Tag: 444

The 10 Plagues, Then and Now.

The Hidden Message in the 10 Plagues

It’s mandatory to celebrate Passover (Pesach) every year and recount the story of the exodus, including the explicit listing of the 10 plagues.  Why? Is it just so we don’t forget? Wouldn’t it be better to instead concentrate on the 10 miracles G-d performed for the Israelites on their way to receiving the 10 Commandments and the Torah?

A most common form of Torah analysis performed by the sages is to examine initials of key word groupings, phrases, or verses.  The sum of the nominal value of the initials in the 11 words that comprise the 10 plagues is 541, the numerical value of the name Israel, which is not only the last word in the Torah, but Israel was arguably formed out of the end of the exile immediately precipitated by the 10 plagues, especially the last plague, the killing of the firstborn, whose initials are Mem-Bet.

Mem-Bet is not only the  42-Letter Name of G-d, profoundly associated with the time of redemption, but it is named justly because it has the numerical value of 42, as in the 42 places the Israelites traveled through on their way out of Egypt to the Promised Land. It is also aligned with the journey every process must take through the 42 letters of the 11 sefirot.

The first letter of the 40 letters in the 10 plagues is dalet, with the numerical value of 4, as in the number of letters in Tetragrammaton and in the Name of G-d, Ehyeh, the Name used in “I am that I am.” The first plague, dam, blood, is spelled dalet-mem, which is numerically 4 plus 40 or 44.

The deeper secret is in the blood.   The first plague is Dam (Dalet-Mem), whose initial is dalet.  The initial of the last plague is Mem, thus the whole 10 plagues can be collapsed in abbreviated form into Dam (Dalet-Mem), the first plague. Not only does eth letter Mem, complete the word dam, but it in effect encompasses and represents the full 40 letters in the 10 plagues, because of its numerical value, 40.

Please note that that also means that there are an exact average of 40/10 or 4 letters per plague, the numerical value of Dalet.

We use the word encompasses because the final mem is not only shaped like a closed womb, but according to the sages it is supposed to represent one as well, and if we subtract the numerical value of dam (blood) from that of Da’at, the 11th and balancing sefira, we get 474 – 44 = 430, both the numerical value of nefesh, (the animalistic or lower part of the soul), which the sages tell us is housed in the blood, and also the number of years the Jews were in exile through the end of the 10 plagues.

Blood is also a fitting metaphor because from the womb flows both the blood of judgment unto the Egyptians, and the mercy to the Jews in the birth of the Israel.

We know from the sages that the Passover passage out of Egypt was about Da’at, the serifa of balance and knowledge, and also that Da’at was represented in the Dalet of Dam, the first letter of the first plague.   Furthermore, Dalet, when spelled out, has the numerical value of 434, while da’at has the numerical value of 474, leaving a difference of 40 between them, the numerical value of Mem, showing us that the full word dam, blood, is included in Da’at.

It’s all about Four (4)

While many of the significant mandated elements of Pesach (Passover) including the 4 questions, the 4 cups of wine, the 4 sons, the  4 aspects of the Tetragrammaton and the 4 letters in it and also in the name Eyheh, we been told by the sages that they correspond to the 4 exiles.

The first plague, blood, is spelled Dalet-Mem, with the first letter having the numerical value of 4, and the next letter having the value of 40, or 10 x 4.  Meanwhile, not only does the first letter of the last plague, the killing of the first born, also has the value of 40, but there are 40 letters in the 10 plagues, making 4 the exact average number of letters per plague.  And while the final letter of the 10 plagues is 400 or 10 X 40, the second plague, frogs, has a numerical value of 444, or 4 X 111, the numerical value of Aleph, the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet.

Moreover, the 4 letters of the Name Ehyeh, (EHYH)—the Name revealed to Moses just prior to the plagues–can be expanded through progressive method– sometimes called squaring–to  (E, EH, EHY, EHYH), which is numerically equivalent to 44, the same as dam, blood, the first plague.

The connection to 4 for Pesach and the 10 plagues at the end of the 1st exile is interesting because 10 is an extension both numerically and spiritually of 4. Numerically, the 4th triangular number has a value of 10, just as 10 is the sum of the first 4 integers, as in 1+2+3+4 = 10.

Spiritually, both the 4 letters of the Tetragrammaton and of the Name Eyheh when expanded by spelling them out have 10 letters each.   Moreover, as we mentioned earlier,  Passover is about da’at, which begins with the letter Dalet, of numerical value 4, while da’at is a sefira or dimension that combines the dimensions of Chochma and Binah, whose initials’ numerical values of 8 and 2 add up to 10.

So in a sense we see the 10 plagues extending throughout the 4 exiles, for a total of 40, as in the 40 letters in the 10 plagues, which is yet another reason it’s mandated we read the haggada and review all the plagues, etc every year throughout the various exiles.

The plagues didn’t just happen 66.6 jubilee years ago, they’ve been reoccurring continually throughout the 4 exiles in one form or another.   As for the first plague, dam, blood, there have been many times in these past 3330 years when tens and even hundreds of thousands have died and rivers of blood have flowed.

The 10 Plagues were Planned at the Beginning of Time.

While the 11 words of the 10 plagues correspond to the 11 unique letters in the first verse of the Torah, the first 4 letters of the Torah have an ordinal value of 44, the same as Dam, the first plague.

The next 2 letters, completing the entire first word of the Torah, Bereshit, “In the Beginning” have an ordinal value of 32, as in the value of the 4 components of the letter Aleph, connecting as we’ve discussed in other articles to the 32 Paths of Wisdom that define the structure of the universe and that house the 10 sefirot (dimensions).  When we add them together, we get numerically 76, or the fully expanded Tetragrammaton at the highest level of Av (chochma), but alphabetically they spell out Aleph-Dalet-Mem, or Adam(ELP).

Adam represents the start of Jewish soul, the source of which, as we’ve written about in other articles, is in the primordial Aleph that exists before the Torah, and dam, or blood, represents both the flesh and the flow of the lower soul (nefesh) throughout time, throughout the generations.

With Aleph as the source, we can note that the 11 initials of the 10 plagues have an ordinal value of 100 and if we add 11 as the kolel to 100 we get 111, the numerical value of the name of the letter Aleph(ELP). And once again we can connect with the primordial Aleph before the Dam (first plague) to get Adam

There is yet another analogy connection between the letter Aleph, whose 4 component letters (Y,V,V,Y) sum to 32, and the 10 plagues, and moreover to the initials of the final plague, Mem-Bet, as provided by Rabbi Chaim Vital of blessed Memory. The eminent sage explained that the 10 sefirot (dimensions) plus the 32 Paths of Wisdom that link them together form the structure of the greater universe and together they comprise the 42-Letters of the 42-Letter Name, the Shem Mem-Bet.

As explained in detail in The Genesis Prayer, the first verse of the Torah is where the Shem Mem-Bet, or the 42-Letter Name of G-d, is derived from, and if we take the sum of the numerical values of the initials of each of the 7 words of that first verse, which is 22—obviously representative of the 22 normal letters of the Hebrew alphabet—and add it to the ordinal value of those same 7 letters, which is also 22, we get 44, once again, the value of the first plague, dam, blood.

Incidentally, and again as discussed in detail in The Genesis Prayer, the first verse of the Torah is integrally connected in multiple ways to both the numerical value of Mashiach, the Messiah, 358 and to the mathematical constant PI to an astounding precision, and one of the simplest ways is through the average value of those 7 letters, 22/7 or 3.14.

Now, if we think this is coincidence we need only examine the full first 10 letters of the Torah and see that the sum of their ordinal values equals 100 (keter, the crowning highest dimension), the exact same 100 as the sum of the ordinal values of the initials of the 10 plagues.  Moreover, as mentioned earlier, the sum of the nominal value of those same initials is 541, the numerical value of the name Israel, the last word in the Torah.

The process of gematria computation allows us to subtract the kolel, as well as add it, and though I rarely use that approach, in this case if we subtract the sum of he ordinal values from the initials of the plagues (100) from the sum of their numerical values (541), we get 541 – 100 = 441, which is not only the numerical value of emet, truth, an allusion both to the Torah and to the 42-Letter Name of G-d, but it is also 212, or the square of the numerical value of the higher Name of G-d, Ehyeh.

Since the initials of the final plague are Mem-Bet and since the sum of all the initials of all 10 plagues (11 words) is 541, the numerical value of Israel, one interpretation is that the 10 plagues and 42 places lead to Israel.   Another is that it will take 10 plagues, corresponding to the 10 sefirot (dimensions) and the Mem-Bet to reach the final redemption.

The sum of the first 9 plagues is 499, the numerical value of Tzva’ot, another of the Biblical Names of G-d; therefore, yet another possible interpretation is that we need to go through 9 sefirot (chochma) and the utilize the Shem Mem-Bet to break through to the level of Keter.  The sages are quite clear that the 10 plagues correspond to the 10 sefirot and that the final one is at the level of keter(crown), but we can also see the word Keter (Caf-Tav-Reish) within the permutated letters of the final plague: Mem–caf-tav   Bet–caf-vav-reish-vav-tav Permutes to Tav-Vav, Caf-Vav,  Mem-Bet Caf-Tav-Reish.

Since Caf-Vav is 26 and an appellation of the Tetragrammaton, and since Tav-vav is the spelling of the last Hebrew letter, Tav, representing Malchut, which is our physical dimension, the lowest of the sefirot, we have the Tetragrammaton (26) and the Shem Mem-Bet helping us get from Malchut to Keter.

In addition, Mem-Bet Caf-Tav-Reish spells out Israel (YShREL) in gematria atbash (reverse alphabet cipher)

There are, of course, many deeper secrets and other possible interpretations here.

There are normally 41 letters in the 10 plagues with 41 being the number of letters in the name full Name Ehyeh spelled out, but In the Torah the word for beasts (or flies) is never spelled with the “vav” as it is in traditional Hebrew, leaving us with 40 letters.

The 11 Letters of the 10 Plagues and the Final Redemption

If we include the vav as is customary in most hagadahs, the sum of the 10 plagues using gematria sofit is 5546.  And 546 is not only the sum of the initials of the 10 sefirot, but moreover, 5546 + 232 = 5778, the year preordained for the manifestation of the Tree-of-life reality, with 232 being the sum of the 4 aspects of the Tetragrammaton.

As we’ve noted extensively in The Divine Calendar, the dates The Divine Calendarof the Exodus in 2448 HC, the Final Redemption in 5778 HC and the fulcrum point of the Gregorian Calendar in 3760 HC are all integrally connected and aligned, so it’s no surprise that the sum of the 10 plagues in standard gematria equals 3290, and when we add the ordinal value of the 40 letters in the 10 plagues, 468, we get 3290 + 468 + 2 (the kolel for the 2 elements of the equation) equals 3760, or 26.26 jubilee years after the Exodus.

Interestingly enough, the two initials of the last plague, the killing of the first born, are Mem and Bet and if we were to add the value of the missing vav (6) mentioned above to the 352 times that the initials Mem-Bet appears sequentially in the Torah, we’d get 352 + 6= 358, the numerical value of Mashiach, the Messiah.

Furthermore, if you sum up the square roots of each of the 10 plagues, utilizing gematria sofit, which gives special values to the special 5 final letters, and add the square root of 232 you get 314….

In one of the sage’s prophecies it says. “Like the days you left Egypt, I will show you wonders”.  This in reference to the final redemption.

According to the sages, Moses’ staff was engraved with both the Shem Mem-Bet (42-Letter Name) and the 72 Names of G-d, which are derived from the three consecutive 72 letter verses that narrate the crossing of the Red Sea (Sea of Reeds), were engraved on Moses’ staff and used in the splitting of the Sea.

Moreover, if we take the initials of the first and last plague together, we get Dalet-Mem-Bet, which is possibly connected to the 65th of the 72 Names of G-d: Dalet-Mem-Bet.

There are 11 unique letters in the first verse of the Torah, corresponding to the 11 spices of the Holy Temple and there are 11 first letters of the 10 plagues, which we can permute to spell out both the representative initials of the Shem Mem-Bet (the 42-letter Name) and the Ayin-Bet Shemot (the 72 Names) and more. These 11 letters can be permuted to form:

Echad (E,Ch,D)

Mem-bet (M,B)

Ayin-Bet (A,B)

Shaddai (Sh, D, Y)

Nun (N)

once the Tzaddi is broken into nun and yud. It’s said by the sages that in the time of Mashiach, the Messiah, the Tzaddi will split into Nun and Yud, then the Yud will change direction to facing forward) and then reconnect.

The significance of this is that they spell out Echad, One, as in “G-d is One;” Mem-Bet, as in the 42 Letter Name of G-d and the 42 places the Jews journeyed through on their way to Israel, and then Ayin-Bet, as in the 72 Names of G-d, both of which were used to split the Sea of Reeds according to chazal; and Shaddai, the Name of G-d that appears on all mezuzot and that starts of the mathematical constant Pi: and finally the letter Nun, whose numerical value is 50 as in the 50th Gate, which chazal say the Israelites were at before crossing the Sea of Reeds; also as in the 50 times the Exodus is mentioned in the Torah; as in the 50 days from the Exodus to the reception of the Torah at Mt. Sinai, as in the 50 component letters used to construct the 27 letters of the Hebrew alphabet; as in the length of the biblical jubilee year (50 calendar years) used to reckon the arrival of H’Mashiach, and as in the value of the Hebrew word for “Sea”.

In many senses the 10 plagues were a cleansing of the Jewish and world soul, the nefesh housed in the blood, in preparation for the reception of the Torah 50 days later.

The Hebrew year 5778, the year given as the year of the Final Redemption, is 2018 in the Western calendar and 50 years earlier, one jubilee year, was the year 1968, the year of Revolution.  It’s no coincidence the Beatles’ song Revolution came out that year.  1968 was the year the Vietcong launched the Tet Offensive and the world witnessed the My Lai Massacre; the year the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Rebellion; the year of Black Power demonstrations in Howard University, the Mexico City Olympics, etc; the year of student protests in Poland and Germany and Tlatelolco Massacre of the students in Mexico; the year the French Governments was brought to the brink of revolution under siege by the student protests; the year of the Cantonsville Nine war protest and student war protests in universities all over the US;  The year the war protesters clashed with the Chicago police outside the Democratic National Convention; the year Martin Luther King was assassinated and the riots that followed; the year Robert F Kennedy was assassinated; the year Nixon became president; and the year the Gold Standard was legally dropped and the dollar decoupled from gold, sealing the fate of the US economy; and finally the year Saddam Hussein took power in Iraq, setting us up for where we are today, ironically (coincidentally) mired in yet another Vietnam.

32 Years before the 2000 millennium, the year of Revolution began the final jubilee year, the last of the 66.6 jubilee years from the Exodus to the Final Redemption, the last of the 40 jubilee years from 3760 (0 CE) to 5778.

Frogs, Frogs and More Frogs–not a Freak Show.

Circus freak shows, usually include the world’s tallest and the world’s smallest, but Torah’s longest and shortest is no freak show–it’s very serious technology that can help greatly.

The Second plague, frogs, is very special indeed.  In our last article, we showed how the word frogs contains the hidden word birds, itself a code for angels. Today, let’s look at the 10 places the Torah describes the frogs swarming the Egyptians.  In the middle of them the Torah makes a point of saying that they will be in the Egyptian’s kneading troughs, which in Hebrew is the only 10-letter word in the Torah, matching the shortest verse in the Torah which we read a couple weeks ago, also 10 letters long: Genesis 46:23, “And the sons of Dan were Chushim” (VBNI DN ChShYM).

These all obviously have to do with the 10 sefirot (dimensions) of the Tree-of-life, but the word for kneading troughs, (VBMShERVTYC) is very interesting. first of all, it begins with and (V) the 42-Letter Name (ShMB) spelled out backwards (BMSh) and ends with the word Keter (CTR, the highest, crowning Sefira) backwards (VBMShERVTYC)

Similarly, the Name Israel in gematria atbash, leaving the central Resh (R) unchanged, transforms from  YShREL  to MBRTC or 42 – CTR (keter) backwards.

The rest of the letters in the 10 letter word (VBMShERVTYC) are spelling backwards, YVEV. We’ll get to that in a moment but first we should note that this word is the 15th in the verse and the total numerical value of this word is 985, therefore 985 + 15 = 1000 (keter of keter), the full manifestation of all the subsefirot (dimensions, 10 x 10 x 10) within the 10 sefirot.

The rest of the letters in the 10 letter word (VBMShERVTYC) are spelling backwards, YVEV, the masculine (or divine channeling) letters of the various Names of G-d., such as YHVH and EHYH. Notice that these Names have in common with YVEV the repetition of the 2nd and 4th letters–this pattern mimics the spiritual 4 phase process that Rav Ashlag explains in his Ten Luminous Emanations created the universe and still today guides our interaction with it.

The Zohar reveals about the Final Redemption that it connects to the Holy name for Zeir Anpin, which is the spelled name of YHVH in the form of יוד-הא-ואו-הא. When we removed the feminine or receptive letters (the VD of the letter Yud spelled out (YVD) and the two spelled out letter’s Hey (HE), we’re left with YVEV.

What’s left over of this Name are the letters יוד-הא-הא which have numerical value 32 as the first ב and last letters ל of the Torah. Together they spell לב, ‘heart’ with the numerical value 32, connecting also the 32 times the word ELOHM mentioned in the story of Creation, and especially to the 32 Pathways that comprise the tree-of-Life.

Before we get back to the Torah’s longest word and frogs, let’s take a quick look at the Torah’s shortest verse, and find that amidst the listing of the 70 Israelites who entered Egypt to begin the exile there, there is the Torah’s shortest verse, Genesis 46:23, “And the sons of Dan were Chushim” (VBNI DN ChShYM), and that similar to the Torah’s longest word and also to the structure of the Tree-of-life, it is 10 letters divided into 3 parts (words), one of which is a permutation of Moshiach (MShYCh).  In fact, the verse contains the permutation of (MShYCh BN DVNY), or Mashaich Ben 70 since the last 4 letters have the numerical value of 70.  It could even be (MShYCh BN DV – NY), or Mashiach Ben David, NY.

We also find that both begin with (VB), whose spelled-out format (VV BYT) has a numerical value equal to 424, that of Moshiach Ben David. And moreover, that both include the letters that spell out the acknowledged initials (VMBSh) for “and the 42-Letter Name).  In this case the final letters add up to 1110 or 10 times Aleph (111) the first letter, and by design, the final plague, the killing of the first born, whose initials are (MB, 42) begins at Exodus 11:1.

The first plague, also of the life-flowing element water, is Dam, blood, of numerical value 44. Frogs (Tzfardim), the second of the 10 plagues is 444, and the value of the initials (based on their first mention) of the first 9 plagues is 444, the same as frogs. Why?

For one, they are stem from the 4 letters of the YHVH and represent not just the 1st exile but all 4–especially the 4th–exiles; and two, because the plagues are all about the angels, the hidden code within frogs (Tzfardim), and about rectifying and purifying the negative (anti-) Tree-of-life.

This is why 444 = 4 x 111 (aleph). This is why the value of the initials of the last 5 plagues = 358, Moshiach. This is why the initials of the 11 words in all 10 plagues = 541, Israel, and why the last plague’s initials are 42, MB, and also why there are 42 letters in the 11 Names of the sefirot in the Tree-of-life.

And it is probably why Obama is the 44th President at this time and came in with the 111th Congress.

It’s time to recognize the signs around us, and to recognize those within us as well.  Change occurs internally and manifests externally.  Once we change, so to will our environment.  The plagues didn’t just occur outside the Egyptians windows,  Torah makes the repeated point that they happened within the Egyptians homes.

Egypt (Mitzraim) means constriction in Hebrew, limitation. Don’t make Pharaoh’s mistake; don’t harden your heart as times get tough.  We need to soften our hearts if we want to experience the world beyond limitations and illusions.

Fish, Birds, and Frogs: What’s next?

Are we reliving the 10 plagues as many fear? First the Fish died off by the 100’ooo’s, just as the Torah tells us that they did in the first plague when the Nile turned into blood, then the Birds fell from the sky by the thousands, except that the second plague is all about frogs, not birds. Or is it?

If you want to be literal, it’s frogs. If you want to examine the word for frogs (TzPRDAYM), you’ll see the root of the word BIRDS hidden within (TzPRDAYM), Tziporim.  And which letters are left out, the Ayin and Dalet, the two extra-large letters that begin and end the 6 word verse that start of the Shema Ysrael prayer, which we’ve been discussing on our articles. These are the same two letters spell AD, a special word that is connected to the final redemption, but more on that soon.

We can explain this, though, that AD is the Hebrew word for witness and that often when used in a specific phrase that also occurs in the 10 plagues, it takes the Torah completely out of historical context and is written in present tense, as if it were meant for us today. And in Shmot (Exodus 10:1), amongst other places, G-d explained to Moses that He hardened their hearts (Lev or numerical value 32) in order to be able to demonstrate these miraculous signs amongst them.

Who was G-d demonstrating these signs for, if not us? Certainly the Egyptians didn’t need signs; they were living the freakish events and as G-d also explained to Moses, He could have wiped out the Egyptians at any time. So as we look deeper, we must view the events of 66.6 jubilee years ago as signs, warnings and previews to help us realize what is going on around us today.

As for fish and birds being biblically linked together, we need look no further that the first chapter of the Bible, Creation, where in the very same verse (Genesis 1:26) that G-d made Man, he gave him dominion over “the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky”. By extension He was also giving him responsibility. The linkage in creation went back even further to Genesis 1:20, when G-d said, The water shall teem with swarms of living creatures, Flying creatures shall fly over the land…” No land creatures were yet mentioned in this verse, and the scenario was repeated in verse 1:21 and yet again in 1:22, so we see that on many levels Fish and Birds were meant to be connected. (not so must surf and turf)

When G-d told Pharaoh through Moses that there would be frogs in 10 places what was He really saying? First, that they’d be in all 10 sefirot(dimensions), which makes no sense, right? Unless, we see the hidden birds, and unless we realize that birds are kabbalistic code for angels, in which case G-d is telling Pharaoh that there will be angels in all 10 sefirot, dangerous negative angels.

To understand this, we must first know that there are 10 negative sefirot that correspond to the 10 positive sefirot of the Tree-of-life; theses are known as the layers of klippot, hardened shells that feed off of divine energy and block it from us.  And secondly, we must recall that this 2nd plague was in response to the Egyptian sorcerers manipulating the 10 negative sefirot to mimic G-d’s handiwork (through Moses and his angels) with the Bloody Nile in the first plague.

The proof of this extention is in the numerical value of the first plague, Dam (DM, blood), which is 44 and of tzefardim(TzPRDAYM, frogs) which is 444, and if the initials of the first 9 plagues, also 444.

Also recall that no one, except the fish, died in the first plague. No one in the 2nd plague either, except the frogs.  And by the way, no Egyptian died in any of the first 9 plagues.

So if no Egyptian died, what was the purpose of the plagues.

They were cleansing the influence of the 10 negative sefirot on our world, cleansing away the veils of illusion, which have once again grown thick and opaque with the filth and soot of our negative consciousness.

Another clue to this besides the obvious, 10 plagues, 10 sefirot (dimensions) lies in the numerical value of the word heart, (LB, 32), which was hardened 10 times, for you see there are 32 pathways within the 10 sefirot that comprise the Tree-of-life.  And just to be sure, we didn’t miss the point, the final plague occurs in paragraph 32 of Exodus (Shmot), the Book whose proper Hebrew translation is “Names.”

And every time the negative pathways were hardened they became more fragile in order that they shatter, just as the Zohar explains they had done prior to Creation in the world of Tohu (Genesis 1:2).

G-d was also specifically cleansing the negativity out of the Nile (216), removing the blood judgment and the negativity manifest by the negative angels, in order that the Nile would respond to the 216 letters of the 72 Names and split apart for the Israelites. 216 is the numerical value of gevurah, harsh judgment; in contrast, 72 is the numerical value of chesed, sweetened mercy, also known as loving-kindness.

G-d didn’t create the negative angels, though, the Egyptians did. The negative angels were there all along in the Egyptian’s homes and lives; G-d just removed the curtain of invisibility. If we could see them today, even as frogs or birds, in our bread plates (kneading troughs) we’d freak out too.

Yet, the Egyptians, so used to sorcery and so beholden to the spurious pleasure of physicality, didn’t freak out. Both they, and the Israelites, required 8 more plagues to wake up.

First the Nile turned into Blood and the fish washed up on the river bank, then the Frogs came out of the Nile. The name Nile has a numerical value of 216, as in the 216 letters of the 72 Names (triplets) that Moses utilized to split the Sea of Reeds.  These Names were derived from the 3 consecutive verses of 72 letters each that describe the actual splitting of the sea in the Torah. If you recall from Pharaoh’s dream, Pharaoh saw the cattle coming out of the reeds from the Nile.  Could the Nile be the Sea of Reeds? The Bible says nothing of the Red Sea.

But what does it all mean for us today?

One, if we examine Rav Ashlag’s prophecy and the wisdom passed down through the ages, we see that the final period before Moshiach (messiah) and the final Redemption (Geula) was to last 444 years beginning in about 1573-4 CE (5733-4 HC), which means in 2017 – 2018 CE (5778 HC), this decade.

Two, with the birds falling out of the sky these last few days the allusion is drawn to the angels falling out of the sky, not something we really want to see, is it?

This is Wisdom: There is a specific pattern to the 10 plagues to make it easier to follow the events spiritually and physically. The first 2 plagues came from the element of water, the next 4 came from the element of land, and the final 4 came from the element of air.

And the first 2 plagues affected and killed the fish and birds; the next 4 affected and killed off the animals and livestock; and following 2, (the 7th and 8th) wiped out in a 2-part whammy all the vegetation, while the last 2 plagues affected the people, plunging them into darkness and killing off their first born.

Water (2), Earth(4), Air (4)

Fish/Birds (2), Animal kingdom(4), Vegetable kingdom(2), Man(4)

But we must do more that watch for signs. If we want to reach the Tree-of-life reality beyond the world of limitations we need to reestablish our dominion over our world by taking responsibility for it and by cleaning out our consciousness ourselves, before it is done for us.

The Missing 222 Years; What is Time?

Someone recently asked me why if some of the sages said Moshiach would come in the 6th millennium, did the tzaddkim say 5778; how are we to account for the missing 222 years.  The concept of time is a difficult one to grasp. Sure, we can all watch the clock and measure out 24 hours in a day, but that’s a man-made measuring strategy, not a spiritual or universal one.  A year is just the measure of time that the Earth journeys around the sun.  So what’s a year in another Solar system? And how is either of those measuring strategies relevant to a Martian?

Einstein brought us space-time, in which time could be bent and stretched like an elastic sheet with a heavy rock placed on it.  Meanwhile, Rav Ashlag explained the kabbalistic approach to time in that spiritual time is measured purely in distance, and distance is measured in similarity of form. Confusing?

What makes time so hard to grasp is that we view it from a very limited perspective, one concretely anchored in the world of Malchut (of matter), and we NEED it to be fixed in order to make sense of our world.

But imagine for a second, if you could let go of all that and allow time to become elastic for you. Imagine the ability to stretch or shrink time at will, to make a single hour long enough to accomplish everything you need to do in a day, a week, or even a year; imagine how far ahead of the game you would be then.

It would be like being in two, or ten, places at once. You could hit a ground ball and be rounding third even before it got to the shortstop because it would be stretched only from your perspective, not his. Think of all the lives you could save and mizvot you could do.

Alas, very few of us possess this ability. Only a very few of us have restricted our physical nature so completely that we’ve achieved the level of mind over matter where we can choose our own reference of time.

Nevertheless, if you’ve recited the Ana B’koach while trying to accomplish something difficult or seemingly impossible (see The Genesis Prayer) you’ve probably seen time and reality shift before your eyes.  I know I have.  So I know first hand that time can be stretched and bent and that Einstein’s theory is real in more than the abstract sense.

Scientists and pragmatists in general have a very hard time with the concept of  a Creation that limits our existence to 5771 years.  They have all the proof their eyes can show them that the universe is 13.7 billion years old and that it’ll last a few billion more give or take.  So for arguments sake, lets say the universe is 13.7 billion of our “limited time frame years” old, so what?

The Zohar tells us the Torah existed for 2000 years before Creation and it never said how long those years were in our time-frame.

Moreover, our time-frame and thus our fixed calendar wasn’t established until the sun and stars were set in the 4th day.  Again, according to the Zohar and the Arizal, the Torah existed in a permuted state that allowed for complete potentiality prior to its fixation  which began with the Bet of Bereshit in verse 1:1. Yet even with the Beginning, only Zeir Anpin and Malchut, the lower 7 dimensions, corresponding to Heaven and Earth were fixed.  Prior to then, all was pure energy, known as Light, the force ultimately responsible for directing matter and thus life, but also the force we can still feel a million times removed, as love.

Those 2000 years could be billions from our limited perspective and they are really more like infinity if the truth be told.  Nevertheless, according to the structure of the Tree-of-Life, all energy(light) is stepped down or diminished in form increments of 10 times, making each level 1/10th that of the level (sefirot or subsefirot (dimension) above it.  Thus on the 1st Day of Creation another 200 spiritual years past, and on the 2nd day, 20 spiritual years past, and on the 3nd day, 2 more spiritual years past.

Thus by the time the Sun was fixed in the sky in relation to the Earth, 2000, 200, 20, and 2 or 2222 years had past spiritually.  Once the sun was fixed, the Earth could complete a trip around it and thus our reference point changed. We were no long surging through infinity, connected to everything and nothing at once; we were separate and isolated.  We aged 1 year from our limited point of view with every encircling  of the Earth around the Sun.

We could track it with shadows and set a calendar to it.

On that day the Sun’s surface temperature was set to the exact number of degrees that would permit life as we know it to flourish on earth: 5778 K

Everything is 2’s in the Genesis: (day and night), light and dark, sea and sky, water and dry land, sea creatures and flying creations, etc.  Spiritually, it takes 2 to equal 1. “It was evening and it was morning, one day.”

Then there’s Adam and Eve, and Noach’s 2 at a time menagerie, Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau. They are all part and parcel of same spiritual concept.

Then two more days past, equivalent to 2 months and 2 days and Adam was created, and our calendar officially began, and so too the countdown to 5778 as prescribed by some of the tzaddikim.

The 5778 + 222 years gives us the 6 millennium, and completes 6000 years, or in gematria, the 6 alephs (elephs/thousands) that appear in the first verse of the Torah, thus establishing Heaven (Zeir Anpin). The 6 alephs are in every word except H’Sham’im (Heaven), reinforcing the point. The also alternatively total 666, which will be relevant in a moment.

According to the Zohar then,there are a total of 2000 + 6000, or 8000 total years until the geula from the true beginning,  though as we’ve discussed not all of these years are of the same length, and the number 8 always connects us to the higher sefira (dimension) of Binah.

Nevertheless, the 222 years are above (spiritual), and kabbalah teaches us that what happens above gets reflected below, so we should also account for 222 years in our world, and we find them in the time of our Patriarchs.

We know that the Covenant of Abraham occurred in 2018 HC and that the Torah specifically tells us the exile in Egypt would last 430 years; that takes us to the year 2448 when the Red Sea was split and the Torah (tree-of-Life) was received at Sinai.  But the Torah also tells us the Israelite left Egypt 210 years after Jacob and his 70 family members entered.

430-210 is 220 unaccountable years, and they are considered to be the 220 of exile in Canaan, part of the full Egyptian exile. Jacob is the key.

He promised to tithe to G-d and then worked for 22 years.  According to the Ari, Jacob was an incarnation of Adam and worked most of his life to rectify the sins of Adam.  As is said by chazal; Adam (ADM) stands for Adam-David-Mosiach and while David’s life falls at the exact midpoint (2889 HC) from Adam (0) to 5778, by tithing those 22 years Jacob saved us 220 years, and completed the full 6 millennium for us.

Now we are ready to understand how Rav Yehuda Halevi Ashlag and the tzaddikim arrived at the same date of 5778 for the geula and the 3rd opportunity for the Tree-of-life (endless) reality.  According to the Arizal, there is a deep kabbalistic understanding that the upper 1/3 of all and of any of the sefirot are oriented upwards toward G-d and the higher spiritual realm, and the lower 2/3 of them are oriented downward to the self, to our physical world. That is 1/3 = .333 and 2/3 = .666.  Before we explain Rav Ashlag’s computation, please note once again that there are 66.6 jubilee years between the 2nd tree-of-life opportunity (the reception of the 10 Commandments and the Torah) in 2448 HC and the year 5778 HC (2018 CE. This is 3330 of our normal years.

Rav Ashlag separated the 6 millennium (6000 years) into those years dedicated to G-d, and those to the self, thus 2000 and 4000, respectively, giving us a base of 4000 selfish (malchut) years and 2000 years left to purify once again. So taking those 2000 years, then separated them into 666.66 (667) and 1333.33, he came up with a total of 5333.33 base years and 666.66 years left to purified further, which coincidentally coincided with the birth of the Ari, of blessed memory. These final 666.66 years he purified once again into 444.44 base years and 222.22 spiritual ones. This left him with the year for Moshiach at 5777.78 and with the 222.22 spiritual years that as we’ve seen above reflect both the spiritual years before Adam and the completion of the 6th millennium.

6000: 4000          +       2000

2000:   1333.33     +          666.67

666.67:  444.44     +           222.22

5777.78   +          222.22 =  6000

So we’re now comfortably at the full 6000, and according to chazal there will be a 1000 year Shabbat (7th millennium) and then another 1000 year period (forever) of limitless existence, corresponding to the 8th millennium, for a total of physical and spiritual years on this side of Creation of 8000.

If we add that to the 2000 years the Zohar tells us the Torah existed in limitless form before Creation, we have a total of 10,000 years, 1000 years for each of the 10 sefirot: 4222 spiritual ones and 5778 physical ones, or 42% and 58%.

I guess it’s no wonder the 42-Letter Name of G-d is key to Creation and to the geula (final redemption), as advised by chazal, and that the 5-8 combination 58, 58, etc) and ratio (5/8) is central to the structure of the Torah, or that the complete gematria sofit value of the 42-Letter Name is 5778.

Nevertheless, we were discussing time, and we can look at our 5778 physical years as the bottom portion of a bowl, or better yet, of a tall narrow vase with steep side.  To us at the very bottom, time and the passing years appear flat like the earth, but we know that the earth is round and curves at any horizon.

In reality, time does as well, and the curve gets steeper before and beyond the 5778 year period that is soon ending.  At 7 years away, we are still too far away to really see it, but I suspect that soon the curvature will come into view.  As illustrated above, the first 2 seconds will be as 20; the first 2 minutes will be as 200, the first 2 hours as 200o, the first 2 days  as 20000, the first 2 months as 200,000; and the first 2 years as 2 million; and the first 20 years as 20 million; and the first 200 years as 200 million, while the final 1000 and 2000 will be nearly infinite.

You may feel that in the past 60-70 years time has felt as if it’s speeding up what with planes, and rockets, and satellites, and the advent of the telex, facsimiles, cell phones, email, instant messaging, texting and tweeting, but we’re only approaching the event horizon; things will really speed up in the near future.

As time speeds up science and spirituality will converge.  Already, scientists have settled on the 10-dimensional structure of the universe, the same as the ancient kabbalists and Abraham back in 2018 HC when he wrote about them and the 22 building blocks of the universe.  2018 CE is fast approaching; it’s time we all catch-up.

No one should be left behind.