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

Manna, Food From Heaven: That Wonderful Outer-Space Food

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

                     Time to pick the Manna needed which was the food for Israelites on Exodus

The Israelites, unknowingly on a 40 year trek to Canaan, Jacob's old homeland starting around either 1579 BCE or even 1476 BCE, which was about 3, 600 years ago, were able to eat manna that appeared in the desert. (Exodus 16:4-35).  It was found on the ground every morning except on the Sabbath (Saturday morning)  and so a double portion was collected on Fridays, something Moses had forgotten to tell them in the beginning.    As much as could be eaten was to be collected by the people, but no more.  There was to be no waste. 

                                                

In form it looked like something thin and rough, white in color, and tasted like honey-cake.   In the same chapter, manna is described as “like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.”

Some was kept as a memorial.  A jar of manna was placed permanently before the Sanctuary.

Manna came to the Israelites after complaining to Moses that they missed the bread and the pot of meat they had back in Egypt, and that they should have stayed and died in Egypt instead of starving on this trek.                                              

    Egyptian slaves carrying food.  

Actually, The Egyptians ate a low-fat, high-fiber diet with a lot of grains. They ate a variety of plant oils and fats, bread, milk, lentils, cottage cheese, cakes, onions, meat, dates, melons, milk products, figs, ostrich eggs, almonds, peas, beans, olives, pomegranates, grapes, vegetables, honey, garlic and other foods. The Egyptians ate a variety of grains, including barley and emmer-wheat.

                         Organic whole-grain emmer wheat

                                                  
                        Different forms of  Emmer Wheat

Evidently they were being tested to see if they would follow the directions that Moses was giving them.  The test was this:  in the afternoon they would have meat to eat and in the morning they would have enough bread.  Toward evening quail came down and covered the camp. In the morning, there was a layer of dew around the camp.  The layer of dew rose and upon the surface of the Wilderness Desert sand was something thin, exposed--as thin as frost on the earth. The Israelites saw it as a type of food.  Moses verified it and said it was food.  Each person could take one omer, according to the number of your people, everyone according to whomever is in his tent, 4 in a tent, they can take 4 omers of the food.  

     Harvesting the wheat; getting that omer.  

The Harvesting of the First Omer took place the night after the Passover Seder,(that is, the second night of Passover). The barley grain that is cut is used for the communal Omer grain-offering, which is brought on the next day, the 16th of Nisan. It was carried out by emissaries of the Beit Din (the court) , and many of the pilgrims and Jerusalemites would come and watch the festive occasion.

The omer (Hebrew: עֹ֫מֶר ‘ōmer) is an ancient Israelite unit of dry measure used in the era of the Temple in Jerusalem. It is used in the Bible as an ancient unit of volume for grains and dry commodities, and the Torah mentions as being equal to one tenth of an ephah, I would guess as being a whole armful that a man could carry, and something thin sounds very fragile.  It's not weight, it's the size that counts.  

It wound up that those on the Exodus took more than needed, and the left-over food became infested with worms and it stunk, causing Moses to be angry.  The gathering happened in the morning, and by the time the sun was the hottest, it all melted.  

The miracle happened during Shabbat.  They had to gather it on Friday and bake what they wished to bake.  It didn't appear in the field on Saturday morning, either.  The people were able to rest on that 7th day. 

 Manna was formerly believed to be a shallow-rooted plant carried by storms;  modern botanists have discovered sugary secretions on the tamaris mammifera-caused by insects.  According to the aggadah, manna existed from the 1st Sabbath eve of creation (Avot 5:9).                                         

               Bedouins stopping for tea and smoke

Have the native Bedouins ever come across such a discovery?  I don't believe they have reported seeing this in any of the deserts in the morning.

The Manna fell until the 7th of Adar, when Moses died, 40 years later, before the people that crossed the Jordan River into Eretz Yisrael. From then on, remnants of Manna remained in their vessels and they continued to eat it until the 16th of Nissan when they were in the land and were able to eat its produce.   

This was all part of Israel's schooling to remember throughout eternity; they were not alone; the unseen G-d was with them. 

What was this food?  It was something mighty special, something that sated them.  So it was filling, and must have been filled with vitamins.  It kept them satisfied and healthy.  It fell from the heavens, was the description.  

One thing it didn't do, make them tall.  By the time they arrived at their destination, the spies sent out thought the populace were extremely tall people.  They must have felt that they themselves were the hobbits or munchkins while looking at these tall people. It was food somewhat like our scientists have invented for our space pilots to be; full of nutrition.  Interesting, eh?    

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia 

http://blogspot14235.blogspot.com/2016/04/food-for-400-years-of-slavery-and-40.html

https://momentmag.com/manna-is-real-and-not-so-heavenly/

Tanakh, Stone Edition (Old Testament)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omer_(unit)

Time to Celebrate Again on Lag B'Omer: April 28, 2013

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                        

We have so many holidays in Judaism.  It took me to move to Israel to really get into all of them as when I grew up, Chabad was not around to instruct us or to get the ball rolling in Portland.  Lag B'Omer is a great festive holiday and a wonderful time to teach our history through fun and games.  We celebrate this year on April 28th, a Sunday with great festivities.  .

The background of this history starts between Passover and Shavuot, the Exodus from Egypt of the 600,000 with Moses (1391-1271 BCE)  and the time he gave us the Torah on Mt. Sinai.  During this period we count with pieces of barley in Sefirah  counters  or mark the days off on the calendar till we reach Shavuot. There are 49 days (7 full weeks-7X7=49). What a great way to teach children their times tables.   This begins on the 2nd night of Passover and ends with Shavuot.   Receiving the Torah is another joyous holiday, of course.  Mysticism comes in during the counting with  saying one of the psalms that is made up of 49 words, each standing for one day.  Also, one of the lines in the psalm has 49 letters, again each representing one day.

The time of counting the Omer is a time of semi-mourning.  Weddings are not to take place in this period, nor a time to get your haircut.  The reason is that we are to think about our ancestors and us approaching Mount Sinai and receiving the revelation of G-d as Moses did. We think of the thunder and lightning, the shofar blast and the pillar of cloud, and an awestruck nation that we belong to receiving the Ten commandments.  We visualize Moses ascending to heaven as its intermediary receiving these words.  We might also think of King David, the sweet singer of Israel whose quill wrote the longing and achievements and heartbreak and inspiration with his psalms for millions of people from shepherd tents in the desert to penthouse towers in  teeming cities.  It evokes the goal of bringing about the human manifestation of "Let there be light !"  

 It's also a time to remember the horrible plague which killed many of Rabbi Akiva's students.
Rabbi Ben Joseph Akiva lived from 50 to 135 CE.  An uneducated man, he was helped by his wife Rachel, daughter of Kalba Sabbua, a rich man,  and started learning at age 40.  He became very interested in mystical matters.  He has been regarded as the greatest scholar of his time.  The plague hit his students, killing many of them  and finally ended on the 33rd day of the Omer period which was on Iyyar 18.  So it's called the Scholar's Feast.  Lag B'Omer falls on the 33rd day of the period of counting of the Omer.

This meant that this holiday was a day off from school.  The custom was that boys would play mock battles with bows and arrows like the people back in those days.  In Israel, the custom is to light bonfires at night.  Midnight is often the time to do this

People make a pilgrimage to the tomb at Mt. Meron of Rabbi Simeon ben Yochai who supposedly died on this day transmitting his mystical lore.  Rabbi Simeon studied in the academy that was founded by Rabbi Zakhai, and his teacher was none other than Rabbi Akiva.

The Roman Emperor, Hadrian, shut down the Talmudic academies and it was against the law to study Torah.  That didn't stop Rabbi Akiva.  He kept on teaching publicly and Simeon was his best pupil, staying right with him.  Finally Rabbi Akiva was arrested and put in prison.  Simeon was determined to keep on studying so visited him in prison, getting his instructions anyway until Rabbi Akiva was condemned and was killed by the system.  Rabbi means "teacher" and this man died a martyr.   What happened to Hadrian was that he died in great pain and his decrees stopped being enforced so strongly.

Rabbi Simeon and his son had to hide out in a cave, though, for studying the Torah was still against the law and the story is that they lived on carobs and water.

In modern Israeli culture, the holiday has been reinterpreted as a commemoration of the Bar Kokhba Revolt against the Roman Empire, the final one in 133 CE when Jews suffered 580,000 Jewish casualties besides those that died of hunger and disease.  That must have matched the 600,000 that entered Israel with Moses.

This rite of Springtime is a happy joyous time.  It is a day of outings, and the prohibitions relating to mourning are lifted.  I notice the prominence and accent on education with this holiday.  That's what our holidays are all about.  It's a time to remember our past history and how we got to this point in time.  How else have we lasted for about  3,213 years and have students continue to study our Torah (The 5 books of Moses--Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) ?

Resource: The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia: Lag B'Omer
The Jewish Catalog by Richard Siegel, Michael Strassfeld, Ssharon Strassfeld
Tanach, the Stone Edition, ArtScroll Series
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/679300/jewish/What-Is-Lag-BaOmer.htm
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2205697/jewish/Rabbi-Shimon-Bar-Yochai.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lag_BaOmer
http://judaism.about.com/od/holidays/a/lagbaomer.htm

History Channel's Take on Manna Made by Alien Machine

Nadene Goldfoot
Usually I love the History channel.  I was watching the History channel on TV this morning and a program was on telling about the Exodus, so naturally I was interested. They  stated that the Egyptians didn't allow the Jews to leave Egypt, which was wrong.  The Pharoah was finally worn down and consented to their leaving after many plagues hit their land, but changed his mind after they had left.  The Egyptians met up with them since they were on horseback and the Israelites weren't. If you saw the movie, you should remember the scene where the water parted allowing the Israelites to cross, but covered up the Egyptians chasing after them.

However,  the point the writers were making was that aliens from outer space helped to create Manna. "Oh, really?"  The narrators look like they might have come from outer space more than they look like Torah scholars.

They went on to say that Moses got some machine from Egypt before they left, of course, obviously created by the aliens, who had sympathy for their future starvation.  Where did they get such wild information about these seeds, they said manna was?  Why from the Zohar, of course.  Some scientist even showed a sketch he had drawn of the machine from the information given in the Zohar.

Not having a Zohar in my library in my house, I got out my trusty Haftorah, Volume I, and turned to Exodus XVI 11 and read..
 G-d, speaking to Moses, called it bread.  "In the morning there was a layer of dew round about the camp.  And when the layer of dew was gone up, behold upon the face of the wilderness,  fine, scale-like things, fine as the hoar-frost on the ground.  And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another; "What is it?"--for they knew not what it was.  And Moses said unto them:  "It is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat."

Then they were told to gather it every man according to his eating; an omer a head, according to the number of your persons, shall ye take it, every man for them that are in his tent.  ...and Moses said unto them;  "Let no man leave of it till the morning."  For those who did, it turned into worms and was rotten.  They gathered it every morning, and as the sun waxed hot, it melted.

When the Sabbath was coming the people were told to bake and to seethe what they had and all that remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morning, and it did not rot or have worms.  Six days they were to gather it, but not on the 7th day.   And the house of Israel called the name thereof  Manna, and it was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.

Moses said that they were to keep an omerful ( 1/10th part of an ephah) of it throughout the generations so they may see the bread fed to you in the wilderness. ( The term "omer" was a new term.  It is not found in the Torah anywhere whereas the term "ephah" was the well-known name of a measure.    He told Aaron to take a jar and put an omerful of manna in and lay it up before the Lord to be kept throughout your generations.  They ate manna for 40 years of their wandering before entering Canaan. Moses gave the complete history of the manna up to the end of his own life at age 120.  Then Joshua led the Israelites into Canaan.

According to the History channel, the reason we Jews have a Sabbath day of rest is because that's the day Moses had to clean out the machine so that it would work for the rest of the week.  Here I picture Moses preaching to rest on the 7th day while he himself, the role model, was busy cleaning a machine.  Sure!

First of all, the Zohar is on too high a level even for me to read and understand.  It is a book of mystical thought known as Kabbalah.  It contains commentaries on the Torah for people who have already achieved a high spiritual degree in understanding  the origin of their souls.  It's made up of allegories and legends, but it's like for the level of PhD's, not people unaccustomed to Jewish thought.  It's like starting with a doctoral course when you should start with a 101 course.

I have a feeling that the writers on History's programming were first digging for something to prove aliens from outer space were in on the Manna, came across some allegory and used that as their proof.  I don't believe this was very scientific of them and actually is making fun of the event.  This all goes to prove that you can't believe everything you see and hear on TV, even passed off as "history."

The lesson for us to derive from this section of the Torah is to have trust in G-d, belief in the providence and mercy of G-d.

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_(TV_channel)
 Pentateuch and Haftorahs Volume I Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus
http://www.greatdreams.com/grlwhat.htm on Zohar and manna machine
http://www.alienexistence.com/index.php?topic=1267.0