Rosh HaShana 5770
Friday Eve - Shabbos to Sunday Sundown
The following is from a farbrengen given on Rosh Chodesh Elul 5769
by HaRav Yitzchak Ginsburgh
Dedicated in memory of Gavriel Noach and Rivkah Holtzberg
[full farbrengen at Secrets of 5770
5770In one month we will be entering the year 5770. Let us now look at some of the numerical allusions related to this very special year. We need to start preparing for the year now. Once the new year starts it is less important to look at the number 5770 as it is already old news to some extent, so the time to look at what this year means is when we are still preparing for it. As the Ba’al Shem Tov taught us, the main thing is preparing for the mitzvah, “Prepare for Your God, O’ Israel.” There are some well-known gematrias for 770, among them “House of Mashiach” (בֵּית מָשִׁיחַ ), “Expand outwards” (פָרַצְתָּ ), which also permutes to spell “France” (צָרְפַת ). France is considered the furthest extreme of the exiles. The Lubavitcher Rebbe many times indicated that when France would become a seat for authentic Judaism (as it was not for many thousands of years), that would be a sure sign that the Mashiach is here. All these are good, but we are going to focus on other gematrias for 770. As we go through them, we will be corresponding each gematria with one of the sefirot (not in order). In effect we are building up the partzuf, the complete spiritual model, of 770.
Kingdom: The Good of the Land
Before we completely forget about the month of Av, the final day of this month is the 30th of Av. The entire month of Av is related to the verse in Isaiah, “If you wish and you listen, then you shall eat the good of the land” (אִם תּאֹבוּ וּשְׁמַעְתֶּם טוּב הָאָרֶץ תּאֹכֵלוּ ). The second half of this verse, “the good of the land” (טוּב הָאָרֶץ תּאֹכֵלוּ ) is also equal to 770. The entire Land of Israel is a great big “House of Mashiach.” The earth was given its name (אַרֶץ ) because it means “wanting to do God’s will”. Those who do God’s will receive all the blessings in the world. The goodness comes as reward for doing God’s will. Goodness and will in general go together.
What this means for us is that the coming year, 5770, will be one of goodness, physical blessings, with rains in their proper time providing plenty of produce and spiritual blessings with the spiritual rains falling from above, from the supernal land, in plenty. This is then a great year for studying the interaction between Torah and ecology. Obviously this gematria corresponds to kingdom, which the earth symbolizes.
The Hero of 5770
As we have seen this year 5770 has many gematrias. But, it also has a hero. He was the first judge of the Jewish people, who completed the task of conquering the Land of Israel after Joshua. His name is Otni’el ben Kenaz (עָתְנִיאֵל בֶּן קְנַז ) and his name equals 770. Not only was he a judge and a warrior, he was also one of the greatest scholars, who through his in-depth study was able to restate 3000 laws that were forgotten during the mourning period for Moshe Rabbeinu. So he is the image of the Torah of the Land of Israel, the Torah of Mashiach, which is something he merited thanks to his wife, Achsah (עַכְסָה ). Achsah was the daughter of Caleb ben Yefuneh. The sum of their names together, Otni’el ben Kenaz and Achsah (עָתְנִיאֵל בֶּן קְנַז עַכְסָה ) is equal to twice the value of “Mashiach” (מָשִׁיחַ )!
To do gematria without adding an in-depth and true understanding of the findings leads to false illusions in the mind. In order to engage properly in the study of gematria, one has to go deeply meditate on the findings in order to ensure that they are revealing something real and true in our understanding of Torah. Another possibility is looking at the finding of gematria from the perspective of more advanced mathematical thinking. This leads one to look at numbers as figures, as symmetrical geometric shapes that carry some number-theoretical meaning to them. In this way, numbers are being transformed into algebraic equations. We saw an example of this type of analysis in our discussion of the sefirot of victory and acknowledgment.
Now let us look at this name, עתניאל בן קנז . Since it contains 11 letters, it follows that the average value of each letter is 70, the value of the letter ayin (ע ), the first letter in his name, and everything follows the beginning. Since, as we said, the letter ayin alludes to the ability to contemplate, it is not surprising that he had the intellectual and contemplative power to restore 3000 laws that had been lost. Now, continuing to analyze his name, the initial and final letters are עז , whose value is 77, one-tenth the value of his entire name. The initial and final letters of all three words in his name are, על בן קז whose sum is 259 = 7 · 37, alluding to the seven הֶבֶל , (vapors) with which the world was created.
Kingdom: The Good of the Land
Before we completely forget about the month of Av, the final day of this month is the 30th of Av. The entire month of Av is related to the verse in Isaiah, “If you wish and you listen, then you shall eat the good of the land” (אִם תּאֹבוּ וּשְׁמַעְתֶּם טוּב הָאָרֶץ תּאֹכֵלוּ ). The second half of this verse, “the good of the land” (טוּב הָאָרֶץ תּאֹכֵלוּ ) is also equal to 770. The entire Land of Israel is a great big “House of Mashiach.” The earth was given its name (אַרֶץ ) because it means “wanting to do God’s will”. Those who do God’s will receive all the blessings in the world. The goodness comes as reward for doing God’s will. Goodness and will in general go together.
What this means for us is that the coming year, 5770, will be one of goodness, physical blessings, with rains in their proper time providing plenty of produce and spiritual blessings with the spiritual rains falling from above, from the supernal land, in plenty. This is then a great year for studying the interaction between Torah and ecology. Obviously this gematria corresponds to kingdom, which the earth symbolizes.
The Hero of 5770
As we have seen this year 5770 has many gematrias. But, it also has a hero. He was the first judge of the Jewish people, who completed the task of conquering the Land of Israel after Joshua. His name is Otni’el ben Kenaz (עָתְנִיאֵל בֶּן קְנַז ) and his name equals 770. Not only was he a judge and a warrior, he was also one of the greatest scholars, who through his in-depth study was able to restate 3000 laws that were forgotten during the mourning period for Moshe Rabbeinu. So he is the image of the Torah of the Land of Israel, the Torah of Mashiach, which is something he merited thanks to his wife, Achsah (עַכְסָה ). Achsah was the daughter of Caleb ben Yefuneh. The sum of their names together, Otni’el ben Kenaz and Achsah (עָתְנִיאֵל בֶּן קְנַז עַכְסָה ) is equal to twice the value of “Mashiach” (מָשִׁיחַ )!
To do gematria without adding an in-depth and true understanding of the findings leads to false illusions in the mind. In order to engage properly in the study of gematria, one has to go deeply meditate on the findings in order to ensure that they are revealing something real and true in our understanding of Torah. Another possibility is looking at the finding of gematria from the perspective of more advanced mathematical thinking. This leads one to look at numbers as figures, as symmetrical geometric shapes that carry some number-theoretical meaning to them. In this way, numbers are being transformed into algebraic equations. We saw an example of this type of analysis in our discussion of the sefirot of victory and acknowledgment.
Now let us look at this name, עתניאל בן קנז . Since it contains 11 letters, it follows that the average value of each letter is 70, the value of the letter ayin (ע ), the first letter in his name, and everything follows the beginning. Since, as we said, the letter ayin alludes to the ability to contemplate, it is not surprising that he had the intellectual and contemplative power to restore 3000 laws that had been lost. Now, continuing to analyze his name, the initial and final letters are עז , whose value is 77, one-tenth the value of his entire name. The initial and final letters of all three words in his name are, על בן קז whose sum is 259 = 7 · 37, alluding to the seven הֶבֶל , (vapors) with which the world was created.
Of course the remaining letters must equal 511 = 7 · 73, where 73 is the value of “wisdom” (חָכְמָה ). The world was created with 7 types of wisdom, alluded to by the verse, “She made her pillars seven.” These correspond to the 7 books of the Pentateuch (the Book of Numbers is divided into 3 books). So we have seen seven types of “vapor” (הֶבֶל ) which equals 37 and seven types of “wisdom” (חָכְמָה ), which equals 73. 37 and 73 are the only two two-digit numbers where the smaller is the midpoint of the larger. In addition, their product is 2701, the value of the first verse of the Torah, the first verse of creation. So Otni’el’s name is very strongly associated with creation and so many of the secrets of creation are found in his name.
Let us see one final point about his name. If we write every other letter, we have: ע נ א ב ק ז , whose sum is 230. This is the number that completes 770 to 1000, which is the gematria of “Israel Ba’al Shem Tov” (יִשְׂרָאֵל בַּעַל שֵׁם טוֹב ) and “old student” (תַלְמִיד וָתִיק ), etc. Thus, Otni’el can be understood as alluding to the encompassing light that surrounds the entire model (partzuf) of 770 that we just finished discussing.
To complete our discussion of the gematria of the upcoming year, let us see a few other allusions to its value.
We mentioned earlier that the value of “France” (צָרְפַת ) or “expand outwards” (פָרַצְתָּ ) is also 770. Using the Atbash transformation (alef transforms into a tav, bet into a shin, etc.) we get that the letters of “France” go to וגהא , the letters that spell the word for “pride” (גַאֲוָה ). So 770 is the year that rectifies the sense of false pride. If we now use the Albam transformation on the resulting letters of “pride” we get 230, which as we saw above is the surrounding light of 770. The ratio of 770 to 230 is 77:23, the values of the two words “strength” (עֹז ) and “joy” (חֶדְוָה ) and to the verse, “There is strength and joy in His place” (עֹז וְחֶדְוָה בִּמְקֹמוֹ ).
Just to complete this point, we mentioned earlier that most of the instances of the word “nine” (תֵּשַׁע ), which equals 770, are found in relation to the first generations of mankind. The first instance is mentioned in relation to Adam (אָדָם ); the second in relation to Methuselah (מְתוּשֶׁלַח ); the third in relation to Noah (נֹח ); and, the fourth in relation to Peleg31 (פֶלֶג ). If we sum the values of their 4 names, we get 1000! Amazingly, if we take the initial and final letters of all 4 names, they are א מ מ ח נ ח פ ג , which sums to 230, which means of course that the remaining letters (the inner letters) sum to 770!
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