אנשי אמנה

I made an app , an interactive tool that allows one to calculate the date of Pesach, according to the proposed Hebrew calendar, for any year up till 35333. The app computes the date simultaneously in the existing Hebrew calendar, in the Gregorian calendar, and in a whole bunch of other calendars. For years 1000 until 7333, the date of Pesach, according to the proposed Hebrew calendar, is exactly Nissan 15, or it is one month removed from Nissan 15. When the "Pesach" date is one month before Nissan 15, that date is Hemshech Purim . Next to the year appears the Oeviya (CR5, CA2, et cetera), which is a complete characterization of the year. For details, see the book The Jewish Calendar and the Torah: Introduction - 2nd Edition , of Shneer . It is also possible, thanks to John Walker , to use the app as a date converter from Gregorian to Hebrew, and vice versa. The app is in the public domain. Download its code here .

In the year 4681, a dispute erupted between Aharon Ben Meir , Nasi of the Sanhedrin in Eretz Yisrael, who insisted that Molad Nissan of year 1 should be on Wednesday at 9 hours exactly, at 4:9:0, and Rav Saadya Gaon , of Bavel, who insisted that Molad Tishrei after that, was on Friday, at 14 hours exactly, at 6:14:0 (and at 2:5:204 - BaHaRaD - one year earlier). The two differ by 642 Chalakim. That is, according to Rav Saadya, Molad Nissan is at 4:9:642. In the end, Ben Meir seems to have given up and since then the Halacha is according to Rav Saadya. About what was the dispute? Probably, Ben Meir and his tradition felt that Nissan was more important than Tishrei. Is Nissan not the first month? But, let us be fair. To insist that either Molad Nissan or Molad Tishrei of year 1 or 2 must be a round number, is nonsense. When he was excommunicated by the exilarch of Bavel, Ben Meir could have repaid in kind, but he did not, in the end. He must have understood that, as Israel was in the ...

To a searcher of Truth, the orthodox position is anathema. It may be that a certain teaching finds a place, a priori, in one's heart, or to the contrary, a certain teaching causes disgust in one's heart, but that can be of no influence on the search for the Truth. Going for the Truth means going for the Truth and nothing else. It means laying down all assumptions. It may be that in the end there is a certain agreement between the Truth and a priori positions, but that is after the fact, and not before. Mind you, such an enterprise is not for the faint-hearted. This is the 800th post in the series of my blogs. The series shows an evolution from ideas that were informed by orthodox teaching, to a position were such a priori ideas are avoided. All in all, I think it is fair to say that we started from the "Chiloni truth" and accepted "all the sciences," and we accepted "the Zionist enterprise." And then we researched the Torah, the ancient scripture....

We have assumed the GRA-oriented timing of the Rap'ach years, the 288 years from 5501. It is also possible that the 288 years are to be counted from the year 5493, because that was the year that 127 years ended from year 5366. In this case, 288 years will end in the year 5781. This will be the end of Moshiach ben Yosef, in a certain way, that will lead to Moshiach ben Benyamin, Moshiach ben Yamin. This scenario does not have the stimulated emission idea of the counting to 288, yet it is something to take into account. In this scenario, it seems there will be a Moshiach ben David going for the throne, but Moshiach ben Yamin will beat him. Perhaps both types of counting to 288, and both connections to the count from 5366, are valid simultaneously. The wise will understand.

The students of the GR"A lost the universal aspect of Moshiach ben Yosef to the scientists. To mention just a few names: Newton, Gauss, Darwin, Wellhausen, and the Jewish ones, Einstein, Feynman, Freud, Friedman. The particularistic aspect of Moshiach ben Yosef they lost to the Zionists. To mention just a few names: Jabotinsky, Ben Gurion, Begin, Netanyahu. The students of the GR"A chose for the line of Moshiach ben David, which is the line of Halacha. There is hatred between the line of Yosef and the line of David. But fortunately, there is another line, the line of "religious Zionists," who believe in Torah and Mad'ah. They believe in the combination of Torah, all the sciences, and the Zionist enterprise. Given the hatred between the two lines, it seems like a ridiculous position, filled with contradictions, in the brunt of hatred. It is not sufficiently known, but there is a secret to their success. The secret is that there is another line, the line of Beny...

In the previous post I ended with a quote of Carl Friedrich Gauss. Here is a more elaborate set of quotes of him that cause one to think. It is worthwhile to study this person and read the whole list . Because what he did was extraordinary. He took the queen of wisdom, "in the eyes of the nations," and simplified it. That is wisdom. What can be the explanation of the Gauss phenomenon? What can be his role in history? We have to say that he was a holy spark of the Light, created by "breaking of the vessels," that fell among the K'lipot of the nations. The failure of the students of the GR"A was thus for a purpose, the gathering of the holy sparks. That is awesome. is the queen of sciences and number theory is the queen of mathematics. For the soul there is a satisfaction of a higher type; the material is not at all necessary. Whether I apply mathematics to a couple of clods of dirt, which we call planets, or to purely arithmetical problems, it s just th...

It says in the Talmud {Shabbat 75a}: Rabbi Shimon ben Pazi said in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, in the name of Bar Kappara: "Anyone who knows how to calculate the cycles and the planetary movements and he does not calculate, it is written about him: And the work of G-d they do not regard and the action of His hands they do not see (Yeshaya 5:12)." Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachman said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan: "From where do we know that it is incumbent upon a person to calculate the cycles and the planetary movements? For it is stated: You shall safeguard and perform them, for it is your wisdom and discernment in the eyes of the nations (Devarim 4:6). What wisdom and discernment is in the eyes of the nations? You have to say this is the calculation of the cycles and the planetary movements." In other words, the calculation of the cycles based on the movements of the Moon and the Sun is the primary example of Chochma and Bina, "in the eyes of the na...

To illustrate the notion of unified wisdom , two examples from my writings come to mind. A "simple" example is "The Fixed Hebrew Calendar" . It surely is wisdom, based on the sciences. It contains a Chiddush, which belongs to the sciences, but serves a purpose beyond that. The Chiddush serves to fix the calendar in a simple way, and therefore the time of the Chagim. Two arts come together, the wisdom of mathematics and programming, and the system coming from Chazal, who would probably have seen it as wisdom coming from above. A more elaborate example is what is known as "Brocard's Problem" , a problem in mathematics, which is wisdom from below, together with the "coinciding" numbers in נֵ"ר תָּמִי"ד , which must be wisdom from above. Who wants to pursue the matter is referred to "Some Edits" and the blog posts leading to it, to "The Mathematics of PE" and related posts, as well as to "An Observation...

The great secret of Torah is in fact pointing to one aspect of the Yichud of Hashem . As long as the sources of the wisdom from below and the wisdom from above, are perceived as giving contradicting messages, the Yichud of Hashem is not completely revealed. This the task of the letter Aleph, the great Aleph, at יהי אור. At that time, the unity of all wisdom and all knowledge will become as clear as the day. Everything in creation will be perceived as good, even the perception of evil will become the perception of good. The wisdoms from below, reformulated in terms of the wisdom from above, or visa versa, will come to teach this. When is the time of the great Aleph? It seems that the GR"A, the Vilna Gaon, interpreted the Zohar such that the year 5600 was "the year." Year 5600 was the final year of Machzor Hagadol, and it is the year the gates are opened for the sources of the wisdom from below and the wisdom from above, according to the Zohar. This is why the GR"A ...

Noach was the first human being who planted a vineyard {Bereshit 9:20}: וַיָּחֶל נֹחַ, אִישׁ הָאֲדָמָה; וַיִּטַּע, כָּרֶם. וַיֵּשְׁתְּ מִן-הַיַּיִן, וַיִּשְׁכָּר Noach, the tiller of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard. He drank from the wine and became drunk. Noach was extremely happy, and he got drunk. What was the Simcha, the happiness, about? Noach found out that the soil, the Adamah, was not cursed. That what was previously thought of as a curse, the spoiling of the grape juice, was in fact a good thing. With a little help, it created wine. Noach was very happy because he was the one to find out the process. He had discovered a secret of Nature. Noach also discovered the truth of the saying in Sanhedrin 38a, נִכְנַס יַיִן יָצָא סוֹד as he fell asleep, drunken. Noach went to the world of Sod, and exclaimed as he woke up: "The Adamah is not cursed, but Canaan is." He had understood a secret of Torah. Of course, through this curse, the nation of Yisrael woul...

Noach was the first human being who planted a vineyard {Bereshit 9:20}: וַיָּחֶל נֹחַ, אִישׁ הָאֲדָמָה; וַיִּטַּע, כָּרֶם. וַיֵּשְׁתְּ מִן-הַיַּיִן, וַיִּשְׁכָּר Noach, the tiller of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard. He drank from the wine and became drunk. Noach was extremely happy, and he got drunk. What was the Simcha, the happiness, about? Noach found out that the soil, the Adamah, was not cursed. That what was previously thought of as a curse, the spoiling of the grape juice, was in fact a good thing. With a little help, it created wine. Noach was very happy because he was the one to find out the process. He had discovered a secret of Nature. This is the deeper Perush of the verse (Tehilim 104:15): וְיַיִן, יְשַׂמַּח לְבַב-אֱנוֹשׁ And wine, that gladdens a man’s heart. The heart of Noach, that is. Human knowledge is not obvious. There is a Divine element to it. There is a history of Hester Panim, when it is concealed by the Divine, until a piece of knowledge ...

In the Zohar, it is mentioned for every one of the letters Tav thru Gimel, why Hakadosh Baruch Hu did not start Creation with that letter. Finally, the letter Beth gets its way, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu starts the Torah with the word Bereshit. And it is asked, "What about the letter Aleph?" And the answer is that the letter Aleph gets the merit to be crucially involved with the Yichud of Hashem. Aleph, the servant who humbly gives way to Beth, gets the highest task. And it says יהי אור, "let there be Light." This is the pinnacle of Creation, the highest "substance" is the Light. It is the Light that comes out of the Yichud of Hashem. It is the only "thing" that exists in Creation that actually comes from the Creator. It is the Light that exits from Hakadosh Baruch Hu and infuses the Creation, flesh from His flesh, so to say. It is the אור of Moshiach, the humble servant, especially in the time of Aleph, which is the time of יהי אור. Without the ...

Wisdom cries aloud in the streets, Raises her voice in the squares. At the head of the busy streets she calls; At the entrance of the gates, in the city, she speaks out: "How long will you simple ones love simplicity, You scoffers be eager to scoff, You dullards hate knowledge. You are indifferent to my rebuke; I will now speak my mind to you, And let you know my thoughts. Since you refused me when I called, And paid no heed when I extended my hand, You spurned all my advice, And would not hear my rebuke, I will laugh at your calamity, And mock when terror comes upon you, When terror comes like a disaster, And calamity arrives like a whirlwind, When trouble and distress come upon you. Then they shall call me but I will not answer; They shall seek me but not find me. Because they hated knowledge, And did not choose fear of the Lord; They refused my advice, And disdained all my rebukes, They shall eat the fruit of their ways, And have their fill of their o...

Eli the Cohen was a Levite. His sons, Chophni and Pinchas, prove the point with their names. His successor, Shmuel, was not a Levite, but he was the Cohen. He was a Levite by choice, or rather, his mother's choice. He was Eli's spiritual son, picked by Hashem. Israel could no longer accept this type of spiritual leadership. So they received Kings, and Levites, and Cohanim. We can read in Divrei Hayamim how 'they' settled the matter of Shmuel, how he descended from Levi after all, through Korach. The author of Divrei Hayamim attempted to solve his 'own' problem, by making up a lineage, for Shmuel. The Cohanim were followed by the Rabbis, who do not formally get their crowns from their fathers. They are learned in the religion of Israel, and they learned to reject the truth . They are like blindfolded animals leading the herd. Don't expect a lot of spiritual leadership from them, and very little truth. However, be happy, the wild ox of the truth is approach...

Regarding the verse (in Vayikra 19:18) "and you shall love your fellow as yourself: I am Hashem," Rabbi Akiva (Talmud Yerushalmi, Nedarim 9:4) said that is a great principle of Torah. The Hebrew original of the verse is: וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ: אֲנִי, יְהוָה Rabbi Akiva was following Hillel, who taught: {Talmud Bavli, Shabbat 31a} What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. This is the entire Torah. The rest is Perush. Go and learn it. This is a rather famous dictum, expounding on the above verse in a negative way to make it more practical. Hillel has a point, the verse is asking for a modification. The following is mine: וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹ שאהבתי ךָ, אֲנִי, יְהוָה In translation: And you shall love your fellow as I have loved you, I am Hashem! In other words, we read כָּמוֹךָ {as yourself} as shorthand for כָּמו שאהבתיךָֹ {as I have loved you}. After all, the verse starts with וְאָהַבְתָּ, and ends with אֲנִי, יְהוָה. Who, then, is רֵעֲ...

Here is another step in the construction of Sefer Devarim, this time it is a step within Devarim. The expression לָלֶכֶת בְּכָל-דְּרָכָיו occurs, in several variations, seven times in Devarim, and does not occur in the rest of Torah, and every occurrence seems to be a 'recent' addition. They are in Devarim 8:6, 10:12, 11:22, 19:9, 26:17, 28:9, 30:16, the last of which is in Parshat Nitzavim: וְשָׁמַרְתָּ, אֶת-מִצְו‍ֹת יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, לָלֶכֶת בִּדְרָכָיו, וּלְיִרְאָה אֹתוֹ. וְעַתָּה, יִשְׂרָאֵל--מָה יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, שֹׁאֵל מֵעִמָּךְ: כִּי אִם-לְיִרְאָה אֶת-יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ לָלֶכֶת בְּכָל-דְּרָכָיו, וּלְאַהֲבָה אֹתוֹ, וְלַעֲבֹד אֶת-יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, בְּכָל-לְבָבְךָ וּבְכָל-נַפְשֶׁךָ. כִּי אִם-שָׁמֹר תִּשְׁמְרוּן אֶת-כָּל-הַמִּצְוָה הַזֹּאת, אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוֶּה אֶתְכֶם--לַעֲשֹׂתָהּ: לְאַהֲבָה אֶת-יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם, לָלֶכֶת בְּכָל-דְּרָכָיו-- וּלְדָבְקָה-בוֹ. כִּי-תִשְׁמֹר אֶת-כָּל-הַמִּצְוָה הַזֹּאת לַעֲשֹׂתָהּ, אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוְּךָ הַיּוֹם, לְא...

The covenant code of Shemot 21-23 is not really the code of a Covenant. It lacks a section that says what will happen if the decrees are not kept. Although it has a verse in this direction (Shemot 23:21), it lacks a Tochachah. The law code of Devarim has such section. It is in truth the code of a Covenant. The kernel of the book of Devarim is quite old. Probably, therefore, Devarim was originally written down on tablets. We imagine tablets written on one side with the introduction , on the other side with the law code, starting at Devarim 12:1. If many tablets were needed for the law code, the introduction was the same. Such was the purpose of the introduction, to be on the front side of each and every one of the tablets. Like the tablets described by Shemot 32:15, which were written on two sides. One side was for the Ten Commandments, the other side for the Covenant (Shemot 34:28). But we have an alternative to the law code of Devarim. It is also a law code with a Tochachah, and it ...

P and D came to a compromise, to construct one history for one nation. The important thing for the history to convey is the law code of D and the law code of P, in which this law code is embedded. They constructed one nation with one law, one Torah. To emphasize that everybody is right regarding history, P devised Shemot 46:8-27, showing that the seventy souls were no different than Yaakov and his family, and D accepted the fathers Abraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. The lesson of the compromise should be clear. If everybody is equally right about the historical truth, everybody, among the compromisers, is wrong about the historical truth. But the compromise did create historical truth, by the fact that it occurred a long time ago. Before the Islam, before Christianity, and before rabbinic Judaism. All three are the result, for better and for worse, of this historical compromise. That is the truth. The compromise is also a compromise between the sons of Aharon and the Levites, and from ...

The book of Devarim has accounts of history, but it does not have any ancient history. It does for instance not mention the creation of the world. While it does mention the fathers Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, it does say anything about their lives. The question I wish to address is why this is, what is the heart of the matter. The clue is with the fragment Devarim 10:12-22, which in translation is as follows, excluding 10:13 and 10:19: And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul. Behold, unto the LORD thy God belongeth the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, the earth, with all that therein is. Only the LORD had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and He chose their seed after them, even you, above all peoples, as it is this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked. For the LORD yo...

ביתי בנוי על שקר חורבן ונהרס הלכתי עם בניי ועשיתים את-כל-האמת כדאי אין לשקר כדי לבנות אמונה כי ביתי ההרוס יקום באמנה > עֵקֶב עֲנָוָה, יִרְאַת יְהוָה; עֹשֶׁר וְכָבוֹד וְחַיִּים

The mission of this blog is to go the opposite way. We assume that RJE not only created the EJ text, but also created the first "Deuteronomy," a text that summarized EJ, ending with "the" Decalogue, followed by a new law code, ending in a hortatory section, a Tochachah. To be as specific as possible, we assume that the EJ text was this one and the first Deuteronomy was this text , though the exactness of the text is not critical. We will ask the big questions: What is the nature of the first Deuteronomy? Who could have been RJE? What is the nature of the replacement of the first Deuteronomy with the second Deuteronomy, Sefer Devarim? What was the fate of the first Deuteronomy? What does it all mean for the status of the Halacha? What are the implications for the status of Jews? In particular, what does it mean for Jews in the Land of Israel? וּבְהַשְׂכִּיל לְחָכָם, יִקַּח-דָּעַת