Rosh HaShanah and Osama’s Missing Letter — ב

9/11, Rosh Hashanah and our home on earth

Osama bin Laden’s assault on September 11 brought down buildings and shattered homes far beyond Manhattan. Behind every person murdered stood a family, relationships, hopes and obligations. Twenty-five years later, the destruction still confronts us with a spiritual question: what becomes of religious conviction when it authorises the destruction of the lives through which holiness must enter the world?

An unusual numerical relationship in the Torah’s opening word offers a way to examine that question.

The Torah begins with בראשית — B’reishit, “In the beginning.” In gematria, the calculation of Hebrew letters’ numerical values, this word totals 913. Remove its opening letter, ב — beit, whose value is two, and the remaining ראשית — reishit, “beginning,” totals 911.

The resemblance to the American notation for September 11 supplies a metaphor for reflection; it does not establish why bin Laden chose that date. Its significance lies in what has been removed. The letter’s name, written בית, also spells bayit: a house or home. Symbolically, removing the beit takes the home out of creation’s beginning.

That missing home brings us to the spiritual failure embodied by 9/11.

In Chassidic teaching, creation has a purpose: to make this physical world a dwelling for G-d. Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi develops this idea in Tanya, chapter 36. Our world, with its concealment, difficulty and moral freedom, is where divine purpose must be realised. Human action matters because holiness must become present here. (Tanya, chapter 36⁠)

A home gives that teaching concrete meaning. It is where another can belong, where strength creates security and responsibility sustains life. Making a home for G-d requires us to examine what our convictions produce in the lives of others. Learning, charity, justice, restraint and the protection of life give belief its earthly expression.

Rosh Hashanah brings this responsibility back to humanity’s beginning. The first of Tishrei commemorates the creation of Adam and Eve on the sixth day of Creation, entering a world prepared to sustain them. Each year, we acknowledge G-d’s sovereignty and answer for the lives we lead within His creation. Earth is our home, entrusted to us to become a dwelling for His presence. (Rosh Hashanah and Creation⁠)

The letters of בראשית — B’reishit can also be rearranged as א׳ בתשרי — the first of Tishrei. The Torah’s opening word thus offers another symbolic connection between creation, Rosh Hashanah and the beit, our home. This year, that connection is especially poignant: Rosh Hashanah begins at sunset on September 11, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the attacks. A day of mourning gives way to a renewed reckoning with the purpose of human life. (2026 dates⁠)

That reckoning must begin with the people who were killed. The attacks murdered 2,977 people in New York, at the Pentagon and near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Each death reached into a home whose future was changed forever. The scale of the crime must never obscure the individual human beings within it. (9/11 Memorial & Museum⁠)

Bin Laden’s project can be judged precisely here. Whatever religious authority he claimed, the method he authorised made human beings instruments of terror. His followers used their own deaths to inflict death on strangers, turning conviction into permission to destroy. The language of sacred purpose could not make those acts holy.

The missing beit therefore represents a profound religious distortion: claiming to serve the Creator while treating His creatures as expendable. Rosh Hashanah places the believer under judgment; fanaticism grants the believer authority to dispose of others. One demands accountability for our conduct. The other exempts its violence from moral scrutiny.

The response that morning revealed another use of conviction. Rescuers entered danger to bring people out. Colleagues helped one another escape. Strangers assumed responsibility for lives to which they had no previous connection. In the language of this interpretation, their actions expressed the beit: preserving a place for another human being in the world.

Remembering 9/11 carries that responsibility forward. It means defending people against those who would repeat it, supporting families who still carry its losses, and teaching a moral clarity that refuses to confuse religious intensity with holiness. Every claim made in G-d’s name remains answerable for what it asks people to do.

The numerical movement from 911 to 913 restores one letter. The human task it symbolises asks us to restore belonging, security and the possibility of a future wherever terror has broken them.

Osama’s missing letter was beit, the home. As remembrance of 9/11 meets Rosh Hashanah, we return to the work his violence violated: protecting life, rebuilding what hatred destroys, and making our home on earth worthy of the divine presence we ask to dwell among us.

Physics of Perfect Spin Kabballah of Infinite Light

In this cosmological model, the pre-Big Bang universe begins as a fully coherent quark-spin (and associated electron/photon) aligned condensate. All spins are synchronized in a single symmetric quantum state with near-maximum polarization (P ≈ 1). This state has extremely low entropy (S ≈ 0), unbroken symmetries, and enormous latent energy locked in the alignment.

A localized instability is introduced, triggering decoherence in specific regions (represented by the white circle, the Tzimtzum void). This creates domains of misaligned spins amid the still-coherent background. Multiple directional excitations (blue Kav rays) propagate into these regions. They locally deflect background spins (visible as tilted silver/gold arrows), initiating gradients in spin orientation, density, and magnetic fields.

These ripples propagate outward, interfere, and thermalize:
- Generating density perturbations (δρ/ρ) that seed baryon asymmetry and structure formation.
- Releasing energy that drives rapid expansion (inflationary-like phase).
- Transitioning the system into the hot Big Bang plasma, with residual partial alignments (today’s ~20–30% quark spin contribution to proton spin) as relics.

This mechanism naturally produces scale-invariant fluctuations suitable for galaxy formation, cosmic magnetic fields, and the arrow of time via increasing entropy, all emerging from a highly ordered initial state.

Kabbalistic Parallels

This physical picture maps elegantly onto core Kabbalistic concepts:

- Or Ein Sof ("Infinite Light Without End"): The primordial, perfectly aligned spin field (uniform silver/gold arrows filling all space) reflects from the boundless, undifferentiated Divine essence, pure potential and unity prior to any limitation.

- Tzimtzum: The contraction/withdrawal of coherence within a localized region (the central circle/void) creates the necessary “space” for finite creation without being overwhelmed by the Infinite Light.

- Kav (the Ray/Line of Light): The multiple directional blue rays entering from various sides embody the measured infusion of Divine light and directionality. Their local deflections of background spins mark the onset of differentiation and limitation.

- Ripple Effects and Tikkun: The propagating perturbations and entropy growth correspond to the emanation of the Sefirot and the dynamic, evolving created world. The resulting complexity and apparent “brokenness” invite ongoing rectification (tikkun olam), with residual alignments hinting at a return toward higher unity.

This synthesis offers a bridge between modern physics (QCD spin dynamics, cosmological phase transitions, and symmetry breaking) and ancient mysticism, portraying creation as a transition from perfect ordered coherence to structured diversity through localized perturbation and directional infusion.

This is not a one time state, in this pre-Big Bang cosmological scenario, a transition from a universal perfectly aligned quark-spin state to localized misalignments could produce ripple effects that seed density perturbations, matter inhomogeneities, and potentially the large-scale structure we observe. This resembles certain ideas in quantum cosmology, phase transitions, and spinor-driven models, though it is not part of standard Big Bang cosmology. 

This is internally consistent blending elements of spin physics, phase transitions, and symmetry breaking to address "Why is there something rather than a uniform aligned nothing?" It could tie into broader ideas about information, entropy, and the arrow of time (alignment → disorder = increasing entropy) aligning with the teachings of Jewish mystics. 

From Nuremberg To Sukkot!

Image and article details courtesy

Certain dates do not merely record events, they seal eras. The 16th of October 1946 (21 Tishrei 5707) was one such  fateful day, October 7 2023, (22 Tishrei 5784) the other.

That October morning, ten men convicted at Nuremberg were hanged. The day was Hoshana Rabbah when, according to the Zohar and midrashic tradition, the judgments of the year are completed and the heavenly decree is sealed. As Julius Streicher, the most notorious antisemitic propagandist of the Nazi regime, approached the scaffold, he suddenly cried out: “Purim Fest 1946!”

The cry was not planned. It rose from the man himself at the moment of his own judgment. In that instant, the ancient Purim festival of reversal when the plot to destroy the Jews was turned back Streicher screamed it out aloud over the gallows of the Third Reich.

2500 years prior, the Book (Megillah) of Esther prophetically prepared the pattern. It records that Haman had ten sons. After Haman's threat to destroy the Jews was overturned, Esther specifically requested that those ten sons be hanged on the gallows (Esther 9:13). The text lists their ten names, and within those names three letters are written smaller than the rest:

ת (tav) in Parshandata

ש (shin) in Parmashta

ז (zayin) in Vayzata

These letters together form תש״ז, whose numerical value is 707 comply with the long held practice identifying the century, decade and year. The Hebrew year 5707 had just begun, it corresponds to October 1946. A large vav appears in the same passage, read by some as marking the completion of the sixth millennium. Through the millennia small letters had been written in every scroll, silent witnesses waiting for their moment.

On Hoshana Rabbah 5707, a day before the Jewish festival of Sukkot the alignment was complete: ten sons, ten gallows, the exact method of execution the Megillah had specified, the precise year encoded in the miniature script, and the day of sealed judgment. Even the man who had spent years twisting the story of Purim into Nazi propaganda became, at the end, the one who named the day “Purimfest.”

In the wider realm of Jewish memory, 16 October 1946 carried an additional weight. It symbolically marked the close of the greatest war ever waged against the Jewish people, the war that sought not only their defeat but their total eradication. The hanging of the ten principal perpetrators at Nuremberg, on the day tradition associates with the finalizing of divine judgment, felt to many like a terrible but fitting punctuation mark at the end of that chapter. Yet the ancient conflict was not sealed.

77 years later on 7 October 2023, a new war against the Jews began with sudden and deliberate violence. This fateful day was 22 Tishrei, Simchat Torah a holiday for Jewish people following Sukkot. Once again the intent was articulated in language that echoed the ancient decree: to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate. Once again Jewish communities around the world felt the ground shift beneath them as antisemitism surged in its wake.

The Megillah does not speak only of one Purim. It speaks of a recurring pattern, a war against the Jews that rises in different generations under different names, yet carries the same essential character. Haman -Hitler becomes the archetype; Amalek-Nazi's the recurring memory; the command to “remember what Amalek did” (Deuteronomy 25:17) a perpetual vigilance rather than a closed historical file.

The small letters that spelled 5707 did not promise that the pattern would never recur. They marked a particular moment of judgment within that larger story. The text continues to accompany the people it was given to, through endings and through new beginnings of the same ancient struggle.

The Megillah ends with a charge that has proven more prophetic than anyone could have imagined: “These days of Purim shall not pass away from among the Jews, nor the memorial of them perish from their seed” (Esther 9:28). In 1946 that memorial did not merely survive in the synagogue. It reappeared on a scaffold in Nuremberg, spoken by one of the architects of the attempt to erase it.

In 2023 the same memorial was invoked again, this time not from a place of judgment over the perpetrators, but from within a new chapter of threat. The scroll does not grow old. Its patterns continue to surface when the conditions that gave rise to them reappear.

Sixteen October 1946, Hoshana Raba and seven October 2023, Simchat Torah now stand as markers on either side of a long arc: one date sealing, in the eyes of many, the close of the greatest war against the Jews in history; the other marking the violent opening of a new phase in that same enduring conflict. Between them lies the living text with its small letters, its specific demand for hanging evil, its insistence that the days of Purim be remembered crowned by Sukkot, the annual Jewish festival that continues to honor nations of the world since Israel emerged from its first antisemitic encounter in Egypt 3300 years before.

Zion!

Based on: The Primordial Reality of Zion

Few words carry as much heat today as Zion. For some, it evokes belonging, memory, and return. For others, it is heard through the language of politics, conflict, and accusation. In public debate, the word is often used so heavily that it becomes difficult to hear it at all.

But before Zion became a slogan, a battleground, or a banner, it was a biblical word.

That is where this article begins. Not with modern politics, and not with competing ideologies, but with a simpler and older question: what did Zion mean in Tanakh when it first appeared? Was it always just another name for Jerusalem, or did it first refer to something more precise — a distinct sacred point that later gave its name to something larger?

This question matters because words that become politically charged are often flattened. Their older meanings are buried under modern arguments. Yet in the logic of Tanakh, halakhah, and Jewish Kabbalah, Zion appears not merely as a poetic flourish but as a distinct sacred locus that Isaiah 52:8 preserves in restoration language too sharp to be neutralized. David first encounters Zion as a fortified, water-linked objective. Later, the name broadens in royal usage. Yet exactness in sacred law ensures the place of the altar at a sacred boundary that is also Zion. On that basis, the eastern ridge of Mount Moriah above the Gihon remains the strongest candidate for the recovery of Zion as a real and exact point. 

Modern readings often treat Zion as just another name for Jerusalem, and then allow mystical meaning only as metaphor. But the Jewish tradition works in the opposite direction. Sacred place is not holy because people later imagine it so. It is holy because it reflects a prior order: covenant, Presence, kingship, sacrifice, and transmission.

That is why Zion and Jerusalem should not be collapsed into one flat term. In the inner tradition, they are joined but not identical. Zion names concentration, foundation, and covenantal fixing. Jerusalem names kingdom, manifestation, and extension into history. If that distinction is real, then one should expect it to leave traces in text, law, and terrain.

The mystical reading does not float above Tanakh. It arises from the way Tanakh itself is built. The Mishkan, the Temple, the altar, the Holy of Holies, tribal boundaries, and laws of approach all assume that holiness is structured, graded, and locative. So when later tradition distinguishes Zion and Jerusalem, it is not indulging in poetic excess. It is reading a distinction already embedded in sacred order. Zion, on this reading, is concentrated sanctity: the place where relation is fixed, covenant is anchored, and Presence is not diffuse.

That also explains why the term “Zion” could later broaden. The name of the core can radiate outward to the larger body. But that later broadening does not prove that the original core never existed.

Isaiah 52:8 is the prophetic center of the question: בְּשׁוּב יְהוָה צִיּוֹן. The usual smoothing is “when God returns to Zion.” But the force of the Hebrew, "when God returns Zion" is sharper than that translation suggests.

The point is not that grammar alone settles every question. The point is that the verse refuses to let Zion become passive scenery. Zion stands in the line as the locus of restoration. The watchmen see “eye to eye” because what is described is concrete and manifest, not merely inward. This is where the mystical reading becomes stronger, not weaker. If Zion is a real point of covenantal alignment, exile is not only political displacement. It is dislocation between Presence and place. To say “God returns Zion” is therefore not rhetorical excess. It is a fitting expression of restored alignment.

Zion first appears in 2 Samuel 5 in a concrete setting. David captures the stronghold of Zion, and the action is tied to the tzinor, the water approach. Zion therefore enters Tanakh not as a vague symbol but as a fortified, water-linked objective. That matters. First appearances preserve profile. Even if later usage broadens, the first appearance shows what kind of place Zion originally was.

Yes, 1 Kings 8:1 later says that the City of David is Zion. But that proves later consolidation of the name, not necessarily original semantic breadth. A sacred name can expand outward from a more exact point. The strongest support for this argument is not mysticism alone, but halakhah. Rambam rules that the altar’s place is exact and may never be changed. This means sacred geography in Jerusalem is not arbitrary. That exactness matters. If altar-place is fixed, then boundaries matter, slopes matter, springs matter, and location matters. Holiness in Israel is not only intense. It is bounded.

This is why Joshua’s boundary texts and the rabbinic discussion in Zevachim matter. They preserve a memory that sacred layout was not symbolic drift but lawful structure. The southeast altar logic in particular shows that form itself carries tribal-boundary meaning.

God's presence settles in the west,
therefore mirror the image so left swaps right.

Once the question is framed this way, the eastern ridge above the Gihon is no longer an eccentric proposal. It becomes the one place where the main elements converge: water access, fortification, early monumental occupation, relation to the tzinor tradition, and fit with the Judah-Benjamin boundary logic. That does not mean every archaeological claim is beyond dispute. But it does mean the eastern ridge is the strongest setting in which Zion’s earliest profile still makes coherent sense.

More than that, it fits the sacred pattern. A foundational point would be expected to come first, then be covered over by broader royal and cultic expansion. That is exactly the kind of relation this ridge seems to preserve. 1 Kings 8:1 shows that by the Solomonic order, “Zion” had become an established designation for the City of David. But that may reflect transfer of the name from an original sacred core to the wider royal-sacral whole. That matters because exile is not only removal from land. It is also broadening without center. A name remains, a symbol remains, a city remains, but the exact point of alignment is obscured.

That is why restoration language remains so pointed. The memory of the core survives even when the name has spread outward. Zion should not be reduced to a loose synonym for Jerusalem, nor dissolved into a purely inward symbol. The stronger reading is that Zion is a differentiated sacred locus: foundational in the metaphysics of holiness and therefore capable of textual, legal, and topographic trace.

Isaiah 52:8 preserves restoration language too sharp to be neutralized. David first encounters Zion as a bounded, water-linked objective. Rambam preserves the exactitude of sacred place. Joshua and Zevachim preserve the boundary logic of holiness. The eastern ridge above the Gihon is the one terrain where these lines still cohere.

And this convergence does not end in a general preference for the ridge. It narrows to a candidate. Temple Zero names that point: a rock-cut sacred complex on the eastern slope above the Gihon, with reservoir, plastered water channel, cultic rooms, standing stone, and altar-related foundation. Here the water-linked setting of David’s Zion, the exactitude of altar law, the Judah-Benjamin boundary logic, and the inner demand for a concentrated point of Foundation cease to stand apart and begin to read as one stone grammar.

On that reading, Temple Zero is not merely another eastern-slope shrine. It is the strongest specific Zion candidate and its on the ridge above the Gihon: the place where prophetic restoration, altar-memory, the matzevah, and the antecedent pattern of later Temple design most nearly meet.

Therefore “when God returns Zion” should be heard as more than rhetoric. It is the language of the present day restoring of the foundational sacred point from which Jerusalem’s broader holiness radiated. To seek Zion in this way is not to subordinate mysticism to archaeology. It is to insist that the inner order of Torah leaves real traces in text, law, and land.

The video describes archaeology at the City of David location

The Infinite Hug!

In the hushed theater of existence, where the veil between the boundless and the bounded thins to a whisper, The Infinite hugs the finite within the quantum expanse of every atom. Picture the atom, that primordial seed of reality: a nucleus orbited by electrons in probabilistic clouds, not fixed paths but smeared possibilities. Here, in this subatomic ballet, The Infinite manifests as wave functions stretching eternally, collapsing only when observed into discrete points. The electron, defying classical confinement, tunnels through barriers it should not, borrowing energy from the vacuum's infinite fluctuations—zero-point energy, where nothingness teems with virtual particles winking in and out of being. Thus, The Infinite enables the finite, infusing the atom's core with echoes of eternity, a cosmic intimacy where boundless potential cradles the particle's singular form.

Ascending the ladder of complexity, this dance permeates every molecule, those intricate alliances of atoms bound by shared electrons. In water's humble H2O, hydrogen and oxygen entwine in quantum entanglement, their bonds vibrating with infinite harmonic oscillations—frequencies that, in theory, extend without end, yet resolve into finite energies that sustain life. The molecule's shape, dictated by quantum mechanics, emerges from infinite superpositions: electrons delocalized across space, choosing configurations from an unending array of probabilities. Even in the air we breathe, nitrogen molecules hum with this proximity, their triple bonds a testament to quantum tunneling allowing reactions that classical physics forbids. The Infinite whispers through these unions, approaching the finite not as an intruder but as the architect, sculpting stability from chaos.

In the sacred script of life, nucleotides, the building blocks of DNA embody this convergence. Each adenine, thymine, guanine, or cytosine is a molecular poem where quantum effects dictate base pairing. The hydrogen bonds linking them flicker with delocalized protons, quantum entities that exist in multiple states simultaneously, bridging infinite possibilities to finite sequences that encode our very essence. In the double helix's twist, quantum coherence allows electrons to flow like rivers of probability, enabling the molecule's stability amid thermal noise. Here, The Infinite nears the finite in the nucleotide's phosphate backbone, where vibrational modes resonate with the universe's underlying relationship with The Infinite, ensuring the fidelity of genetic information across generations.

From nucleotides arise proteins, those versatile machines of biology, folded into exquisite forms by quantum-guided interactions. In the amino acid chains, quantum van der Waals forces—arising from infinite vacuum polarizations—draw distant atoms close, while disulfide bridges form through electron sharing that defies locality. Enzymes, the catalysts of life, harness quantum tunneling to accelerate reactions by factors of trillions, protons leaping barriers as if The Infinite lent them wings. The protein's active site, a pocket of precision, emerges from infinite conformational landscapes explored in femtoseconds, settling into finite structures that bind substrates with unerring accuracy. Thus, in every fold and crevice, The Infinite hugs the finite, animating the protein's function with transcendent subtlety.

This pattern cascades into every structure of every cell: membranes riddled with ion channels where quantum gates open and close, allowing signals to propagate; mitochondria, powerhouses where electron transport chains exploit quantum coherence for efficient energy transfer; cytoskeletons of microtubules vibrating in quantum modes, perhaps even underpinning consciousness. In the cell's nucleus, chromatin dances with quantum randomness, influencing gene expression from infinite probabilistic outcomes. And beyond the cell, this truth envelops all matter—from the crystalline lattice of a diamond, where quantum delocalization binds carbon atoms, to the swirling plasmas of stars, where infinite quantum fields birth finite particles in fusion's fire. In rocks, rivers, and atmospheres, The Infinite hugs the finite, weaving the fabric of the natural world with threads of boundless potential.

Yet, the energy animating these realms springs not merely from within quantum space but from an infinite transcendence enveloping physics itself. Beyond the measurable quanta lies the unmanifest source—a metaphysical wellspring, the vacuum's infinite sea of potential energy, or perhaps the implicate order where all possibilities reside. This transcendence supplies the zero-point fluctuations powering atomic stability, the quantum vacuum energy fueling molecular bonds, the entangled fields enabling cellular harmony. It surrounds physics like an ocean cradling islands, infusing every particle, molecule, and structure with vitality drawn from eternity. In this grand symphony, The Infinite does not merely approach the finite; it embraces it, revealing that all matter, all life, is a fleeting expression of the boundless, forever touched by the transcendent beyond.

This Stone Will Be God's House

Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the Alter Rebbe and founder of Chabad asks a profound question about Jacob’s promise: “And this stone, which I have set up as a pillar, shall be God’s house.”

How can a stone become the house of God?

Jacob made this promise while leaving the Land of Israel. He was travelling toward Haran, where he would marry, raise a family, acquire wealth and confront a world very different from the protected home of Abraham and Isaac. Before leaving, Jacob encountered and slept at a sacred place. He experienced his vision of the ladder joining earth and heaven, awoke in awe and declared:

“How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and the gateway to heaven.”

He then took the stone, erected it as a matzevah and poured oil upon it. He promised that, should God protect him and return him peacefully, the stone would become God’s house. When Jacob later returned, Genesis records that he again erected a stone pillar, poured an oil libation upon it.

The Alter Rebbe explained Jacob’s promise was made through the Divine names Havayah and Elokim. Havayah represents God as infinite, above nature, time and limitation. Elokim represents the Divine power concealed within nature; the ordered world in which everything appears to possess an independent existence. Jacob’s mission was to bring these two perspectives together; to reveal that the ordinary physical world is not separate from its infinite Creator. That is why the Torah emphasizes a stone.

A stone is among the simplest and most inert objects in nature. It has no visible life, intelligence or spiritual character. Yet Jacob declared that even this stone could become a house for God. He was saying that holiness is not limited to heaven, prophecy or moments of spiritual inspiration. The ultimate purpose is for holiness to enter family, work, land, wealth, speech and physical existence itself.

Jacob was not escaping the material world. He was preparing to enter it and transform it. Sefer Yetzirah, The Book of Creation compares stones to letters. One stone alone is simple. Stones joined together form a house. In the same way, one letter carries limited meaning. Letters joined together form words; words form ideas; and ideas allow the soul to express itself through speech.

Jacob’s stone therefore represents more than a physical monument. It represents the possibility that physical matter can be arranged to express a higher purpose. A stone becomes part of a house. A letter becomes part of a holy sentence. A physical life becomes a dwelling place for God. This is also why our words matter. Speech can expose division and concealment, or it can reveal the deeper unity connecting people, creation and its Creator.

In 2010 a remarkable archaeological discovery was made on the eastern slope of ancient Jerusalem and it gives Jacob’s declaration a new physical context. The Rock-Cut-Rooms near the Gihon Spring have now been published by Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologists as a cultic complex, first constructed during the Middle Bronze Age. The complex contains an upright standing stone, a matzevah, together with an altar platform, an oil installation, wine storage a liquid and water channel as part of a system to clean the area.

This does not by itself prove that the standing stone belonged to Jacob. There is no inscription bearing his name. But, the convergence is striking and carbon dating in the water channel aligns perfectly with Jacob's last 30 years in his homeland. Initially Genesis describes Jacob: erecting a stone as a matzevah, and 22 years later pouring a libation upon it and accepting his God given name - Israel. 

The Rock-Cut-Rooms contain the same unusual cluster of elements: a standing stone, oil production, wine or liquid chanellin, an altar, place for processing sacrificed animals and water system cleaning the areas. The archaeological study also places the complex’s origins in the Middle Bronze Age, the broad ancient period within which the patriarchal setting is commonly placed and aligns with the Temple Zero argument. Archaeology therefore cannot identify Jacob, but it can establish that an ancient cultic complex of the appropriate general character and period existed at this location.

The deeper meaning of the site is found in the continuity of the forefathers. Jewish tradition connects Jacob’s “place” with Mount Moriah, the sacred place already associated with Abraham and Isaac. Abraham encountered it as a mountain. Isaac encountered it as a field. Jacob called it a house. The layout and orientation also aligns to the Jewish laws that were practised in the first and second temple periods.

The famous commentator Rashi, drawing on Midrash and the Talmud, explains that Jacob’s “house of God” refers to the place of the future Temple. Ramchal draws on Kabbalah to reach the same conclusion. The tradition therefore presents Jacob not as discovering an unrelated shrine, but as receiving and completing the sacred inheritance of his father and grandfather.

Abraham revealed faith in the One God. Isaac demonstrated complete devotion. Jacob transformed that inheritance into a house, a permanent structure capable of containing a family, a people and a nation. That progression is essential: Abraham found the mountain. Isaac sanctified the field. Jacob began building the house.

The matzevah was therefore not merely Jacob’s private memorial. It marked the moment when the spiritual experiences of the forefathers became the heritage of their descendants.

At this place Jacob returned from exile, gathered his family and received Divine confirmation of the name Israel. The stone is consequently linked not only to Jacob the individual, but to the birth of Israel as a covenantal people. Genesis places Jacob’s renewed pillar, libation and anointing immediately alongside the confirmation of his new name.

The re-emergence of such a stone after thousands of years cannot establish its biblical identity with certainty. But, it invites us to reconsider Jacob’s message. Jacob did not promise that heaven would replace earth. He promised that earth could become conscious of heaven. He did not say that the stone would cease being physical. He said that the physical stone itself would become God’s house.

This remains the task of Israel: to reveal holiness within the ordinary world—through ethical action, careful speech, family, community, justice, creativity and the sanctification of material life. Jacob’s stone represents that possibility. The lowest thing can be elevated. The hidden can be revealed. A stone can become a house. And a physical world can become a dwelling place for God.

Contract With Destiny

BS”D

Orthodox students of Torah (Bible) know that G-d entered the sea to a conditional contract in preparation for its creation on the third day. Against nature, the sea would be obligated to divide when at a future time the Israelite people would desire to cross it. According to Torah and Jewish tradition, the sea honored its contract with Destiny during the Israelites’ hurried exodus from Egypt. 

Moses led Israel out of their exile through the divided sea, but he was denied entry into their promised land because on one occasion he showed disregard to G-d’s Destiny. Torah refers to this incident as the “waters of dispute” so-named when Moses hit a rock, twice, perhaps the wrong rock, instead he should have spoken to it, then destiny would have been realized and the rock would have released its water. But,  G-d’s attention was turned to the different outcome, as a result Moses pleaded 515 times to amend the contract written in Torah and permit him to enter the land. It wasn’t to be.

430 years prior to these events, before the Torah was revealed to the Jewish people, Abraham entered a covenant of parts during which he was told that his future descendants would be exiled after which they would be qualified to inherit their promised land. A question was raised about Abraham’s descendants that also included the nations that descended from Esau and Ishmael: Why didn’t they inherit Abraham’s land? Because they had departed from their tribal obligation to Abraham’s covenant of parts, they abandoned the land and disconnected from the progeny of Isaac and Jacob (Israel). On Israel's circuitous, redemptive return from exile some of these other Abrahamic descendent nations contested Israel’s inheritance, battled the tired and weary nation, but they were defeated with ease. 

Of all the Biblical characters, why is Joseph the only one referred to as righteous? The reason becomes obvious through his dramatic life, yet Joseph never messed with destiny. Despite losing his mother as a young boy, being kidnapped, sold by his brothers and framed by his master’s wife, after her unsuccessful attempt to seduce him, he positively endured his imprisonment. Knowing events of his life were predestined he retained his happy demeanor, delighting in every moment. Out of his imprisonment he rose to the administrative head of the most powerful nation, second only to Pharaoh, lured his Israelite family to Egypt, played his central role in their destiny and eventual return to the promised land.

G-d’s Torah contract with Destiny reflects a perfect line, which one should be careful not to disrupt because the consequences to restore Destiny's perfection may be ominous. No doubt that happens continuously and sometimes destiny is even changed for the better. However, righteous individuals who are finely tuned to Torah’s laws and their ties to Destiny, wisely limit interruptions. In this sense Torah’s rules for Divine synchronicity is our timeless blueprint! 

Pillars of the Jewish Generations

 

Click to enlarge

Why does the Torah literally state; "And the life of Sarah was 100 years and 20 years and 7 years"?(Bereishit - Genesis 23:1). It's a strange way to recount the terminal age of the matriarch. But, something more intriguing ocurs at this juncture, the foundation of the Jewish nation. Two woman bound together by the life of Isaac; son, husband and patriarch who never left the land of his inherritance. 

At the outset of the verse, the first word וַיִּהְיוּ֙ (Va'-Yi-h-Yu) is a palindrome with a numerical value of 37 that captures the age of Isaac at Sarah's death, which is said to have ocurred when Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice. The word also joins previous details on which Rashi comments; "the entire genealogy was recorded only to tell that Rebecca was born to Betuel".

Comentators highlight the rarity of the recorded deaths of women. Only Sarah, Devorah (Rebecca's wet nurse), Rachel and ~500 years later Miriam. Rebecca's passing is not mentioned at all and years mentioned only for Sarah, perhaps to emphasize her importance and Rebecca's humility.

Two events shaped the destiny of the Jewish people thanks to the conviction of matriarchs Sarah and Rebecca. Sarah banished Hagar and Ishmael from her family, causing the inherritance of Abraham's first born to pass to Isaac instead. And, 120 years later Rebecca insisted Jacob decieve Isaac to obtain the blessing normally held for their first born son Esau. 

Finally, immediately after Devorah passed and was burried, Rebecca passed and Rachel gave birth to Benjamin, the only child of Jacob to be born in Israel before she passed during childbirth. The passage of souls into the world had been completed and the destiny of the Jewish generation set until the end of days.

Birthday of Man

5782 years have passed since Torah's events of creation. The New Year is an introspect, a birthday celebration of speaking man who preceded the Bible and Jewish religion by 2448 years. The deep, mystical language inspires scholars and confounds wayward philosophers. 

Hidden in Torah's rich-grammar, something from nothing! Its Author moved toward His supra-rational 'Will' to create; soul's, time, space, worlds and speaking man. Similarly, mans desire and intellect would be powerful enough to perceive independence and obtain free choice. 

Here we glimpse the Ultimate Creator restraining the infinite and enabling the finite to accommodate uninhibited self-perception. And, beyond any logic, His desire for self-subjugation to restore perception of the soul's will.   

You are free to decide...

Happy New Year! 

 

 

The Righteous Who Are Buried on Friday

45 fallen victims of Meron

A king who was crowned in the middle of history sacrificed his popularity to correct a universal spiritual flaw. The king knew why he was set the task, what he had done to expose the flaw and why he was coerced into the corrective action. He knew his action would would plunge him into trouble and despair. He was alone in his knowledge when he acted.

Above all the king desired to build a permanent temple for his people and the world to elevate spiritual awareness. Through his people all would be unified in prosperity and prevailing peace. The challenges against him came from his closest family, his advisors and leaders of his people. Most were vehemently opposed to the action he was taking, most thought him to be borderline crazy, but he persevered.  

As he was beginning to bare the brunt of his corrective action, alone and desperate, perhaps to restore his popularity he called on his once loyal general to personally conduct a census of his nation. Reluctantly the general carried out the kings orders, but in half measure underwhelming the kings authority before the people. Spiritual retribution against the king was swift and he was forced to make the impossible choice of a suitable national punishment, he preferred to endure a three day plague. On the first day 70,000 of his people were killed. By the second day the plague had reached the kings city, people were petrified.

The king's spiritual advisor recommended he urgently buy the plot of land, at the top of the hill on which his palace was built to construct an altar at which the king could publicly repent. The king immediately invited the tribal leaders of his panicked nation to join him in the purchase and to support his public pleading for cessation of the nations tragedy. They swiftly contributed, the plague was stopped, but in exchange for its premature cessation the general's pious brother lost his life. 

Despite the kings effort and desire he did not merit to build the temple, but out of the corrective action attempting to rectify the universal flaw a son was born. This son became king and around that altar he built the temple his father so desperately desired. However, completing the corrective action still awaits a king who, in his lifetime will build a temple that ushers in the era of permanent prosperity and peace in the world. 

In a world still in the grip of the global Coronavirus pandemic, early Friday morning a community gathered to circumcise a baby and welcome him as a Jew from the priestly tribe who are exclusively designated to serve in the future temple. On the other side of the world, at that same time, where the plague once killed 70,000 a tragedy was unfolding. Around midnight on Thursday/Friday at a pilgrimage festival, celebrated annually for a Jewish soul who was the world's ultimate embodiment of humility and whose teachings are now a national treasure, festivity quickly turned to mourning when 45 souls instantly perished and many more were injured.

The day is known as humility of humility, one of 49 days accounting and accessing individual attributes between Passover and receiving the Old Testament - Torah. For a pure idea to manifest perfectly into reality (true to the idea) it must pass the inner and outer humility test, failing which it will be polluted and sensed as such.

Thirteen years have now passed since the calculated end of history as the world awaits an individual that can endure plague, convert tragedy into opportunity, be recognized, lead his people, advance spiritual understanding, build a temple, and deliver peace and prosperity in the world. We pray it happens soon! 

 

 

430 years before Pesach there was Pesach!

Two sacrifices are represented on the Seder Plate - Pesach (bone) and Chagigah (egg)

For the past ~3300 years Pesach or Passover has arrived when the 14th of Nissan transitions to the 15th and Jewish families of the world gathered for their Seder dinner to celebrate and acknowledge the moment the enslaved Jews of Egypt were finally freed. But, why and how have so many revered Rabbi's taught that 430 years before that fateful Pesach night the generations that descended from Abraham, Sarah, then Isaac, Rebecca and Jacob had already followed similar practices eating unleavened bread and sacrificing domesticated sheep or goats for the feast?

On the Seder night, the poor-man's bread, known as the Afikomen is broken, one piece is eaten the larger piece is put aside. Then a long held custom, for some play's out during the course of the meal when the children carefully await the right moment to 'steal' and hide the remaining Afikomen. The kids know the Seder meal cannot be completed because the Afikomen is the last item that must be eaten before recitations and the blessing over the fourth cup of wine, which marks the conclusion of the meal. When it comes time to eat the remaining Afikomen the inevitable negotiation begins and continues until the kids concur that a suitable exchange has been reached and the Afikomen returned. 

The strange custom reflects on ancient events that preceded the unleavened bread taken out of Egypt.

Abraham was the first to experience the prophecy of a future exile from the land he had inherited, this occurred 430 years prior to the Egyptian exile of his progeny. One sunny 14th of Nissan day 3 angels arrived to tell Abraham and Sarah of the future birth of their son Isaac. Elderly Sarah was busy making unleavened bread and Abraham ran off to slaughter cattle for the feast with his heavenly guests. They announced a year later Isaac would be born and that occurred on 15 Nissan.

   

Isaac was blind and at 122 years, five years before his mothers age at her death he called to his oldest son Esau to trap some game (two deer) and prepare it so Isaac could bless him with the rites of the first born over the feast. Isaac's wife Rebecca seized the moment for their younger son Jacob insisting he disguise as his brother Esau and deliver his father a meal of goat and lamb, that Rebecca would prepare to obtain the blessing in place of his older brother. Perhaps Rebecca anticipated an enraged Esau would force Jacob's flight to safety in exile, to the land of their estranged family where Jacob would ultimately be married, build his own family and 20 years later return to the land his father never left. 

When Esau discovered his blessings had been 'stolen' he pleaded; "Bless me too father!" Isaac answered; “Your brother came with cunning-wisdom - בְּמִרְמָ֑ה (b'mir'mah) and took away your blessing". The deception by Rebecca and Jacob is thus recalled in the custom for kids to express cunning-wisdom over the Afikomen. But, what's the underlying logic of the custom? The numerical value of b'mir'mah, 287 is the same as Afikomen connecting the custom over stolen, poor-man's, unleavened bread with the deception of Esau and the entrapment of Isaac. This is confirmed because Rebecca told Isaac to send Jacob away from the Hittites, amongst whom they lived to find a wife at their estranged family where, in exile Jacob would be out of sight of his enraged brother. 

The word 'Seder' [S-D-R] is associated with [S]od (secret), [D]rosh (inquiry) and [R]emes (hints) which allude to the deeper, often hidden associations in Jewish customs that parallel its written Torah. Here we see a further association with Pesach. On his birthday, Isaac ordered two animals, but why would Isaac need two animals, the man was blind and nearing the end of his days surely he couldn't eat that much? When the tabernacle or temples once stood the custom on Pesach was to bring two animal sacrifices known as Korban Pesach and Korban Chagigah (the extra sacrifice). The latter because the Torah expressly requires the bones of the Pesach sacrifice not be broken. The roasted animal had to eaten with delicate care to keep the carcass in tact. A feast with Esau - the hunter, a man with violent tendencies seems to have required another animal sacrifice to ensure the Pesach sacrifice would be cherished.

Finally, at the Pesach Seder four cups of wine are consumed, each representing a stage of the exile said to have lasted 86 years with the last being the harshest. 86 years x 5 stages = 430 years of exile, the period about which Abraham prophesied. The fifth cup of wine poured at each Seder table is poured and returned to the bottle for the soul of the prophet Eliyahu who, is said will appear to announce the final redemption when all Jews will be united in Jerusalem. The Seder concludes, even for Jews living in Jerusalem with the saying - "Next Year in Jerusalem"!

The Abraham Accords - The Patient Soul!

Translators struggled to interpret the end of the Bible's six-day Genesis creation story because it contains too many allusions to secrets that are lost in any translation attempt.

2:4 Such is the story (generations) of heaven and earth when they were created. When the LORD God made (prepared) earth and heaven

2:4 אֵ֣לֶּה תוֹלְד֧וֹת הַשָּׁמַ֛יִם וְהָאָ֖רֶץ בְּ_הִבָּֽרְאָ֑ם בְּי֗וֹם עֲשׂ֛וֹת יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהִ֖ים אֶ֥רֶץ וְשָׁמָֽיִם׃

In Hebrew, the verse suggests earth and heaven were a preparation (עֲשׂ֛וֹת), but for what? Generations of heaven and earth?

The verse includes the first use of "The Name" יְהוָ֥ה "Ha Shem". It suggests the creation of earth and heaven were a preparation for a special soul, alluded in the small 'הִ' heh of the word בְּ_הִבָּֽרְאָ֑ם (B'hibaram). The sub-script 'heh' reflects it's smaller written form in a kosher Torah scroll. 

The preceding six creation days exclusively use the name אֱלֹהִ֖ים Elo-h-im (Elokim) - 32 times. אֱלֹהִ֖ים  Elokim is understood as a mystical concealment of the ultimate spiritual Name - יְהוָ֥ה - Ha'Shem through which it relates to the physical world. Perhaps that's why the letters of אֱלֹהִ֖ים Elokim equate to the numerical value 86, also shared with הטבע ha'teva - 'the nature' inherent in physical creation. Kabbalah relates the 32 times to the archetypal soul that comprise 10 nuanced concealments, referred to as vessels or attributes and 22 paths that connect them.

The word תוֹלְד֧וֹת toldot is rarely spelled in its complete form, with two vav's (וֹ ). In the story of Noah it is incomplete. The story of Isaac also uses the incomplete form (תוֹלְד֧ת) because only one of his two sons, Jacob would carry the ascendant Jewish soul. The complete form appears only one other time in the entire 24 books of the Bible. During the story Peretz, (Ruth 4:18) its meaning is conveyed definitively as - 'generations' justifying that creation was indeed a preparation of earth and heaven for generations that would ascend from the soul root.

2048 years after creation three angels (Genesis 19:1) were dispatched to announce that Abram, at the age of 100 would finally have a son to his wife Sarah. One angel informed Abram, one destroyed the city of Sodom and the other rescued Abram's nephew Lot with his wife and daughters from the impending destruction in Sodom.

The letter 'heh' was added to Abram when it became Abraham - אַבְרָהָ֔ם - (Genesis 17:5) and the בְּ_הִבָּֽרְאָ֑ם B'hibaram soul root descended. The letters of בְּ_הִבָּֽרְאָ֑ם B'hibaram can be rearranged to spell בְּ'אַבְרָהָ֔ם b'Abraham. The former can mean 'He created the heh' alluding to special soul, the latter means 'in Abraham'. 

Lot's wife died on escape from Sodom. Lot and his daughters were fearful, stranded in a remote cave. The daughters feared cessation of their blood line, so they engaged a semi-conscious Lot incestuously. The תוֹלְד֧וֹת toldot soul complement was reserved for one daughters descendant Ruth, a convert to Judaism through whom the soul complement descended. 

Ruth would deliver the counterpart to Boaz and fully complete the בְּ_הִבָּֽרְאָ֑ם B'hibaram soul journey. That event occurred through the lineage of Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Boaz and Ruth to Peretz, Jesse and David. In 2884 the messianic soul root in David was recognized by the Jewish people when he was crowned king and in the middle of history arrived in Jerusalem in 2891. This year 5782 is exactly double that midpoint, signaling the end of history. 

Thus, the mystical creation secrets of Torah are indelibly inked, but lost in translation.

Scapegoat And Distraction

We sometimes scoff at the ancient practices of Judaism as if there is no place for them in modern society, but do we take the time to understand them? After all, they have endured the Jewish people for thousands of years, surely there must be something to them?

One such example are two identical goats, that when Israel had a national temple would be sacrificed on the holiest day of the year - Yom Kippur. The high priest led a sequence of sin offerings and calls for repentance. In his heightened spiritual state he would draw a lottery to determine which goat would be designated Az-Azel (scapegoat) and which would be offered in the temple. Repentance simply means agreeing not to do the same thing again and achieving it.

As mentioned in last weeks entry, elements in three of four evil realms cannot be redeemed, but the fourth translucent realm depends on our actions. Given the power of these realms, redeeming elements to a state of holiness empowers the redeemer, but only when purity of process is realized. The two goats represent undercover agents of the translucent realm and only the wise, or sweetened agent can be redeemed by the redeemer who will be empowered if the pure process is maintained. In this case one goat will be sacrificed in the temple, the other will be taken to a high desert cliff and thrown to its death. Either way both die! For repentance the sacrifice in the temple is momentarily redeeming, while the other distracts negative forces that would otherwise have the redeemer, in this case Israel fail in its restraint.

In a modern context compare this to a goal to restrain yourself from breaking your resolution by improving your behavior through dieting, speaking, behaving etc. When you pass your first test, you may be internally pleased, but if you express your pleasure before you have completely and permanently separated from your past behavior you may be setting yourself up for failure. Here distraction often ensures no relapse, a positive separation from your old ways. In context, the word holy always means to separate from something less holy!

In the depths of initial restraint, when the battle to hold back is at its toughest with each small victory character is strengthened and power to restrain improves - will power! Without restraint from repeating the very thing you resolved to achieve, there can be no self-test of honesty to yourself and your connection to reality.

Esoteric wisdom of not mixing wool and linen (flax) in the clothes you wear dates back to the sons of Adam and Eve. Prodigal Cain brought an offering of dark flax-seed to use the power of earth to reunite the four realms his father and mother had released when their self interested ego's distracted  the selflessness they had been instructed to preserve. But his grandiose desire was too self-serving. His brother Abel brought white wool from a sheep to symbolize that the animal or emotive realm must first be offered and sacrificed, by the intellectual realm in order to defeat the self-actualization of ego.

Noah was the tenth generation after Adam. He was instructed by God to build an ark and prepare his family for the great flood. On the ark they were not permitted to have sexual relations, but his son Ham, the dog and raven did not obey. After exiting the ark, Noah planted a grapevine, got drunk and uncovered his nakedness in his tent. Ham saw his father, but his brothers Shem and Japheth turned their backs until they covered their father. Noah cursed Ham's son Canaan seemingly for the actions Ham had perpetrated. However, from laws against practices of sexual misconduct we can learn that Canaan was the product Ham's incestuous relation with his mother. Canaan the product deserved the direct curse of his grandfather as punishment to Ham and his Noah's wife. On numerous occasion the Torah warns; If a man lies with his fathers wife, he is considered to have uncovered his fathers nakedness, perhaps offering insight to Noah's grief.

Torah records the living practices and precedents of the Israeli nation for almost 4000 years, its text is alive and continues to inform those who dedicate time to discover it.

Disease, Psychology, Relationship and Religion

Many have grown impatient with orthodox religion and practices. The laws and their implementation in modern life often present difficult contradictions, inconvenient to the pressurized tendencies we have adopted to our personalities. In the age of Coronavirus, we have been forced to take a fresh look at our habitual practices, religious or otherwise.

Five hundred years ago, a student diligently recorded the teachings of his master, Rabbi Isaac Luria. The teachings were so extraordinary that they revived enthusiasm, consolidated communal views, re-instituted prayer, established the foundation for modern Jewish revival and birthed the study of human psychology. At 38 his holy soul departed our world. I have extensively read those writings and their modern commentaries in a brilliant book entitled "Apples from the Orchard" and decided to share just a glimpse of their genius.

Awareness of ritual impurity is a cornerstone of holy life, especially when a national temple existed for the Jewish people. For example, if a woman conceives and gives birth to a son, she shall be impure for seven days, as in the days of her menstrual period. On the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. The word for this impurity is 'tazria' relating to a condition once known as tzara'at. A flesh swelling, a scab or a bright spot, not quite the equivalent of modern leprosy, rather a skin disease that only existed in the spiritually elevated temple times.

As a backgrounder: About the questions Jewish people would ask, Moses was instructed to tell them it is because Eve transgressed what she was told, she was made to suffer the impurity of menstruation, but by circumcision of the foreskin the power of impurity along with evil lust will be weakened. The original Eve physiology was such that menstrual cycle and giving birth was once painless and bloodless. In the process of human spiritual maturation the phenomena will return. But how?

Marginally the foreskin effects the experience of marital relationships, it increases gross sensual pleasure, which can decrease a mans sensitivity to his wife. By removing it, sexual experience becomes less narcissistic, more spiritual. During a menstrual period a woman is more self conscious, unable to orient toward the proper selfless, yet self-serving intent, the interaction of both parties enjoying martial relations. Circumcision improves this relationship behavior, a man is less likely to succumb to gross sensual pleasure and more inclined to the sensitivity of his wife's spiritual state of mind.

Circumcision is the "sign" of the Jewish covenant between man and God, a reminder of servitude toward higher authority. Here, it was placed between menstruation and disease to remind about haughtiness that could blot out its spiritual designation and purpose. With the disease a swelling is caused by public facing humility, but private egocentricity; a scab, deep in the skin is a feeling of superiority over peers, but not others; and worst of all a bright spot results from feeling and acting superior to everyone. These are personality traits that God despises, that's why a verse in psalm 93 states "God reigns, He is robed in haughtiness", a reference to the clothing that masks His humility.

The oral and written traditions know about the time the snake stood upright that the defilement of Eve was caused by the injection of its poison. The antithesis of Godly attributes, the snake personified 'evil', selfishness and egocentricity that actually had intercourse with Eve, then it was banished to the dust under its belly. Inflated consciousness, when not being used for Divine purpose feeds the alternative and is termed 'evil'. A soul comprises the animal and intellect that each person must appropriately blend toward selfless expression or the snakes perspective will dominate and suffering persists. The more one centers on  a spiritual life toward selfless expression, as guided by God's commandments the more one is liberated from the alternative entrapment.

It's for this reason Adam was created outside the Garden of Eden, from dust of the earth representing selfless, Divinely inspired existence and only brought into it after. But, Eve intermingled the seventy gentile nations with Israel represented in the purity of Adam as the soul of the future Jewish people. This is why Eve menstruated at the moment of her son's birth who shed the blood of his brother. The Talmud relates the father supplies the white bones, sinews, nails, brain and white of the eye. The mother, red skin, flesh, hair, blood and black of the eye. God gives spirit, soul, facial features, eyesight, hearing, speech, ability to walk, understand and discern. As if to illustrate Eve's dominance we are told, when the wife gives seed first the baby is male.

The Torah uses the expression uncircumcised for only four organs; procreative, ears, heart and mouth. So why is the procreative organ the only one circumcised? Because the term 'orlah' is shared and relates foreskin to the fourth of four years fruit is commanded to be left on a newly planted tree, before it can be consumed. It's as if we are blocked off by some type of 'orlah' or foreskin. Analogous to circumcision the fruit of the fourth year is to be taken to Jerusalem and eaten only in the confines of the holy city.

Kabbalah explains fruit of the first three years belong to three realms of absolute evil that human consumption cannot possibly rectify, but the fourth comes from the "bright" or translucent realm that has potential to be transformed by our actions. Therefore, the heart, ear and mouth must be blocked off, scrupulously guarded to ensure that egocentricity, selfishness and uncorrected animal behavior does not dominate our persona. Through this true and especially marital relationships endure.

These three 'demonic' realms, replete with angels of good an evil are the battleground for the forces enabled by our actions on the fourth, ultimately to prevail and elevate our world to a more pure, spiritual, pristine existence. In the final healing and purification from these diseases, the sufferer brings two birds to the temple altar, one is slaughtered, the others wing is dipped in the slaughtered birds blood and freed in an open field.

As if to show that liberation from our disease is dependent on the slaughtered bird we can begin to appreciate the symbolic importance. These commandments remain a practitioners guide to a better way of life, even to the extent that childbirth will ultimately be painless and free from blood once again.