant with us as the Jewish nation with these various factors. In fact, as pointed out by my Rav who gave me Semicha/rabbinic ordination - Rabbi Mordechai Friedman, Shlita, the raison d'etre for the commandment of circumcision is in order for us Jews to inherit the Land of Israel. The proof - "I (Hashem) will establish my covenant between Me & you (Abraham) and your descendants...I will give you and your descendants the land of your sojournings, the Land of Canaan (now Israel)...You shall observe my covenant, you and your descendants...This is my covenant that you shall observe between Me and you and your descendants, you shall circumcise every male" (Genesis 17:7-10). You see, Hashem mentions the Land of Israel, as part of the covenant, BEFORE the commandment of circumcision. So, the ultimate purpose of circumcision is IN ORDER TO INHERIT THE LAND OF ISRAEL!
In fact, a couple of chapters earlier, the other source for my Rabbi's explanation on this subject, in the same Parsha of Lech Lecha, it states that Hashem established a Brit/covenant with Abraham that He will grant the Land of Israel to his descendants (see Genesis 15:18-21). Hence, 29 years earlier (as we learn out in the Midrash), this covenant, using the word Brit, was used EXCLUSIVELY to refer to Israel!
To further prove this point, referring back to Psalm 105 or in Chronicles, the verses continue to explain what this "covenant" is, "which He established with Abraham...to give the Land of Cana'an" (verses 9-11). So, there is no question as to where Jews are supposed to live to prove that they are Jews - the Land of Israel being the ultimate physical sign that we are a Jewish nation.
As pointed out in Likutei Halachot, a Hasidic explanation on the Shulchan Aruch/Code of Jewish law, authored by Rabbi Nathan Steinhartz, main disciple of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, explains that these two concepts of Israel & Brit Mila have something in common. We see that before the Jews took over the conquest of Israel, there were seven (Cana'anite) nations who were living in there, and that we as the 8th nation took it over. In a similar vein, the baby boy passes through seven days, and then is given a Brit Mila on the 8th day. In terms of Gematria, as the word for eighth - Shemimi, is the Gematria of Kadosh or Kodesh - holy, one has to pass through seven units before reaching the sanctified level of the eighth, representing a number that is above nature, revealing open miracles, as seen in the writings of the Maharal of Prague. (The concept of the Holy Sabbath being the 7th day, rather than the 8th day, is that it is a day that within the time frame of nature, being part of the weekly routine of resting on a day that we would otherwise work on, and hence the challenge of the Mitzvah resting on this day, even if miracles don't seem obvious).
Now, in another sense, just as the verse in Deutronomy where the word Brit is mentioned refers to the Torah, so another meaning of this word of the verse in Psalms & Chronicles is also the Torah. As explained in the Midrash, there were previously 974 generations in existance before Hashem created this world. Now, I am not going to get into what is beyond me as to whether this means literally that there used to be (an)other world(s) with other people or some spiritual explanation, but suffice it to say that it was the 26th generation from the time Hashem created this world, counting Moses the Lawgiver as the 26th generation from Adam & Eve, which received the Torah; hence, that generation being the 1,000th generation that Hashem gave the Torah to based on the word of the Midrash "The WORD that He COMMANDED (the Torah consisting of 613 Commandments) to the thousandth generation".
Now getting back to the Bnai Brith organization for a minute, I looked up the Hebrew date that this organization was founded - 19 Tishrei. This is the fifth day of Succot, the day that Aaron the High Priest is the featured spiritual guest(of the seven Ushpizin) in the Succah. His special quality was making peace among Jews,and as Moses his brother, Aaron was also the 26th generation from Adam & Eve.
Why do I mention this? The Bnai Brith was founded as an organization to help defend Jews against anti-Semitism. While everyone is to be commended for making the world a better place, and certainly for Jews, one does need to bear in mind as to why anti-Semitism happens to begin with. You see, it is a disease formed from jealousy which sometimes in fact has no logic to it. Whether it is the black plague in the Middle Ages which occurred because of a lack of hygiene which was the least problem with Jews due to constant hand washing, or the blood libel with the Matzot which are only permitted to consist of flour and water, or that the Jews are controlling the world with their money when the three richest people in the world are not Jews, this makes no difference to people who wish to hate Jews, and it doesn't need to be logical.
The only thing that is logical here is that Hashem allows non-Jews to hate us - especially when we don't remember that we are Jews or when there is fighting and discard among ourselves. Unfortunately, it sometimes takes opposing forces to remind
us of our responsible position in this world and what raw hatred can cause. Certainly, we need to take a role in not allowing ourselves to be defamed in the media with the double standards that are especially used when it comes to the Jews and the poor "Palestinians", even as the democratic for Arabs only government controlling Israel sends humanitarian aid to the blood thirsty Arabs in Gaza in the midst of its war with them, while these biggest enemies of the Jews don't stop a pace sending fatal rockets to Sederot. The world media at large is most cunning in twisting the facts around, in essence, blaming us Jews for being the victims who are doing a "crime" killing Arabs even in war.
What I have found that this bothers non-observant Jews even more than observant Jews. And the reason for this is very simple. Truly, it is not logical not just the fact, but the way that non-Jews hate us. After all, there are Jewish-Christian alliances, and there are those who will even boast of certain places or organizations where there is unity between Jews and Arabs. Of course, not too many of them will remember or care about the Hebron massacre in 1929 when the Arabs, who seems to be friendly with the neighboring Jews one day, attacked them the next day, resulting in the murder of 67 Jews. To this day, Jews only live in 3% of Hebron, surrounded by some 100,000 Arabs in the rest of this first Jewish city in Israel. And this is not to even mention about the double standards of the rights of Moslem Arabs in the Holy Cave of the Patriarchs & Matriarchs in this city over the rights of Jews. Yet, the left-wing media will make us Jews in Hebron look bad any day, even as Germany sends money for Arab construction and interests in Hebron.
Perhaps a good percentage of today's journalistic anti-Semitism is thanks to the self-hating Jews who wish for a Palestine that never existed according to the Bible. The fact that Christians who have read the Bible push for this is not too surprising because their only "love" for us is when we G-d forbid convert, or "you will burn in hell". So in fact, why is it so surprising that the world is turned against the Bnai Brith - "People of the Covenant", since after all, we're accused of killing their "Savior", who was in fact one of our own? And what does the stubborn left-wing Israeli government - pushing for a "peace" plan with Moslem Arabs, unlike Aaron's peace plan which was just for Jews - expect when the Koran does not mention our capitol Jerusalem EVEN ONCE?
You see, to Jews who keep the Covenant, which of course includes living in Israel, but certainly does include keeping the Sabbath, eating kosher, observing the laws of family purity, anti-Semitism isn't so hard to understand. After all, they understand that Hashem is running the show, which includes the Holocaust, 9-11, and the murder of Jews in Israel. We may not know the reason why any one person gets murdered, injured, or maimed for life, but we do know that everything is for a purpose, whether we like it or not. But one thing we do know for sure - this is only a temporary world, while the next world is where we receive our ETERNAL reward for our good Jewish life in this world.
Yes, quite often times, it is very unfortunate that it is the good "who die young", while the ones in the corrupt political government are causing this to happen, accumulating much Jewish bloodshed on their hands, especially Bibi and his cohorts, but one thing we must remember, is that we are the "Sons of the Covenant", which is in fact giving up blood from the membrane which leads to future life, and occasionally, babies have died from this. If only today's Israeli government would remember what their fathers and grandfathers fought for - even if not all of them observed the Covenant all the way - but at least they fought for the rights of Jews living in the Land of the Covenant - and a land of miracles which was shown time and again in the early wars when Jews weren't afraid to fight the Arab enemy - with their blood, tears, sweat, and much fighting, because they knew that they had a purpose for doing this, and it was well worth the sacrifice.
To end off on a good note, the Gematria of Brit Mila is 697, which is the number of chapters in the first section of the Shulchan Aruch/Code of Jewish Law called Orach Chaim "Path of Life", which is about the laws of daily Jewish living - blessings, prayers, the Sabbath and holidays. Yes, Judaism is not just about a bunch of Jews at parties of the Brit Mila, Bar-Mitzvah, and weddings. It involves long life sacrifice - which includes living one's life according to the Torah way, and included in this is living in the Land of Israel, which may be a land of sacrifice physically and monetarily, but which is certainly today an oasis of the greatest Torah learning and living as the ultimate Jew following the Covenant of the Torah.
8 Iyar, 5771 - The anniversary date that I entered the Covenant of Abraham our Forefather
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
#104 - The Holy Ones
Today, I begin writing this post on the 5th day of the week of Parshat Kedoshim. The reason that I word it this way, rather than today's Hebrew date, is for more than one reason. Well first of all on a personal note, I was born on the 5th day of the week of Parshat Kedoshim, and it is the first time that this occured since I began www.gematriot.blogspot.com, as in non-leap Hebrew years, Parshat Kedoshim is read together with its preceding Parshat Acharei-Mot on Shabbat, but on this leap year, these two Parshiyot are read separately.
Another major significance of the 5th day of Parshat Kedoshim relates especially to Seder Kodoshim of the Mishnayot. First to note, while normally, when people write the name of this week's Parsha in Hebrew, it is written with a Vav, but the truth is that in the Torah, the name of this Parsha is in fact written with a Vav. Thus, this is spelled the same way as the name of the 5th order of the Mishnayot - Kodoshim; it's just that they are pronounced differently because of their respective vowels. Also, according to Kabbalah, the six orders of the Mishnayot correspond to the six days of Creation. Hence, correspondingly to the fifth day of the week - which is today - is the Order or volume of Kodoshim, which is about the offerings and Temple service that the Cohanim performed in the Temple.
Another connection of the number five related to Seder Kodoshim is the 5th Chapter of its first tractate - Zevachim, which is all about the animal sacrifices. This Chapter, which is recited daily in the Korbanot/Temple Offerings section of our morning prayers, begins with Eizehu Mekoman Shel Zevachim - "Where is the location in the Temple of the (slaughtering of) sacrifices?" Kodshei Kodoshim Shechitatan Ba'Tzafon - The Holiest Sacrifices are slaughtered in the north side". The purpose of reciting a chapter of Mishnayot in our daily prayers is to ensure that we have a dosage of daily Torah learning, and as the Mishna Berura explains, this chapter of Mishnayot (one of the few in all of the Mishnah) does not contain any arguments or differences of opinion between rabbis about what the Halacha is, unaltered from how this was transmitted from Hashem to Moses on Mt. Sinai, calling this "Mishna Berura", a clear Mishna (or teaching). Hence, this chapter of Mishnayot represents the concept of Shalom/peace, without any arguments or differences - even when it comes to deciding what the Halacha/Jewish law is.
At this point, it's worthy to note that the name of one of the tractates of Seder Kodoshim - Tamid, which is all about the daily sacrifices, known as the Korban Tamid - is the same Gematria as the name of this order of the Mishnayot - Kodoshim. In fact, there are those who have a custom to recite daily one of its seven chapters, corresponding to the seven days of the week. This is the concept of learning Torah - Tamid, which means always, but in this context, the best translation is the word constantly or consistently, for just as there were two daily animal offerings in the Temple - one in the morning and the other in the afternoon - of which its Torah section is also recited in our morning prayers (some also recite this in the afternoon prayers), so too, the Mitzvah of learning Torah is a mandatory Mitzvah to be performed EVERY SINGLE DAY - daytime & nighttime.
You see, there are those who may be able to spend a lot of time learning Torah one day, but then they are all tied up to things the next day. It's very nice for some to learn a lot of Torah one day instead of doing trivial matters. However, what is of crucial importance is that we learn Torah - EVERY SINGLE DAY, even if we learn just a little bit of Torah one day, but it has to be a constant & consistent matter. Indeed, we learn this concept from the Korban Tamid which was brought EVERY SINGLE DAY - with no exception, even on the Sabbath & Jewish Holidays when it is forbidden to start a fire, but was done so in the Temple for certain sacrifices.
(middle of construction, come back later)
24 Nissan, 5771 - Fifth Day in the Week of Parshat Kedoshim
Another major significance of the 5th day of Parshat Kedoshim relates especially to Seder Kodoshim of the Mishnayot. First to note, while normally, when people write the name of this week's Parsha in Hebrew, it is written with a Vav, but the truth is that in the Torah, the name of this Parsha is in fact written with a Vav. Thus, this is spelled the same way as the name of the 5th order of the Mishnayot - Kodoshim; it's just that they are pronounced differently because of their respective vowels. Also, according to Kabbalah, the six orders of the Mishnayot correspond to the six days of Creation. Hence, correspondingly to the fifth day of the week - which is today - is the Order or volume of Kodoshim, which is about the offerings and Temple service that the Cohanim performed in the Temple.
Another connection of the number five related to Seder Kodoshim is the 5th Chapter of its first tractate - Zevachim, which is all about the animal sacrifices. This Chapter, which is recited daily in the Korbanot/Temple Offerings section of our morning prayers, begins with Eizehu Mekoman Shel Zevachim - "Where is the location in the Temple of the (slaughtering of) sacrifices?" Kodshei Kodoshim Shechitatan Ba'Tzafon - The Holiest Sacrifices are slaughtered in the north side". The purpose of reciting a chapter of Mishnayot in our daily prayers is to ensure that we have a dosage of daily Torah learning, and as the Mishna Berura explains, this chapter of Mishnayot (one of the few in all of the Mishnah) does not contain any arguments or differences of opinion between rabbis about what the Halacha is, unaltered from how this was transmitted from Hashem to Moses on Mt. Sinai, calling this "Mishna Berura", a clear Mishna (or teaching). Hence, this chapter of Mishnayot represents the concept of Shalom/peace, without any arguments or differences - even when it comes to deciding what the Halacha/Jewish law is.
At this point, it's worthy to note that the name of one of the tractates of Seder Kodoshim - Tamid, which is all about the daily sacrifices, known as the Korban Tamid - is the same Gematria as the name of this order of the Mishnayot - Kodoshim. In fact, there are those who have a custom to recite daily one of its seven chapters, corresponding to the seven days of the week. This is the concept of learning Torah - Tamid, which means always, but in this context, the best translation is the word constantly or consistently, for just as there were two daily animal offerings in the Temple - one in the morning and the other in the afternoon - of which its Torah section is also recited in our morning prayers (some also recite this in the afternoon prayers), so too, the Mitzvah of learning Torah is a mandatory Mitzvah to be performed EVERY SINGLE DAY - daytime & nighttime.
You see, there are those who may be able to spend a lot of time learning Torah one day, but then they are all tied up to things the next day. It's very nice for some to learn a lot of Torah one day instead of doing trivial matters. However, what is of crucial importance is that we learn Torah - EVERY SINGLE DAY, even if we learn just a little bit of Torah one day, but it has to be a constant & consistent matter. Indeed, we learn this concept from the Korban Tamid which was brought EVERY SINGLE DAY - with no exception, even on the Sabbath & Jewish Holidays when it is forbidden to start a fire, but was done so in the Temple for certain sacrifices.
(middle of construction, come back later)
24 Nissan, 5771 - Fifth Day in the Week of Parshat Kedoshim
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
#103 - Mincha: The Ultimate Rest
Among the offerings mentioned in these last five Parshiyot that we have read or going to read this coming Shabbat (Vayikra, Tzav, Shemini, Tazria, Metzora)is the Mincha offering. While this word is used in connection to the Meal offering that the poor person brought in lieu of animal or bird sacrifices, the original meaning of this word is in fact the word GIFT. Makes sense, it was a gift from the poor person bringing a meal offering in lieu of a Burnt Offering - though to atone for certain sins, it is clear from the Torah that type of offering is not mandatory like a Korban Chatat (Sin Offering) or a Korban Asham (Guilt Offering).
This is nice, but today, the word Mincha seems to have the biggest use as refering to our afternoon prayers. So of course the question may be asked, why is this word used particular for the afternoon prayers as opposed to the morning (Shacharit) or evening (Ma'ariv or Arvit) prayers?
Before we answer this question, we have other business to take care of in this post. Well before I continue on, I want to point out that in fact, the word Mincha is the Gematria of 103, and this is my 103rd Post.
Another thing that I want to point out is that today - 2 Nissan - marks the day that Netanel Ben Tzuar, leader of the Tribe of Yissaschar, brought his offerings following the dedication of the Tabernacle that took place the day before (Note: See my latest post on my blopspot that I recently started - www.toratcohanim.blogspot.com - #24).
With this being said, let's get right straight to the blessing that Jacob on his deathbed, conferred on his son Yissaschar. Among his blessing, it states - Vayar Menucha Ki Tov - "He saw rest that it was good..." (Genesis 49:15).
Now normally, as is spelled several times in the Tanach/Bible, including twice in the Chumash/Penteteuch, the word Menucha is spelled with the letters - Mem, Noon, Vav, Cheit, Hei. In this particularly instance however, this word is spelled without the letter Vav. Hence, this word without the vowels looks just like the word Mincha. Any relationship here?
Well, it is true that in fact, the word Mincha has been used to refer to the afternoon prayers. And speaking of the afternoon, in Latin cultures as well as in Israel, many people stop work in the earlier part of the afternoon as a siesta, so they can have a little rest from their workday activities. In a similar vein, the Mincha prayer interrupts the work of the day (especially in earlier times before the invention of the clock), especially in winter time when the day ends early, unlike the morning prayers that are recited before beginning work or the evening prayers after one has finished work for the day. In fact, this is why Mincha - the afternoon prayers - is considered to have the most merit in comparison with the prayers said at other times of the day.
Now that we making the connection between Mincha & Menucha, it is s small wonder then that it is particularly in the Shemoneh Esrei of Mincha of Shabbat, which is called Yom Menucha "Day of Rest", that the concept of Menucha is mentioned several times - Yom Menucha "A day of rest...Jacob and his sons rested on it (Shabbat), a rest of love and free-will, a rest of truth and faith, a rest of peace and tranquility, and quiet, and security, a complete rest that You desire. Your children recognize and know that it is from You that they receive their rest, and they sanctify Your name over their rest".
Also in relationship to Shabbat, we see in the Talmud (Shabbat 10) that Hashem tells Moshe "There is a gift in my treasure house, and its name is Shabbat. Go and tell the Jewish people about it". While in this Talmudic context, the Hebrew word for gift is Matanah, and not Mincha; perhaps it can be said that since this is a gift that Hashem is giving us, rather than the other way around, it has a differerent name for the meaning of gift. In any case, it has been said in a figurative sense that the Torah reading on Shabbat afternoon which begins from the Parsha following what was read in the morning time is called Torat HaMincha - the Torah of the Mincha, the very phrase used in the Torah referring to the laws of the Korban Mincha - Meal Offering. (For more on this, see my first two posts of my Shabbat blogspot - www.shabbatlaws.blogspot.com).
And now moving on from the Written Torah as we read in the Sefer Torah/Torah Scroll when reading from the Parsha to the Talmud in the Oral Torah, we are currently in the midst of the worldwide Day Yomi learning of Tractate Menachot, which focuses on the meal offerings. Also to note in the midst of this month of Nissan, the special Omer offering brought annually on the second day of Passover, the 16th of Nissan, was in fact a Korban Mincha, as the grain for the Omer offering that was offered was grounded into flour.
Near the end of the first Talmudic Tratate of Berachot, it states that Torah scholars do not have rest - neither in this world, nor in the next world. Now, if it is true that we receive our ultimate reward in the Hereafter for our hard spiritual work in this world, then logically, this is indeed our rest to enjoy after our hard labor. In fact, at the end of Tractate Tamid, it states that the Sabbath represents the Sabbath rest of eternal life that will begin in the 7th millenium from the world's existance. If so, then why does it say that Torah scholars do not have rest in the next world?
As we know, the learning/teaching of Torah is the greatest of all Mitzvot, which includes the fact that the reward for learning one word of Torah is equal to ALL the other Mitzvot of the Torah COMBINED. Thus, it makes sense that as this world is a preparation for the next world, it is the learning of Torah in the next world that will be the ultimate bliss from which the righteous/Torah scholars will immensely enjoy.
On one hand, it seems very easy to rattle off words of Torah - which may includes the Psalms, which is part of the Written Torah. However, the ultimate level of Torah is where one toils over it very much to understand what it is saying - especially the hard parts of the Talmud that one has to do serious thinking on to understand its true meaning. And so, it is the Torah scholars who can honestly say that they made a big effort to understand what the Torah is transmitting to us. Thus, in this instance, the will not simply relax from the way they learned Torah in this world, but rather, will continue learning Torah the same in the next world that they learned it in this world.
And so, as we mentioned above about Yissaschar, the tribe of Torah, who was the Torah scholar among his brothers (though they all knew some Torah also being the sons of Jacob, who was the most learned of Torah of the three Patriarchs), whose leader brought offerings on its behalf on today's date, I would like to mention a couple of Gematria tidbits that I recently came up with, in time for Passover.
The last word of Parshat Bo - the Parsha of the Exodus - is M'Mitzrayim (from Egypt), where it says "for with a strong hand, Hashem brought us out of Egypt". This word is the Gematria of 420, and as mentioned early in this section of the Torah where it says L'Ma'an Tihye Torat Hashem B'Ficha "In order that the Torah of Hashem will be in your mouth", the word Tihye is also the Gematria of 420 when it mentions immediately afterwards "The Torah of Hashem", the SOLE mention of this phrase in the Chumash. And yes, the Mitzvah of Talmud Torah is the 420th Mitzvah of the Chumash. And as for the word M'Mitzrayim - it also mentions earlier when Hashem spoke to Moses at the Burning Bush "When I bring out the nation FROM EGYPT, they will serve G-d on this mountain" (Exodus 3:12) referring to Mt. Sinai where the Jews would soon receive the Torah.
In a similar vein, just as we mentioned leaving the country of the worst spiritual impurity in the world - "FROM EGYPT" in relationship to the Mitzvah of Torah learning/teaching, the word L"Yerushalayim "To Jerusalem" - going to the holiest city of the world - is the same Gematria as the word HaTorah (the Torah) (when the word Yerushalayim is spelled with only one Yud, the way it is spelled throughout Tanach excecpt for five times) -616.
Now back to Yissaschar, the name of the one who represented the pillar of Torah, his name is the Gematria of Lilmod Torah U'LeLamda "To learn Torah and to teach it" (830) - the name of the 420th Mitzvah of the Torah. To note, there were 200 heads of Sanhedrin who were descended from this tribe, and they were the ones who used their expertise to determine the calculation of the months and years of the Jewish calendar. The Talmud (see Tractate Berachot) notes that in reference to this, the Sanhedrin being in Israel, particularly in Jerusalem, did these calculations particularly in this area in the world, as it states "For from Zion, the Torah will come out, and the word of Hashem from Jerusalem" (Isaiah 2:3).
And as we note near the end of the Seder on the first (or two) night(s) of Passover- L'Shana HaBa'a B'Yerushalayim "Next Year in Jerusalem".
Have a Happy, Kosher & Meaningful Passover!
2 Nissan, 5771 - Date that Netanel Ben-Tzuar, leader of the tribe of Yisasschar, brought his offerings on behalf of his tribe
This is nice, but today, the word Mincha seems to have the biggest use as refering to our afternoon prayers. So of course the question may be asked, why is this word used particular for the afternoon prayers as opposed to the morning (Shacharit) or evening (Ma'ariv or Arvit) prayers?
Before we answer this question, we have other business to take care of in this post. Well before I continue on, I want to point out that in fact, the word Mincha is the Gematria of 103, and this is my 103rd Post.
Another thing that I want to point out is that today - 2 Nissan - marks the day that Netanel Ben Tzuar, leader of the Tribe of Yissaschar, brought his offerings following the dedication of the Tabernacle that took place the day before (Note: See my latest post on my blopspot that I recently started - www.toratcohanim.blogspot.com - #24).
With this being said, let's get right straight to the blessing that Jacob on his deathbed, conferred on his son Yissaschar. Among his blessing, it states - Vayar Menucha Ki Tov - "He saw rest that it was good..." (Genesis 49:15).
Now normally, as is spelled several times in the Tanach/Bible, including twice in the Chumash/Penteteuch, the word Menucha is spelled with the letters - Mem, Noon, Vav, Cheit, Hei. In this particularly instance however, this word is spelled without the letter Vav. Hence, this word without the vowels looks just like the word Mincha. Any relationship here?
Well, it is true that in fact, the word Mincha has been used to refer to the afternoon prayers. And speaking of the afternoon, in Latin cultures as well as in Israel, many people stop work in the earlier part of the afternoon as a siesta, so they can have a little rest from their workday activities. In a similar vein, the Mincha prayer interrupts the work of the day (especially in earlier times before the invention of the clock), especially in winter time when the day ends early, unlike the morning prayers that are recited before beginning work or the evening prayers after one has finished work for the day. In fact, this is why Mincha - the afternoon prayers - is considered to have the most merit in comparison with the prayers said at other times of the day.
Now that we making the connection between Mincha & Menucha, it is s small wonder then that it is particularly in the Shemoneh Esrei of Mincha of Shabbat, which is called Yom Menucha "Day of Rest", that the concept of Menucha is mentioned several times - Yom Menucha "A day of rest...Jacob and his sons rested on it (Shabbat), a rest of love and free-will, a rest of truth and faith, a rest of peace and tranquility, and quiet, and security, a complete rest that You desire. Your children recognize and know that it is from You that they receive their rest, and they sanctify Your name over their rest".
Also in relationship to Shabbat, we see in the Talmud (Shabbat 10) that Hashem tells Moshe "There is a gift in my treasure house, and its name is Shabbat. Go and tell the Jewish people about it". While in this Talmudic context, the Hebrew word for gift is Matanah, and not Mincha; perhaps it can be said that since this is a gift that Hashem is giving us, rather than the other way around, it has a differerent name for the meaning of gift. In any case, it has been said in a figurative sense that the Torah reading on Shabbat afternoon which begins from the Parsha following what was read in the morning time is called Torat HaMincha - the Torah of the Mincha, the very phrase used in the Torah referring to the laws of the Korban Mincha - Meal Offering. (For more on this, see my first two posts of my Shabbat blogspot - www.shabbatlaws.blogspot.com).
And now moving on from the Written Torah as we read in the Sefer Torah/Torah Scroll when reading from the Parsha to the Talmud in the Oral Torah, we are currently in the midst of the worldwide Day Yomi learning of Tractate Menachot, which focuses on the meal offerings. Also to note in the midst of this month of Nissan, the special Omer offering brought annually on the second day of Passover, the 16th of Nissan, was in fact a Korban Mincha, as the grain for the Omer offering that was offered was grounded into flour.
Near the end of the first Talmudic Tratate of Berachot, it states that Torah scholars do not have rest - neither in this world, nor in the next world. Now, if it is true that we receive our ultimate reward in the Hereafter for our hard spiritual work in this world, then logically, this is indeed our rest to enjoy after our hard labor. In fact, at the end of Tractate Tamid, it states that the Sabbath represents the Sabbath rest of eternal life that will begin in the 7th millenium from the world's existance. If so, then why does it say that Torah scholars do not have rest in the next world?
As we know, the learning/teaching of Torah is the greatest of all Mitzvot, which includes the fact that the reward for learning one word of Torah is equal to ALL the other Mitzvot of the Torah COMBINED. Thus, it makes sense that as this world is a preparation for the next world, it is the learning of Torah in the next world that will be the ultimate bliss from which the righteous/Torah scholars will immensely enjoy.
On one hand, it seems very easy to rattle off words of Torah - which may includes the Psalms, which is part of the Written Torah. However, the ultimate level of Torah is where one toils over it very much to understand what it is saying - especially the hard parts of the Talmud that one has to do serious thinking on to understand its true meaning. And so, it is the Torah scholars who can honestly say that they made a big effort to understand what the Torah is transmitting to us. Thus, in this instance, the will not simply relax from the way they learned Torah in this world, but rather, will continue learning Torah the same in the next world that they learned it in this world.
And so, as we mentioned above about Yissaschar, the tribe of Torah, who was the Torah scholar among his brothers (though they all knew some Torah also being the sons of Jacob, who was the most learned of Torah of the three Patriarchs), whose leader brought offerings on its behalf on today's date, I would like to mention a couple of Gematria tidbits that I recently came up with, in time for Passover.
The last word of Parshat Bo - the Parsha of the Exodus - is M'Mitzrayim (from Egypt), where it says "for with a strong hand, Hashem brought us out of Egypt". This word is the Gematria of 420, and as mentioned early in this section of the Torah where it says L'Ma'an Tihye Torat Hashem B'Ficha "In order that the Torah of Hashem will be in your mouth", the word Tihye is also the Gematria of 420 when it mentions immediately afterwards "The Torah of Hashem", the SOLE mention of this phrase in the Chumash. And yes, the Mitzvah of Talmud Torah is the 420th Mitzvah of the Chumash. And as for the word M'Mitzrayim - it also mentions earlier when Hashem spoke to Moses at the Burning Bush "When I bring out the nation FROM EGYPT, they will serve G-d on this mountain" (Exodus 3:12) referring to Mt. Sinai where the Jews would soon receive the Torah.
In a similar vein, just as we mentioned leaving the country of the worst spiritual impurity in the world - "FROM EGYPT" in relationship to the Mitzvah of Torah learning/teaching, the word L"Yerushalayim "To Jerusalem" - going to the holiest city of the world - is the same Gematria as the word HaTorah (the Torah) (when the word Yerushalayim is spelled with only one Yud, the way it is spelled throughout Tanach excecpt for five times) -616.
Now back to Yissaschar, the name of the one who represented the pillar of Torah, his name is the Gematria of Lilmod Torah U'LeLamda "To learn Torah and to teach it" (830) - the name of the 420th Mitzvah of the Torah. To note, there were 200 heads of Sanhedrin who were descended from this tribe, and they were the ones who used their expertise to determine the calculation of the months and years of the Jewish calendar. The Talmud (see Tractate Berachot) notes that in reference to this, the Sanhedrin being in Israel, particularly in Jerusalem, did these calculations particularly in this area in the world, as it states "For from Zion, the Torah will come out, and the word of Hashem from Jerusalem" (Isaiah 2:3).
And as we note near the end of the Seder on the first (or two) night(s) of Passover- L'Shana HaBa'a B'Yerushalayim "Next Year in Jerusalem".
Have a Happy, Kosher & Meaningful Passover!
2 Nissan, 5771 - Date that Netanel Ben-Tzuar, leader of the tribe of Yisasschar, brought his offerings on behalf of his tribe
Monday, March 21, 2011
#102 - The Straight Measure
Today - 15 Adar (according to some) - is the Yahrzeit of Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Kaidanover, author of the Sefer - Kav HaYashar, which means the "Straight Path". To be exact, as the year of his passing 5472 (1712) was a Jewish leap year, he had to have passed away on one of the two months of Adar. The problem is that I have seen two different versions of his Yahrzeit - one as 15 Adar I, & the other is 15 Adar II. Hence, while we may not be sure of his real Yahrzeit in a year such as this one, it does so happen that this is my 102th Post.
Let me explain. Corresponding to the Gematria of his name Tzvi Hirsch, he named his Sefer - Kav HaYashar, correspondingly. Hence, the names/words Tzvi & Kav each is the Gematria of 102, and Hirsch & HaYashar is the Gematria of 515. But this is not all. His composed his Sefer to consist of 102 chapters. Hence, this date of 15 Adar as associated with this rabbi's Yarhzeit comes out in time for my 102th Post.
A brief note about this Sefer. This is about setting us Jews STRAIGHT and we accomplish this by MEASURING ourselves as to where we are on the straight path of spirituality. The bottom line is that he shows that we have to remember that we are not in this world to have a good time and fool around. Our life is serious business, and there are consequences to what we do, for which we will have to give an accounting for one day upstairs.
Many years back, I remember when copies of this Sefer were around for taking - for free. Apparently, someone wanted to have the merit of bringing this Sefer to other Jews to spritually improve their lives. Since then, I purchased another copy of this Sefer, but of a different print. Unlike the first one, this one was with the Hebrew vowels as well as a commentary - a real pleasure to read.
Anyways, without further ado, I will translate here the 102th & final chapter of this Sefer for the remainder of this post, as I usually write of my own thoughts as oppposed to simply writing a translation from some Sefer though I have done this a few times. So, here we go...
The basic headlines of this chapter:
*The words of the Midrash where it states that in the Sefer Torah/Torah Scroll of Rabbi Meir, it was written Katnot Ohr "garments of leather" - with an Aleph (as opposed to the usual spelling with the letter Ayin)
*Amazing hints to the evil decrees of 5408 and the destruction that took place through the cities in Poland and Lithuania.
*The beginning of the arousal of the redemption will be in the northern countries of Poland and Lithuania.
*As a result of the thousands of Sifrei Torah/Torah Scrolls that were burnt during the tragic events of 5408, the power of the impure spiritual husks that were holding on to the holiness of the parchment of the Sefer Torah was weakened
*The format of the third Holy Temple that will be built speedily in our days
THE LEATHER GARMENTS IN RABBI MEIR'S SEFER TORAH
In Midrash Rabba (Parshat Bereishit 20:12), it's written like this: ""Hashem G-d made garments of leather for Adam and his wife (Genesis 3:21)". It was written in the Sefer Torah of Rabbi Meir: Katnot Ohr (garments of leather) with an Aleph." It's perplexing - why was it written specifically in Rabbi Meir's Sefer Torah "Katnot Ohr" with an Aleph, and not in other Sifrei Torot?
(middle of construction, come back later)
15 Adar II, 5771 - Shushan Purim
Let me explain. Corresponding to the Gematria of his name Tzvi Hirsch, he named his Sefer - Kav HaYashar, correspondingly. Hence, the names/words Tzvi & Kav each is the Gematria of 102, and Hirsch & HaYashar is the Gematria of 515. But this is not all. His composed his Sefer to consist of 102 chapters. Hence, this date of 15 Adar as associated with this rabbi's Yarhzeit comes out in time for my 102th Post.
A brief note about this Sefer. This is about setting us Jews STRAIGHT and we accomplish this by MEASURING ourselves as to where we are on the straight path of spirituality. The bottom line is that he shows that we have to remember that we are not in this world to have a good time and fool around. Our life is serious business, and there are consequences to what we do, for which we will have to give an accounting for one day upstairs.
Many years back, I remember when copies of this Sefer were around for taking - for free. Apparently, someone wanted to have the merit of bringing this Sefer to other Jews to spritually improve their lives. Since then, I purchased another copy of this Sefer, but of a different print. Unlike the first one, this one was with the Hebrew vowels as well as a commentary - a real pleasure to read.
Anyways, without further ado, I will translate here the 102th & final chapter of this Sefer for the remainder of this post, as I usually write of my own thoughts as oppposed to simply writing a translation from some Sefer though I have done this a few times. So, here we go...
The basic headlines of this chapter:
*The words of the Midrash where it states that in the Sefer Torah/Torah Scroll of Rabbi Meir, it was written Katnot Ohr "garments of leather" - with an Aleph (as opposed to the usual spelling with the letter Ayin)
*Amazing hints to the evil decrees of 5408 and the destruction that took place through the cities in Poland and Lithuania.
*The beginning of the arousal of the redemption will be in the northern countries of Poland and Lithuania.
*As a result of the thousands of Sifrei Torah/Torah Scrolls that were burnt during the tragic events of 5408, the power of the impure spiritual husks that were holding on to the holiness of the parchment of the Sefer Torah was weakened
*The format of the third Holy Temple that will be built speedily in our days
THE LEATHER GARMENTS IN RABBI MEIR'S SEFER TORAH
In Midrash Rabba (Parshat Bereishit 20:12), it's written like this: ""Hashem G-d made garments of leather for Adam and his wife (Genesis 3:21)". It was written in the Sefer Torah of Rabbi Meir: Katnot Ohr (garments of leather) with an Aleph." It's perplexing - why was it written specifically in Rabbi Meir's Sefer Torah "Katnot Ohr" with an Aleph, and not in other Sifrei Torot?
(middle of construction, come back later)
15 Adar II, 5771 - Shushan Purim
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
#101 - Judaism 101
"The Megilla is read on the 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, (or) 15th (of Adar), no earlier and no later."
Thus begins Mishna Tractate Megilla, where the main subject is about the laws of reading the Megilla on Purim, as well as the annual readings in the Sefer Torah/Torah scroll. While there was a time, as the Mishna proceeds to explain, that the Megilla was read in towns of market places earlier than the date of Purim out of convenience; these days, it is either read on the 14th in most places, or on the 15th in Jerusalem and in the town of Biblical Shushan in Iran (any Jews left there today?), unless the 15th of Adar falls out on a Shabbat/Sabbath in which case everyone reads it on the 14th.
As we know, we read the weekly Parsha in the Sefer Torah every Shabbat. In addition to this, the men have an obligation according to Halacha/Jewish Law to review the weekly Parsha in time for the Shabbat reading in the synagogue by reading each verse twice along with reading its Aramaic translation of Onkelos once (some say that Rashi can be learned instead, though kabbalistically the Aramaic translation of Onkelos is a must). For those not that familiar with Hebrew, perhaps reading the English translation three times or twice with the English translation of the commentary of Rashi probably suffices (I am not here to decide Jewish law, just to facilitate it. Any and every question in Halacha should be directed to your local Orthodox rabbi or renown Poseik (decider of Halacha).
In any case, we see that for the reading of the Megilla on Purim, there is an obligation to read it twice - once in the evening, and a second time in the daytime.
And nowadays, there are two available days for celebrating Purim, either the 14th or the 15th; and in some cities in Israel where it is not known if it was a walled city from the time of Joshua son of Noon or not, the Megilla is read on both days.
On closer examination, it seems that there are quite a few things in the Megilla of which there are two. Let's tour the Megilla.
Chapter One: In the very first verse, King Achashveirosh's name is mentioned twice - and as our rabbis explain, this tells us immediately that this king was the same rotten individual from beginning to end, even in his gestures of behaving good to the Jews. The king makes two different parties - the first one lasting 180 days for the higher ranking people, and the second one lasting seven days for the general populace.
Chapter Two: Esther has two names - Esther & Hadassa. There are two main heroes in the Purim story - Mordechai & Esther. During his reign, the king had two wives - Vashti & Esther. Esther in effect had two husbands - howbeit for a short while - Mordechai & Achashveirosh (according to Jewish law, a non-Jewish spouse is not a legal husband so under normal circumstances, this would disqualify the woman from remaining with her present Jewish husband). There were two guards who plotted to kill the king.
Chapter Four: When Esther spoke to Mordechai about her planning to speak to the king unannounced and hence taking a chance of being killed, she used a double wording describing her situation - Avadti Avadti "I will surely be lost". One loss referring to taking a chance being killed now, and the other loss is that she would no longer be able to live with Mordechai, since earlier - she got married to Achashveirosh against her will so she was considered someone like being raped which does not disqualify a woman to her husband unless he is a Cohen. But now, Esther would on her own be approaching the king taking a chance of being killed, and if her life would be spared, then she would be in a position of having further sexual relationship with the king, now disqualifying her from being allowed to live with Mordechai in the future, even though her mission was to save the Jewish people.
(Note: If even for Esther in her mission of saving the Jews from a real threat, she was forbidden to continue living with her husband Mordechai as she was allowing herself to continue being intimate with the king, what does this speak for everyone else who have excuses "my husband doesn't treat me right" for cheating on their spouses? No doubt that there are irreligious Jewish married women living a non-Jewish lifestyle, though married to a Jewish husband, who cheat on their husbands, some of whom will bear children belonging to a different father with whom one of these irreligious Jewish mothers slept with, and hence children born from this union are considered Mamzerim "bastards" who are forbidden to marry most Jews except for others with the same status or converts to Judaism. In the future, Elijah the prophet will identify all the mamzerim so everyone will know who they are and stay away from them in terms of marriage with the general Jewish population).
Chapter Seven: Esther makes two parties, inviting only two people - the king & Haman.
Chapter Eight: There were two letters from the king regarding the Jews - the first one endorsing Haman's plan for total extinction of the Jews, and the second one allowing the Jews to defend themselves (since the first letter wasn't able to be legally abolished)
Chapter Nine: The Jews had two days of fighting; hence leading to "two days" of rejoicing, though all Jews kept one day or another as Purim.
So, how many instances of the number two being used did you see here? I listed a total of 13.
Mind you, this is all within a span of the 167 verses of Megillat Esther. Personally, I think you will be hard pressed to find another set of 167 verses in the Tanach with this many amount of items that comes in two-s.
Actually, there is one other thing in the Megilla that is connected with the number two. Just as the very first verse of the Megilla has an instance of the number two, so does the last verse of the Megilla, howbeit in an indirect way. This final verse mentions Mordechai being the Mishneh/viceroy to the king. This word is based on the word Sheini/two, as this is the number two position compared with the kingship, just as it was with Joseph in relationship to Pharaoh.
With all this being said, there are in fact special laws relating to the Megillat Esther scroll in comparison to a regular Torah scroll, howbeit with some differences.
In any case, the reading of Megillat Esther is a mandatory public reading from a scroll just as it is reading from the Torah scroll. In fact, none of the other four Megillot of the Tanach are mandatory as far as reading them from a scroll, though it may be preferable. However, one only fulfills the reading of Megillat Esther by reading or hearing it from a scroll.
In short, we see the concept of repetition or the use of the number two in a high ratio rate in contrast to other parts of the Torah in Megillat Esther. Of course the question may be asked, why?
There is something else in the Megilla that I did not mention, and while it is not obvious offhand that is has anything with the number two, this is the bottom line as to why we have all these other things related to the number two in the Megilla.
The verse states (9:27): "The Jews fulfilled and accepted...to observe these two days according to their writing and their times, in each and every year." Our rabbis tell us that they fulfilled what they accepted - the Torah. Since when they first received the Torah, it was done in a spirit of being forced to accept it, now with the events of Purim, the Jews formally willingly accepted the Torah. So much so, that there those who state that Purim "is the day on which the Torah was given". While ironically, Purim is not mentioned in the Torah/Chumash, it is the rabbis who gave the power to observe Purim, even though it would seem otherwise that this something that was added to the Torah. But the whole essence of Purim is to reconfirm the giving of the Torah, in fact, this time to be done willingly, and hence, making Purim a crucial part of the Torah forever; so much so the effect, that it says that in the future, even if all other holidays were to be cancelled, Purim will always remain - because it was on THIS holiday that justified the Jews being the nation to receive the Torah, not just because they were forced to accept it, because if that were to be the case, why should the Jews be any better than the non-Jews who weren't given the Torah? It took some 3,400 years of the world's existance for this to happen, but better late than never, because it was Purim that REVEALED the HIDDEN essence of the Jews, just as the name of the Purim scroll is Megillat Esther, which can be translated based on similar etymology as "REVEALING the HIDDEN."
Yes, it's that hidden spark of the Jew that arouses him or her to make that change to be a better Jew. How do you explain how so many Jews who truly had a good materialistic way of life feel like there is something empty going on, and go on to discover Judaism as an essential part of life? While too many Jews celebrate Yom Kippur, only knowing Jewish events to be times of suffering whether suffering in the Holocaust or fasting on one day of the year (if they even keep this), so many of them have never in their life been in the synagogue to witness a Purim celebration, to see the true joy of living Judaism. Everything seems to be forced on them, a heritage that they do not know how to handle except to avoid Anti-Semitism at almost every cost but. Ironically, it is the very name of Yom Kippur - "Yom KiPURIM", where the Torah hints that this day is Ki "like" PURIM, the Torah openly hinting to the future holiday of Purim - the difference being that one reaches a high spiritual plateau on Yom Kippur via fasting while on Purim, the high spiritual plateau is festing.
So, you have it - the TWO times that the Jews accepted the Torah - unwillingly and now willingly. We have Yom KiPURIM & Yom PURIM. I would love to tell some of these Jews - "Yes, the essence of Judaism is Simcha/HAPPINESS! Psalms (100:2) tells us straight out "Serve Hashem with HAPPINESS..." And in the Megilla, where it states "For the Jews, there was light, happiness, joy and honor" (8:16) Light refers to the Torah, and happiness refers to the Jewish holidays, and specific to Purim, to the Purim meal. Yes, feasting on Purim is accomplishing the same spiritual aspect for ourselves as much as fasting on Yom Kippur.
So, we see here the concept of repetition, which is constantly REPEATED throughout Megillat Esther. So seemingly, since the concept of repetition is ultimately shown through the fact that the Jews REPEATED their committment of observing the Torah, there must be a big connection here between Torah and the concept of repetition.
And so just as we keep repeating - going over again and again over a piece of learning, a piece of Torah, which not only helps us remember and retain the information, but at times brings us to think of ideas not presented in the immediate open text; so too does the name of Megillat Esther, whose text represents the concept of a Sefer Torah/Torah scroll, and means in similar etymology "revealing the hidden", for with constant repetition, this is bound to happen.
Is there in fact a certain amount of times that one is obligated to go over one's Torah learning?
The truth is that there is a concept of going over a piece of Torah at least four times initially. We see that when Hashem taught Moses some Torah, Mosse then transmitted this to his brother Aaron, Aaron's two youngest sons, and the 70 elders, and then the rest of the Jews. Hence, Moshe taught the Torah that Hashem taught him - four times (Eruvin 54).
The above is for starters. For more advanced, there is a minimum of 101 times. As noted in Talmud Tractate Chagiga 9b, quoting from a verse in Kohelet/Ecclesiastes stating that there is a difference between one who serves G-d and one who doesn't. On this, the Talmud asks "Is this asking an obvious thing as if to say what is the difference between a righteous person and an evil person?" The Talmud then goes on to state that what King Solomon is noting here is that there is a difference between one who learns a piece of Torah - 101 times, and one who learns it only 100 times.
While one may think that the Talmud just gave an example of numbers, but that this is equally applicable to let say the difference between learning something 50 or 51 times, think again.
But why this number? Isn't the number 100 a pretty nice amount of times to learn something? Well, it is true that the number 101 is a number that can be read forward and backwards. In fact, I will dare say that in fact, Hashem uses numbers, even though these are numbers the way we see them today that even Moses would not recognize if he were to wake up from the dead today since these types of numbers didn't exist in his day, to show us lessons. The number 101 is the FIRST of a hundred 3-digit numbers that can be read - FORWARDS & BACKWARDS. This, my friends, is EXACTLY how we are supposed to be learning Torah - so well that literally, we know it FORWARDS & BACKWARDS, the same way that one should be able to say the Aleph Beit or alphabet backwards AS QUICKLY AS THE LETTERS IN REGULAR ORDER.
There is also mentioned a hint about learning Torah - 101 times with the difference of Gematriot of two words - the verbs of remembering & forgetting. The base verb of forgetting using the letters Shin, Kaf, Cheit is the Gematria of 328, and the base verb of remembering using the letters Zayin, Kaf, Reish is the Gematria of 227; so 328 minus 227 is 101!
Morever, in the book of the Tanach called Trei Asar, particularly in the last section named Malachi, name of the final prophet of the Jewish people, it states "REMEMBER the Torah of Moses my servant" (Malachi 3:22). In fact, the Gematria of the name of this prophet Malachi is 101! By the way, there are those who say that this prophet Malachi was in fact Mordechai himself.
But don't give up learning Torah just because you don't think this is possible. Hashem does not judge everyone equally, as everyone comes from a different background. Not everyone is born to an observant Jewish family having a good Jewish education, not everyone has the same type of G-d given skills, and not everyone has the same type of job. Certainly, those who are loafing around doing nothing else but learning Torah have no excuse to apply themselves accordingly.
In sharp contrast, one who teaches Torah to youngsters, needing to go over the material himself to be able to present it well, and spend sufficient time for them to comprehend it, needing sufficient amount of sleep in order to teach them without feeling too tired from teaching properly as mentioned in the Shulchan Aruch/Code of Jewish Law; hence, not having sufficient time himself to learn the whole Torah 101 times - as a rabbi who decides what the Halacha/Jewish Law who must be crystal clear with what he learns - during his lifetime, will not be judged for not having that sufficient time since he spent his valuable time teaching Torah properly to the next generation, and will be granted to be able to learn the same Torah in Heaven as the biggest scholars who are masters of their Torah learning and had enough time to learn the Talmud and Halacha - 101+ times.
Well, maybe not many of us will be able to learn Torah this well. The truth that amazes me about the big Torah scholars is not the fact that they are able to learn and understand everything, but how they can retain such a memory to remember virtually everything that they learn. It is true that with most if not all of them, they in fact have Divine Assistance for having the top brains that they have, because also of their good character traits, and so Hashem is willing to help them walk the extra mile. There are those people who may have encyclopedic knowledge of something, but this does not determine per se how they behave or treat other people. With most of the great Torah scholars, their Torah not only taught them knowledge, but also how to behave properly, with Derech Eretz/manners that will give a good impression to people who will exclaim that indeed, Torah or Judaism is indeed a wonderful thing, even if some of these people are themselves very lax in their observance of Judaism, but will at least have a good feeling about it, whether this will be translated into sending their own children to a Jewish school, supporting Jewish education, or starting to learn Torah in a Yeshiva program themselves.
Along the lines about the Megilla that I wrote about two years ago in my 22nd Post - "Revealing Torah Secrets", I have quite a few here in relationship to the Megilla.
To begin with, as I am in my 41st year of life, I noticed quite a few Jewish holidays that are directly related with the number 41. Perhaps the secret to this is that the last Parsha of the Torah consists of 41 verses, which is read on Simchat Torah. On Rosh Hashana, we blow the Shofar, which is a ram's horn. In Hebrew the word for ram is Ayil, which is the Gematria of 41. And then for Purim, the first letters of the phrase Megillat Esther/Scroll of Esther is the number Mem, Aleph - 41. Also, the first letters of the two big heroes of the Purim Story - Mordechai (Mem) & Esther (Aleph) also spells the number 41.
Perhaps it is no wonder that the very first piece of Torah that we recite daily following the daily blessings for learning Torah - Birchat HaTorah - is the section in the Torah about Bircat Cohanim, which is about the Mitzvah of the Cohanim to bless the congregation (Numbers 6:22-27). Indeed, this sectiion of the Torah consists of exactly 41 words.
And so with this being said, I have a few more goodies to reveal.
Before I forget, in this particular year, the eighth day of Moses' life from his birthdate of 7 Adar is 14 Adar, the future date of Purim, was presumably the date of Moses's Brit Mila, circumcison. In this year, this day of 14 Adar - Purim is the first day of the week of Parshat Shemini, the name Shemini which means the EIGHTH, in this context referring to the eighth day from the training of Aaron and his sons for the priesthood in the Tabernacle, and it was on this day that the Tabernacle was dedicated and the beginning of the official Divine Service of Aaron and his sons (Note: The beginning of the Megilla mentions King Achashveirosh who made a party, who, accordiing to the Sages, wore at this party - the same type of Priestly Garments that were worn by Aaron!)
I have mentioned in quite a few posts in the past that the Mitzva of learning & teaching Torah is the 420th Mitzvah of the Torah as per the count of the Rambam - and not the 419th Mitzvah as per the list of the Sefer HaChinuch. While I am not here to present all my proofs to this in this post once again, one thing I will mention is that the one time in the entire Chumash that the phrase Torat Hashem (Hashem's Torah) is mentioned (Exodus 13:9) follows the word Tihyeh (will be) which is the Gematria of 420. Well, right here in Megillat Esther, we have a very similar thing. The verse that I mentioned above "For the Jews there was light..." where "light" refers to Torah, this word immediately follows the word Haitah(was) - having the same letters as the word Tihyeh - hence having the same Gematria as 420! Coincidence?
Speaking of words, I figured to myself, since the name of Megillat Esther is in fact the name/word Esther, I figured that I would look up in my Hidden Codes program - as Esther is the Gematria of 661 - as to what the 661th word is in this Book. No, it is not the name/Esther, but it is also a name - Mordechai! In fact, this is in Esther 2:15, where it states "When the turn came for Esther, daughter of Avichail uncle of Mordechai who adopted her (Esther) as his daughter (who later became his wife)...". The question can be asked, how come only after many verses when Esther is first mentioned does it list her genealogy, especially after the Megilla had already mentioned Mordechai a little earlier than this in Chapter Two?
So here, we see that there is a very intrinsic connection between Esther and Mordechai. It wasn't that these two righteous people happened to connect with each other. It was the combination of these two that brought about the miracle of Purim. And so, the word Mordechai - being the 661th word in the Book of Esther - in this particular instance showing Esther's family relationship to Mordechai shows this very concept. Moreover, it was in this very verse that it was Esther's turn to actually meet the king with whom she would be married to, which was part of the Purim play that brought about the salvation of the Jewish people, while obeying whatever Mordechai told her to do regardless of personal cost and sacrifice. Amazing!
In another discovery that I made in my 41st year as it relates to Megillat Esther, this involves the Hidden Codes of the Torah. While this is not the first time that I looked up the phrase "Megilat Esther" in the Chumash, this is the first time that I spent an amazing hour plus to discover more this in this matrix than I have virtually ever discovered in my life! OK - the eight letters of this phrase - Mem, Gimel, Lamed, Tav/Sav, Aleph, Samech, Tav, Reish - can be spelled equidistantly exactly once in the Torah - every 424th letter! Perhaps what is truly amazing here is that the odds of this happening are very much odds. Two of these eight letters have letters that are among the least used in the Torah - Gimel & Samech. Moreover, my program was showing me that the chance of this happening even once was a HALF OF A TENTH PERCENT CHANCE! So, the fact that this occured even once is truly amazing!
With this being said, of all places in the Torah, where is this code spelled? In Parshat Balak - the very Parsha where Balak king of Moab & the magician Bilam make a vicious attempt to have the Jews cursed time and again. Of course, this is just like Haman who came to king Achachveirosh to circulate a letter with the king's signature to have all the Jews murdered.
But wait, this is just the beginning! As we know, one of the purposes of the annual reading of Megillat Esther is the rememberance of what Amalek did to us, and as Amalek's descendant Haman attempted to do to us. Now for Parshat Balak, the last two letters of Bilam's & Balak's names respectively spell the name Amalek! In fact, after Bilam's failed three times attempt to curse the Jews, he ranted a bunch of things about other nations, including where it says "He saw Amalek, and he raised his parable saying "Amalek is the head of the nations, and his end is that he will be destroyed forever"" (Numbers 24:20). Aside from these two mentions of Amalek, there are two more times of this name being spelled in this section in consecutive letters using two different set of words!
It would take a whole separate post to mention all the discoveries I found here that show beyond a shadow of a doubt that indeed, the Torah is not written by humans, but is nothing short of the wisdom of Hashem who is able to hint everything that ever happpened or exists in this universe, quoting from the Vilna Gaon. But one thing I will mention is that it mentions the phrase "three times' right near the code of "Megillat Esther", in the context of Balak calling Bilam to task for the three chances that Bilam had to curse the Jews, but was forced from Hashem to bless the Jews instead. Also earlier on, the donkey on which Bilam was riding on his way to curse the Jews made three attempts to prevent Bilam from continuing on his journey as it is mentioned also by this "three times".
This is most relevant to the writing of Megillat Esther to begin with. Based on a verse in Tanach, we see that the mention of wiping out the memory of Amalek is mentioned THREE times in the Tanach. Now technically, aside from Megillat Esther, there are three times - Book of Exodus, Book of Deutronomy & Book of Samuel. So, when Esther wanted to submit her book - Book of Esther - to be included in the Tanach, the Sages of the time argued that the three times of the mention of erasing the memory of Amalek has already been fulfilled - not four times. Esther argued back that in fact, the Chumash is considered as only one time for in fact, the Torah is considered as only ONE book, since it is not considered a Sefer Torah without all of the five comparmental books - the Five Books of Moses - being together as one. Moroever, there were only two stories about Amalek in the Tanach up to that point - for it was only in Exodus that the first incident took place, and Deutronomy merely reminds us of what took place in Exodus. Hence, there was yet to be a third story pertaining to Amalek via Amalek's descendant Haman. Subsequently, the Sages acquiesced to her, and the rest is history.
This is all very nice, but although Haman was Amalek's descendant, we do not find Amalek's name mentioned - NOT EVEN ONCE - in the Book of Esther. Haman is described at most as "Haman the son of Hamdasa, the Aggagite, oppressor of the Jews" but no mention of Amalek.
Perhaps it can be said that the fact that Amalek's name isn't mentioned at all actually is a fulfillment or a reminder of the fulfillment at least of wiping out Amalek's name. In any case, I decided of course to do a Hidden Codes search within the Book of Esther to see about Amalek's name being spelled equidistantly.
As it turns out, there are a total of 99 such times. Focusing on the least amount of letters to spell this name, it is where it is every seventh letter spelling it. And take a guess where it is spelled? In the very verse that I mentioned earlier pertaining to the Jews reacceptance of the Torah (9:27)! Yes, this certainly included the Mitzvot pertaining to Amalek - remembering what this nation did to us, not forgetting what this nation did to us, and wiping out this nation's memory.
Yes indeed, this is Judaism 101. For professors who don't learn Torah for the right reasons but use it merely to use it to make a good living for themselves, and have a good reputation for themselves, while spurting heresy that goes against the Torah in their critical analysis of it, are hardly better than Haman who knew some Jewish history who used it in his vicious attempt to make it worse for the Jews, calling their course with names like Judaism 101 to make it sound like these professors are going to teach the world what Judaism is. But for those who truly believe in the Torah - and they don't have to be rabbis either, but Jews who want to learn Torah because this is what Hashem wants us to do and learn from it how to be a good Jew observing Halacha, indeed it is Judaism 101, or perhaps better put - Torah 101, as a goal to learn the Torah, or at least a part of it 101 times. But regardless of the goals that one reaches in learning and teaching Torah, one thing is clear: This is the TORAH OF HASHEM, to which nothing else in the world compares!
11 Adar II, 5771
Thus begins Mishna Tractate Megilla, where the main subject is about the laws of reading the Megilla on Purim, as well as the annual readings in the Sefer Torah/Torah scroll. While there was a time, as the Mishna proceeds to explain, that the Megilla was read in towns of market places earlier than the date of Purim out of convenience; these days, it is either read on the 14th in most places, or on the 15th in Jerusalem and in the town of Biblical Shushan in Iran (any Jews left there today?), unless the 15th of Adar falls out on a Shabbat/Sabbath in which case everyone reads it on the 14th.
As we know, we read the weekly Parsha in the Sefer Torah every Shabbat. In addition to this, the men have an obligation according to Halacha/Jewish Law to review the weekly Parsha in time for the Shabbat reading in the synagogue by reading each verse twice along with reading its Aramaic translation of Onkelos once (some say that Rashi can be learned instead, though kabbalistically the Aramaic translation of Onkelos is a must). For those not that familiar with Hebrew, perhaps reading the English translation three times or twice with the English translation of the commentary of Rashi probably suffices (I am not here to decide Jewish law, just to facilitate it. Any and every question in Halacha should be directed to your local Orthodox rabbi or renown Poseik (decider of Halacha).
In any case, we see that for the reading of the Megilla on Purim, there is an obligation to read it twice - once in the evening, and a second time in the daytime.
And nowadays, there are two available days for celebrating Purim, either the 14th or the 15th; and in some cities in Israel where it is not known if it was a walled city from the time of Joshua son of Noon or not, the Megilla is read on both days.
On closer examination, it seems that there are quite a few things in the Megilla of which there are two. Let's tour the Megilla.
Chapter One: In the very first verse, King Achashveirosh's name is mentioned twice - and as our rabbis explain, this tells us immediately that this king was the same rotten individual from beginning to end, even in his gestures of behaving good to the Jews. The king makes two different parties - the first one lasting 180 days for the higher ranking people, and the second one lasting seven days for the general populace.
Chapter Two: Esther has two names - Esther & Hadassa. There are two main heroes in the Purim story - Mordechai & Esther. During his reign, the king had two wives - Vashti & Esther. Esther in effect had two husbands - howbeit for a short while - Mordechai & Achashveirosh (according to Jewish law, a non-Jewish spouse is not a legal husband so under normal circumstances, this would disqualify the woman from remaining with her present Jewish husband). There were two guards who plotted to kill the king.
Chapter Four: When Esther spoke to Mordechai about her planning to speak to the king unannounced and hence taking a chance of being killed, she used a double wording describing her situation - Avadti Avadti "I will surely be lost". One loss referring to taking a chance being killed now, and the other loss is that she would no longer be able to live with Mordechai, since earlier - she got married to Achashveirosh against her will so she was considered someone like being raped which does not disqualify a woman to her husband unless he is a Cohen. But now, Esther would on her own be approaching the king taking a chance of being killed, and if her life would be spared, then she would be in a position of having further sexual relationship with the king, now disqualifying her from being allowed to live with Mordechai in the future, even though her mission was to save the Jewish people.
(Note: If even for Esther in her mission of saving the Jews from a real threat, she was forbidden to continue living with her husband Mordechai as she was allowing herself to continue being intimate with the king, what does this speak for everyone else who have excuses "my husband doesn't treat me right" for cheating on their spouses? No doubt that there are irreligious Jewish married women living a non-Jewish lifestyle, though married to a Jewish husband, who cheat on their husbands, some of whom will bear children belonging to a different father with whom one of these irreligious Jewish mothers slept with, and hence children born from this union are considered Mamzerim "bastards" who are forbidden to marry most Jews except for others with the same status or converts to Judaism. In the future, Elijah the prophet will identify all the mamzerim so everyone will know who they are and stay away from them in terms of marriage with the general Jewish population).
Chapter Seven: Esther makes two parties, inviting only two people - the king & Haman.
Chapter Eight: There were two letters from the king regarding the Jews - the first one endorsing Haman's plan for total extinction of the Jews, and the second one allowing the Jews to defend themselves (since the first letter wasn't able to be legally abolished)
Chapter Nine: The Jews had two days of fighting; hence leading to "two days" of rejoicing, though all Jews kept one day or another as Purim.
So, how many instances of the number two being used did you see here? I listed a total of 13.
Mind you, this is all within a span of the 167 verses of Megillat Esther. Personally, I think you will be hard pressed to find another set of 167 verses in the Tanach with this many amount of items that comes in two-s.
Actually, there is one other thing in the Megilla that is connected with the number two. Just as the very first verse of the Megilla has an instance of the number two, so does the last verse of the Megilla, howbeit in an indirect way. This final verse mentions Mordechai being the Mishneh/viceroy to the king. This word is based on the word Sheini/two, as this is the number two position compared with the kingship, just as it was with Joseph in relationship to Pharaoh.
With all this being said, there are in fact special laws relating to the Megillat Esther scroll in comparison to a regular Torah scroll, howbeit with some differences.
In any case, the reading of Megillat Esther is a mandatory public reading from a scroll just as it is reading from the Torah scroll. In fact, none of the other four Megillot of the Tanach are mandatory as far as reading them from a scroll, though it may be preferable. However, one only fulfills the reading of Megillat Esther by reading or hearing it from a scroll.
In short, we see the concept of repetition or the use of the number two in a high ratio rate in contrast to other parts of the Torah in Megillat Esther. Of course the question may be asked, why?
There is something else in the Megilla that I did not mention, and while it is not obvious offhand that is has anything with the number two, this is the bottom line as to why we have all these other things related to the number two in the Megilla.
The verse states (9:27): "The Jews fulfilled and accepted...to observe these two days according to their writing and their times, in each and every year." Our rabbis tell us that they fulfilled what they accepted - the Torah. Since when they first received the Torah, it was done in a spirit of being forced to accept it, now with the events of Purim, the Jews formally willingly accepted the Torah. So much so, that there those who state that Purim "is the day on which the Torah was given". While ironically, Purim is not mentioned in the Torah/Chumash, it is the rabbis who gave the power to observe Purim, even though it would seem otherwise that this something that was added to the Torah. But the whole essence of Purim is to reconfirm the giving of the Torah, in fact, this time to be done willingly, and hence, making Purim a crucial part of the Torah forever; so much so the effect, that it says that in the future, even if all other holidays were to be cancelled, Purim will always remain - because it was on THIS holiday that justified the Jews being the nation to receive the Torah, not just because they were forced to accept it, because if that were to be the case, why should the Jews be any better than the non-Jews who weren't given the Torah? It took some 3,400 years of the world's existance for this to happen, but better late than never, because it was Purim that REVEALED the HIDDEN essence of the Jews, just as the name of the Purim scroll is Megillat Esther, which can be translated based on similar etymology as "REVEALING the HIDDEN."
Yes, it's that hidden spark of the Jew that arouses him or her to make that change to be a better Jew. How do you explain how so many Jews who truly had a good materialistic way of life feel like there is something empty going on, and go on to discover Judaism as an essential part of life? While too many Jews celebrate Yom Kippur, only knowing Jewish events to be times of suffering whether suffering in the Holocaust or fasting on one day of the year (if they even keep this), so many of them have never in their life been in the synagogue to witness a Purim celebration, to see the true joy of living Judaism. Everything seems to be forced on them, a heritage that they do not know how to handle except to avoid Anti-Semitism at almost every cost but. Ironically, it is the very name of Yom Kippur - "Yom KiPURIM", where the Torah hints that this day is Ki "like" PURIM, the Torah openly hinting to the future holiday of Purim - the difference being that one reaches a high spiritual plateau on Yom Kippur via fasting while on Purim, the high spiritual plateau is festing.
So, you have it - the TWO times that the Jews accepted the Torah - unwillingly and now willingly. We have Yom KiPURIM & Yom PURIM. I would love to tell some of these Jews - "Yes, the essence of Judaism is Simcha/HAPPINESS! Psalms (100:2) tells us straight out "Serve Hashem with HAPPINESS..." And in the Megilla, where it states "For the Jews, there was light, happiness, joy and honor" (8:16) Light refers to the Torah, and happiness refers to the Jewish holidays, and specific to Purim, to the Purim meal. Yes, feasting on Purim is accomplishing the same spiritual aspect for ourselves as much as fasting on Yom Kippur.
So, we see here the concept of repetition, which is constantly REPEATED throughout Megillat Esther. So seemingly, since the concept of repetition is ultimately shown through the fact that the Jews REPEATED their committment of observing the Torah, there must be a big connection here between Torah and the concept of repetition.
And so just as we keep repeating - going over again and again over a piece of learning, a piece of Torah, which not only helps us remember and retain the information, but at times brings us to think of ideas not presented in the immediate open text; so too does the name of Megillat Esther, whose text represents the concept of a Sefer Torah/Torah scroll, and means in similar etymology "revealing the hidden", for with constant repetition, this is bound to happen.
Is there in fact a certain amount of times that one is obligated to go over one's Torah learning?
The truth is that there is a concept of going over a piece of Torah at least four times initially. We see that when Hashem taught Moses some Torah, Mosse then transmitted this to his brother Aaron, Aaron's two youngest sons, and the 70 elders, and then the rest of the Jews. Hence, Moshe taught the Torah that Hashem taught him - four times (Eruvin 54).
The above is for starters. For more advanced, there is a minimum of 101 times. As noted in Talmud Tractate Chagiga 9b, quoting from a verse in Kohelet/Ecclesiastes stating that there is a difference between one who serves G-d and one who doesn't. On this, the Talmud asks "Is this asking an obvious thing as if to say what is the difference between a righteous person and an evil person?" The Talmud then goes on to state that what King Solomon is noting here is that there is a difference between one who learns a piece of Torah - 101 times, and one who learns it only 100 times.
While one may think that the Talmud just gave an example of numbers, but that this is equally applicable to let say the difference between learning something 50 or 51 times, think again.
But why this number? Isn't the number 100 a pretty nice amount of times to learn something? Well, it is true that the number 101 is a number that can be read forward and backwards. In fact, I will dare say that in fact, Hashem uses numbers, even though these are numbers the way we see them today that even Moses would not recognize if he were to wake up from the dead today since these types of numbers didn't exist in his day, to show us lessons. The number 101 is the FIRST of a hundred 3-digit numbers that can be read - FORWARDS & BACKWARDS. This, my friends, is EXACTLY how we are supposed to be learning Torah - so well that literally, we know it FORWARDS & BACKWARDS, the same way that one should be able to say the Aleph Beit or alphabet backwards AS QUICKLY AS THE LETTERS IN REGULAR ORDER.
There is also mentioned a hint about learning Torah - 101 times with the difference of Gematriot of two words - the verbs of remembering & forgetting. The base verb of forgetting using the letters Shin, Kaf, Cheit is the Gematria of 328, and the base verb of remembering using the letters Zayin, Kaf, Reish is the Gematria of 227; so 328 minus 227 is 101!
Morever, in the book of the Tanach called Trei Asar, particularly in the last section named Malachi, name of the final prophet of the Jewish people, it states "REMEMBER the Torah of Moses my servant" (Malachi 3:22). In fact, the Gematria of the name of this prophet Malachi is 101! By the way, there are those who say that this prophet Malachi was in fact Mordechai himself.
But don't give up learning Torah just because you don't think this is possible. Hashem does not judge everyone equally, as everyone comes from a different background. Not everyone is born to an observant Jewish family having a good Jewish education, not everyone has the same type of G-d given skills, and not everyone has the same type of job. Certainly, those who are loafing around doing nothing else but learning Torah have no excuse to apply themselves accordingly.
In sharp contrast, one who teaches Torah to youngsters, needing to go over the material himself to be able to present it well, and spend sufficient time for them to comprehend it, needing sufficient amount of sleep in order to teach them without feeling too tired from teaching properly as mentioned in the Shulchan Aruch/Code of Jewish Law; hence, not having sufficient time himself to learn the whole Torah 101 times - as a rabbi who decides what the Halacha/Jewish Law who must be crystal clear with what he learns - during his lifetime, will not be judged for not having that sufficient time since he spent his valuable time teaching Torah properly to the next generation, and will be granted to be able to learn the same Torah in Heaven as the biggest scholars who are masters of their Torah learning and had enough time to learn the Talmud and Halacha - 101+ times.
Well, maybe not many of us will be able to learn Torah this well. The truth that amazes me about the big Torah scholars is not the fact that they are able to learn and understand everything, but how they can retain such a memory to remember virtually everything that they learn. It is true that with most if not all of them, they in fact have Divine Assistance for having the top brains that they have, because also of their good character traits, and so Hashem is willing to help them walk the extra mile. There are those people who may have encyclopedic knowledge of something, but this does not determine per se how they behave or treat other people. With most of the great Torah scholars, their Torah not only taught them knowledge, but also how to behave properly, with Derech Eretz/manners that will give a good impression to people who will exclaim that indeed, Torah or Judaism is indeed a wonderful thing, even if some of these people are themselves very lax in their observance of Judaism, but will at least have a good feeling about it, whether this will be translated into sending their own children to a Jewish school, supporting Jewish education, or starting to learn Torah in a Yeshiva program themselves.
Along the lines about the Megilla that I wrote about two years ago in my 22nd Post - "Revealing Torah Secrets", I have quite a few here in relationship to the Megilla.
To begin with, as I am in my 41st year of life, I noticed quite a few Jewish holidays that are directly related with the number 41. Perhaps the secret to this is that the last Parsha of the Torah consists of 41 verses, which is read on Simchat Torah. On Rosh Hashana, we blow the Shofar, which is a ram's horn. In Hebrew the word for ram is Ayil, which is the Gematria of 41. And then for Purim, the first letters of the phrase Megillat Esther/Scroll of Esther is the number Mem, Aleph - 41. Also, the first letters of the two big heroes of the Purim Story - Mordechai (Mem) & Esther (Aleph) also spells the number 41.
Perhaps it is no wonder that the very first piece of Torah that we recite daily following the daily blessings for learning Torah - Birchat HaTorah - is the section in the Torah about Bircat Cohanim, which is about the Mitzvah of the Cohanim to bless the congregation (Numbers 6:22-27). Indeed, this sectiion of the Torah consists of exactly 41 words.
And so with this being said, I have a few more goodies to reveal.
Before I forget, in this particular year, the eighth day of Moses' life from his birthdate of 7 Adar is 14 Adar, the future date of Purim, was presumably the date of Moses's Brit Mila, circumcison. In this year, this day of 14 Adar - Purim is the first day of the week of Parshat Shemini, the name Shemini which means the EIGHTH, in this context referring to the eighth day from the training of Aaron and his sons for the priesthood in the Tabernacle, and it was on this day that the Tabernacle was dedicated and the beginning of the official Divine Service of Aaron and his sons (Note: The beginning of the Megilla mentions King Achashveirosh who made a party, who, accordiing to the Sages, wore at this party - the same type of Priestly Garments that were worn by Aaron!)
I have mentioned in quite a few posts in the past that the Mitzva of learning & teaching Torah is the 420th Mitzvah of the Torah as per the count of the Rambam - and not the 419th Mitzvah as per the list of the Sefer HaChinuch. While I am not here to present all my proofs to this in this post once again, one thing I will mention is that the one time in the entire Chumash that the phrase Torat Hashem (Hashem's Torah) is mentioned (Exodus 13:9) follows the word Tihyeh (will be) which is the Gematria of 420. Well, right here in Megillat Esther, we have a very similar thing. The verse that I mentioned above "For the Jews there was light..." where "light" refers to Torah, this word immediately follows the word Haitah(was) - having the same letters as the word Tihyeh - hence having the same Gematria as 420! Coincidence?
Speaking of words, I figured to myself, since the name of Megillat Esther is in fact the name/word Esther, I figured that I would look up in my Hidden Codes program - as Esther is the Gematria of 661 - as to what the 661th word is in this Book. No, it is not the name/Esther, but it is also a name - Mordechai! In fact, this is in Esther 2:15, where it states "When the turn came for Esther, daughter of Avichail uncle of Mordechai who adopted her (Esther) as his daughter (who later became his wife)...". The question can be asked, how come only after many verses when Esther is first mentioned does it list her genealogy, especially after the Megilla had already mentioned Mordechai a little earlier than this in Chapter Two?
So here, we see that there is a very intrinsic connection between Esther and Mordechai. It wasn't that these two righteous people happened to connect with each other. It was the combination of these two that brought about the miracle of Purim. And so, the word Mordechai - being the 661th word in the Book of Esther - in this particular instance showing Esther's family relationship to Mordechai shows this very concept. Moreover, it was in this very verse that it was Esther's turn to actually meet the king with whom she would be married to, which was part of the Purim play that brought about the salvation of the Jewish people, while obeying whatever Mordechai told her to do regardless of personal cost and sacrifice. Amazing!
In another discovery that I made in my 41st year as it relates to Megillat Esther, this involves the Hidden Codes of the Torah. While this is not the first time that I looked up the phrase "Megilat Esther" in the Chumash, this is the first time that I spent an amazing hour plus to discover more this in this matrix than I have virtually ever discovered in my life! OK - the eight letters of this phrase - Mem, Gimel, Lamed, Tav/Sav, Aleph, Samech, Tav, Reish - can be spelled equidistantly exactly once in the Torah - every 424th letter! Perhaps what is truly amazing here is that the odds of this happening are very much odds. Two of these eight letters have letters that are among the least used in the Torah - Gimel & Samech. Moreover, my program was showing me that the chance of this happening even once was a HALF OF A TENTH PERCENT CHANCE! So, the fact that this occured even once is truly amazing!
With this being said, of all places in the Torah, where is this code spelled? In Parshat Balak - the very Parsha where Balak king of Moab & the magician Bilam make a vicious attempt to have the Jews cursed time and again. Of course, this is just like Haman who came to king Achachveirosh to circulate a letter with the king's signature to have all the Jews murdered.
But wait, this is just the beginning! As we know, one of the purposes of the annual reading of Megillat Esther is the rememberance of what Amalek did to us, and as Amalek's descendant Haman attempted to do to us. Now for Parshat Balak, the last two letters of Bilam's & Balak's names respectively spell the name Amalek! In fact, after Bilam's failed three times attempt to curse the Jews, he ranted a bunch of things about other nations, including where it says "He saw Amalek, and he raised his parable saying "Amalek is the head of the nations, and his end is that he will be destroyed forever"" (Numbers 24:20). Aside from these two mentions of Amalek, there are two more times of this name being spelled in this section in consecutive letters using two different set of words!
It would take a whole separate post to mention all the discoveries I found here that show beyond a shadow of a doubt that indeed, the Torah is not written by humans, but is nothing short of the wisdom of Hashem who is able to hint everything that ever happpened or exists in this universe, quoting from the Vilna Gaon. But one thing I will mention is that it mentions the phrase "three times' right near the code of "Megillat Esther", in the context of Balak calling Bilam to task for the three chances that Bilam had to curse the Jews, but was forced from Hashem to bless the Jews instead. Also earlier on, the donkey on which Bilam was riding on his way to curse the Jews made three attempts to prevent Bilam from continuing on his journey as it is mentioned also by this "three times".
This is most relevant to the writing of Megillat Esther to begin with. Based on a verse in Tanach, we see that the mention of wiping out the memory of Amalek is mentioned THREE times in the Tanach. Now technically, aside from Megillat Esther, there are three times - Book of Exodus, Book of Deutronomy & Book of Samuel. So, when Esther wanted to submit her book - Book of Esther - to be included in the Tanach, the Sages of the time argued that the three times of the mention of erasing the memory of Amalek has already been fulfilled - not four times. Esther argued back that in fact, the Chumash is considered as only one time for in fact, the Torah is considered as only ONE book, since it is not considered a Sefer Torah without all of the five comparmental books - the Five Books of Moses - being together as one. Moroever, there were only two stories about Amalek in the Tanach up to that point - for it was only in Exodus that the first incident took place, and Deutronomy merely reminds us of what took place in Exodus. Hence, there was yet to be a third story pertaining to Amalek via Amalek's descendant Haman. Subsequently, the Sages acquiesced to her, and the rest is history.
This is all very nice, but although Haman was Amalek's descendant, we do not find Amalek's name mentioned - NOT EVEN ONCE - in the Book of Esther. Haman is described at most as "Haman the son of Hamdasa, the Aggagite, oppressor of the Jews" but no mention of Amalek.
Perhaps it can be said that the fact that Amalek's name isn't mentioned at all actually is a fulfillment or a reminder of the fulfillment at least of wiping out Amalek's name. In any case, I decided of course to do a Hidden Codes search within the Book of Esther to see about Amalek's name being spelled equidistantly.
As it turns out, there are a total of 99 such times. Focusing on the least amount of letters to spell this name, it is where it is every seventh letter spelling it. And take a guess where it is spelled? In the very verse that I mentioned earlier pertaining to the Jews reacceptance of the Torah (9:27)! Yes, this certainly included the Mitzvot pertaining to Amalek - remembering what this nation did to us, not forgetting what this nation did to us, and wiping out this nation's memory.
Yes indeed, this is Judaism 101. For professors who don't learn Torah for the right reasons but use it merely to use it to make a good living for themselves, and have a good reputation for themselves, while spurting heresy that goes against the Torah in their critical analysis of it, are hardly better than Haman who knew some Jewish history who used it in his vicious attempt to make it worse for the Jews, calling their course with names like Judaism 101 to make it sound like these professors are going to teach the world what Judaism is. But for those who truly believe in the Torah - and they don't have to be rabbis either, but Jews who want to learn Torah because this is what Hashem wants us to do and learn from it how to be a good Jew observing Halacha, indeed it is Judaism 101, or perhaps better put - Torah 101, as a goal to learn the Torah, or at least a part of it 101 times. But regardless of the goals that one reaches in learning and teaching Torah, one thing is clear: This is the TORAH OF HASHEM, to which nothing else in the world compares!
11 Adar II, 5771
Saturday, March 12, 2011
#100 - Attitude & Blessings
Yes my friends, I have finally reached my 100th post. It seems quite challenging that when you want to accomplish something good, that things get in the way. But I do know that you have to push for time if you want that time for yourself and for what you want to accomplish.
And so, after two and a half years of writing on www.gematriot.blogspot.com, this 100th post is indeed a milestone. I thought of writing this post a little sooner, but even as of a few days ago, I discovered crucial information that will be part of this post.
First, I want to mention that today's date of 7 Adar is known both as the birthdate & passing of Moses. As this year, there are two such dates of 7 Adar, the question may be asked is on which one we commemorate what? But the truth is that in fact, both his birthdate & passing are each connected with both. While we do not know as a certainty as to whether the year in which he was born was a leap year consisting of two months of Adar or not, there is a difference of opinion in the Talmud that could point to either direction. But we do know for a fact that the year in which Moses passed away was a regular year with only one month of Adar, as this month followed the month of Shevat when Moses began his final series of discourses with the beginning of the Book of Deutronomy, and the month of Nissan was the conclusion of the 30 day mourning period for Moses, upon which they immediately embarked to Israel in time to celebrate Passover.
And so, I would like to begin with a passage from Deutronomy that is especially timely for my 100th post. In Moses' address to the Jewish people, he tells them "Now Israel, what does the L-rd your G-d ask of you, but only to fear the L-rd your G-d, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the L-rd your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul." (Deutronomy 10:12) Our Rabbis in Talmud Berachot ask on this, "Is fear of G-d really an easy thing (by saying "...ASK of you, but ONLY to fear...")?" In a surprising way, they exclaim "Yes! For Moses, it was a small thing; but for everyone else, it's a big thing".
Perhaps what is more amazing is that virtually all of us in life do things that in fact, we know we really shouldn't do. In fact, if we in fact would think about fearing G-d, at least in terms of punishment, no doubt that most of us at least would behave a little different. However, this isn't by any means the highest form of fearing G-d. It is feeling His presence, not wanting to dare disobey G-d, not because we are afraid of getting punished, but because of G-d's high exalted level, doing something against His wishes wouldn't even begin to be thinkable.
There is another message in this verse - in fact, a hidden message. You see, this verse hints to the 100 blessings that we recite daily. As the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (Concise Code of Jewish Law) 6:7 states - "Do not read the word as Ma/What but Meah/Hundred." Another words, it's the 100 daily blessings that Hashem asks of us.
Now one may ask a question here. In the list of what Hashem asks of us, we see that first is mentioned to fear Hashem, and then to love Him. Yet, the hint to saying 100 blessings is noted right before fearing Hashem. But as we know that blessings stem from loving someone, rather than fearing someone, wouldn't it make more sense to juxtapose blessings with loving Hashem, or mention loving Him before fearing Him?
Well, first we have to realize, that in fact, Hashem doesn't need our blessings or anything else from us for that matter. This may not be so obvious from most translations of the word Baruch, the beginning word of many blessings, which is provided as "Blessed" as stating "Blessed are You, Hashem..." While I am not stating that this is not true about Hashem; however, this is not the real intent of the meaning here. In fact, what we are really saying is that Hashem is the SOURCE of blessings. That is, rather than praising Hashem per se, it's that Hashem is the source for US to RECEIVE His blessings.
The blessings that we recite is in fact ultimately for OUR benefit. We have to feel that we are in a position that we have to turn to Hashem for all our wants and needs, and that they come from Hashem alone (though we are supposed to show gratitude to people who help us as well). When we understand this to be the translation and meaning of the word Baruch; then and only then can we truly understand why we are saying blessings. Hence, with the proper concentration and intent, we cannot help but eventually feel some level of fear of G-d, as we continue on in some blessings "King of the world". Now, when we think of a king, do we think more of love or of fear? So yes, we need to first feel a level of fear of Hashem to have the proper reverence for Him. Then, we can hope to develop a level of love for Hashem, as we feel more of His bounty that He grants us. As it is in a true love relationship, where both parties are giving, one feels the love of the other and in turn reciprocates that.
To note, there are exactly 99 letters in this verse. By interpretating the word Ma to read Meah which means 100, it is the hidden meaning of the letter Aleph that makes this verse to be considered as having 100 letters.
So for our 100th blogpost, we have a verse here that becomes 100 in TWO different ways - how to read a word, and the count of letters. In fact, we do not read it literally in the Sefer Torah or Chumash as the word Meah, but is strictly an interpretation of a word; and hence you will still see only 99 letters.
Now, before I go on with my questions on this verse, there is a Sefer/Jewish book called Tanya Rabbati, first printed in 5274 (hundreds of years before the famed Lubavitch book Sefer HaTanya would appear), written by Rabbi Shimon HaLevi Horwitz (my first name is Shimon and I am a Levi). This book consists of exactly 100 chapters. The very first chapter is entitled "Subject of One Hundred Blessings", just as the name Blessings/Berachot is the name of the very first tractate of the Mishna. And in the beginning of this first chapter, the author first quotes from the Talmud (Menachot 43b) where Rabbi Meir states that one is obligated to recite 100 blessings a day, quoting the above verse, as mentioned above. And in the Jerusalem Talmud, it has the version of Rabbi Meir stating that there isn't a Jew that doesn't do a 100 Mitzvot/commandments a day, mentioning the list. Continuing on, the author mentions a few Gematriot as related to the concept of reciting 100 blessings a day:
1)The letters of the word Mah - Mem & Hei, interpreted homiletically to read Meah/hundred, in the method of Gematria via the AtBash method - where the first letter Alef is interchanged with the last letter Tav, the second letter Beit is interchanged with the next to the last letter Shin, etc. and vice verse, the corresponding letters are Yud=10 & Tzadi=90, which adds to the sum of 100.
2)In King David's final praise to Hashem recited with Divine Inspiration shortly before his passing, he states Neum HaGever Hukam Ol "The words of the man who was established ON HIGH" (II Samuel 23:1). The word Ol - on high" is the Gematria of 100 - letters Ayin=70 & Lamed=30, hinting to the fact that at one point during his kingdom, 100 people used to die every day, and so King David established reciting 100 blessings a day.
3)In King David's psalms (Psalms 128:4), it states: Hinei Chi Chein Yevorach Gever Yerei Hashem "Behold, FOR SO is blessed the man who fears Hashem." The words Chi Chein is the Gematria of 100 (Chi - Chaf=20 & Yud=10, Chein - Chaf=20, Noon=50), and as we see, the very next word is Yevorach/blessed as related to blessings; and hence similarly patterned to the verse in Deutronomy where it first hints to the 100 blessings and is then followed by stating to fear Hashem.
Now that we are back on the verse from Deutronomy, a couple of questions may be asked here. Why does this verse state three times "the L-rd, your G-d" when it could have stated this only once, and then refer to Hashem as Him, just as mentioned by loving Hashem "and to love Him"? Also, why specifically does it mention the three mentions of "the L-rd, your G-d" with everything else - "what does...ask of you", "to fear...", "and to serve..." but not with the mention of loving Him?
In today's society, quite too often, love relationships which seem on the surface that they no doubt seem to be great bonds wind up breaking apart to the surprise of many. This is especially applicable, or at least no less statistically as such, pertaining to Hollywood stars, singers, etc. where at least as far as the man is concerned, he married a top notch attractive lady who is world famous and wealthy. What in the world could go wrong? Boy, I think that if I was in such a position, I would be happy to keep my mouth shut if I knew it would create problems, because I would not want to loose such a lucky relationship.
Of course, many of us think of these things in theory, but the reality is that this simply does not happen for the most part. We certainly are not in a position to criticize others if we aren't ready to make sacrifices and swallow our pride in our marriages either. But the stark truth is that we live in a world full of fantasies, lies, and cover ups. The rich and famous relationships in which they marry each other usually fool themselves thinking that it was real love, when to begin with, they married each other for the money, fame, or other materialistic or convenient reasons. Their relationships last as long as the fancy shmancy make up used on these stars, some of whom really aren't exactly the most attractive on the block, but is just due to their image as a famous person by a public who made him or her that way because they spend money watching his or her movies, concerts, etc. But when the day is over, or when the movie or music video has been filmed, that makeup eventually fades or is removed, reality sets in, and if going in public with the family, it's done incognito, and the real colors of the greedy and materialistic famous couple surface. In fact, if I were to have placed bets on some of the famous pop stars that first appeared a little over a decade ago that all of them would have gotten divorced from an eventual marriage, I would not have made bad money.
My point here is that the problem in most of these failed marriages, is that their focus was on their love for each other. You read right, my friends. You see, these people ignore what their real mission in life is supposed to be, ignore their respect for each other, and ignore the realities of life - including making a hard living despite making tons of money and fame doing it. In a larger scale, the Torah is not focused just on "loving Hashem". The Torah already mentioned this earlier in the first paragraph of the Shema in relationship to particular Mitzvot where it is mentioned there "You shall love Hashem your G-d". But in this verse of today's post mentioning other factors in our relationship with Hashem, it is easy for some to say that because they love Hashem, stating "G-d will understand," "G-d will forgive".
Yes, Hashem understands very well. In fact, Hashem understands us better than we understand ourselves, because many if not most of us want to fool ourselves that because we do certain things right that we are pretty much "OK". But the Torah makes it very clear that someone or a group having such an attitude is the very room for failure and punishment from Him "he will bless himself saying "there will be peace for me..." Hashem will not agree to forgive him..." (Deutronomy 29:18-19).
And so, the Torah want us to first think "What does the L-rd your G-d ask of you?" What does Hashem really want? Perhaps if we put a little thought to this question, we would realize at times that our words and actions do not exactly much Hashem's expectations - whether it involves our relationship with Hashem in terms of ritual or how we deal with other people. While fear and respect aren't exactly the same thing, they do resemble one another, and so what is respect for one another in a relationship is what fear is in our relationship to Hashem. And finally, at the end of the day, did we serve Hashem to the best of our capabilities and efforts? Or is it just another day that we basically feel the "same ol' same ol' thing".
It's easy to say to love someone. But how can we prove it unless we give the other party a reason to love us? Without basic respect and knowing what the other party or significant other wants, before long, tension will start being felt, fights will start breaking out. The wealth recently earned goes only so far, and that's assuming that the rich and famous couple don't spend too much time apart from each other due to their conflicting schedules not allowing for them to see each other when one or both may fly around the world giving concerts or spending long hours making the film just right. For that matter, you can truly love someone without making a lifetime committment, and it doesn't have to have anything to do with sex for that matter either. But perhaps the ultimate factor that leads to how we get along in life with other people is our...
ATTITUDE=100
Attitude. The way we view things in life is in essence the number one factor that determines where we live, who are relationships are, our inner tranquility or lack of it. Do we in essence think only of ourselves, or how our behavior will effect others? Do we have the self discipline and humbleness to accept advice that will get us through the door? Or, do we feel that we can't allow others telling us how to live our lives no matter who or what the issue is?
And so, the attitude of the guy who says that there will be peace for himself without regard to what Hashem really wants is doomed both spiritually, and sometimes materialistically as well. Such an attitude will sooner or later totally tear apart whatever Jewish values one was raised with which will eventually lead to someone saying the most irrational things - even when it comes to their professed love of Israel while claiming that we are oppressing the poor "Palestinians" by not providing a platform of "land for peace", no matter how illogical this can be, both from a security and military viewpoint. The reason for this - is for one reason, and one reason only - the Evil Inclination. Psychology will claim, especially in the words of Sigmund Freud, an assimilated Jew, that this is the psyche in one's mind. The practical difference in these two statements is that while in the Torah - we talk of the Evil Inclination as enticing mankind to sin, as indeed it is a real angel believe it or not, who is also known as Satan or the Angel of Death; one's psyche as described in psychology does not necessarily determine what is a good or evil deed. After all, if one did something to the unliking of others, perhaps he can hardly be blamed because he supposedly thought that he was doing the right thing.
And so, psychologists easily rationalize adulterous relationships because the marriage wasn't working right; while according to Jewish law, once a woman commits adultery, she is forbidden to both her husband and her lover, regardless of what was wrong in the marriage that led to her sinning with her body. No matter what fix up is done afterwards to ensure that the lady will never sleep around again, the Torah makes it crystal clear that it is now too late. Yes, she can repent, but she has to accept responsibility of her actions, even if it was due to her husband not treating her right by his words and actions against her. If she really doesn't like him anymore, she has any and every right to request for a divorce; but as long as she is married, she has no right to excuse herself because of her husband's misdeeds or misactions.
Just last week, I came across a most fascinating mathematical video. As Gematriot involve the numerical value of the Holy Hebrew letters, l'havdil, the English alphabet is provided with numerical values from 1 to 26 corresponding to the 26 letters of the alphabet. And so, in an amazing discovery, attitude when counting the numerical values of its letters in this fashion, it comes out that attitude equals the number 100! Yes, attitude is the single biggest factor that determines virtually everything else, because the mind is an amazing tool that Hashem created. Our mind, which is in our head, the Hebrew word for which is Rosh, as it is the leader of the body, that controls one's actions. Yes, animals also have heads, they also have brains, but their main way of communication is with their bodies for their immediate selfish needs as Hashem created them as such, with the brains serving their bodies telling them to eat whenever they are hungry, end of story. But human beings are supposed to be way beyond this. We have responsibilities both to Hashem, society, and our families. But the only way that we will carry out our responsibilities in the appropriate manner is based on our attitude.
WOMEN'S TRUE ROLE IN SOCIETY
March 8 of last week marked the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day. To come to think of it, why is there a special women's day to begin with? After all, they make up half the race. Why isn't there a special men's day? After all, at least in the United States, you have a Mother's Day and a Father's Day. So why the difference here?
The truth is that there really isn't supposed to be such a thing to begin with. You see, the reason this started is because men weren't exactly treating the women so well. At best, the women throughout society were treated as second class citizens, even though they are the ones who bear all our children, who cook for the most part, who breast feed crying babies. And so, women eventually came to the realization that unless they distinguish themselves, they will always be treated less well then the men.
Has anything changed much? Both ways for the worse. The women working in the public has led to far more divorces due to insufficient time for husband and wife to spend time together with each other or with their kids. Women who feel quite independent with their high paid professional job who have at least half their friends who are divorced want to feel part of the club. And at the other end of the spectrum, women at times pay more for the same exact service that are provided for men, such as at the cleaners. You see, clothes on women are viewed as more sexy in society, and so automatically, servicing their clothes demands more money than for the same amount of cleaning work on a man's suit.
In Judaism, it is all in reverse. Sure, some non-observant Jews may want to project "Orthodox" Jews as treating women as second class citizens, and unfortunately there are those observant Jews in the guise of movie actors who treat their wives as baby machines, but for the most part, we know that it is the woman who causes their child to be Jewish as she is the one who bears the child. So, if women aren't any less important according to this, if not more important, then how come we can't include women in the minimum quorum of 10 in the synagogue? You see, if whenever a 10th person would be needed, women would be able to be included, think of what would happen. Women who are mothers with young children at home no doubt would be bothered at times, and at times could be distracting from taking care of their children properly.
Yes, men and women have their own respective missions in life. Attempts to change the two is in essence no different than the situation of the Egyptians enslaving the Jews which included having each gender perform work that the other gender normally performs. In such situations, it is ultimately only a lose-lose situation. If neither party can perform their job correctly, it leads to a breakdown in society.
In any case, there are no coincidences. You see, the Hebrew year that this International Women's Day started was 5671 (1911). In Hebrew, this number make up the letters Hei, Tav, Shin, Ayin, Aleph. The last two letters - Ayin, Aleph - is the number 71. And of the six volumes of the Mishna, the name of the third one is Nashim - Women. And yes indeed, this order of the Mishna consists of exactly 71 chapters!
WHY ONLY ISRAEL? HASHEM CREATED A BEAUTIFUL WORLD!!!
On a positive note, women do in fact surpass men at times. When the men fell for the Spies' evil report about Israel, upon which they became cry babies, preventing them from being allowed to enter Israel, their wives remained righteous, believing that Hashem wanted them to move to Israel and that everything would be safe. This is one time that the men could have well benefited listening to their wives!
Along these lines, we see in the Book of Numbers that the five daughters of Tzelaphchad of the Tribe of Menashe requesting a piece of the land of Israel as an inheritance being that their late father did not leave behind any sons, as the men are the inheritors of the land. In fact, Hashem agreed to their well deserved point, being the icons of women who are Zionistic.
And speaking of Zionism, a few days earlier, I had come across a list of 100 reasons to live in Israel, written by a newcomer to Israel from the United States. While there was a few points that he wrote that I didn't agree with, I do wish to state his 100th and last reason for living in Israel: "If you're Jewish, why on earth would you want to live anywhere other than the land that Hashem gave you?"
Now let's play the devil's advocate for a minute. Hashem created a beautiful world. One would think that if this is the case, we should have a right to live wherever we want, provided that we live according to the righteous dictates of the society and government living there. If so, why should there be a special country for Jews to live in other than the fact that Hashem designated some place for the Holy Temple, but other than this, since Hashem is everywhere, it shouldn't really make a difference as to where we live. If anything, since Hashem put us in this finite, challenging world, then it would seem that the whole idea of observing Hashem's laws and commandments is to perform them specifically where one's way of life will be challenged by society but he or she will nevertheless be strong, proving that Hashem's Torah goes beyond whatever rationale people come up with?
This is where the aspect of living in Israel comes in. True, one can also perform G-d's commandments outside of Israel. However, the ideal place to live a Jewish life is in a Jewish land. While our Rabbis tell us to perform good deeds of kindness even to non-Jews due to the ways of peace, and at times, we need to do business with non-Jews to make a living, our ultimate challenge is not to live as a good Jew among non-Jews, but...to live separately as a good Jew. Rabbi Meir Kahane, HY"D, may G-d avenge his blood, points this very clearly on the verse "Israel will live in safety, ALONE in a land of grain and wine" (Deutronomy 33:28), among Moses' final blessings to the Jews. We know all too well what happened and happens when Jews living in the Diaspora became assimilated and intermarry. At least in the Holy Land of Israel, just about all of even the biggest secular, left-wing Jews will marry within the faith (so much for the left wing Jewish tolerance of Arabs if they won't marry them!). Even without a point blank statement from the Torah, the facts speak for themselves.
And while Israel is not all an hour's walk to the Temple or Temple Mount or Western Wall, the holiness of Israel is something that is not to found outside of Israel. It is worthwhile mentioning from the end of Tractate Ketubot of the Mishna which states that if either husband or wife want to move to Israel but the other one doesn't which leads to divorce, it is the spouse who wants to move to Israel who wins the upper hand in court. The same thing applies in terms of moving to Jerusalem, which is the city that seats the Holy Temple. Regardless of what rabbis held in terms of the Mitzva of living in Israel, there are none who disagreed with this statement in the Mishna.
And speaking of the Temple, it had the dimensions of 100 cubits long and 100 cubits high. Yes, the ultimate level - 100% level of serving Hashem, was in the Temple, the place where we turn to in all of our daily prayers wherever we are in the world. And as we mention in the Passover Haggadah - the list of 15 spiritual accomplishments that the Jews acquired over time, the final one on the list is "The House of Choosing (Temple) to atone for our sins".
Yes, it was the righteous 100% attitude of the women in Moses' time that allowed them to remain alive for nearly 40 more years regardless of their age to merit entering Israel, many of whose husbands unfortunately fell for the Spies' evil report. The women had full faith in Hashem like the dove, representative of the Jewish people whose Gematria (Yonah) is the Gematria of 71, as the number of chapters in the volume of Mishna that is called women. The dove as we see in Noah's time faithfully followed Noah's orders of seeing if the land was dry following the world's greatest flood of all time. And what did the dove come back with? It was an olive leaf giving the message to Noah that it would rather eat bitter food coming from Hashem than eat sweet human food (see Talmud Eruvin 18b). For immigrants to Israel such as myself, while you don't always have the same comforts of living as in the United States (no driving a car these days), this is the real "Land of the Living" (Psalms 27:13) as King David calls it.
100 TIMES 100
As Purim will be here in a week, let's focus on a part of the Purim story that led to this most special holiday. When Haman submitted his proposal to murder all the Jews on one day, he offered King Achashveirosh - 10,000 silver talents for this. While the king turned down this offer, showing his own bitter hatred for the Jews, the question can be asked - why specifically the amount of 10,000 silver talents?
Perhaps one can answer that this is the first number consisting of five digits, so it would be an impressive number to offer the king. But perhaps there is a more burning question here. Why should Haman needed to even offer any money up front? Perhaps the king would be willing to give in to him without needing to give away any money to begin with? The worse that could have happened is if the king would not be willing to or be hesitant about the matter, then Haman could have offered something.
Haman was no stranger to Jewish history. How he determined the lots as to when to murder the Jews was based on his knowledge as of such, and not just what was written in the Bible. No where in the Bible does it mention directly as to what month that Moses passed away on, based on which Haman played the lottery. With this being said, perhaps there was something significant here about offering specifically 10,000 silver talents.
Let's ask a mathematical question here: What is the square root of 10,000. Answer: One hundred. Hence, it takes 100*100 to yield the number of 10,000. So now, the question can be asked here, does the number 100 in itself have something to do with Haman's offer to murder the Jews?
Kabbalistically, each of the 12 months of the year are represented by one of the letters of the Aleph Beit. As we know, Haman picked the month of Adar for his evil attempt to do away with the Jews. And so, what is the letter that represents Adar? The letter Koof, which is the numerical value of 100. (Note: While in a leap year consisting of two months of Adar, it is the first Adar that is represented by the letter Koof, while we celebrate Purim in the second Adar. The truth is that the main reason why we read the Megilla on the second Adar rather than the first is to juxtapose the redemption of Purim in the month of Adar II right next to the redemption of Passover in the coming month of Nissan. Otherwise, it seems that most likely from Halacha that if it weren't for this, that we would in fact celebrate Purim in Adar I).
Basically, what Haman was attempting to do here is basing his month on the fact that Moses passed away on this month, he felt that this month would be the prime time to take FULL advantage of to plan the evil deed. Accordingly, for his money offer, he multiplied 100 times itself, realizing and representing the full potential of the "unlucky" month of Adar. While there are a number of words in Hebrew for the word lottery, it is the word "Pur" based on which is the name of the holiday Purim. Now, noting the letters of this word - Pei, Vav, Reish - reverse the last two letters to have the word read as Pru - "Be fruitful" as in the phrase Pru U'rvu "Be fruitful and multiply", the first Mitzva/commandment of the Torah. In another words, Haman used the number 100 representing the "unlucky" month of Adar to give FRUIT and in fact MULTIPLIED this number the same amount of times as this number itself - 100*100 - to be the amount of money to offer the king.
There is a view among the rabbis that Haman had 208 children, proving this from the Gematria of the word V'Rohv - Vav, Reish, Beit/Veit. While this may not be such an unlikely feat, it has to be remembered that Haman wasn't always the wealthiest guy on the block. In fact, according to a Midrash, he was a mere barber for 22 years in some village, who just made a living to pay the bills like you and I if he was even lucky at that, so the chances of him having numerous wives to bear so many children whom he would need to support was highly unlikely. And so, what this probably means when it says that he had 208 children is that this is referring to the fruit of his labors. You see, in the phrase of Pru U'rvu, the word U'rvu can in fact bear the Gematria of 208 twice - the first three letters spelling the same word as V'Rohv, the word that is used as a Gematria to state that Haman had 208 children, and then the last three letters "rvu" - the same three letters of the Aleph Beit, which means MULTIPLY. And what was the fruit of Haman's labors? Bearing in mind that his present labor was his vicious attempt to have all the Jews murdered, the fruits in this case was his offer of the 10,000 silver talent based on his multiplying 100 times itself to represent what he thought was the worst unluckiest month of the Jewish people.
Now, the significance of Haman offering money to begin with to do away with the Jews was in order to so to speak counteract the Shekalim, the annual monetary collection from Jews in the month of Adar to pay for the daily offerings in the Temple. Now, every year when reading the Torah, there are four special sections in the Torah that we read at the end of the weekly Parsha, taking place in or around the month of Adar. The first of these is the section in the Torah about the Shekalim, which we read the other week, and on this coming Shabbat, we will be reading from the second of these which is the section in the Torah called Zachor/Remember, remembering and not forgetting what Amalek - Haman's ancestor - did to us in starting war with us, as well as the Mitzvah of wiping out the memory of Amalek.
With this in mind, one of the phrases naming these four special sections is called Dalet (the letter Dalet which is the numerical value of four) Parshiyot. The Gematria of the phrase Dalet Parshiyot is 1,000. In terms of multiplication, this number is in between 100 & 10,000, for 100 times 10 is 1,000 and 1,000 times 10 is 10,000. Now, one of the purposes of the Shekalim, the first of these four Parshiyot, was to count the Jews in form of counting the number of coins that the Jews donated as opposed to counting them directly to avoid an evil eye leading to a plague, G-d forbid. And as we know, the minimum number of male Jews needed for a Minyan/quorum is 10. And as for the theme of the second of these four Parshiyot, the nation of Amalek, from whom Haman was descended, dared to attack the Jews. Our rabbis tell us that this particularly the Tribe of Dan who was behind the rest of the tribes when travelling. In fact, in the order of the tribes travelling, the Tribe of Dan was 10th in place. Hence, Haman's playing of numbers wasn't just a nice trick up his sleeves, he really knew what he was doing (except for the fact that the Jews repented at the end, so everything boomeranged back to Haman).
Now, let's focus for a moment on the exact date that Haman chose from his lottery - 13 Adar. You see, Haman chose this month knowing that Moses passed away on this month. But was is noted is that in fact, he didn't realize that Moses was also born on this month. It seems from this that the fact the Moses was born in this month had something to do with the victory of the Jews at the end. In fact, assuming that Moses had his Brit Mila/circumcision on his eighth day, this day - 14 Adar - would be the future date of Purim!
With this being said, in which Parsha of the Torah is the birth of Baby Moses mentioned? In Parshat Shemot - the 13th Parsha of the Torah! And as especially as it relates to this year - this coming Shabbat, which falls out on the 13 day of Adar II, which is in effect the 13th month counting from Nissan which is the first of the months, we read the 13th Parsha from Parshat Shemot of Moses's birth - Parshat Tzav. Now, when we write the word Tzav in cursive Hebrew, it looks just like the number 13!
So, especially in this year, you have the "unlucky" number 13 in the highest combination possible in the Jewish calendar. You see, for non-Jews, this may very well be an unlucky superstitious number. But for us Jews, this is the number that represents the 13 Divine Attributes of Mercy that Hashem has for the Jewish people.
I should note that the date of 13 Adar II marks the Yahrzeit of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, the top Poseik HaDor, leading decider of Jewish law of the previous generation, and was born on 7 Adar - the same birthday as Moshe Rabbeinu after whom he was named for this very reason. Could it be that Haman forsaw through the powers of impurity (black magic) the passing of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, one of the last top leading Torah scholars before the coming of Moshiach, would occur on this very date of 13 Adar, and hence having picked this very date rather than 7 Adar being the Yahrzeit of Moshe Rabbeinu, without knowing that he was also born in this month, sharing the same name and birthdate as Moshe Rabbeinu?
I should note that the Hebrew year of the passing of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein - 5746 - the letters Hei, Tav, Shin, Mem, Vav - is spelled in the same word (backwards) twice in the entire Tanach/Bible - one of these times in Megillat Esther! This is the verse (9:19) where it mentions that the Jews will now celebrate the 14th of Adar in the future - a day of "happiness and feasting". The Hebrew word for "and feasting" is U'Mishteh - and when spelled backwards, reads this Hebrew year of 5746! This is most significant, because Rabbi Moshe Feinstein passed away on the night of 13 Adar (II), he was then flown to Israel for burial about which there was a delay in the flight, and then he was buried during the daytime of 15 Adar, the date that Jews in Jerusalem celebrate Purim. But in this year, 15 Adar in Jerusalem was also a day of great mourning among some 300,000 Jews attending his funeral on Har HaMenuchot in Jerusalem, the largest funeral in Israel in a millenium! Hence, 14 Adar - the date in between the two dates of 13 Adar of his passing & 15 Adar of his burial - was the HAPPIER day in contrast to 15 Adar IN THAT YEAR (5746); 15 Adar normally being celebrated as the happiest day of the year in Jerusalem, the holiest city in the world. Yes, Rabbi Moses Feinstein's passing and burial was predicted in the Megillah nearly 2,350 years earlier!
THE FIRST OF ONE THOUSAND THREES
Today, we encountered quite a few things with the number three. Well, the number 100 is the first of a 1,000 THREE digit numbers. In the verse that we begin this post with that is related to the number 100 in two different ways, the phrase "the L-rd, your G-d" is mentioned THREE times. And Moses, the star of today - 7 Adar, was the THIRD one born of his siblings, as he is called the "third one" in relationship to the giving of the Torah which consists of three parts (as mentioned in Talmud Sabbath 87). But perhaps what is interesting here is that Moses was the third born counting from Miriam, a most righteous woman, who looked after Moses of the age of THREE months who was placed in a reed basket on the Nile to prevent being kidnapped and murdered by the Egyptians, in effect saving his life, along with Batya, princess of Pharaoh, who behaved and eventually lived as a Jewess in stark contrast to her evil father's ways, who took baby Moses in her loving arms, who is actually the one who provided Moses with his Hebrew name Moshe. Yes, women do count for at least 50% of the world race.
In praise of Moses, we see the last letter of the first word of Sefer Vayikra/Book of Leviticus of which we just read the first Parsha this past Shabbat - is a little letter Aleph. Among many explanations for this, this signifies the fact that Moses felt humble in being called by Hashem. He felt that there were those more worthy than him to be the one to be called out to by Hashem - Vayikra "He (Hashem) called out to Moses", the first word Vayikra ending with that little letter Aleph. We see in the Midrash that Hashem granted him a thousand points of light, which was in fact taken away from him following the sin of the Golden Calf, but still merited to have this on the Sabbath and other holy days. You see, the word Aleph for the letter Aleph which is the Gematria of one, can also be read as the same letters to read Eleph/thousand. Indeed, in the beginning of Sefer Devarim/Book of Deutronomy, Moses blesses the Jews that Hashem should bless them a thousand times over. By the way, as we wrote about the English alphabet today in relationship to Gematria, just as the word for Aleph of which the equivalent is the letter "a", can also be read to read Eleph-thousand, the very first time that the letter "a" appears in the spelled out numbers - one, two, three, etc. is the word for the number thousand! Coincidence?
Yes, with the right ATTITUDE, comes the BLESSINGS. As we see from Moses' blessings to his people on the final day of his life on today's date of 7 Adar, his blessings primarily consists of the bountifulness of the land of Israel, what we read on Simchat Torah, virtually the happiest day on the Jewish calendar when we conclude reading the Torah, and then we begin it anew. It was following the conclusion of this day - two and half years ago, that I began www.gematriot.blogspot.com. And as I conclude my 100th post on www.gematriot.blogspot.com, I write with the hopes of the next 100 posts being able to accomplish much more - with more followers; but most importantly, with much more action. Along these lines, I began this past week a new daily blogspot for the first five days of the week (relatively short) dedicated to learning the part of the Torah that is especially meritious to learn - the Holy Temple Service & Offerings - as it is considered as though we brought the offerings in the Temple that we learn about especially in absence of the Temple, as especially emphasized by the Chofetz Chaim - www.toratcohanim.blogspot.com. And then for learning how to keep Shabbat properly as there are numerous laws for keeping Shabbat , even for observant Jews who may learn something that they may have never come across before, I have a once-a-week post entitled www.shabbatlaws.blogspot.com.
Actions accompanied with the right ATTITUDE will lead to many BLESSINGS.
7 Adar II, 5771
And so, after two and a half years of writing on www.gematriot.blogspot.com, this 100th post is indeed a milestone. I thought of writing this post a little sooner, but even as of a few days ago, I discovered crucial information that will be part of this post.
First, I want to mention that today's date of 7 Adar is known both as the birthdate & passing of Moses. As this year, there are two such dates of 7 Adar, the question may be asked is on which one we commemorate what? But the truth is that in fact, both his birthdate & passing are each connected with both. While we do not know as a certainty as to whether the year in which he was born was a leap year consisting of two months of Adar or not, there is a difference of opinion in the Talmud that could point to either direction. But we do know for a fact that the year in which Moses passed away was a regular year with only one month of Adar, as this month followed the month of Shevat when Moses began his final series of discourses with the beginning of the Book of Deutronomy, and the month of Nissan was the conclusion of the 30 day mourning period for Moses, upon which they immediately embarked to Israel in time to celebrate Passover.
And so, I would like to begin with a passage from Deutronomy that is especially timely for my 100th post. In Moses' address to the Jewish people, he tells them "Now Israel, what does the L-rd your G-d ask of you, but only to fear the L-rd your G-d, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the L-rd your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul." (Deutronomy 10:12) Our Rabbis in Talmud Berachot ask on this, "Is fear of G-d really an easy thing (by saying "...ASK of you, but ONLY to fear...")?" In a surprising way, they exclaim "Yes! For Moses, it was a small thing; but for everyone else, it's a big thing".
Perhaps what is more amazing is that virtually all of us in life do things that in fact, we know we really shouldn't do. In fact, if we in fact would think about fearing G-d, at least in terms of punishment, no doubt that most of us at least would behave a little different. However, this isn't by any means the highest form of fearing G-d. It is feeling His presence, not wanting to dare disobey G-d, not because we are afraid of getting punished, but because of G-d's high exalted level, doing something against His wishes wouldn't even begin to be thinkable.
There is another message in this verse - in fact, a hidden message. You see, this verse hints to the 100 blessings that we recite daily. As the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (Concise Code of Jewish Law) 6:7 states - "Do not read the word as Ma/What but Meah/Hundred." Another words, it's the 100 daily blessings that Hashem asks of us.
Now one may ask a question here. In the list of what Hashem asks of us, we see that first is mentioned to fear Hashem, and then to love Him. Yet, the hint to saying 100 blessings is noted right before fearing Hashem. But as we know that blessings stem from loving someone, rather than fearing someone, wouldn't it make more sense to juxtapose blessings with loving Hashem, or mention loving Him before fearing Him?
Well, first we have to realize, that in fact, Hashem doesn't need our blessings or anything else from us for that matter. This may not be so obvious from most translations of the word Baruch, the beginning word of many blessings, which is provided as "Blessed" as stating "Blessed are You, Hashem..." While I am not stating that this is not true about Hashem; however, this is not the real intent of the meaning here. In fact, what we are really saying is that Hashem is the SOURCE of blessings. That is, rather than praising Hashem per se, it's that Hashem is the source for US to RECEIVE His blessings.
The blessings that we recite is in fact ultimately for OUR benefit. We have to feel that we are in a position that we have to turn to Hashem for all our wants and needs, and that they come from Hashem alone (though we are supposed to show gratitude to people who help us as well). When we understand this to be the translation and meaning of the word Baruch; then and only then can we truly understand why we are saying blessings. Hence, with the proper concentration and intent, we cannot help but eventually feel some level of fear of G-d, as we continue on in some blessings "King of the world". Now, when we think of a king, do we think more of love or of fear? So yes, we need to first feel a level of fear of Hashem to have the proper reverence for Him. Then, we can hope to develop a level of love for Hashem, as we feel more of His bounty that He grants us. As it is in a true love relationship, where both parties are giving, one feels the love of the other and in turn reciprocates that.
To note, there are exactly 99 letters in this verse. By interpretating the word Ma to read Meah which means 100, it is the hidden meaning of the letter Aleph that makes this verse to be considered as having 100 letters.
So for our 100th blogpost, we have a verse here that becomes 100 in TWO different ways - how to read a word, and the count of letters. In fact, we do not read it literally in the Sefer Torah or Chumash as the word Meah, but is strictly an interpretation of a word; and hence you will still see only 99 letters.
Now, before I go on with my questions on this verse, there is a Sefer/Jewish book called Tanya Rabbati, first printed in 5274 (hundreds of years before the famed Lubavitch book Sefer HaTanya would appear), written by Rabbi Shimon HaLevi Horwitz (my first name is Shimon and I am a Levi). This book consists of exactly 100 chapters. The very first chapter is entitled "Subject of One Hundred Blessings", just as the name Blessings/Berachot is the name of the very first tractate of the Mishna. And in the beginning of this first chapter, the author first quotes from the Talmud (Menachot 43b) where Rabbi Meir states that one is obligated to recite 100 blessings a day, quoting the above verse, as mentioned above. And in the Jerusalem Talmud, it has the version of Rabbi Meir stating that there isn't a Jew that doesn't do a 100 Mitzvot/commandments a day, mentioning the list. Continuing on, the author mentions a few Gematriot as related to the concept of reciting 100 blessings a day:
1)The letters of the word Mah - Mem & Hei, interpreted homiletically to read Meah/hundred, in the method of Gematria via the AtBash method - where the first letter Alef is interchanged with the last letter Tav, the second letter Beit is interchanged with the next to the last letter Shin, etc. and vice verse, the corresponding letters are Yud=10 & Tzadi=90, which adds to the sum of 100.
2)In King David's final praise to Hashem recited with Divine Inspiration shortly before his passing, he states Neum HaGever Hukam Ol "The words of the man who was established ON HIGH" (II Samuel 23:1). The word Ol - on high" is the Gematria of 100 - letters Ayin=70 & Lamed=30, hinting to the fact that at one point during his kingdom, 100 people used to die every day, and so King David established reciting 100 blessings a day.
3)In King David's psalms (Psalms 128:4), it states: Hinei Chi Chein Yevorach Gever Yerei Hashem "Behold, FOR SO is blessed the man who fears Hashem." The words Chi Chein is the Gematria of 100 (Chi - Chaf=20 & Yud=10, Chein - Chaf=20, Noon=50), and as we see, the very next word is Yevorach/blessed as related to blessings; and hence similarly patterned to the verse in Deutronomy where it first hints to the 100 blessings and is then followed by stating to fear Hashem.
Now that we are back on the verse from Deutronomy, a couple of questions may be asked here. Why does this verse state three times "the L-rd, your G-d" when it could have stated this only once, and then refer to Hashem as Him, just as mentioned by loving Hashem "and to love Him"? Also, why specifically does it mention the three mentions of "the L-rd, your G-d" with everything else - "what does...ask of you", "to fear...", "and to serve..." but not with the mention of loving Him?
In today's society, quite too often, love relationships which seem on the surface that they no doubt seem to be great bonds wind up breaking apart to the surprise of many. This is especially applicable, or at least no less statistically as such, pertaining to Hollywood stars, singers, etc. where at least as far as the man is concerned, he married a top notch attractive lady who is world famous and wealthy. What in the world could go wrong? Boy, I think that if I was in such a position, I would be happy to keep my mouth shut if I knew it would create problems, because I would not want to loose such a lucky relationship.
Of course, many of us think of these things in theory, but the reality is that this simply does not happen for the most part. We certainly are not in a position to criticize others if we aren't ready to make sacrifices and swallow our pride in our marriages either. But the stark truth is that we live in a world full of fantasies, lies, and cover ups. The rich and famous relationships in which they marry each other usually fool themselves thinking that it was real love, when to begin with, they married each other for the money, fame, or other materialistic or convenient reasons. Their relationships last as long as the fancy shmancy make up used on these stars, some of whom really aren't exactly the most attractive on the block, but is just due to their image as a famous person by a public who made him or her that way because they spend money watching his or her movies, concerts, etc. But when the day is over, or when the movie or music video has been filmed, that makeup eventually fades or is removed, reality sets in, and if going in public with the family, it's done incognito, and the real colors of the greedy and materialistic famous couple surface. In fact, if I were to have placed bets on some of the famous pop stars that first appeared a little over a decade ago that all of them would have gotten divorced from an eventual marriage, I would not have made bad money.
My point here is that the problem in most of these failed marriages, is that their focus was on their love for each other. You read right, my friends. You see, these people ignore what their real mission in life is supposed to be, ignore their respect for each other, and ignore the realities of life - including making a hard living despite making tons of money and fame doing it. In a larger scale, the Torah is not focused just on "loving Hashem". The Torah already mentioned this earlier in the first paragraph of the Shema in relationship to particular Mitzvot where it is mentioned there "You shall love Hashem your G-d". But in this verse of today's post mentioning other factors in our relationship with Hashem, it is easy for some to say that because they love Hashem, stating "G-d will understand," "G-d will forgive".
Yes, Hashem understands very well. In fact, Hashem understands us better than we understand ourselves, because many if not most of us want to fool ourselves that because we do certain things right that we are pretty much "OK". But the Torah makes it very clear that someone or a group having such an attitude is the very room for failure and punishment from Him "he will bless himself saying "there will be peace for me..." Hashem will not agree to forgive him..." (Deutronomy 29:18-19).
And so, the Torah want us to first think "What does the L-rd your G-d ask of you?" What does Hashem really want? Perhaps if we put a little thought to this question, we would realize at times that our words and actions do not exactly much Hashem's expectations - whether it involves our relationship with Hashem in terms of ritual or how we deal with other people. While fear and respect aren't exactly the same thing, they do resemble one another, and so what is respect for one another in a relationship is what fear is in our relationship to Hashem. And finally, at the end of the day, did we serve Hashem to the best of our capabilities and efforts? Or is it just another day that we basically feel the "same ol' same ol' thing".
It's easy to say to love someone. But how can we prove it unless we give the other party a reason to love us? Without basic respect and knowing what the other party or significant other wants, before long, tension will start being felt, fights will start breaking out. The wealth recently earned goes only so far, and that's assuming that the rich and famous couple don't spend too much time apart from each other due to their conflicting schedules not allowing for them to see each other when one or both may fly around the world giving concerts or spending long hours making the film just right. For that matter, you can truly love someone without making a lifetime committment, and it doesn't have to have anything to do with sex for that matter either. But perhaps the ultimate factor that leads to how we get along in life with other people is our...
ATTITUDE=100
Attitude. The way we view things in life is in essence the number one factor that determines where we live, who are relationships are, our inner tranquility or lack of it. Do we in essence think only of ourselves, or how our behavior will effect others? Do we have the self discipline and humbleness to accept advice that will get us through the door? Or, do we feel that we can't allow others telling us how to live our lives no matter who or what the issue is?
And so, the attitude of the guy who says that there will be peace for himself without regard to what Hashem really wants is doomed both spiritually, and sometimes materialistically as well. Such an attitude will sooner or later totally tear apart whatever Jewish values one was raised with which will eventually lead to someone saying the most irrational things - even when it comes to their professed love of Israel while claiming that we are oppressing the poor "Palestinians" by not providing a platform of "land for peace", no matter how illogical this can be, both from a security and military viewpoint. The reason for this - is for one reason, and one reason only - the Evil Inclination. Psychology will claim, especially in the words of Sigmund Freud, an assimilated Jew, that this is the psyche in one's mind. The practical difference in these two statements is that while in the Torah - we talk of the Evil Inclination as enticing mankind to sin, as indeed it is a real angel believe it or not, who is also known as Satan or the Angel of Death; one's psyche as described in psychology does not necessarily determine what is a good or evil deed. After all, if one did something to the unliking of others, perhaps he can hardly be blamed because he supposedly thought that he was doing the right thing.
And so, psychologists easily rationalize adulterous relationships because the marriage wasn't working right; while according to Jewish law, once a woman commits adultery, she is forbidden to both her husband and her lover, regardless of what was wrong in the marriage that led to her sinning with her body. No matter what fix up is done afterwards to ensure that the lady will never sleep around again, the Torah makes it crystal clear that it is now too late. Yes, she can repent, but she has to accept responsibility of her actions, even if it was due to her husband not treating her right by his words and actions against her. If she really doesn't like him anymore, she has any and every right to request for a divorce; but as long as she is married, she has no right to excuse herself because of her husband's misdeeds or misactions.
Just last week, I came across a most fascinating mathematical video. As Gematriot involve the numerical value of the Holy Hebrew letters, l'havdil, the English alphabet is provided with numerical values from 1 to 26 corresponding to the 26 letters of the alphabet. And so, in an amazing discovery, attitude when counting the numerical values of its letters in this fashion, it comes out that attitude equals the number 100! Yes, attitude is the single biggest factor that determines virtually everything else, because the mind is an amazing tool that Hashem created. Our mind, which is in our head, the Hebrew word for which is Rosh, as it is the leader of the body, that controls one's actions. Yes, animals also have heads, they also have brains, but their main way of communication is with their bodies for their immediate selfish needs as Hashem created them as such, with the brains serving their bodies telling them to eat whenever they are hungry, end of story. But human beings are supposed to be way beyond this. We have responsibilities both to Hashem, society, and our families. But the only way that we will carry out our responsibilities in the appropriate manner is based on our attitude.
WOMEN'S TRUE ROLE IN SOCIETY
March 8 of last week marked the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day. To come to think of it, why is there a special women's day to begin with? After all, they make up half the race. Why isn't there a special men's day? After all, at least in the United States, you have a Mother's Day and a Father's Day. So why the difference here?
The truth is that there really isn't supposed to be such a thing to begin with. You see, the reason this started is because men weren't exactly treating the women so well. At best, the women throughout society were treated as second class citizens, even though they are the ones who bear all our children, who cook for the most part, who breast feed crying babies. And so, women eventually came to the realization that unless they distinguish themselves, they will always be treated less well then the men.
Has anything changed much? Both ways for the worse. The women working in the public has led to far more divorces due to insufficient time for husband and wife to spend time together with each other or with their kids. Women who feel quite independent with their high paid professional job who have at least half their friends who are divorced want to feel part of the club. And at the other end of the spectrum, women at times pay more for the same exact service that are provided for men, such as at the cleaners. You see, clothes on women are viewed as more sexy in society, and so automatically, servicing their clothes demands more money than for the same amount of cleaning work on a man's suit.
In Judaism, it is all in reverse. Sure, some non-observant Jews may want to project "Orthodox" Jews as treating women as second class citizens, and unfortunately there are those observant Jews in the guise of movie actors who treat their wives as baby machines, but for the most part, we know that it is the woman who causes their child to be Jewish as she is the one who bears the child. So, if women aren't any less important according to this, if not more important, then how come we can't include women in the minimum quorum of 10 in the synagogue? You see, if whenever a 10th person would be needed, women would be able to be included, think of what would happen. Women who are mothers with young children at home no doubt would be bothered at times, and at times could be distracting from taking care of their children properly.
Yes, men and women have their own respective missions in life. Attempts to change the two is in essence no different than the situation of the Egyptians enslaving the Jews which included having each gender perform work that the other gender normally performs. In such situations, it is ultimately only a lose-lose situation. If neither party can perform their job correctly, it leads to a breakdown in society.
In any case, there are no coincidences. You see, the Hebrew year that this International Women's Day started was 5671 (1911). In Hebrew, this number make up the letters Hei, Tav, Shin, Ayin, Aleph. The last two letters - Ayin, Aleph - is the number 71. And of the six volumes of the Mishna, the name of the third one is Nashim - Women. And yes indeed, this order of the Mishna consists of exactly 71 chapters!
WHY ONLY ISRAEL? HASHEM CREATED A BEAUTIFUL WORLD!!!
On a positive note, women do in fact surpass men at times. When the men fell for the Spies' evil report about Israel, upon which they became cry babies, preventing them from being allowed to enter Israel, their wives remained righteous, believing that Hashem wanted them to move to Israel and that everything would be safe. This is one time that the men could have well benefited listening to their wives!
Along these lines, we see in the Book of Numbers that the five daughters of Tzelaphchad of the Tribe of Menashe requesting a piece of the land of Israel as an inheritance being that their late father did not leave behind any sons, as the men are the inheritors of the land. In fact, Hashem agreed to their well deserved point, being the icons of women who are Zionistic.
And speaking of Zionism, a few days earlier, I had come across a list of 100 reasons to live in Israel, written by a newcomer to Israel from the United States. While there was a few points that he wrote that I didn't agree with, I do wish to state his 100th and last reason for living in Israel: "If you're Jewish, why on earth would you want to live anywhere other than the land that Hashem gave you?"
Now let's play the devil's advocate for a minute. Hashem created a beautiful world. One would think that if this is the case, we should have a right to live wherever we want, provided that we live according to the righteous dictates of the society and government living there. If so, why should there be a special country for Jews to live in other than the fact that Hashem designated some place for the Holy Temple, but other than this, since Hashem is everywhere, it shouldn't really make a difference as to where we live. If anything, since Hashem put us in this finite, challenging world, then it would seem that the whole idea of observing Hashem's laws and commandments is to perform them specifically where one's way of life will be challenged by society but he or she will nevertheless be strong, proving that Hashem's Torah goes beyond whatever rationale people come up with?
This is where the aspect of living in Israel comes in. True, one can also perform G-d's commandments outside of Israel. However, the ideal place to live a Jewish life is in a Jewish land. While our Rabbis tell us to perform good deeds of kindness even to non-Jews due to the ways of peace, and at times, we need to do business with non-Jews to make a living, our ultimate challenge is not to live as a good Jew among non-Jews, but...to live separately as a good Jew. Rabbi Meir Kahane, HY"D, may G-d avenge his blood, points this very clearly on the verse "Israel will live in safety, ALONE in a land of grain and wine" (Deutronomy 33:28), among Moses' final blessings to the Jews. We know all too well what happened and happens when Jews living in the Diaspora became assimilated and intermarry. At least in the Holy Land of Israel, just about all of even the biggest secular, left-wing Jews will marry within the faith (so much for the left wing Jewish tolerance of Arabs if they won't marry them!). Even without a point blank statement from the Torah, the facts speak for themselves.
And while Israel is not all an hour's walk to the Temple or Temple Mount or Western Wall, the holiness of Israel is something that is not to found outside of Israel. It is worthwhile mentioning from the end of Tractate Ketubot of the Mishna which states that if either husband or wife want to move to Israel but the other one doesn't which leads to divorce, it is the spouse who wants to move to Israel who wins the upper hand in court. The same thing applies in terms of moving to Jerusalem, which is the city that seats the Holy Temple. Regardless of what rabbis held in terms of the Mitzva of living in Israel, there are none who disagreed with this statement in the Mishna.
And speaking of the Temple, it had the dimensions of 100 cubits long and 100 cubits high. Yes, the ultimate level - 100% level of serving Hashem, was in the Temple, the place where we turn to in all of our daily prayers wherever we are in the world. And as we mention in the Passover Haggadah - the list of 15 spiritual accomplishments that the Jews acquired over time, the final one on the list is "The House of Choosing (Temple) to atone for our sins".
Yes, it was the righteous 100% attitude of the women in Moses' time that allowed them to remain alive for nearly 40 more years regardless of their age to merit entering Israel, many of whose husbands unfortunately fell for the Spies' evil report. The women had full faith in Hashem like the dove, representative of the Jewish people whose Gematria (Yonah) is the Gematria of 71, as the number of chapters in the volume of Mishna that is called women. The dove as we see in Noah's time faithfully followed Noah's orders of seeing if the land was dry following the world's greatest flood of all time. And what did the dove come back with? It was an olive leaf giving the message to Noah that it would rather eat bitter food coming from Hashem than eat sweet human food (see Talmud Eruvin 18b). For immigrants to Israel such as myself, while you don't always have the same comforts of living as in the United States (no driving a car these days), this is the real "Land of the Living" (Psalms 27:13) as King David calls it.
100 TIMES 100
As Purim will be here in a week, let's focus on a part of the Purim story that led to this most special holiday. When Haman submitted his proposal to murder all the Jews on one day, he offered King Achashveirosh - 10,000 silver talents for this. While the king turned down this offer, showing his own bitter hatred for the Jews, the question can be asked - why specifically the amount of 10,000 silver talents?
Perhaps one can answer that this is the first number consisting of five digits, so it would be an impressive number to offer the king. But perhaps there is a more burning question here. Why should Haman needed to even offer any money up front? Perhaps the king would be willing to give in to him without needing to give away any money to begin with? The worse that could have happened is if the king would not be willing to or be hesitant about the matter, then Haman could have offered something.
Haman was no stranger to Jewish history. How he determined the lots as to when to murder the Jews was based on his knowledge as of such, and not just what was written in the Bible. No where in the Bible does it mention directly as to what month that Moses passed away on, based on which Haman played the lottery. With this being said, perhaps there was something significant here about offering specifically 10,000 silver talents.
Let's ask a mathematical question here: What is the square root of 10,000. Answer: One hundred. Hence, it takes 100*100 to yield the number of 10,000. So now, the question can be asked here, does the number 100 in itself have something to do with Haman's offer to murder the Jews?
Kabbalistically, each of the 12 months of the year are represented by one of the letters of the Aleph Beit. As we know, Haman picked the month of Adar for his evil attempt to do away with the Jews. And so, what is the letter that represents Adar? The letter Koof, which is the numerical value of 100. (Note: While in a leap year consisting of two months of Adar, it is the first Adar that is represented by the letter Koof, while we celebrate Purim in the second Adar. The truth is that the main reason why we read the Megilla on the second Adar rather than the first is to juxtapose the redemption of Purim in the month of Adar II right next to the redemption of Passover in the coming month of Nissan. Otherwise, it seems that most likely from Halacha that if it weren't for this, that we would in fact celebrate Purim in Adar I).
Basically, what Haman was attempting to do here is basing his month on the fact that Moses passed away on this month, he felt that this month would be the prime time to take FULL advantage of to plan the evil deed. Accordingly, for his money offer, he multiplied 100 times itself, realizing and representing the full potential of the "unlucky" month of Adar. While there are a number of words in Hebrew for the word lottery, it is the word "Pur" based on which is the name of the holiday Purim. Now, noting the letters of this word - Pei, Vav, Reish - reverse the last two letters to have the word read as Pru - "Be fruitful" as in the phrase Pru U'rvu "Be fruitful and multiply", the first Mitzva/commandment of the Torah. In another words, Haman used the number 100 representing the "unlucky" month of Adar to give FRUIT and in fact MULTIPLIED this number the same amount of times as this number itself - 100*100 - to be the amount of money to offer the king.
There is a view among the rabbis that Haman had 208 children, proving this from the Gematria of the word V'Rohv - Vav, Reish, Beit/Veit. While this may not be such an unlikely feat, it has to be remembered that Haman wasn't always the wealthiest guy on the block. In fact, according to a Midrash, he was a mere barber for 22 years in some village, who just made a living to pay the bills like you and I if he was even lucky at that, so the chances of him having numerous wives to bear so many children whom he would need to support was highly unlikely. And so, what this probably means when it says that he had 208 children is that this is referring to the fruit of his labors. You see, in the phrase of Pru U'rvu, the word U'rvu can in fact bear the Gematria of 208 twice - the first three letters spelling the same word as V'Rohv, the word that is used as a Gematria to state that Haman had 208 children, and then the last three letters "rvu" - the same three letters of the Aleph Beit, which means MULTIPLY. And what was the fruit of Haman's labors? Bearing in mind that his present labor was his vicious attempt to have all the Jews murdered, the fruits in this case was his offer of the 10,000 silver talent based on his multiplying 100 times itself to represent what he thought was the worst unluckiest month of the Jewish people.
Now, the significance of Haman offering money to begin with to do away with the Jews was in order to so to speak counteract the Shekalim, the annual monetary collection from Jews in the month of Adar to pay for the daily offerings in the Temple. Now, every year when reading the Torah, there are four special sections in the Torah that we read at the end of the weekly Parsha, taking place in or around the month of Adar. The first of these is the section in the Torah about the Shekalim, which we read the other week, and on this coming Shabbat, we will be reading from the second of these which is the section in the Torah called Zachor/Remember, remembering and not forgetting what Amalek - Haman's ancestor - did to us in starting war with us, as well as the Mitzvah of wiping out the memory of Amalek.
With this in mind, one of the phrases naming these four special sections is called Dalet (the letter Dalet which is the numerical value of four) Parshiyot. The Gematria of the phrase Dalet Parshiyot is 1,000. In terms of multiplication, this number is in between 100 & 10,000, for 100 times 10 is 1,000 and 1,000 times 10 is 10,000. Now, one of the purposes of the Shekalim, the first of these four Parshiyot, was to count the Jews in form of counting the number of coins that the Jews donated as opposed to counting them directly to avoid an evil eye leading to a plague, G-d forbid. And as we know, the minimum number of male Jews needed for a Minyan/quorum is 10. And as for the theme of the second of these four Parshiyot, the nation of Amalek, from whom Haman was descended, dared to attack the Jews. Our rabbis tell us that this particularly the Tribe of Dan who was behind the rest of the tribes when travelling. In fact, in the order of the tribes travelling, the Tribe of Dan was 10th in place. Hence, Haman's playing of numbers wasn't just a nice trick up his sleeves, he really knew what he was doing (except for the fact that the Jews repented at the end, so everything boomeranged back to Haman).
Now, let's focus for a moment on the exact date that Haman chose from his lottery - 13 Adar. You see, Haman chose this month knowing that Moses passed away on this month. But was is noted is that in fact, he didn't realize that Moses was also born on this month. It seems from this that the fact the Moses was born in this month had something to do with the victory of the Jews at the end. In fact, assuming that Moses had his Brit Mila/circumcision on his eighth day, this day - 14 Adar - would be the future date of Purim!
With this being said, in which Parsha of the Torah is the birth of Baby Moses mentioned? In Parshat Shemot - the 13th Parsha of the Torah! And as especially as it relates to this year - this coming Shabbat, which falls out on the 13 day of Adar II, which is in effect the 13th month counting from Nissan which is the first of the months, we read the 13th Parsha from Parshat Shemot of Moses's birth - Parshat Tzav. Now, when we write the word Tzav in cursive Hebrew, it looks just like the number 13!
So, especially in this year, you have the "unlucky" number 13 in the highest combination possible in the Jewish calendar. You see, for non-Jews, this may very well be an unlucky superstitious number. But for us Jews, this is the number that represents the 13 Divine Attributes of Mercy that Hashem has for the Jewish people.
I should note that the date of 13 Adar II marks the Yahrzeit of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, the top Poseik HaDor, leading decider of Jewish law of the previous generation, and was born on 7 Adar - the same birthday as Moshe Rabbeinu after whom he was named for this very reason. Could it be that Haman forsaw through the powers of impurity (black magic) the passing of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, one of the last top leading Torah scholars before the coming of Moshiach, would occur on this very date of 13 Adar, and hence having picked this very date rather than 7 Adar being the Yahrzeit of Moshe Rabbeinu, without knowing that he was also born in this month, sharing the same name and birthdate as Moshe Rabbeinu?
I should note that the Hebrew year of the passing of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein - 5746 - the letters Hei, Tav, Shin, Mem, Vav - is spelled in the same word (backwards) twice in the entire Tanach/Bible - one of these times in Megillat Esther! This is the verse (9:19) where it mentions that the Jews will now celebrate the 14th of Adar in the future - a day of "happiness and feasting". The Hebrew word for "and feasting" is U'Mishteh - and when spelled backwards, reads this Hebrew year of 5746! This is most significant, because Rabbi Moshe Feinstein passed away on the night of 13 Adar (II), he was then flown to Israel for burial about which there was a delay in the flight, and then he was buried during the daytime of 15 Adar, the date that Jews in Jerusalem celebrate Purim. But in this year, 15 Adar in Jerusalem was also a day of great mourning among some 300,000 Jews attending his funeral on Har HaMenuchot in Jerusalem, the largest funeral in Israel in a millenium! Hence, 14 Adar - the date in between the two dates of 13 Adar of his passing & 15 Adar of his burial - was the HAPPIER day in contrast to 15 Adar IN THAT YEAR (5746); 15 Adar normally being celebrated as the happiest day of the year in Jerusalem, the holiest city in the world. Yes, Rabbi Moses Feinstein's passing and burial was predicted in the Megillah nearly 2,350 years earlier!
THE FIRST OF ONE THOUSAND THREES
Today, we encountered quite a few things with the number three. Well, the number 100 is the first of a 1,000 THREE digit numbers. In the verse that we begin this post with that is related to the number 100 in two different ways, the phrase "the L-rd, your G-d" is mentioned THREE times. And Moses, the star of today - 7 Adar, was the THIRD one born of his siblings, as he is called the "third one" in relationship to the giving of the Torah which consists of three parts (as mentioned in Talmud Sabbath 87). But perhaps what is interesting here is that Moses was the third born counting from Miriam, a most righteous woman, who looked after Moses of the age of THREE months who was placed in a reed basket on the Nile to prevent being kidnapped and murdered by the Egyptians, in effect saving his life, along with Batya, princess of Pharaoh, who behaved and eventually lived as a Jewess in stark contrast to her evil father's ways, who took baby Moses in her loving arms, who is actually the one who provided Moses with his Hebrew name Moshe. Yes, women do count for at least 50% of the world race.
In praise of Moses, we see the last letter of the first word of Sefer Vayikra/Book of Leviticus of which we just read the first Parsha this past Shabbat - is a little letter Aleph. Among many explanations for this, this signifies the fact that Moses felt humble in being called by Hashem. He felt that there were those more worthy than him to be the one to be called out to by Hashem - Vayikra "He (Hashem) called out to Moses", the first word Vayikra ending with that little letter Aleph. We see in the Midrash that Hashem granted him a thousand points of light, which was in fact taken away from him following the sin of the Golden Calf, but still merited to have this on the Sabbath and other holy days. You see, the word Aleph for the letter Aleph which is the Gematria of one, can also be read as the same letters to read Eleph/thousand. Indeed, in the beginning of Sefer Devarim/Book of Deutronomy, Moses blesses the Jews that Hashem should bless them a thousand times over. By the way, as we wrote about the English alphabet today in relationship to Gematria, just as the word for Aleph of which the equivalent is the letter "a", can also be read to read Eleph-thousand, the very first time that the letter "a" appears in the spelled out numbers - one, two, three, etc. is the word for the number thousand! Coincidence?
Yes, with the right ATTITUDE, comes the BLESSINGS. As we see from Moses' blessings to his people on the final day of his life on today's date of 7 Adar, his blessings primarily consists of the bountifulness of the land of Israel, what we read on Simchat Torah, virtually the happiest day on the Jewish calendar when we conclude reading the Torah, and then we begin it anew. It was following the conclusion of this day - two and half years ago, that I began www.gematriot.blogspot.com. And as I conclude my 100th post on www.gematriot.blogspot.com, I write with the hopes of the next 100 posts being able to accomplish much more - with more followers; but most importantly, with much more action. Along these lines, I began this past week a new daily blogspot for the first five days of the week (relatively short) dedicated to learning the part of the Torah that is especially meritious to learn - the Holy Temple Service & Offerings - as it is considered as though we brought the offerings in the Temple that we learn about especially in absence of the Temple, as especially emphasized by the Chofetz Chaim - www.toratcohanim.blogspot.com. And then for learning how to keep Shabbat properly as there are numerous laws for keeping Shabbat , even for observant Jews who may learn something that they may have never come across before, I have a once-a-week post entitled www.shabbatlaws.blogspot.com.
Actions accompanied with the right ATTITUDE will lead to many BLESSINGS.
7 Adar II, 5771
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