What is the Universe?

So what is the universe? We’re about to embark on a journey of explanation and exploration of the Third Holy Temple and thus be able to breach the confines of our universe.  We will take it very slowly so that each point can sink in well before we move on.  The starting point will be one of the deepest secrets of all time, the measure of the Holy cubit most necessary for the proper construction of the Third Temple, which is different from the previous Two Holy Temples.  But before we can even get into that we must know what the universe is?
And to do that we must understand in our hearts the flow of the life-force through this universe. We must understand well from where it derives and what Names and gates it passes through. This explanation today will be a general one; we’ll get deeper into the specific gates as we encounter them in the Holy Temple later on.
We’ve written hundreds of articles where we’ve explained the gematria connections to specific words, phrases, and verses in the Torah and how they affect our lives and thoughts, but we need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.
In the Torah there are exactly 1024 different word values utilized. This is no accident. Those 1024 word values represent 32² (32 squared) gateways. Rabbi Chaim Vittal of blessed memory explained that all Torah light is spread by squaring and he wasn’t kidding.  The light, or life-force, spread out dimensionally from the original 32 Pathways of Wisdom and became 1024 word values, gates.
To better understand how a Hebrew word on a scroll can be a gate, think about a web address that someone emails you.  It’s just a bunch of letters on a note, like the letters in a word in the Torah.  You can think of the Hebrew words as 1024 major web addresses and since multiple words have the same numerical value, each individual word can be though of as separate web page. Now remember, each word has different gematria values depending on cipher is used so each of the pages in our metaphor has multiple links embedded in it, connecting it to numerous other pages, which in turn adds yet another dimension of expansion.
Now here is where the knowledge of kabbalah comes in.  Gematria is the natural inherent programming of the Hebrew language—the codes behind what you see on your screen.  And Kabbalah is the sourcebook that teaches us how to read and access that programming.  Reading the Torah is amazing, but would you rather read the names of websites, or click on them? That’s what Kabbalah allows us to do.  There is a whole other Internet out there, a pure one of limitless knowledge written on an infinite platform.
But back to the Torah—our PC.  It’s divided into verses and phrases, which link together multiple words, or websites. These form local networks that link together to form larger networks, which all eventually center on a few major portals, just like our Internet (Yahoo, AOL, Google).
In the case of the Torah and the universe, these are the 32 Paths of Wisdom.  This is why the all-important sacrificial alter at the exact center (heart) of the Holy Temple measures 32 x 32 cubits.  The number 32 in Hebrew is Lamed-Bet (LB) which not only spells lev, heart in Hebrew, but Bet (B) and Lamed (L) are the first and last letters in the Torah. And significantly, 32 is the number of faces on a hypercube, which numerically is 2⁵, and geometrically is a cube expanded to the fifth dimension, which we’ll get into later.
Please note that the 32 Paths form the structure of the 10 dimensions of the Tree-of-life, which includes the 22 building blocks (linkages) and the 10 sefirot themselves.
As we explore the Holy Temple and expand our consciousness, we will do so in multiple dimensions and get into the importance of this 5^th dimensional space to us and to the structure of the universe. But for now, just note that what this also means is that the 1024 gateways (32 x 32) of the Torah are located throughout the 10 dimensions (10 sefirot) in that 32 x 32 = 2⁵ x 2⁵ = 2¹⁰.
But this is not the source of the Light; it’s just the expansion of it.  For that we must head from the Alter and the Inner Courtyard of the Temple and enter past the vestibule through the Sanctuary and into the Holy of Holys.  This is where the Foundation Stone is present and from the where the concentrated eternal light enters our world. This is where the Light expands from 2 to 2², which is 4, which is the 4 aspects (milui expansions) of the Tetragrammaton (YHVH), which we won’t go into here.  Suffice to say, all the other Names that have dominion over their own particular areas emerge from these Holy Names.  These are the 4 roots of the Tree-of-life
(Av) YVD HY VYV HY
(Sag) YVD HY VEV HY
(Mah)YVD HE VEV HE
(Ban) YVD HH VV HH
The sum of all 4 aspects has a numerical value of 232, which we only point out today for its symmetry of 2 and 32 in regards to the discussion above; in previous and future articles it will have great significance.
If we were to follow the four roots backwards we’d come upon the 2 great lights, known as Tiferet (Zeir Anpin) and Malchut in perfect union.  This is a state we don’t know, but one we must long for every minute of our existence, and it is the one that should be the sole object of all our prayers. For this is the state of pure unconditional love; it is the state of the Tree-of-Life consciousness.
These 2 great lights is why the Torah begins is a great letter Bet, for 2. This is the Bet of Bereshit, meaning “2 beginnings,” which refers to our 2 chances of attaining the Tree-of-life consciousness: the first 2448 years and the next 3330 years until 5778, as has been explained dozens of times already in numerous articles and Books, including The Divine Calendar and There is Nothing Random About the Universe.
But this week we begin anew the Book of Bereshit and will read in verse 2:10 (as in 2¹⁰) appropriately enough, how a river flowed out of the Garden of Eden. This river split into 4 major rivers.  This is a deep allusion to the flow of the life-force into our world from the foundation stone then out through the Gate of 42, which we will learn about later.
But, of course, the universe is more than a network of 2-dimensional websites, for through each gate is another life or lifetime or world to explore and the knowledge obtained there is real.
As for us, this flowing system of rivers splits and forks countless times to it trickles into each of our souls and into each and every object in our world. If it were to be turned off for only a moment all existence would cease.  And like the words and their values in the Torah that are akin to websites, our lives and souls are connected and bundles together in huge social networking sites with every action and thought we have posted on the supernal facebook and tweated for everyone to see.  It’s only through our limited vision that we think they are our secrets and privacy.
So this is the true structure of the universe. We will begin the next article with what may be the deepest secret of all time: the measure of the ancient and future cubit.
Hopefully, when we finish, we can all successfully construct the Future Temple in our minds and bring the Tree-of-Life reality to life.
With Love,
Ezra