Awesomeness of Math With Lag Ba Omer

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                 

On this day long, long ago of the 33rd day of counting Omer that had fallen in the Hebrew month of Iyyar 18, a plague outbreak had occurred among the pupils of Rabbi Akiva in the 2nd century and on this very day had ended.  It is considered the "scholars' feast." 

The Antonine Plague, a major pandemic in the Roman Empire, occurred in the 2nd century AD, though it's less clear how directly it impacted Israel specifically. It is widely believed to have been caused by the Roman army bringing the disease back from the Parthian Empire. The plague, which may have been a strain of the smallpox virus, was devastating, with mortality rates estimated to be around 7-10% of the population. While the Antonine Plague impacted the Roman Empire extensively, including areas bordering Israel, the exact extent of its impact within Israel itself is not as definitively documented as in other parts of the empire, except in our Lag ba Omer story that gives us the hint.   

“In Kabbalah (mystical religious stream in Judaism) adopted by 12th century;  everything is numbers and mathematics. The number is holy and infinite. In the universe everything is measurement and weight. For the Gnostics, God is a Geometrist. Mathematics is sacred. No one was admitted into the school of Pythagoras (Greek school)  if they were not knowledgeable about mathematics, music, etc. Numbers are sacred.

This had happened during the Omer period when there were regulations for certain acts.  This was then regulated for half;  mourning (prohibitions of marriage, cutting the hair, etc.) being suspended. 

   Now, the Omer was the 1st sheaf cut during the barley harvest, which was offered in the Temple as a sacrifice on the 2nd day of Passover (Lev.23:15).  Before the offering of this sacrifice, it was forbidden to eat the new grain.  The 7-weeks beginning from this day and culminating in the Pentecost holiday is known as the period of the Counting of the Omer.                                             

49 days are counted from the day on which the Omer was 1st offered in the Temple (according to the rabbis, Nisan 16; the 2nd day of Passover) the 50th day being the Feast of Weeks.  SHAVUOT=this year, from evening of Sunday, June 1, 2025 to Tuesday, June 3, 2025.  

 This period of counting is known as the Sephirah period, during a certain part of which special mourning customs prevail and marriages are not solemnized.  The number 49 (7x7)inspired the Kabbalists to read mystical meanings into the ritual of the counting, regarding it as marking the period of waiting between the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt and their betrothal to the Torah at Sinai.  The number, 7, had so much meaning as it was;  7=a week with the 7th being Shabbat, 7 benedictions or blessings recited under the canopy in the wedding ceremony, and traditionally during the 7 days of feasting if new guests are present.  

This was 2,000 years ago when 7x7=49, an awesome number, and still is.  Today, we find Albert Einstein almost passe with his theory of relativity; In Einstein's theory of relativity, the equation E = mc² describes the relationship between energy (E) and mass (m). It states that energy and mass are equivalent and can be converted into each other, with the speed of light (c) being the conversion factor. 

Genesis 49:1–50:26

Jacob Blesses His Sons

49 wThen Jacob called his sons and said, “Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you what shall happen to you xin days to come.

Then there is the Drake equasion:  The Drake equation is:

$${\displaystyle N=R_{\ast }\cdot f_{\mathrm{p}}\cdot n_{\mathrm{e}}\cdot f_{\mathrm{l}}\cdot f_{\mathrm{i}}\cdot f_{\mathrm{c}}\cdot L}$$The equation was formulated in 1961 by Frank Drake, not for purposes of quantifying the number of civilizations, but as a way to stimulate scientific dialogue at the first scientific meeting on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI).

                                                      

Upon reading about what we thought possible through prayer, and what mathematicians can prove today makes me believe that our prophets were onto something-yes, unexplained then, but look at what we are to believe today !!!

Then there are the 18 benedictions of the Amidah on the Sabbath and festivals as well.  They refer to the principal prayer, done standing.  This text reflects the political and economic situation at the dates of composition, decreed by the men of the Great Assembly, and some definitely originate from 2nd Temple times.  For instance, #7 is for redemption. the action of saving or being saved from sin, error, or evil.                                                                            

School children were given a holiday and formerly used to conduct a mock battle with bow and arrow.  

Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai of 2nd century CE and the story of the cave

Rabbi Simeon was a student of Rabbi Akiva who was put in jail by the Romans.  Simeon was forced to hide in a cave with son Eleazar for 13 years; became known as a miracle-worker.  He thought leaving Eretz Yisrael was a grievous sin. (Thus, we didn't all leave)!!!               

A famous pupil of his was Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi.  Kabbalists have made his tomb at Meron a center of pilgrimage on Lag ba Omer, the traditional date of his death.  

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men and children dance around a bonfire in the Mea Shearim neighborhood of Jerusalem during the 2017 celebration of Lag B’Omer. Image by Getty

In Israel, the day is marked by the lighting of bonfires  and a mass pilgrimage to the tomb at Meron of Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai who is said to have died, transmitting his mystical lore, on this day.  

In 1911, an estimated 10,000 people gathered to sing and dance before the traditional Lag Ba’Omer bonfires on the mountain, not far from the city of Tsfat.The event was chronicled by the Tsfat-born author Yehoshua Bar-Yosef in his 1949 book “Magic City,” according to the Jewish Press.  “Tzfat has never seen such a crowd before … happy enthusiasm gripped the residents, he wrote.  Just when the celebration reached its crescendo, the roof of the complex around the grave of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai collapsed. Dozens came hurtling down. “ About 100 people who were standing on the roof at the time fell from a height of 8 meters toward the courtyard of the building.  Forty were injured. Seven were killed immediately,” Bar Yosef wrote.  Among those present that day was famed Israeli author and Nobel laureate S. Y. Agnon, who had walked for five days to celebrate on the mountain and who understood his survival as a miracle.  “The miracle that was done for me at the revelry of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai in Meron, was that a balcony fell and twenty-seven Israelites were killed, and I, who had stood a little while before with all those saints remained alive,” he wrote, though Bar Yosef and other historians cite 11 total dead.  Bar Yochai, who lived during the 2nd century, is credited with composing the Zohar, a key kabbalistic text.

Einstein was not alone.  There was Immanuel ben Jacob Bonfils (c. 1300 – 1377) was a French-Jewish mathematician and astronomer in medieval times who flourished from 1340 to 1377, a rabbi who was a pioneer of exponential calculus and is credited with inventing the system of decimal fractions. He taught astronomy and mathematics in Orange and later lived in Tarascon, both towns in the Holy Roman Empire that are now part of modern-day France. Bonfils studied the works of Gersonides (Levi ben Gershom), the father of modern trigonometry, and Al-Battani and even taught at the academy founded by Gersonides in Orange.  

Resource:

https://forward.com/fast-forward/468773/stampede-1911-mt-meron-lag-baomer/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation#:~:text=The%20Drake%20equation%20is%20a,in%20the%20Milky%20Way%20Galaxy.&text=The%20equation%20was%20formulated%20in,used%20to%20draw%20firm%20conclusions.

https://www.britannica.com/science/E-mc2-equation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Bonfils

Aveinu Malkaynu A Prayer Pleading For Help From Our Father Our King.....

 Nadene Goldfoot                                      

Barbara Streisand is singing a prayer, Avinu Malkeinu  (Ah-vay-noo  Mahl-kay-noo). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YONAP39jVE

Each line of the prayer begins with the words "Avinu Malkeinu" ["Our Father, Our King"] and is then followed by varying phrases, mostly supplicatory. There is often a slow, chanting, repetitive aspect to the melody to represent the pious pleading within the prayer.

Avinu Malkeinu (Hebrew: אָבִינוּ מַלְכֵּנוּ; "Our Father, Our King") is a Jewish prayer recited during Jewish services during the Ten Days of Repentance, from Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur inclusive. (This 2023 from September 15th to 24th and 25th of September).  Since the 17th century, most Eastern Ashkenazic communities recite it also on all fast days; in the Sephardic and Western Ashkenazic tradition (as well as a very few Eastern Ashkenazic communities) it is recited only during the Ten Days of Repentance.

The kernel of this prayer, which was recorded in the Siddur of Rabbi Amram Gaon (9th century Babylon), can be found in the Talmud. After a particularly hard draught, Rabbi Akiva led the prayers and said the following: “Our Father, our King, we have no king other than You. Our Father, our King, for Your sake, have mercy on us.” And rain immediately fell. This was then expanded into the full Avinu Malkeinu, which has become a treasured and revered cornerstone of our people’s liturgy.

The Talmud records Rabbi Akiva (died 135 CE), when general Bar Kokhba died fighting to keep Jerusalem after freeing  it in 132 from the Romans,  reciting two verses each beginning "Our Father, Our King" in a prayer to end a drought (apparently successfully). 

                                           

In a much later compilation of Talmudic notes, published circa 1515, this is expanded to five verses. It is very probable that, at first, there was no set number of verses, no sequence, nor perhaps any fixed text. Apparently an early version had the verses in alphabetic sequence, which would mean 22 verses. 

                      A painting of Rabbi Akiva, who according to the Talmud saw 24,000 of his students die during the Omer period until the 33rd day, now known as Lag B'Omer.

The prayer book of Amram Gaon (9th century) had 25 verses. Mahzor Vitry (early 12th century) has more than 40 verses and added the explanation that the prayer accumulated additional verses that were added ad hoc on various occasions and thereafter retained. 

Presently, the Sephardic tradition has 29 verses, among the Mizrahi Jews the Syrian tradition has 31 or 32 verses, but the Yemenite has only 27 verses, the Salonika has as many as 53 verses, the Ashkenazic has 38 verses, the Polish tradition has 44 verses, all with different sequences. And within traditions, some verses change depending on the occasion, such as the Ten Days of Repentance, including Rosh Hashana and the bulk of Yom Kippur (when it is generally said kotvenu - "inscribe us"), or the Ne'ila Yom Kippur service (chotmenu - "seal us"), or a lesser fast day (zokhreinu - "remember us").

Resource:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avinu_Malkeinu#:~:text=remember

%20us%22).-,Practice,pious%20pleading%20within%20the%20prayer.

https://www.heritagefl.com/story/2014/05/16/features/rethinking-the-rabbi-akiva-

narrative/2705.html

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4491739/jewish/Avinu-Malkeinu.htm

Differentiating the Chaldeans From Others of Babylon-Part 3

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                 

       Chaldeans, Semites (speakers of Hebrew/Arabic)  on the move migrating westward towards Ur, an ancient Babylonian city, probably of the 3rd millennium since Abram, born much later in about 1948 BCE of the 2nd millennium, was on the scene. 

The First Dynasty of Ur was a 26th-25th century BCE dynasty of rulers of the city of Ur in ancient Sumer. It is part of the Early Dynastic period III of the history of Mesopotamia. It was preceded by the earlier First Dynasty of Kish and the First Dynasty of Uruk.  History can go WAY BACK.  

 Abram will even later migrate with his family to Haran, a trading town of NW Mesopotamia and center of a moon cult. Instead of continuing to Canaan, they stopped and settled in Haran where Terah died at the age of 205. Abraham’s departure from Haran is recorded on the Biblical Timeline Chart around 2004 BC. which was his age of 75.  People of Ur were not Semites.  They would not understand each other, so the Chaldeans will become a  bi-lingual people.    

Assyrian inscriptions from this time mention a Habiru (Hebrew) settlement in the vicinity which some scholars link with Abraham's father, Terah's home there.  They the 12th century CE, a small Jewish community still was in existence-found by Benjamin of Tudela, historian.                                    

      Abram on the move to Haran or away towards Canaan  

Sir Woolsey mentions that "the Chaldaeans and Aramaeans emerged as major political forces.  The city of Ur retained some vestiges of independence within the territory of the Chaldaean tribe of Bir-Jakin. Actually, I found that there had been 5 tribes of Chaldaeans.   This was the period when it might most appropriately have been known as "Ur of the Chaldees."  The question now is, which tribe did Abram and Terah belong?  We can see that Abram was an individualistic thinker among his own Chaldean people, his own tribe, even;  unique, like an Einstein.  

We should be very familiar with the title of Abraham's city of birth being Ur of the Chaldees, and the question came up as to why not just Ur and what was the Chaldees suffix?  We've learned that there was a small nation of Chaldea lying more in the land of Persia further eastward that had migrated into the lands of the Euphrates River to the city of Ur and through the centuries, those immigrants and their descendants had become the mightier force of the city.  They were Semitic people, and that means they were Hebrew or Arabic speakers of some blend or other, while the native population were not. 

It could even be that Ur had its Chaldean neighborhoods, just like minorities have their neighborhoods today in large cities.  Since they had become a more powerful influence on the city, it could even be that the Royalty were Chaldeans.  The history handed down to Moses who wrote all this in Genesis was that Abraham (name now changed to signify his changes) was from Ur of the Chaldees...the Chaldees area of Ur and its people, not the general original native population.                                 

    The yellow area is the Land of Shinar (Chaldees) Abram's 5 tribes had come from the Persian area (Iran) originally.  Babylon was the Cradle of Humanity according to the Bible.  It was also the scene of Man's 1st revolt against G0d with the story, the Tower of Babel.  Many early biblical stories find parallels in Babylonian literature like the Flood.                               

   Peter Brueghel the Elder's painting of  Tower of Babel    

    Ruins of Ur showing Ziggaret of building...steps upwards
                                             

Come, let us make a city and a tower": Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Tower of Babel and the Creation of a Harmonious Community in Antwerp - Journal of....

The people of Babylon, known to us  in the Bible as the Land of Shinar or of the Kasdim (Chaldees) after they became powerful to become the leading people.  

Nanna, Possible depiction of the god Nanna, seated on a temple-like throne, on a fragment of the Stele of Ur-Namma at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (object number B16676.14) (ca. 2100 BCE). The stele was excavated at Ur. © Penn Museum.  The moon god's wife is the goddess Ningal (Akk. Nikkal) and their children are Inana and Utu (Edzard 1965:

From the earliest periods, Nanna/Su'en was the patron deity of the city of Ur. The name of his main sanctuary in Ur was é-kiš-nu-gál, the name also used for the moon god's sanctuaries in Babylon and Nippur (George 1993: 114). From the Akkadian period until the middle of the Old Babylonian period, the daughter of the reigning king was appointed to be the high-priestess of the moon god at Ur (Krebernik 1993-98b: 367-9). ... Other Mesopotamian cult places for the moon god include Ga'eš, a place in the neighbourhood of Ur,... Beyond the alluvial plains of Mesopotamia, a cult centre of Nanna/Su'en is attested at Harran, south-east of modern Urfa, from the Old Babylonian period onwards, where the temple name was é-húl-húl "House of Rejoicing" (Krebernik 1993-98b: 368). At Harran a long inscription was found on a stele, which commemorates Adda-guppi, the mother of Nabonidus, and which celebrates her reverence of the moon god. Another stele inscription from Harran describes Nabonidus' accession to the throne,...

Abraham's message to the world, coming to him from G-d, was that there was but ONE G-d, not a multitude of gods, ONE power that created the world.  He had lived with the people in Haran who had worshipped the moon god, Nanna and his wife, etc, yet came to this conclusion anyway.  

After Abraham's day lived Hammurabi, the king in Babylon (1728-1686 BCE) who was the great lawgiver.  His famous legal code was recently discovered concerning social life and its penalties that were so severe, all rooted in Mesopotamian culture. 

Moses, according to Jewish time, was born later in Egypt (1391-1271 BCE who gave us his original Ten Commandments and then more, adding up to 613.  He was a Prince of Egypt and was educated there, capable of reading and writing.     

Much later in Babylon, their king Nebuchadnezzar II (604-561 BCE) inherited the Assyrian empire when he conquered  our last of the 10 tribes, Judah in 597 and again in 586 BCE when he exiled these to Babylon.  Cyrus, the next king of power had permitted the Judeans (Jew) to return to Jerusalem in 539 BCE, but not all took him up on this offer.  It was a hard trek; they were born in Babylon and had only heard about Jerusalem from grandparents.  So the population became intermingled with Jews, especially in the towns of Nehardea, Nisibis, Mahoza with all Jewish populations.  

During the Roman occupation in Judaea of about (98-117 CE )the Babylonian Jews rose against emperor Trajan in a revolt due to his oriental policy that led to a major clash.  The Roman commander, Lucius Quietus (116 CE) suppressed it. Trajan had ordered  a massacre of the Jews in Mesopotamia.  Judea itself was kept under firm control by Lucius.   The suppression of the various risings ended the prosperity of the Jewish settlements in Egypt, Cyrenaica and Cyprus.  

Jews of Babylon enjoyed an extensive measure of internal autonomy under both Persian and Parthian rule that followed.  They had an exilarch of Davidic descent who was the king's representative, while the community was governed by a council of elders.  At this time the produced the Babylonian Talmud.  They were learned in Jewish studies and had produced works of literary merit like Ezekiel, Daniel, and Tobit.                               

Rabbi Akiva, (ben Joseph) 50  to 135, humble, uneducated until age 40 with wife Rachel, devoted himself to learning.  Became regarded as greatest scholar of his time, with thousands of students studying under him.  Roman government forbade the study of The Law of Moses which he ignored.  He was arrested, finally executed at Caesarea.  No rabbi of the talmudic period made a more profound impression on Jewish history and on the imagination of the Jewish people than he.  

Babylon had earned a good name by the beginning of the new 3rd century and became the main center of rabbinic studies, academics being founded by Samuel at Nehardea and by Rav at Sura, while in the later 3rd century, the academy of Pumbedita was founded to replace that at Nehardea that was destroyed in 261. By 425 Babylon had become the spiritual center for all Jewry.  

Then persecutions happened in the 5th century which led to the Jewish revolt under Mar Zutra II who held out for 7 years but was finally captured and killed in 520.  He had been a Babylonian exilarch and at the age of 15 had succeeded his father, Huna, who had been killed in the religious persecutions instigated by Firuz of Persia.  Revolting in 513 against king Kohad, Zutra established an independent Jewish state in the district of Mahoza, which lasted for 7 years.  After his defeat, he and his grandfather, R Hananiah, were crucified.  His son, Mar Zutra III, born on the day of his death, was taken to Palestine, where an unsuccessful attempt was made to revive the Patriarchate for him.  

Do you notice that everywhere, people fight for their independence?  They don't like to be told what to do by others, what they can or cannot be allowed to do.  

  The Talmud was finished at about this period.  the position of the Jews continued to be difficult until the Arab conquest of the 7th century.    Just think of that.  Arab made life much better for Jews !  What a history we have had!  

These outstanding Jews could have all been descendants of Abraham, Moses, and King David, and Hillel.  All would have been from a little Semitic tribe of Chaldea East of Ur.    

 Resource:

Book:  UR "of the Chaldees" by Moorey-about Woolley and Ur

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://amazingbibletimeline.com/blog/abraham-75-years-old-departed-with-lot-from-haran/

Tanakh (Bible)  Genesis 11:31-32;  Genesis 12

http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/amgg/listofdeities/nannasuen/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar-Zutra_II

https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/15307-zutra-mar-ii

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/a-jewish-kingdom-in-ancient-babylon-452113