Tag: megillah ester

The Fingerprints of G-d

There is a place with G-d’s fingerprints all over it. And they form a pattern, two hand prints, 10 fingers and a date.

Last week, I was wrapping one of our Pesach cabinets, when I discovered 3 bags of Israeli cous cous (chametz gamor) in the cabinet we were selling beside it. My ego swelled and I felt like a hero. In the very next second, the door swung shut on my pinky, crushing it.  I carefully removed the chametz and paused to ponder the relationship between the two events, which by the way is the real kabbalah—examining the causes and effects in our lives, not reading people’s astrological signs. I realized G-d was not allowing me the slightest ego and was crushing it out of me like oil from an olive.  I was so grateful. The pain and bruising went away instantaneously and I saw G-d’s fingerprint in the event.

I had no trouble seeing G-d’s hand in the cause-and-effect event. Thanks to the wave of Binah energy that is blanketing us, shortening the time frame between cause and effect, many like-minded individuals can see it too.  But what of the skeptics and doubters? At the time of the incident I had been working on an answer for them, a place where G-d’s fingerprints would be unmistakable and unquestionable. Moreover, these fingerprints tell a story, tell us about the opening of the 50 Gates of Binah and the onset of the 1000 years of Moshiach Ben David that are upon us.

If G-d were to have carved His Designs, Plans and Name in a 1000-year-old tree would people believe it was real? No, anyone could have carved them there. If He engraved them in large letters high up on a giant rock ledge, would they be heeded? Probably not, again someone could conceivably carved them. If He gave us specific instructions in the Torah would Man follow them? Again, as is evidenced, most would not, and even many of those that do do not know what to make of them. Total certainty, the necessary password for the Gates of Moshiach, is so difficult to achieve.

So where could G-d place these designs and plans of His so that we can be sure that only He could have written them, and none other? There is a place and it is hard to reach, in fact, it was only reachable in the last few decades and only to the people least likely to have such faith in G-d. Even though we can prove beyond the slightest doubt that Man could not have written the Torah and that much of the Torah is designed to connect us with the various Names of G-d we cannot prove to you that G-d wrote it; after all, a hyper intelligent life force from outer space or from the future could have done it too. Nevertheless, the omniscient G-d redundantly placed those designs and proofs for us in a place that aliens could not have created.  G-d hardwired them into the fabric of the universe, into the physics and mathematics that have existed since the dawn of time.  G-d made them tamperproof. G-d made them immutable and he made them readily accessible to us only as a last resort.  We had thousands of years to find G-d on our own. With no time left, we demand proof.

Before the bundled 7 dimensions of Zein Anpin, the stairway to Heaven represented by the Torah, there existed the realm of Binah. Binah is characterized by the Primordial Hebrew letter Aleph (א), whose numerical value is both 1 and also 1000.   The spiritual dimension of Binah (Understanding) is the World to Come.  Binah is the 1000-year long Shabbat; it is the 7th millennium.  It is represented by both the 1000 letters in the Shema prayer and by the first 1000 digits in the mathematical constant Pi.  It is the place of the primordial letter Aleph (א).  It is the place of infinite understanding and limitless possibilities.  It is upon us and the 50 Gates of Binah are wide open.

Given that the standard mathematics in our universe is base 10 and that our modern scientists and ancient kabbalists agree that the 10 sefirot (dimensions) form a whole or unity/oneness in both our physical and spiritual universe, base 10 logarithms are the equalizers that make all numbers equate to 10.  The standard mathematics in our universe is base 10, meaning we count from 1 to 10, then 10 to 100, and 100 to 1000 in cycles of 10.  Not coincidentally, the standard gematria (numerical valuation) of the Hebrew letters are counted the same way.  Logarithms sound complicated, but the logarithm (log) of a number is the exponent (power) to which another fixed number, called the base, must be raised to produce that number. If we wanted to know the base 10 logarithm of 1000 we would need to calculate to what power 10 must be raised to equal 1000 and since 1000 = 10 × 10 × 10 = 103, the “logarithm to base 10” of the number 1000 is 3.

This simple schematic of 10 x 10 x 10 equaling 1000 and thus 103, mimicking the spiritual structure of the universe in 3 columns and 3 iterations of the 10 sefirot (dimensions) whereby the 1 st iteration is equivalent to our world, Malchut , the next one to Zeir Anpin and the 3 rd to Binah.

This unity/oneness in our base 10 mathematical system is why the logarithm of the number 10 is 1 (0ne).  That same system dictates that the sum of the logarithms of the integers from 1 to 70 is 100.078, in order words if we take all the resultant logs for each number from 1, 2, 3… 70 and add them all together they would give us 100.078, metaphorically 1000 and 78. Kabbalistically, the decimal place is irrelevant, as it is just a multiple of 10.  Also 78 is the value of the Hebrew initials of the 3 column Tree-0f-Life (חיים עצ) which is the choice we must make in 5778.  We must choose the tree-of-life over the tree-of-knowledge of good and evil and yet G-d purposely embedded his signature within the boundaries of our knowledge.  And while 78 is 3 times the value (26) of the Tetragrammaton (יהוה), 1000 is 3 iterations of the 10 sefirot of the tree-of-life (10 x 10 x 10).

Adding up 70 irrational numbers and coming up with a whole round number like 100.0 to 3 decimal places is pretty special, but the number 70 itself has a very special place in G-d’s Divine plans. There were 70 members of Jacob’s family that entered Egypt; 70 members of the Sanhedrin that were formed at Mt Sinai; the 10 Commandments were found in the 70 th chapter in the Torah; and the many all-important 70-year periods throughout Biblical history from Adam to Abraham to David to the exiles and all 3 Holy Temples, culminating in the 70 years since the birth of the State of Israel to the prophesied coming of Moshiach this year in 5778.  This deep impression connecting the 1000 sub-sefirot (dimensions) of Binah with the 70 sub-sefirot of Zeir Anpin is but a single fingerprint that G-d left for us within the logarithmic scale. It is also the connection we need to make to jump from Zeir Anpin, the heavenly ladder, to Binah.

The logs of a number are immutable, and man has no say in them. The results are unique.  After noting that within the endless stream of logs, the number 70 stands out starkly, as in the 70 members of Jacob’s family that entered Egypt, we can see yet another fingerprint of G-d in the unity and oneness of the 600,000 souls that received those 10 Commandments at Mt Sinai: the base 10 log of 600,000 is 5.778.  It is because all is One and in G-d’s plans everything is One, everything ties together.  There were about 3 million Israelites at Mt Sinai, but the Torah specifically singled out and mentioned the 600,000 men who were there, just as it specifically mentioned the 70 family members.  Man barely knew how to count 3330 years ago when the Torah was given at Sinai, so there is no way he could have calculated the logarithms to choose these specific numbers.  As the Arizal pointed out, those 600,000 souls at Sinai divided by the 70 family members and again by the 12 sons of Israel and the 3 Patriarchs gives us 10000/42, representing the 42-Letter Name of G-d capable of unifying us.

Another thing that Man could not have known about 3330 years ago is that there are 3 strings of the digit sequence “…5778…” within the first 1000 digits of Pi (3.14159265358…) and also 3 strings of the sequence of “…2019…”, giving us consecutive back-to-back years 2018 and 2019 in the Gregorian calendar.  Two of those “…2019…” numerical strings are actually matching 5-digit strings of “…42019…” each, coupling the year 2019 with the number 42.  Also, when Man was told at Mt Sinai in the year 2448 to start counting jubilee years (50-year periods), he could not have known that he would have to wait 3330 or 66.6 jubilee years, until the year 5778 for his next opportunity to reach Binah.

You can find 1000s of explanations of how the mathematical constant Pi is anything but random in the books, Nothing is Random in the Universe, and some illustrations of how standard gematria interprets them such as (3.14159265358…) breaking down to the Names of G-d 31 (אל); 15 (יה); 26 (יהוה) and at the 10th decimal place 358, Moshiach.  The World to Come, Binah, associated with the number 1000 is called the great Shabbat, one of 1000 years so how telling is it that the first string of “…42019…” within those 1000 digits of Pi is located at digit #702, the numerical value of Shabbat, or that the final 42019 is the last 5 digits of the 1000 and that the sum of the 995 digits until it is 4446, when 44 x 46 equals 57.78 yet again. Another thing about 4446 is that it is 1332 or 2 x 666 less than 5778.

Let us be crystal clear, Man can mess with his DNA; Man can mess with nuclear atoms, but Man can not shape of influence which digit in Pi is where or how often it reoccurs. Only G-d could do that.  And while Man had a hand in warming up the Earth a little, it was G-d’s prerogative to make the surface temperature of the Sun, 5778K.

The fingerprints of G-d are all over the mathematical constants Pi and Phi. For example, intercalated amongst those first 13 digits of Pi with the Names El, Yah, the Tetragrammaton (יהוה) and Moshiach are the 3 digits 4, 9 and 5, who add up to 18, whose square root is 4.24 (Moshiach Ben David).  When we raise the other primordial mathematical constant Phi (1.61803399…) to 18, we get 5778.000 yet again.

By the way, those 3 intercalated numbers (4, 9, and 5) were the 3 rd, 6 th and 9 th digits, which also sum to 18, and (4 x 3 + 9 x 6 + 5 x 9) = 111 or Aleph (אלף) representing Binah.  Nevertheless, this article is mostly about G-d’s fingerprints found in His system of Logarithms and not so much which we have already written about extensively.  Atheists would say it is nature that determines the physical laws that created mathematics and our solar system, and believers would say G-d (Elohim) is nature. While believers can easily see G-d’s plans being unveiled, atheists probably still see it all as mere coincidence, impossible 1 in a trillion coincidences, but coincidences nonetheless.  Believing in G-d is all about letting go of our ego, and the belief that we are in control is the hardest aspect of ego to let go of.  Denial is the purest form of ego.

Let us examine some of those so-called coincidences.  While the log of 9 is .95424, spelling out in gematria “The King Moshiach Ben David (95 and 424),” the number 954 also represents the digit #954 within Pi, where the 3rd and final 5778 is located within those first 1000 digits. The final one of the 3 sequences of “…2019…” comprise the absolute last 4 digits in the first 1000 digits of Pi, metaphorically the year that the Gates of Binah and sealed. The final “…5778..” is part of a 10 digit sequence “…5778185778…”that starts at digit #948 and the sum of the digits in Pi up to that point is 4240 or 10 x 424.

Interestingly, there are 42 digits between the last “…5778…” at digit #954 and the last “…2019…” at digit #996. This is like the prophecies of the prophets calling for a period of 42 months until the final redemption.  The log of 10 is Unity (1); the log of 9 spells out “King Moshiach Ben David;” and the Log of 8 is .90309, which hints at the 42-Letter Name of G-d since 903 is the sum of the integers from 1 to 42.

The 42-Letter Name of G-d is the ladder to Binah built into the Torah’s first verse and according to Rav Brandwein of blessed memory, “The Understanding of the 42-Letter Name will bring about the geulah (final redemption).  Of ALL the endless sums of the logs from the bases 1 – 10, the ONE number that is closest to a whole number is 42, or most precisely 41.99997. This makes the number 42 unique in the universe. This is because the 42-Letter Name is the ladder that we can actually climb that bridges our world with heaven and eventually with Moshiach Consciousness (Binah).  This is also why we use the 42-Letter Name matrix to count the Omer every year and why it is especially important this year.

Adding up the logs of all the bases from 1 to 10 is not arbitrary, as in our base 10 mathematical and physical world, 10 represents the completion of a level. It does as well in the spiritual realm. The Zohar explains nothing happens below that does not happen above.  When we do add them up, we are adding up the resultant numbers of calculating each power exponent for each of the 10 bases,

If the log of 6 being .778 and that of the integers 8, 9, and 10 are also telling, then what of the sum of the logs from 1 to 11, whose value when squared is 57.78. Similarly, the sum of the squares of the integers from 1 to 11 is 506, which is not only the value of the first line of the 42-Letter Name matrix and also the number of the Torah occurrences of the 14 triplets in 42-Letter Name matrix, but it is also the complete gematria value of “Moshiach Ben David.”

We have been advising about the convergence of the Gregorian and Western Calendars upon the year 5778 for 20 years now so we would be remiss to point out that the ONLY log whose Hebrew Calendar year aligns with its Gregorian one is the year 2000 or 5760 in the Hebrew Calendar.  Through the Log of 5760, which is 3.76042248, the year 3760 HC, the year “0” in the Western Calendar is eternally connected.  2000 years separate the two dates and there are no other dates that line up separated as whole numbers at all.  Ironically, the date 3760 HC is followed by 422, the year the 1 st Holy Temple was destroyed, -422 BCE.  The 2 nd Holy Temple was destroyed in the year 70 CE, and “422” is the gematria value for the Hebrew word “seventy.”  How is it possible that the only date this happens with within the entire logarithmic system is the year 3760 HC (0 CE), the date the 2 calendars pivot on? And given 3.760 42 248 whether G-d intended this or not there are 42 rows in every Torah scroll and 248 columns. Perhaps it is a reminder that it always comes back to the 42-Letter Name and to the Torah.

Taking it all a giant step further and knowing that Binah, the 1000-year period of Moshiach, is most represented by the number 1000, if we were to add the logarithms of all the bases from 1-10 for the number 1000, they would sum to 42.3994 or 42.4, the numerical value of Moshiach Ben David.  That must be telling us something.  The 10 logs of 1000 could have added up to any other number. No number could have added up to anything close to 42.4. Yet these 10 for the number 1000 did. Given the nature of logarithms and their very flat curve most resultant numbers fall into the double-digit category. To reach a result above 100, even with summing all the logs of bases 1 – 10, our starting number would need to be about 12,000,000 and it goes up exponentially and unfathomably higher from there.  What we are saying is that 42.4 is the only number that could be representative of 424, especially since the sum of all the logs from bases 1 -10 for even the lowest whole number, 2, is 4.25.  Please note that all the logs from bases 1 -10 for the number 1 are “0,” which if we wanted to extract meaning from, we could say that in Unity (Oneness) there is zero (“0”) space between us. If we wanted to get closer to 4.24, we would have to forsake whole numbers and could go with 1.998 or 3 x .666 which would give us 4.248 as the sum of the logs for the bases 1-10, with 4248 being the sum of the 22 spelled out Names of 22 Hebrew letters.

Yes another fingerprint is found on the Natural Log of 70 or LN (70), which is the log to the base of e (2.718…). The Natural Log of 70 is 4.248.

Given that all the summary logs from 1 to 12 million must fall between 4.25 and 100 and given that each one is the sum of 10 different mostly irrational numbers, the odds of one being so close to anything meaningful are astronomical, yet there is a second number that is always associated with Binah.  The kabbalists have been writing about the 50 Gates of Binah for thousands of years—it is even in our Passover Haggadahs.  Since we know that we must reach the 50 Gates of Binah in order to enter Binah, and that we last reached the 50 th Gate when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, how incredible is it that the sum of the logarithms of all the bases from 1-10 for the number 3450, representing Moses (משה 345) and also Hashem (השם 345), are precisely 50.000.  According to the Zohar, it is because of this connection to the 50 Gates that we were first told to count the 50-year jubilee cycles, starting at Mt Sinai in 2448 HC, corresponding to 24.48, which is the sum of logs of bases 1 -10 for the number 54. The number 54 stands out because 54 x 107 = 5778 and the sum of all the integers from 1 to 107 is 5778.

Within those 12 million numbers there are only a few that meet our criteria for precision and one of them is the sum of the logs for all the bases from 1-10 for the number 26, representing the Tetragrammaton (יהוה), whose resultant value is 20 (19.99799 to be more precise). The value of 20 represents Keter, the highest dimension, which is why the 10 Commandments are found in the 20th chapter of the Book of Exodus (Shmot) and why there are 620 letters in the 10 Commandments, like the Hebrew word for 20, Esrim (עשרים) of numerical value 620.  Also, for what it is worth, 20 x 50 = 1000.

There are a few others, though one number that keeps coming up for us this year, the number 58, and as we explained in our previous article there is a strong correlation between the Megillah Ester, Ester, Mordechai and the Biblical story of Noach and the Flood.  They share mutual gematriot of 58, 78 and the 127 combinations of 7 words, amongst other things.  As if to make sure we did not miss this important correlation, G-d made sure that when we add the logarithms of all the bases from 1-10 for the number 12700, representing the 127 provinces times the 100 days in the Megillah Ester; the 127 years of Sarah, the Matriarch; and the 127 possible combinations of the 7 words is the Torah’s first verse, corresponding to the 7 sefirot of Zeir Anpin beneath Binah, we would get 58, or 57.99957 to be exact.

We would be remiss if we did not mention the further correlation between word Megillah (מגלה) with a standard value of 78 and an ordinal value of 33 for a complete value of 111, and the Aleph (אלף), which is also eleph (אלף) meaning 1000, also of spelled out value 111. The reason we bring this up is that 78, as in 5778, is also the value for Mabul, the Biblical flood (מבול) whose ordinal value is likewise 33, which is the sum of the logs of the bases 1 – 10 for the number 216, representing Gevurah (strong judgement) and the 216 letters in the 72 Names of G-d used to split the Red Sea.  To think that this is coincidence is to also ignore that the first 33 letters of the Torah add up to a gematria value of 3003, which is the sum of all the integers from 1 to 77.

G-d’s fingerprints are all over this.  Even today, it is impossible for a team of engineers with a powerful super computer to create a document with anywhere near the complexity of the Torah, let alone align it, as G-d did, with the mathematics that underlay the framework of all the physics of our universe.  G-d also chose to design our solar system to that same alignment.  He did not have to do this.  He did not have to make the Earth orbit the Sun at 66,600 mph. He could have created a system without fingerprints for us to trace; He could have left us with only one option: truly blind faith.  He tried to make it easy for us to find faith and certainty. Even in the final year 5778, with the floodwaters of Binah already upon us since Purim and the Gates of Moshiach Ben David opening wider every day since Pesach, He wants us to find our way in, to find certainty anyway we can.

Of the fingerprints we highlighted above we can connect the dots: after 70 years since the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, the 50 Gates of Binah will swing open ushering in the Great Shabbat (702), the 1000 years of Moshiach Ben David (424) and in accordance with the hints given to us by the Arizal, the crucial moment can happen on the 18th day of Iyar, on the 33rd day of the 50-day Omer period, or .666% of the way through that period which began 100 days or .666% of the way through the period from Zot Chanukah to Shavuot, or .333% of the way through the period from Sukkot to Zot Chanukah in the year 5778 (2018 CE).

Yes, L’ag B’Omer 5778.

B”H it can all unfold as written in the numbers. It depends on us.

Chag Sameach

Ezra

We Have Been Duped

It is Pesach, and even more than our homes, we need to clean out our souls of the chametz. We must clean up our own acts.  There is a reason Purim precedes Pesach.  There is a reason for everything.

Yes, we have been duped, once again.  And it is bad.

Amalek refers to time. The numerical value of Amalek refers to 24 hours and the ordinal value to 60 minutes.  Every year in the weeks before Pesach the Torah tells us to “Remember Amalek,” the tribe, led by Esau’s grandson, that lay in wait for the Israelites after the crossing of the Red Sea and brutally slaughtered the stragglers.  The numerical value in the 8 letters in “remember Amalek” add up to 577, as in this year 5778.  This year, more than ever, we have to watch our backs.

Time used to be on our side. It was the space between cause and effect. It was a space that allowed us to think before we acted, a space mercifully afforded us with which to correct the actions we misguidedly took.  It is gone.  That space no longer exists.  For years you have been saying it feels like things are speeding up, like there is no time for anything anymore.  You were right.

Social media was engineered to remove time, hence “Insta.” Social media removes our filters.  What you would never have said if you had to put pen to paper and had to physically mail something or what you never would have said in person, you now gleefully send out to the entire world in the blink of an eye—without a moment’s thought. We have no more filters, and with the distance between cause and effect eliminated, our thoughts become immediate actions that cannot be taken back, ever.  While harboring negative thoughts was never good, we get judged spiritually and physically only by our actions.  According to the teachings of the Zohar and Kabbalah, those actions condemn us.

The system is designed in such a way that in order for us to be accused by the spiritual Accuser we must physically accuse ourselves first.  And our judgment is based on the judgement we bring upon ourselves and ultimately our condemnation is based on how we condemn ourselves. This is what is meant by “an eye for an eye,” etc. not to go around chopping off thieves’ hands.   Our actions cause our own spiritual reactions.

You’ve heard the Kabbalistic expression, “Like above, below?” What we do below, we do to our spiritual selves below.  That goes for us as individuals and as a global entity.  If we go around spewing hatred and saying better that our perceived enemies are dead only because they do not agree with us and they go around saying the same thing about us, what message are we sending to the spiritual realm? Remember, that message cannot be masked in self-righteous thoughts, because it is only our actions that get judged.   Speech can be bad, especially when it leads to action, but a tweet is an action, a comment on Facebook is an actual action.

If you want to get rid of your chametz, start where is does you the most harm.  Social media was created and perpetuated for 6 main purposes, none of them Holy: to make money off of you; to freely obtain your private data; to cause you to self-incriminate yourself; to keep track of you; to manipulate you; and to facilitate sex.  It was done under the guise of freedom, love, oneness, a closer world, bringing people together. I ask you: 13 years after social media began, do you feel the world has become a place of freedom, love, and oneness, or the opposite, where no one believes anything they see or hear anymore.  Yes, we have been duped. But it is worse than you think.

Every action we take has a ripple effect throughout society and the universe, and every reaction to our action—good or bad—is our responsibility. We spiritually own the actions of everyone we inadvertently caused to react by our actions. We also own the reactions and the outcomes of those people they caused to react, all the way down the chain. It was bad enough when we physically made one person react and they another and another, but when we post something and hundreds of people react to it, and then thousands in turn and even possibly millions, we own that entire chain of responsibility.  It our actions were truly pure and righteous that is great, but 999 times out of 1000 that chain is a chain of judgement, of condemnation, a proverbial noose around our necks of our own making.

It was only a matter of time before Amalek struck again, laying in wait for us.  We were warned.

We have been duped into condemning ourselves, into bringing judgement upon ourselves.  As it says in the Zohar, in the commentaries on pasha Noach, “But, you might ask: If their time has not come yet, then why should Judgement be delivered on them? Because it is they who inflict the punishment on themselves, as the Holy One, blessed be He, would never punish them before their time has come.”

At the time of the Flood, the Torah states the earth was corrupted before G-d (Elohim), which the Zohar explains means openly, in plain sight for all to see. This is what social media allows us to, broadcast our sins in plain sight. The Torah goes on to state in Bereshit 6:11 that the earth was filled with violence.  Those times, when the sinful children of Adam ruled the world, are a reflection of our times, when even our schools are not safe and fear most often triumphs over faith.  Let us be clear: The children of Noach were supposed to be a clean start and to repopulate the earth for the reception of the Torah at Sinai. Nevertheless, some of the corrupted children of Adam survived by hiding in the land of Israel that the Zohar tells us was untouched by the flood waters.  They, the Erev Rav, the admixture with evil, were disrupted during the Tower of Babel incident, yet survived to conspire with Amalek and bring about the golden calf. Today, they rule the world and want to stop the coming tide of Binah and Moshiach.

Duped or not, all that self-inflicted hatred, judgment, and condemnation sweeping around the planet and ringing out into the spiritual realm, the Sea of Binah, must reverberate somewhere.  Even our own earthly physics tells us that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and what goes up must come down.   Negativity does not exist above, but it does cause an impression that must be dealt with.  If we spew fire with our retweets and comments and open the floodgates with our posts, what form can we expect the natural spiritual reaction to take?

It is written that the only holiday to continue after the coming of Moshiach will be Purim so let us focus on Purim while we can. The flooding and storms in the West, in the South, Midwest and North East US are a sign of things to come, a small sample, not the main event.  And yes, freaky weather is being felt throughout the world, not just the US. It is G-d’s way to tie it to this Purim, which is also why the Dow fell 420 pts on Purim.  Do not forget the DOW fell 778 pts erev Rosh Hashannah in 2008 to start the last economic crisis. We were told there would be signs.

This year we cosmically celebrated Purim for the 5778th time since man received consciousness and as required, we read the read the Megillah Ester.  Not only does the Hebrew word for scroll Megillah (מגלה) have the numerical value 78, as in this year, 5778, and as in the initials of the Tree-0f-Life (חיים עצ) connected to this year, but the ordinal value of both the names Ester and Mordechai are each 58, the same as Noach(נח).  Moreover, while Noach was the 10th in the lineage of Adam and while the 10 initials of those 10 forefathers in that pre-flood lineage sum to 580 or 10 x 58, the reading of the Megillah Ester is about overcoming the 10 levels of negativity embodied by the 10 sons of Haman in the lineage of Amalek that were ultimately hung upon the Tree.  Most significantly, the numerical value of Biblical word for flood (מבל) is also 78.

The ordinal value of the Megillah (מגלה) Ester (אסתר) is 91, representing the powerful union of Zeir Anpin (יהוה) and Malchut (אדני), which is what the Arizal tells us that the scroll is designed to do: unite Heaven and Earth, the spiritual and physical planes in their correct order.  Moreover, Purim and the Megillah Ester are actually tools to protect us from the erev rav, the ones who built the Tower of Babel, the ones who built the golden calf, and the ones who engineered social media. They have duped us time and time again. The story of Ester starts out talking about the 7 days of the banquet in the palace of 7 beautiful treasures, the 7 chamberlains, the 7 Princes, and the 127 provinces. The number 127 is the number of recombinations that can be done with the 7 words in the Torah’s first verse and the 7 sefirot of Zeir Anpin if someone would want to reshuffle them.  Queen Vashti disobeyed the King’s order and thus he decreed that all wives throughout the kingdom must obey (honor) their husbands. What was really going on was that He (the King) was restoring order to the 7 sefirot that step down through the six masculine sefirot (dimensions) of Zeir Anpin, and terminate in the vessel-like sefira of Malchut associated with the feminine.  The pure and spiritual Ester was brought before the King in the 7th year of his reign to replace Queen Vashti.

It is for this reason that at the end of the first chapter in the Megillah Ester the King makes sure all 127 provinces understand his decree in their own languages: as He restores order He makes sure everyone understands as one.  This is juxtaposed to the Tower of Babel incident when the King made sure no one could understand one another.

As the Zohar explains, the goal of the erev rav is to create a new world order in which Malchut crowns Zeir Anpin. This would be a world in which physicality manipulates spirituality and controls the spiritual realm, giving them ultimate control and power over everything.  They call themselves illuminati, but their goal is for darkness to reign over the light, and they do that by making everyone think that the darkness they are embracing is really light.  The rule of thumb is if it tempts you, it is not light. If it is addictive, it is not light.  Their strength is in their mastery of illusion, which is why we keep getting duped. Because of the work of Ester and of Mordechai, whose name in small gematria is 42420, the 70 years of the Babylonian exile came to an end. Likewise, with the help of the Megillah Ester, the 7 lines of the 42-Letter Name, the forsaking of our chametz, and with our certainty in the Creator, the final exile will also end this year, 70 years after Israel became a nation.

The Scroll of Ester is also a warning to us that we will face utter darkness before we see the light and that it will take total certainty and faith in the Creator that the light lies beyond the darkness to not succumb to our fears.

G-d gave us Noach to warn and an Ark to save us. G-d gave us Mordechai and Ester to warn and the Megillah to save us. We’ve already been warned; this time, this year, he will give us Moshiach.

Ezra

Reveal the Concealed; The Megillah Ester

Have an amazing Purim everyone! And let us all connect to H’Mashiach and Hashem through the concealed. It is up to us the reveal them in our lives and world, the world of Malchut. This is what the Megillah Ester and the so-called traditions (actually the technology)of Purim allows us to do. There was a wonderful extended comment at the DailyZohar.com by Chaim that I would like to shared with everyone.

One of the many things Chaim shows us is how all the sefirot (dimensions) are included in the text of the Book of Ester except the sefira of Netzach and he deftly explains why. The only thing I would add to Chaim’s article is that the word Netzach, representing the 4th sefira, that of victory associated with Moshe Rabbeinu, is found once in the amazingly encoded Book of Ester. At Ester 6:4 it is found backwards and combined every other letter with the Name of G-d (YHVH):  HChYZVNH.  This, like all the technology built into the Megillah Ester, is no coincidence and strengthens Chaim’s learned hypothesis as G-d chose to conceal himself within Netzach. There are numerous other times throughout the reading that the names of G-d are similarly encoded within words or phrases, and it is through their ultimate revelation that the Light shines into our lives.

Chag Sameach,

Purim Sameach,

Ezra

Please read Chaim’s article in its entirety

Chaim says:

February 26, 2010 at 5:01 am

The Megilah and Kabbalistic Terminology

It is not surprising that hidden within the text of the book of Esther, one may find numerous allusions to concepts and terms which in subsequent generations were to become mainstays of Kabbalistic discourse. Aside from the importance accorded the Hebrew root of the word Kabbalah (k-b-l) itself (Esther 4:4: “And [Esther] sent garments with which to clothe Mordechai…but he did not accept (kibel) [them]“; Esther 9:23: “And the Jews accepted (kiblu) that which they had begun to do…”; Esther 9:27: “The Jews established and accepted upon themselves, and upon their seed”), we find many other significant word-roots appearing there as well.

Of the eleven names for the sefirot–the basic Divine forces of Creation–all but one explicitly appear in the book of Esther.

Keter appears in 1:11, 2:17, and 6:1;

Chochmah in 1:13 and 6:13;

Binah in 3:8; da’at in 1:13;

Chesed in 2:17;

Gevurah in 10:2;

Tiferet in 1:4;

Hod in 2:5, 3:4, et al;

Yesod in 1:8,

And malchut in 1:7,11,19 et al.

The only sefirotic term missing in the book is netzach, as we will explain further on.

No other Biblical text exhibits such a density of Kabbalistic idiom. The fact that this abundance of mystical expression coexists alongside a total absence of reference to G-d Himself can perhaps be understood by way of analogy to a panorama of stars that only becomes visible when the radiance of the sun has receded from view.

The term sefirah itself, perhaps the most basic within the lexicon of Kabbalah, finds repeated expression in this book through the related term sefer , “book” (Esther 2:23, 6:1, 10:2, 9:25, 32, et al), constructed from the same Hebrew root, s-f-r.

This root bears three distinct connotations, all of which are reflected in the meaning of the word sefirah. As an “emanation” of Divine light, the term sefirah is derived from the Biblical sapir, “sapphire,” whose brilliant radiance is associated with the heavenly throne and footstool envisioned by the prophets.

The term sefirah also alludes to a specific attribute or trait by which G-d expresses Himself in the world. As such, it reflects an additional connotation of the root s-f-r, that of “articulation,” as in the words sippur (“story”) and sefer (“book”). Unlike the transcendent association with Divine light, this aspect of the root s-f-r implies a more immediate and relatable context through which to identify with G-d.

Finally, the term sefirah often alludes to the abstract mathematical structure of Creation–as evoked by the word mispar (“number”). In this sense, the concept of sefirah is only obliquely connected to Divinity–reflecting a dimension which, albeit exquisitely abstract, attaches to the created realm itself.

The association between the term sefirah and the word sefer, which as we just saw is based upon the idea of articulation or expressiveness, is underscored by the fact that the book of Esther itself is called a megilah (“scroll”), based upon the root gilah, “to reveal.”

The physical form of the scroll itself reinforces this sense of revelation by contributing to the reader’s experience of the text as a gradually unfolding message or insight. This effect is heightened even further by the use of the sippur (“narrative medium”) as the literary format for communicating the message of the scroll. In the sippur there is a constant tension deriving from the selective revelation of certain plot-elements and not others. The gradual clarification of all the hidden aspects within a story brings with it a cathartic resolution of that tension and a much deeper connection to the literary themes evoked in the process. No other account in all of Scripture takes such full advantage of the narrative medium as the story of Esther.

The Kabbalistic tradition also resorts to allegorical narrative when attempting to communicate its profound truths–as such form of exposition often proves more illuminating than abstract theosophical discourse. The story of Creation and of man’s first hours in Eden provides Kabbalah with a key narrative structure for presenting the cosmic background to man’s existence. Given the connection that we have seen between the book of Esther and Kabbalistic tradition, it should not surprise us, then, that the story of Esther is in fact interpreted in Kabbalah as symbolic of the initial drama that transpired in Eden at the dawn of Creation, when the first man and woman were tempted into eating from the Tree of Knowledge. The key figures in the book of Esther are seen as representing the regenerated souls (gilgulim) of the players in that great drama, come to rectify their prior “fall.” Esther, by vanquishing the serpent Haman, provides necessary restitution for the tragic flaw in Creation engendered by her primordial ancestor, Eve.

The most frequently mentioned sefirotic term in the book of Esther is malchut. No other Biblical text contains such a concentration of references to the term malchut. Out of a total of 167 verses in the book, there are over 240 appearances of the root melech. In one verse (Esther 4:11), the word hamelech actually appears five times. In another verse (Esther 5:1), the root melech appears in variant forms a full six times! This itself is a major indication of the Book of Esther’s strong Kabbalistic character, as malchut is the key to understanding the entire drama of Creation according to the Kabbalah.

The root melech appears most often in context of the word hamelech (“the king”), referring to the Persian King Achashverosh. It is commonly explained that the various references in the book of Esther to King Achashverosh can otherwise be interpreted as veiled allusions to the King of Kings, Master of the universe. The fact that he is always referred to as hamelech (the king) would seems to corroborate this tradition. The letter hei, serving as definite article in the word hamelech, is the letter associated in Kabbalah with the sefirah of malchut–corresponding to the final hei in G-d’s essential four-letter Name.

Another indication of the Kabbalistic spirit infusing the text is the fact that the word keter (alluding to the first Divine emanation) always appears in conjunction with the word malchut (alluding to the last). The expression keter malchut (“the royal crown”) hints at a basic Kabbalistic phenomenon, described by Sefer Yetzirah in the following language: “its end (the sefirah of malchut) is enwedged in its beginning (that of keter) as its beginning is enwedged in its end.” (The introduction of the Tikunei Zohar [s.v. Patach Eliahu] also states: “the supernal keter is the keter of malchut.”)

Interestingly enough, the second most frequently mentioned sefirah in the book of Esther is hod. The relationship between hod and malchut is a very significant one, insofar as we are told in Kabbalah that ihi b’hod–”she (the sefirah of malchut) is in hod.” In the very first verse of the book, we already find an allusion to the strong association between these two terms–as it states there hu Achashverosh hamolech mehodu v’ad kush. Elsewhere (in Daniel 11:21 and I Chronicles 29:25), the two terms combine into the idiom hod malchut (“the aura of majesty”), an expression used often in addressing royalty.

The only sefirotic term missing in the book is netzach, the seventh sefirah and one which has unique relevance to the holiday of Purim at which time the events of the book of Esther are commemorated. (The Arizal states that it is on Purim that the sefirah of netzach achieves its tikkun, i.e. rectified expression.) It would thus appear that the absence of the term netzach from the text, like the absence of G-d’s Name, actually points in a paradoxical way to the term’s pervasive, and thus unrecognizable, presence throughout the book as a whole. A further indication of there being an equivalence between the term netzach and G-d’s Name is the fact that of all the names identified with the sefirot, netzach is the only one which appears in Scripture (I Samuel 15:29) as poetically descriptive of G-d Himself: Netzach Yisrael (“the Eternity of Israel”).

The essential relevance of netzach to the book of Esther derives from its dual connotation of both “victory” and “eternity.” As “victory,” netzach represents the capacity to overcome adversity. As “eternity,” it implies the capacity to even overcome the adversity of death itself. The “eternity of Israel,” and of its struggle against the nation of Amalek (their Biblical arch-enemy, representing the forces of doubt and indifference, especially with regard to faith in Divine providence), are the central themes of the book of Esther and of the Purim holiday associated with it. Our sages teach us that in Messianic times all the holidays we presently observe will be annulled except for Purim–meaning that the intensity of Divine revelation at that time will virtually blind out the significance of the other holidays, but not that of Purim. The same is said with regard to the status of the book of Esther vis-a-vis the other books of the Prophets and Ketuvim. This is actually alluded to in the book of Esther itself (9:28): “And these days of Purim shall never pass from among the Jews nor shall their commemoration ever cease from among their seed.”

The Hebrew expression lo yasuf (“shall never cease”) in the above verse recalls the term ein sof (“endlessness,” or “the Infinite One”), the idiom in Kabbalah expressing G-d’s essential existence beyond time and space. (The initial letters of ein sof, the alef and samech,are also the first two letters in Esther’s name.) It is interesting to note that we find an idiomatic expression of eternity in each of the three places where the Bible explicitly recounts the campaign against Amalek: In the Pentateuch itself, where Moses and Joshua lead the battle, we are told of “G-d’s war against Amalek from generation to generation” (Exodus 17:16); in the Prophets, where Samuel contends with the Amalekite King, Agag, we encounter the Divine appelation referred to above–Netzach Yisrael, the Eternity of Israel; and in the Ketuvim, where Mordechai and Esther vanquish the Amalekite Haman, we have the expression just mentioned, lo yasuf.

Hence we see that the concept of netzach is implicit throughout the book of Esther. It can be said that it “surrounds” the book as well–for we find explicit reference to the term both before and after the book is formally read on the holiday of Purim. The prior reference appears in context of the haftarah (“appended Scriptural portion”) read on the Sabbath before the Purim holiday, in which the central verse (Samuel 15:29) reads: “Netzach Yisrael lo yeshaker”–”the Eternity of Israel does not prevaricate.” The subsequent reference appears in the short elegy, “Shoshanat Yaakov,” which is recited after the book of Esther has been read in public. The word netzach appears there twice, in the sentence that reads teshuatam hayita lanetzach (“you were their eternal salvation”) and in that which reads lo yekalmu lanetzach kol hachosim bach (“those who find refuge in You shall for all of eternity never be humiliated”).

Hence, in one form or another, all of the sefirot are hinted at in the Megillah, establishing a unique connection between this most esoteric of Scriptural texts and the Kabbalistic tradition as a whole.