The tinok shenishba is the “kidnapped Jewish child”.
Question: Who is he kidnapped from, his parents?
Answering that question yes or no would be missing the point. After all,the parents might well be the kidnappers. The tinok shenishba is the Jew who has been kidnapped from Hashem, kidnapped from the vital knowledge requisite to understanding one’s role before G-d. In our day and age it is usually the case that the parents of a tinok shenishba themselves fall into the category of tinok shenishba. One cannot teach what one has never known.
At this moment I am thinking of a particular tinok shenishba. He is a baby, only months old. There is a blood lusting monster who wants this little baby dead and will stop at nothing to see him dead, and this is real. There is no stopping this monster and it intends to scavenge every cranny of every house until it finds this baby and murders him.
The desperate parents know the monster is coming. They take a gamble that offers the baby little hope for survival, but little is better than nothing. A broken-hearted mother waterproofs a basket, gently sets her baby inside, and places the basket amongst the reeds at the edge of a river. The mother’s neshama cries to the high Heavens as she turns around and walks away.
Who would have believed that the deadly monster had a daughter who would find the baby in the river, care for him, and raise him as her own?
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The Omer period begins the night following the initial Seder and is designed for continuous movement up the 50 rung spiritual ladder between the impure and the pure. At the end of seven weeks, 7 x 7 days, the pinnacle of our journey is reached. Next stop: Day number 49 + 1: Shavuous.
Moshe Rabbeinu, the ultimate tinok shenishba, had ascended to the 49th level of purity during his lifetime.
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The numbers 49 and 50 appear to be highly significant and closely related. I am going to speak briefly about Hashem’s Torah codings. First however I have to blow some chaff away from the grain. There are essentially two kinds of Torah Codes, esoteric and clear.
Too many times I have seen the people using esoteric examples to try and discredit the clear codings. One may as well use examples of lamb chops to try and discredit broccoli. They are not the same thing. An esoteric code, for a wild example, might be used to try and discover what color socks I’m going to wear next Tuesday. The clear codes are of a different ilk, as we shall see…and with an Omer bent.
One of the many varieties of Torah codes is known as ELS, or Equidistant Letter Spacing.
I hope you will participate in the rest of this post. Knowledge of the Hebrew alef-beis will be a prerequisite however. Take out a Chumash, and open it up to the first Verse of Bereishis (Genesis). Go to the letter “tav” in the very first word, which is Bereishis. NOW, keep your place, but turn to the first Verse of the second Book of the Torah, Shemos (Exodus). Again look at the “tav” in the beginning, in the word “shemos.”
From both “tavs” count 50 letters. Each time you will arrive on a “vav.”
From both “vavs” count 50 letters. Each time you will arrive on a “reish.”
From both reishes count 50 letters. Each time you will arrive on a “hei.”
Tav – vav – reish – hei spells Torah, and you used the Code of 50 to get there in each case.
I hope you agree when you look at this that there is nothing accidental here. It is clear. It should not be lost on anyone that 50 also matches the 49 + 1 count of the Omer period, as well as the 49 + 1 count that carries us to the Yovel (Jubilee year), when Eretz Yisrael is required to have a Yovel year.
The Code of 50 seems to be the key coding system in the Torah.
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Now that you’ve seen the obvious, I’m going to paint a little picture. It’s my picture, so you can like it…or not like it…agree with it…or not agree with it. I think it’s flawless, but you are now the art critic, not me. Here we go.
I own an ELS computer program. Assuming I am using the program correctly, the WORD Torah is found IN THE TORAH 32 times in the Code of 50. 19 of those 32, Torah is spelled forward (Tav-vav-reish-hei), and the other 13 times, Torah is spelled in reverse (hei-reish-vav-Tav). That’s not very many, and we have already seen two of them in the first two words of Bereishis and Shemos.
I’d also like you to know that the word Torah is found only 15 times in the Code of 48, 16 times in the Code of 49, 15 times in the Code of 51, and 16 times in the Code of 52. It seems far more than coincidental that the Code of 50 doubles these numbers: 15 – 16 – 32 – 15 -16. There is much more I can write about this, but I’m trying very hard not to make this piece too
long.
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Let’s move on. We look at BaMidbar 8:1, concerning the Menorah in the Mishkan – “…kindle the lamps toward the face of the Menorah…”
That is, the flames on the right are to face toward the left, and the flames on the left are to face toward the right. The flame in the middle is not to join with either side, but acts to bring all the lights together as a unifying force.
I am going to apply this thought to our word Torah by the Code of 50.
The Book of Vayikra is the unifying force in the middle. Indeed, the word Torah is not encoded anywhere around the beginning of Vayikra, neither written forward nor in reverse.
In the next Book, BaMidbar, we return again turn to the very first Verse, this time to the word, “Moshe.” From the “hei,” in Moshe, count every 50 letters. You will again spell Torah, this time in reverse, hei-reish-vav-tav. This would be consistent with facing the middle flame.
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This brings us to Devarim. Devarim has a unique and significant difference from the rest of the Torah. Sometimes the Torah is considered to be two volumes. Volume 1, the first four Books, the Word of Hashem, and Volume II, the fifth Book, Devarim, the word of Moshe Rabbeinu.
Devarim, Chapter 1, Verse 1 – “These are the words that Moshe spoke to kol Yisrael…”
You will not find the word Torah in the Code of 50 in the first Verse of Devarim, as you will in Bereishis, Shemos, and BaMidbar. It needs to be taken into account that Devarim is the BOOK OF MOSHE, and Moshe reached the 49th level during his lifetime, not the 50th.
As Moshe’s Book, the fifith book, we turn to Chapter 1 of Devarim, but Verse FIVE. The word Torah is found in the Code of 49, written in reverse, as with Bereishis, Shemos, and BaMidbar, this Devarim code is also facing the center flame. To find this code in Devarim, go the word HaTorah in the 5th Verse (naturally). Now count every 49 letters.
Shalom David,
I don’t do word clusters. They are just one more interference, when mixed with Hashem’s clear codes, clouds them into the opaqueness of the esoterics.
Please do note, that I never mentioned the clusters, nor gave any cluster examples.
I stick to the obvious. For example, take the Codes of 50 on the tav of the word Bereishis, you spell Torah, tav-vav-reish-hei. Now take the same tav and apply the YKVK code of 26, and you spell tav-reish-vav-mem-hei, TERUMA, the first mitzvah in the Torah that applies specifically to Eretz Yisrael.
Again, if people think this is stretching, they can think what they want. To me, it’s 2+2.
Kol tuv, Eliahu
P.S. Teruma is only found with the ELS Code of 26 in one place in the entire Torah, Bereishis, Chapter 1, Verse 1, Word 1.
A reishis is an absolute beginning, the first of all firsts.
I don’t know if this will do anything for you, but for me, it took my breath away.
Eliyahu,
Nice post. It’s really neat the way you take someone through the Torah code in a meaningful way.
The codes you mention here, like the “Menorah of the Torah” and the Holocaust code are indeed breathtaking.
However, they are breathtaking in the sense of a beautiful sunset over the Pacific Ocean. The beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and they don’t “prove” anything.
As the mathematicians say in Bob’s link above: “In addition, word clusters such as mentioned in Witztum’s and Drosnin’s books and the so called messianic codes are an uncontrolled phenomenon and similar clusters will be found in any text of similar length. All claims of incredible probabilities for such clusters are bogus, since they are computed contrary to standard rules of probability and statistics” (http://math.caltech.edu/code/petition.html).
I have an old “Jewish Studies” magazine (Summer 1987, No. 33), published by Dvar Yerushalayim, that includes articles by R. Areyeh Carmell and R. Baruch Horovitz on the Torah codes.
If you can get a hold of it (http://www.dvar.org.il/publications.htm) you would find it fascinating, especially the article by Rabbi Carmell on the work of a German Jew named Oskar Goldberg. In 1908 he published a pamphlet entitled “The Pentateuch – A Number Edifice: Discovery of a Uniformly Executed Numerical Script.†He found multiples of seven and 26 (the gematriah of G-d’s Name) throughout the Torah, and published a few papers on it.
Okay Bob,
I’ll give some different examples.
Some people will use ELS-1 to try and show that the Torah predicted the assassination of Yitzchak Rabin, where it would happen, when it would occur, and who the assassin would be.
Is it possible that this information is coded in the Torah? Yes. Is it possible that ELS-1 actually shows these things? I have no idea. I’m hardly even interested. What I don’t like is that many people can’t get past ELS-1 to see and understand that Hashem has given us an ELS-2, a totally different animal.
There are many examples I can show. My favorites are long, so I’m not going to attempt to give the any here in their entirety. Here is a piece of one however that will give you the idea.
The term “Hashoah” was coined by people. It’s a manmade term, yet it seems to me that Hashem has no problem demonstrating His total dominance over space and time by encoding OUR words into His Torah.
Let’s look at Hashoah, Hei-shin-vav-alef-hei. You will only find Hashoah in the ELS Code of 50 twice in the entire Torah. I have a computer program that verifies such matters for me.
Please note: The sages are in agreement that the Churban Europe is found in the Torah in Devarim, Chapter 31, Verse 16 – 18.
We now turn to Devarim 31 and count, beginning with the 14th letter of Verse 16, then continuing ever 50 letters.
You will spell hei-shin-vav-alef-hei, and end in Verse 18.
If you began on the hei is “Moshe,” and ended in the hei in “hastair” (hidden), you did the exercise correctly.
I will contend that this, along with many other beyond phenomenal coincidences, are not coincidences.
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I told you that Hashoah is encoded in 50 twice. If you are interested, I know I was, the other Code of 50 Hashoah is found in Devarim, in Chapter 24, Verses 3-5. I don’t know if this will do anything for you, but for me, it took my breath away.
Eliahu,
You then owe us a much more complete description of
ELS-1 (the one you aren’t talking about) vs. ELS-2 (the one you are).
Bob,
English books aren’t the same thing. No two editions are the same. Also, Professor Aumann does not go into what I was writing about. That is NOT his subject.
I am trying, apparently in vain, to explain that ELS is to be divided into two entirely different subjects.
What I wrote, which it does not appear you have actually examined, even though I laid the groundwork for you to do so, is untouched by Professor Aumann. I could give many more examples as well.
It is a problem of definition of terms. One term is being used to cover two subjects, and the result is the truth of one subject is being buried because the analysis of the other subject is being applied to both.
It bothers me a lot.
Eliahu said “I thought you were referring to aquadistant letter spacing. After all, the codes work just as well under water.”
My wife just got a new mini-aquarium with a blue fish. But I don’t want to dunk my seforim just yet.
Now, back to the issue of using ELS codes of any kind as a kiruv tool.
The current conclusions of Professor Aumann and others like him are that ELS is scientifically unsupported, whether it is used in connection with subject matter that Eliahu Levenson considers to be esoteric, or not.
Interesting and useful homiletical points (drush) can be made based on the instances Eliahu points to above, but that’s a whole other thing.
The ELS method has been applied in a similar fashion to great novels, etc., with similar “results”. It can’t be pushed forward as an indicator of the Torah’s unique authenticity.
We don’t need artificial razzle-dazzle clothed in scientific terminology to put the truth of Torah across. The same applies to other dubious efforts like recasting the traditionally understood meaning of Maaseh Bereishis to fit Big Bang or neo-Darwinian theories like a glove, or allegorizing the Mabul and other narratives in Tanach. There is enough valid, non-speculative science around; we do not need the other kind as a tool even for worthy purposes.
I thought you were referring to aquadistant letter spacing. After all, the codes work just as well under water.
:)
Shalom Bob,
The Code of 50 “TORAH,” which begins on the tav of both the word “Bereishis,” and “Shemos,” is not a pre ALS code of the Gedolim. These codes were discoved in the 1940s. It is quite evident to me that Hashem wanted us to find out about this just BEFORE the onset of the worldwide computer revolution. In every generation God reveals certain things, and this was the time.
Regards, Eliahu
Pre-ELS, that is
See my last paragraph above,where I exclude pre-ALS codes of the Gedolim from the discussion.
Shalom Bob,
You are doing the very thing I asked people not to do in this article. That is, jumbling the esoteric codes with the unmistakable codes. As far as I can tell, and what happens all the time, Professor Aumann is looking only at the esoteric codes, ala Professor Rips, the dates of people’s birth and death and so forth. He isn’t looking at the obvious codes.
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I ask everybody to read what I wrote carefully, DO THE WORK, it’s neither difficult nor time consuming, and don’t be brainwashed by these anti-pundits who discount the esoteric codes and then use their analysis to discount all codes.
Thank you.
There are strong objections (including those of Orthodox mathematicians) to the latest, most elaborate theory/method about these codes:
Examples:
http://math.caltech.edu/code/petition.html
http://wopr.com/biblecodes/
http://www.wopr.com/biblecodes/TheCase.htm
http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/gans_exp.html
http://www.math.utoronto.ca/~drorbn/Codes/Gans/index.html
Professor Aumann in Israel, who earlier supported the publication of a paper on the codes, is now skeptical of their validity. This report contains (among other things) his latest opinion of the codes:
http://ratio.huji.ac.il/dp/dp_365.pdf
Professor Aumann’s personal conclusions are on Pages 3 and 4 of this pdf file. He confirmed his conclusion about this in a recent email to me. In particular, note his items 10 and 11. Wikipedia’s extract from item 11 is as follows:
“Aumann concluded:
‘A priori, the thesis of the Codes research seems wildly improbable… Research conducted under my own supervision failed to confirm the existence of the codes – though it also did not establish their non-existence. So I must return to my a priori estimate, that the Codes phenomenon is improbable.’
The above does not directly touch on observations made by Gedolim of the past who found words hidden in the text but did not attempt to create this full-blown theory. Even so, using codes as a kiruv tool is an example of misplaced priorities and can backfire altogether when specific new code theories are found to be insupportable.