A Yom Kippur Message

The holiday of Yom Kippur/Day of Atonement is a day of purity as expressed by the gematria 364 in the word HaSatan/The Opposition – meaning, there is one day in the 365 day year free from opposition, Yom Kippur. The climatic event that occurs every year on Yom Kippur is when the Cohen Godal/High Officiator enters into the Kodesh HaKadoshim/Holy of Holies – a place beyond time and space.

In the Talmud-Book of Law is discussed the dimensions of this small room pinnacle of the Temple, the Kodesh HaKadoshim, atop a stone stairway, covered by a white curtain called the Porrochat; within the room stood the cube that housed the Ten Commandments. Though the room was ten cubics wide and though the cube was two cubits wide – when measuring from wall to cube was five cubits because the Ten Commandments are beyond time and space, a marriage gift to the Jewish People from the Creator of Heaven and Earth.

When the Cohen Godal entered the Kodesh HaKadoshim bringing incense, his corporeal being quickly was divested of his physical body, thereby, enabling the Cohen Godal to connect more directly with the Creator. Though the Cohen Godal was kept up all night, it was considered a miracle he did not experience a Mikra Lila/Wet Dream from the excitement and anticipation of melding with the Creator.

In the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year; a time to dress in the white Kitel, the garment set aside for burial, to fast and pray before the Master of All for 26 hours, the gematria of God’s Four Letter Name YHVH whose letters when arranged vertically forms the stick figure of a human being – the meaning of, Made in God’s Image.

May all human beings made in God’s image be blessed.

Fast of Gedaliah

The Fast of Gedaliah is an annual fast day immediately following Rosh Hashanah instituted by the Jewish Sages to commemorate the assassination of Gedaliah Ben Achikam, the Governor of Israel during the days of Nebuchadnetzar King of Babylon destroyer of the First Temple.

Jewish fast days are akin to animal sacrifice where the blood and the fat of the animal was sacrificed on the alter; by not eating, the fire of the body burns the flesh for nourishment–our sacrifice to God for what transpired over 2500 years ago. It is during this time we cry out to God asking, “Turn your ears, open your eyes and see our desolation.”

The Fast of Gedaliah is not for the destruction of the First Temple where the animal sacrificed brought down pillars of fire in the form of a lion, but for the way the Jewish People acted after the destruction by assassinating their own leader. Five hundred years later the Second Temple was destroyed and now after 2000 years of exile–for the first time the majority of Jewish population lives within the borders of Israel.

The Jewish People are coming home as prophesied. The Jewish People are constantly being tested and criticized for our return, not to see if we are pure, but to help us to be better.

In Praise of Fasting

Economists at the World Bank predicted on Sunday that the global economy and the volume of global trade would both shrink this year for the first time since World War II.

There are seven fast days scattered throughout the year commemorating different events in the Jewish calendar; today is the fast of Esther just prior to the holiday Purim. As the economy shrinks and the Jewish People fast is a good time to remember the positive attributes of having less. It is not really necessary to make the economy grow, but to stabilize the economy.

The Torah commands that the Land of Israel needs to rest every seven years and the Talmud-Book of Law says the First Temple was destroyed and the Jewish People exiled to Babylon because they did not sufficiently rest the land. The seventy years of exile which ended in Persia as celebrated by reading the story of Purim from the Book of Esther.

The Midrash-Book of Metaphor says eventually the entire world will rest the land for seven years, but before we can rest the land first we must rest the economy.

Everyone should know by now, more is not better.