Ha’azinu 5727
הושע פרק יד
(א) תֶּאְשַׁם שֹׁמְרוֹן כִּי מָרְתָה בֵּאלֹקיהָ בַּחֶרֶב יִפֹּלוּ עֹלְלֵיהֶם יְרֻטָּשׁוּ וְהָרִיּוֹתָיו יְבֻקָּעוּ: פ
(ב) שׁוּבָה יִשְׂרָאֵל עַד יְקֹוָק אֱלֹקיךָ כִּי כָשַׁלְתָּ בַּעֲוֹנֶךָ:
(ג) קְחוּ עִמָּכֶם דְּבָרִים וְשׁוּבוּ אֶל־יְקֹוָק אִמְרוּ אֵלָיו כָּל־תִּשָּׂא עָוֹן וְקַח־טוֹב וּנְשַׁלְּמָה פָרִים שְׂפָתֵינוּ:
(ד) אַשּׁוּר לֹא יוֹשִׁיעֵנוּ עַל־סוּס לֹא נִרְכָּב וְלֹא־נֹאמַר עוֹד אֱלֹקינוּ לְמַעֲשֵׂה יָדֵינוּ אֲשֶׁר־בְּךָ יְרֻחַם יָתוֹם:
(ה) אֶרְפָּא מְשׁוּבָתָם אֹהֲבֵם נְדָבָה כִּי שָׁב אַפִּי מִמֶּנּוּ:
(ו) אֶהְיֶה כַטַּל לְיִשְׂרָאֵל יִפְרַח כַּשּׁוֹשַׁנָּה וְיַךְ שָׁרָשָׁיו כַּלְּבָנוֹן:
(ז) יֵלְכוּ יֹנְקוֹתָיו וִיהִי כַזַּיִת הוֹדוֹ וְרֵיחַ לוֹ כַּלְּבָנוֹן:
(ח) יָשֻׁבוּ יֹשְׁבֵי בְצִלּוֹ יְחַיּוּ דָגָן וְיִפְרְחוּ כַגָּפֶן זִכְרוֹ כְּיֵין לְבָנוֹן: ס
(ט) אֶפְרַיִם מַה־לִּי עוֹד לָעֲצַבִּים אֲנִי עָנִיתִי וַאֲשׁוּרֶנּוּ אֲנִי כִּבְרוֹשׁ רַעֲנָן מִמֶּנִּי פֶּרְיְךָ נִמְצָא:
(י) מִי חָכָם וְיָבֵן אֵלֶּה נָבוֹן וְיֵדָעֵם כִּי־יְשָׁרִים דַּרְכֵי יְקֹוָק וְצַדִּקִים יֵלְכוּ בָם וּפֹשְׁעִים יִכָּשְׁלוּ בָם:
Samaria shall bear her guilt, for she hath rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword; their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up. Return, O Israel, unto the LORD thy God; for thou hast stumbled in thine iniquity. Take with you words, and return unto the LORD; say unto Him: 'Forgive all iniquity, and Accept that which is good; so will we render for bullocks the offering of our lips. Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses; neither will we call any more the work of our hands our gods; for in Thee the fatherless findeth Mercy.' I will Heal their backsliding, I will Love them freely; for Mine Anger is Turned away from him. I will Be as the dew unto Israel; he shall blossom as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive-tree, and his fragrance as Lebanon. They that dwell under his shadow shall again make corn to grow, and shall blossom as the vine; the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon. Ephraim [shall say]: 'What have I to do any more with idols?' As for Me, I Respond and Look on him; I Am like a leafy cypress-tree; from Me is thy fruit found. Whoso is wise, let him understand these things, whoso is prudent, let him know them. For the Ways of the LORD are Right, and the just do walk in Them; but transgressors do stumble therein.
Alef.
Yirmiyahu 3:1 “... saying: If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man's, may he return unto her again? Will not that land be greatly polluted? But thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; and wouldest thou yet return to Me? saith the LORD.
1. R. Yochanan in Masechet Yoma is referring to the Halacha in Devarim 24:1-4:
When a man taketh a wife, and marrieth her, then it cometh to pass, if she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some unseemly thing in her, that he writeth her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house, and she departeth out of his house, and goeth and becometh another man's wife, and the latter husband hateth her, and writeth her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, who took her to be his wife; her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the LORD; and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the LORD thy God Giveth thee for an inheritance.
2. R. Levi: “As far as” the lofty place where God is to be Found.
R. Yochanan: “Back to” HaShem, despite having previously forsaken Him and being disloyal to Him.
R. Yuda b’Rav Simon: Like R. Yochanan above.
R. Eliezer: Like R. Yochanan above.
3. R. Yudan Nesia in the name of R. Yuda b’Rav Simon most resemble R. Levi’s position.
4.א.
דברים פרק ד
(כט) וּבִקַּשְׁתֶּם מִשָּׁם אֶת־יְקֹוָק אֱלֹקיךָ וּמָצָאתָ כִּי תִדְרְשֶׁנּוּ בְּכָל־לְבָבְךָ וּבְכָל־נַפְשֶׁךָ:
But from thence ye will seek the LORD thy God; and thou shalt find Him, if thou search after Him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
דברים פרק ל
(ב) וְשַׁבְתָּ עַד־יְקֹוָק אֱלֹקיךָ וְשָׁמַעְתָּ בְקֹלוֹ כְּכֹל אֲשֶׁר־אָנֹכִי מְצַוְּךָ הַיּוֹם אַתָּה וּבָנֶיךָ בְּכָל־לְבָבְךָ וּבְכָל־ נַפְשֶׁךָ:
(ג) וְשָׁב יְקֹוָק אֱלֹקיךָ אֶת־שְׁבוּתְךָ וְרִחֲמֶךָ וְשָׁב וְקִבֶּצְךָ מִכָּל־הָעַמִּים אֲשֶׁר הֱפִיצְךָ יְקֹוָק אֱלֹקיךָ שָׁמָּה:
and shalt return unto the LORD thy God, and hearken to His Voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul; that then the LORD thy God will Turn thy captivity, and have Compassion upon thee, and will Return and Gather thee from all the peoples, whither the LORD thy God hath Scattered thee.
ב. The implications in the two sources in Devarim is that possibly once Bnai Yisrael begin to move towards HaShem, HaShem will Meet them at some point. The verse in Hoshea suggests that the impetus is completely from the Jewish people and they on their own can reach all the way to the place where God can be Found.
Beit.
1. Yoma 86b: HaShem will Consider that you have done Him a favor, as it were, by repenting.
Yalkut Shimoni: You will come away with more once you extend yourself towards Him in repentance, than you brought to Him initially.
2. Yoma 86b: "כל תשא עון—וקח (ה' יקח) טוב" Acquire for yourself God’s “Appreciation” for what you have done.
Yalkut Shimoni: "כל תשא עון-- וקח (אתה תקח) טוב" You will take back from your encounter with HaShem something of goodness/value.
3. The simple meaning would maintain that “טוב” is the individual’s act of repentance, rather than something that HaShem will either Attribute to him or even Give him.
Gimel.
Ordinarily “גימטריא” connotes the arithmetic value of the letters of the words that are being compared. In this instance, clearly the words “טוב” (ט=9; ו=6; ב=2 = 17) and “נפש” (נ=50; פ=80; ש=200 = 330) arenot equivalent numerically.
Here is a summary of many Gematria systems:
- Mispar Hechrachi (absolute value) that uses full numerical value of the twenty-two letters. Sometimes its also called Mispar ha-Panim (face number), as opposed to the more complicated Mispar ha-Akhor (back number).
- Mispar Gadol counts the final forms (sofit) of the Hebrew letters as a continuation of the numerical sequence for the alphabet, with the final letters assigned values from 500 to 900.
- The same name, Mispar ha-Gadol, is also used for another method, which spells the name of each letter and adds the standard values of the resulting string.
- Mispar Katan calculates the value of each letter, but truncates all of the zeros. It is also sometimes called Mispar Me'ugal.
- Mispar Siduri (ordinal value) with each of the 22 letters given a value from one to twenty-two.
- Mispar Bone'eh (building value, also Revu'a, square) is calculated by walking over each letter from the beginning to the end, adding the value of all previous letters and the value of the current letter to the running total. Therefore, the value of the word "Achad" (one) is 1 + (1 + 8) + (1 + 8 + 4) = 23
. - Mispar Kidmi (triangular value) uses each letter as the sum of the all the standard gematria letter values preceding it. Therefore, the value of Aleph is 1, the value of Bet is 1 + 2 = 3, the value of Gimmel is 1+2+3=6, etc. It's also known as Mispar Meshulash (triangular or tripled number).
- Mispar P'rati calculates the value of each letter as the square of its standard gematria value. Therefore, the value of Aleph is 1 × 1 = 1, the value of Bet is 2 × 2 = 4, the value of gimmel is 3 × 3 = 9, etc. It's also known as Mispar ha-Merubah ha-Prati'.
- Mispar ha-Merubah ha-Klali is the square of the standard absolute value of each word.
- Mispar Meshulash calculates the value of each letter as the cube of their standard value. The same term is more often used for Mispar Kidmi.
- Mispar ha-Akhor The value of each letter is its standard value multiplied by the position of the letter in a word or a phrase in either ascending or descending order. This method is particularly interesting, because the result is sensitive to the order of letters. It's also sometimes called Mispar Meshulash (triangular number).
- Mispar Mispari spells out the standard values of each letter by their Hebrew names ("Achad" (one) is 1+8+4=13 etc.), and then adds up the standard values of the resulting string.
- Mispar Shemi (also Millui letter "filling"), uses the value of each letter as equal to the value of its name. For example, the value of the letter Aleph is (1 + 30 + 80) = 111, Bet is (2 + 10 + 400) = 412, etc. Sometimes the same operation is applied two or more times recursively.
- Mispar Ne'elam (hidden number) spells out the name of each letter without the letter itself (e.g. "Leph" for "Aleph") and adds up the value of the resulting string.
- Mispar Katan Mispari (integral reduced value) is used where the total numerical value of a word is reduced to a single digit. If the sum of the value exceeds 9, the integer values of the total are repeatedly added to produce a single-digit number. The same value will be arrived at regardless of whether it is the absolute values, the ordinal values, or the reduced values that are being counted by methods above.
- Mispar Misafi adds the number of the letters in the word or phrase to their gematria.
- Kolel is the number of words, which is often added to the gematria. In case of one word, the standard value is incremented by one.
Within the wider topic of Gematria are included the various alphabet transformations where one letter is substituted by another based on a logical scheme:
- Atbash uses exchanges each letter in a word or a phrase by opposite letters. Opposite letters are determined by substituting the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet (Aleph) with the last letter (Tav), the second letter (Bet) with the next to last (Shin), etc. The result can be interpreted as a secret message or calculated by the standard gematria methods. A few instances of Atbash are found already in the Hebrew Bible. For example, see Jeremiah 25:26, and 51:41, with Targum and Rashi.
- Albam the alphabet is divided in half, eleven letters in each section. The first letter of the first series is exchanged for the first letter of the second series, the second letter of the first series for the second letter of the second series and so forth.
- Achbi divides the alphabet into two equal groups of eleven letters. Within each group, the first letter is replaced by the last, the second by the tenth, etc.
- Ayak Bakar replaces each letter by another one that has a 10-times-greater value. The final letters usually signify the numbers from 500 to 900. Thousands is reduced to ones (1000 becomes 1, 2000 becomes 2 etc.)
- Ofanim replaces each letter by the last letter of its name (e.g. "Fe" for "Aleph").
- Akhas Beta divides the alphabet into three groups of 7, 7 and 8 letters. Each letter is replaced cyclically by the corresponding letter of the next group. The letter Tav remains the same.
- Avgad replaces each letter by the next one. Tav becomes Aleph. The opposite operation is also used.
Some authors provide lists of as many as 231 various replacement ciphers, related to the 231 mystical Gates of the Sefer Yetzirah.
Dozens of other far more advanced methods are used in Kabbalistic literature, without any particular names. In Ms. Oxford 1,822, one article lists 75 different forms of gematria. Some known methods are recursive in nature and are reminiscent of the graph theoryor use heavily combinatorics. Rabbi Elazar Rokeach often used multiplication, instead of addition, for the above-mentioned methods. For example, spelling out the letters of a word and then multiplying the squares of each letter value in the resulting string produces very large numbers, in orders of trillions. The spelling process can be applied recursively, until a certain pattern (e.g. all the letters of the word "Talmud") is found; the gematria of the resulting string is then calculated. The same author also used sums of all possible unique letter combinations, which add up to the value of a given letter. For example, the letter Hei, which has the standard value of 5, can be produced by combining 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1, 2 + 1 + 1 + 1, 3 + 1 + 1, 4 + 1, 2 + 2 + 1 or 2 + 3, which adds up to 30. Sometimes combinations of repeating letters are not allowed (e.g. 2 + 3 is valid, but 3 + 1 + 1 is not). The original letter itself can also be viewed as a valid combination.
Variant spellings of some letters can be used to produce sets of different numbers, which can be added up or analyzed separately. Many various complex formal systems and recursive algorithms, based on graph-like structural analysis of the letter names and their relations to each other, modular arithmetic, pattern search and other highly advanced techniques, are found in the "Sefer ha-Malchuth" by Rabbi David ha-Levi of Draa Valley, a Spanish-Moroccan Kabbalist of the 15–16th century. Rabbi David ha-Levi's methods take into consideration the numerical values and other properties of the vowels as well.
Here is a way that the words טוב and נפש can be linked using the “א-ת ב-ש” system:
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment