A. Digital Combinations
There are four digits whose Gematria is expressed by Hebrew letters as ones, tens, and hundreds. They are:
1=א,י,ק
2=ב,כ,ר
3=ג,ל,ש
4=ד,מ,ת
Any of these three letter combinations can be arranged in six ways. Interestingly, whereas any combination of the letters ברכ form a Hebrew (or Aramaic) word or root (Hebrew roots are generally three letter combinations), the letters איק can only be meaningfully combined in one way, גלש can only find three combinations, and דמת, only one, which is not Biblical Hebrew but is found in the Mishna.
Is there any significance to this?
B. The Creative ב
ב is the first letter of the Torah, despite its not being the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The Zohar discusses at length why God chose ב as the first letter. The common understanding of the Kabbalists is that prior to Creation there was only One. The primary act of Creation was creating a reality in which there was more than One, namely two. Hence, Creation is prefaced with the letter ב to indicate the significance of 2 in the creative process.
Further, the Talmud teaches us that the creation of the Universe was facilitiated by God's combining letters in order to create the physical world. (It is beyond the scope of this essay to discuss the meaning of this statement. The easiest way to understand is that the letters of the Hebrew Aleph-Bais serve as the spiritual DNA code, or perhaps the atomic table, of all matter.) As the letter ב was the primary letter used in Creation, it would then make sense that all of its permutations find a home in the expression of reality as we know it.
C. The Preceding א
The letter א, by contrast, precedes Creation. As such, its permutations do not form anything as they exist in a realm that preceded any creative act. The only exception is the permutation קיא, which means regurgitation. Why would that represent the state of existence prior to Creation?
The Talmud (חגיגה ט"ז.) refers to the pre-Creation state as an אשפה, which is an outhouse. Why is this metaphor used? Some of the commenators explain that as God created many worlds and destroyed them prior to the creation of our world, each successive world was built on the detritus of the preceding one. God, so to speak, recycled the previous, destroyed, worlds, in order to build the next. This is the אשפה, the outhouse, that precedes Creation. It would follow then that קיא, regurgitation (which in ירמיה is paired with צואה which would be found in an אשפה) would be an apt description of the pre-Creation existence.
D. The Distant ג
The letter ג finds three permutations, שלג ,גלש and שגל. By this point one is very distant from God. Rather than experiencing the creative power of God one finds himself in a place that is cold (שלג meaning snow) and immersed in physicality (שגל is considered to be a base word decribing sexual relations to the extent that when it appears in the Torah we do not even pronounce it.) גלש refers to hair falling out, a process of deterioration that denies a person access to the spiritual connections fostered by hair.
E. The ד Completes the Cycle
The letters דמת form no words in Hebrew. In Aramaic, a language more distant from God, we can spell out the word תמד, an alcoholic beverage that allows a person to completely lose himself in his distant darkness. We can spell out two two-letter words דם and מת, blood and death, the inevitable result of a state so distant from God's holiness.
But inebriation also clears the mind of its inhibited state and empowers a person to delve into the deeper secrets of God. And death enables a person to completely sever his connection to the physical world and reconnect to God, completing the cycle to where it began.
There are four digits whose Gematria is expressed by Hebrew letters as ones, tens, and hundreds. They are:
1=א,י,ק
2=ב,כ,ר
3=ג,ל,ש
4=ד,מ,ת
Any of these three letter combinations can be arranged in six ways. Interestingly, whereas any combination of the letters ברכ form a Hebrew (or Aramaic) word or root (Hebrew roots are generally three letter combinations), the letters איק can only be meaningfully combined in one way, גלש can only find three combinations, and דמת, only one, which is not Biblical Hebrew but is found in the Mishna.
Is there any significance to this?
B. The Creative ב
ב is the first letter of the Torah, despite its not being the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The Zohar discusses at length why God chose ב as the first letter. The common understanding of the Kabbalists is that prior to Creation there was only One. The primary act of Creation was creating a reality in which there was more than One, namely two. Hence, Creation is prefaced with the letter ב to indicate the significance of 2 in the creative process.
Further, the Talmud teaches us that the creation of the Universe was facilitiated by God's combining letters in order to create the physical world. (It is beyond the scope of this essay to discuss the meaning of this statement. The easiest way to understand is that the letters of the Hebrew Aleph-Bais serve as the spiritual DNA code, or perhaps the atomic table, of all matter.) As the letter ב was the primary letter used in Creation, it would then make sense that all of its permutations find a home in the expression of reality as we know it.
C. The Preceding א
The letter א, by contrast, precedes Creation. As such, its permutations do not form anything as they exist in a realm that preceded any creative act. The only exception is the permutation קיא, which means regurgitation. Why would that represent the state of existence prior to Creation?
The Talmud (חגיגה ט"ז.) refers to the pre-Creation state as an אשפה, which is an outhouse. Why is this metaphor used? Some of the commenators explain that as God created many worlds and destroyed them prior to the creation of our world, each successive world was built on the detritus of the preceding one. God, so to speak, recycled the previous, destroyed, worlds, in order to build the next. This is the אשפה, the outhouse, that precedes Creation. It would follow then that קיא, regurgitation (which in ירמיה is paired with צואה which would be found in an אשפה) would be an apt description of the pre-Creation existence.
D. The Distant ג
The letter ג finds three permutations, שלג ,גלש and שגל. By this point one is very distant from God. Rather than experiencing the creative power of God one finds himself in a place that is cold (שלג meaning snow) and immersed in physicality (שגל is considered to be a base word decribing sexual relations to the extent that when it appears in the Torah we do not even pronounce it.) גלש refers to hair falling out, a process of deterioration that denies a person access to the spiritual connections fostered by hair.
E. The ד Completes the Cycle
The letters דמת form no words in Hebrew. In Aramaic, a language more distant from God, we can spell out the word תמד, an alcoholic beverage that allows a person to completely lose himself in his distant darkness. We can spell out two two-letter words דם and מת, blood and death, the inevitable result of a state so distant from God's holiness.
But inebriation also clears the mind of its inhibited state and empowers a person to delve into the deeper secrets of God. And death enables a person to completely sever his connection to the physical world and reconnect to God, completing the cycle to where it began.
No comments:
Post a Comment