A very short thought

The Name of God, ש-ד-י, in Gematria (letter-value system) has value 10,4,300, ie 314.

That is all.

If anyone has some nice insight into that, please comment or email me.

A brief description of the destruction of Sedom et all.

There are a number of points of archeological evidence that point to the nature of the destruction God wrought upon Sodom, [G]omorrah (the ‘g’ happened because the ancient ayin was a glottal stop, like the ‘Ng’ we see in a number of African names today) and the other cities of the fertile plain by the Jordan river. Together, they point to an airburst of a comet  or other previously orbital chunk of material, much like the one filmed over Russia a few years ago, or the Tunguska event.

In Perek יט

כג  הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ יָצָא עַל הָאָרֶץ וְלוֹט בָּא צֹעֲרָה.	23 The sun went out over the land, and Lot came to Tzoar.
כד  וַיהוָה הִמְטִיר עַל סְדֹם וְעַל עֲמֹרָה גָּפְרִית וָאֵשׁ מֵאֵת יְהוָה מִן-הַשָּׁמָיִם.	24 Then God caused to rain upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone (i.e. sulfur and sulfurous compounds) and fire from Go out of the sky.

Consider the Greek legend of Phaeton, wherein the son of their sun god stole the sun-chariot, and came too near the Earth, burning it, and Zeus was forced to explode him with a bolt of lightning.

This implies a Michael-Bayesque sequence:

The sun is burning just over the eastern horizon; the quiet peace of early morning hangs over Sodom, Gomorrah, and their sister-cities. Westward, in the foothills of what will one day, far in the future, be known as the Judean hills, six tiny human figures crest the first large hill, perhaps even a quite small mountain, worthy of the name.

                Then – suddenly – the sun grows suddenly huge, a fiery bull charging. A nameless comet burns towards some of the most ancient cities of Man, outspeeding its own sound more than twenty-fold. As it dives ever deeper into the ocean of air, it shatters into several chunks. Some fly further on, detonating over the glimmering Mediterranean, over remote & uncivilized Greece, now but a province of a mighty empire, its great days a double thousand years yet to come.

                One chunk, glowing eye-searing-bright, roars towards the Jordan. Lot’s wife turns back, stands atop the mountain, one hand shielding her eyes from the glare, wondering at the sun come so low.

                Below her, behind the shielding bulk of the hill, the men throw Lot and his daughters to the ground. It is already too late for her.

                The shard hits air so dense at its poly-Mach speed, it shatters as a fluffy snowball on a car window. But this snowball still carries the energy of multiple Hiroshimas within it. All that energy now disperses in every direction, a wall of heat and sound.

                Sodom and her siblings are flattened in an instant, its people disintegrated, the buildings pulverized, the crops incinerated.
                Lot’s wife, too, disappears to the blast wave.

                The blast reverberates off of the surrounding mountains; the nearby cities, Tzoar among them, in the mountains start at the blast, and gaze at the mushroom cloud, rising high into the atmosphere.

                Avraham too, sees the rising cloud from deep within the Judean hills – at Eylonei Mamre, where he had argued their defense the previous evening.

A thought for Shmini Atzeret

"God is a mathematician" - Plato

It is well-known that people around the globe celebrate mathematics in general, and pi (=3.14159...) in particular, on the dates which correspond to its common approximations.

These dates are March 14, 3.14 by the month-day notation, and July 22, 22/7 by the day-then-month notation.

But the Jewish calendar has its own day for this!

The first day of Succot is the 15 of Tishrei  (בְּמִדְבַּר כט:יב  וּבַחֲמִשָּׁה עָשָׂר יוֹם לַחֹדֶשׁ הַשְּׁבִיעִי). Hoshana Rabba, six days later, is the 21rst.

And Shmini Atzeret, the great day of closeness between Hashem and His nation - is the 22nd day of the 7 month.

We are His people, and He is our PhD advisor.

Sarcasm on Parshat Korach

:Parshat Korach  begins as follows

וַיִּקַּח קֹרַח, בֶּן-יִצְהָר בֶּן-קְהָת בֶּן-לֵוִי; וְדָתָן וַאֲבִירָם בְּנֵי אֱלִיאָב, וְאוֹן בֶּן-פֶּלֶת--בְּנֵי רְאוּבֵן.

And so took Korach son of Yitzhar son of Kehat son of Levi; and Datan and Aviram sons of Eliav, and Oen son of Pelet, sons Re'uven.

What did they take? In all the rest of Tanach, The word 'Vayikach' always has a clear object, the person taking, and a clear subject, the thing being taken. Here, the Torah only tells us who took!

I conjecture that they, in fact, took themselves. The language the Torah uses thus indicates that they took themselves – and from where? They took themselves out of the congregation of Bnei Yisrael.

Rav Hirsch on this parsha notes that 'taking', by its very nature, is also to make separate. I note that the words of separating in ancient Hebrew grow from the root word Kuf Daled Shin - Kadesh.

When Korach says to Moshe & Aharon:

'hashem - רַב-לָכֶם--כִּי כָל-הָעֵדָה כֻּלָּם קְדֹשִׁים, וּבְתוֹכָם יְהוָה; וּמַדּוּעַ תִּתְנַשְּׂאוּ, עַל-קְהַל'

Korach is employing sarcasm - he is insinuating that his Kahal – the Kahal that just constituted itself against Moshe and Aharon - is, by merit of having declared themselves separated to be leaders, more able and more worthy of leadership of Bnei Yisrael than Moshe – after all, Moshe was chosen by God, but Moshe was a reluctant leader - he only led because he had to. Korach is saying: Hey! Moshe - Good News - you can step down now, we got this under control! You don’t have to carry this burden anymore. It sounds pretty good, without the retrospect…

The adage that "Those who most seek power are those least fit to wield it" is indicated to be correct in God's eyes by His response to Korach’s Kahal’s Kedusha-claim. Or maybe, He simply dislikes sarcastic politicians!

Symbolism of the Rainbow

While walking to shul this past on a recent erev Shabbat, the one upon which the 9th of Av fell this year, I saw a faint rainbow in the clouds. This led to some mind-wandering on my walk, which ended with me pondering the following question:

Why is the rainbow the symbol of the covenant between God and Noach in the 9th Perek of Bereishet:

יב: וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹקים, זֹאת אוֹת-הַבְּרִית אֲשֶׁר-אֲנִי נֹתֵן בֵּינִי וּבֵינֵיכֶם, וּבֵין כָּל-נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה, אֲשֶׁר אִתְּדֶ--לְדֹרֹת, עוֹלָם
12: And God said: 'This is the token of the covenant which I make between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations
...
טז: וְהָיְתָה הַקֶּשֶׁת, בֶּעָנָן; וּרְאִיתִיהָ, לִזְכֹּר בְּרִית עוֹלָם, בֵּין אֱלֹקים, וּבֵין כָּל-נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה בְּכָל-בָּשָׂר אֲשֶׁר עַל-הָאָרֶץ
16: And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth:

Why is the rainbow chosen as the symbol of this covenant? Why not a torrential downpour? A terrible storm? A dove? A large boat? Why specifically a rainbow?

I propose the following:

The generation of the flood committed many sins - of violence and thievery and so on. Their sins were rooted in Sinat Chinam (Bereishit Rabbah 38:6) - in 'free' hatred (I will discuss that concept further in a future post).

What is one, if not the, root cause of Sinat Chinam? When one sees other people as completely separate from oneself - when any difference from oneself in another makes one's fellow an 'other' - a non-person.

A rainbow, to the human eye, looks like it is made of several distinct and separate bands of color. In reality, the color changes continuously*, without borders, along the width of the rainbow.

This is the symbol for Man - that we should look upon the rainbow, and perceive the symbol, to remember that as different as we may be from one-another there is no wall between us, there is no division that brings forth such a differentiation as between 'person' and 'other' - and when this is abrogated, Mankind once more walks the path of destruction.

May we all endeavor to bring forth, and merit to see, the day when all of humanity will hold this principle in their minds, and teach it to their children, inductively, for all time.


*For the mathematically inclined:
I note that in reality this is not quite true according to a mathematically rigorous usage of continuity, at least in the typical sense with which it is applied in analysis, due the the fundamental graininess of the universe on the smallest scale. I do not think that this negates the nice symbolism, and one can read not 'continuously' but rather 'without borders or sudden changes' if so desired.

Interstellar Geulah

 אִם-יִהְיֶה נִדַּחֲךָ בִּקְצֵה הַשָּׁמָיִם--מִשָּׁם יְקַבֶּצְךָ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ וּמִשָּׁם יִקָּחֶךָ

  Devarim 30:4 (end of Parshat Netzavim)

My translation is as follows:

[Even] If you will be scattered amongst the ends of the heavens - From there Hashem your God will gather you in, and from there he will take you [back to the Land].


 Elsewhere in Tanach, where similar phrases are recorded as spoken by the Neviim, they say:
 'מֵאַרְבַּע כַּנְפוֹת הָאָרֶץ' - from the four corners [i.e. furthest places] of the Earth.

 Why are Moshe Rabbeinu's words different? What are his words, of the clearest prophecy, telling us?

 I propose the following:

 These words are a promise the degree of which we can only now, with the words of those such as Isaac Asimov in our minds, truly understand and feel:

 Here we are promised that even if the exile, Heaven forbid, is so terribly long that we, Bnei Yisrael, are scattered among colonies across the solar system, even so unimaginably prolonged that we are Exiled to other worlds orbiting other suns* - even from there, He will gather us and bring return us to Him in our ancestral home - the Land of Israel.

 To us in this day and age - is the final part of the Geulah [redemption] as it is commonly thought of, so incomprehensible? Does it now require a direct and obvious act of God to ascend to the Land? We have merited to live in the time when we have come to understand the Universe that God has built for all life, and can at last truly exercise the Tzelem Elohim [image of God] in which we were created. In little more than half a day we can journey from any of those 4 corners to the Land. It is become mundane.

However, far from detracting from the glory of God, we rather gain even deeper insight into Him and His Universe from our endeavors.

May we, Am Yisrael rebuild the Beyt Hamikdash, the third and eternal, speedily, with our own hands, by the mechanism of the daily miracles we, all of humanity, have enacted by the chochma, binah, and da'at that we wield as ones who exist in the Image of God.


*This conjecture, if one also accepts as true that God's Nissim are always enacted through the mechanism of existing physical laws, this could plausibly imply that this universe was built with at least one workable FTL method...