Every year, HaRav Ginsburgh reviews the most important numerical and linguistic allusions related to the ordinal number of the year. This year is 5787 years since the creation of Adam and Eve. In Hebrew, it is referred to as תשפ"ז, or 787, which is the hundreds-tens-units part of 5787. These allusions are all related to this form. We here present a second set of allusions.
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The Year of Truth
787 is the value of three central idioms related to truth: “true desire” (רְצוֹן אֱמֶת), “His Name is true” (שְׁמוֹ אֱמֶת), and “true story” (סִפּוּר אֱמֶת). What this means is that what a person truly desires is his or her true name and this is the true story of their life, the story of the tzaddik within every Jew, as the prophet says, “And your people are all tzaddikim.”[1]
Our new year is uniquely suited to discovering what each of us truly desires in our innermost point, the point of the tzaddik within each of us. Doing so aligns us with “His Name is Truth”—the ultimate Divine desire and reason for Creation, which was to create a dwelling place for God,[2] here, below in the physical world. When we reveal the point of the tzaddik in us, we also discover and subsequently fulfill our true essence and life’s mission. In the past,[3] we have explained that it is essential for every person to know his “true story,” i.e., what his inner truth is, even when it contradicts the story expected of him from his surroundings. This is one of the reasons that it is a good idea to travel to pray at the resting place of true tzaddikim. The true tzaddik prompts us to ask ourselves: “What is my true story?”[4]
The Year of Giving Birth
5787 is connected to childbirth. The words God’s angel spoke to Hagar regarding Ishmael’s birth were, “Behold, you are with a child and shall bear a son”[5] (הִנָּךְ הָרָה וְיֹלַדְתְּ בֵּן). The same words were subsequently spoken twice[6] to Tzelalphonit, the wife of Mano’ach and Samson’s mother, regarding Samson’s impending birth. Incidentally, the value of Tzelalphonit (צְלָלְפוֹנִית) is the same as Samson (שִׁמְשׁוֹן), 696.
In this phrase, the ratio of the values of “and shall bear” (וְיֹלַדְתְּ), 450 and “behold, you” (הִנָּךְ), 75 is 6 to 1, meaning that “and you shall bear” is equal to the six possible permutations of “behold, you,” whose primary permutation is “priest” (כֹּהֵן), the man of kindness, pointing to the Jewish people’s destiny as a “kingdom of priests.”[7]
There is a Torah principle that “darkness precedes light,”[8] or “chaos precedes order.” In line with this principle, we first find this phrase used in reference to Ishmael’s birth. However, it is subsequently rectified when it is spoken to Samson’s mother. Samson was a leader and a judge who fought the Jewish people’s enemies, the Philistines, to the point of self-sacrifice.[9] That the phrase appears twice with reference to Samson follows the principle that “the good is of greater measure than the evil”[10] (מִדָּה טוֹבָה מְרוּבָּה מִמִּדַּת פּוּרְעָנוּת). Once the light appears after the darkness, it has the power to rectify and sweeten the darkness too. In this case, Hagar’s rectification comes through Isaac, alluded to by their identical value: Isaac (יִצְחָק) equals Hagar (הַגָּר). This made it possible for Abraham, in his old age, to remarry Hagar under her new name Keturah. The value of Mano’ach (מָנוֹחַ), 104 is half of Isaac and Hagar, 208.
This year directly continues 5786, whose acronym was “May it be a year of being fruitful and multiplying” (תְּהֵא שְׁנַת פְּרוּ וּרְבוּ). Thus, the blessing was received in 5786, and its realization arrives in 5787. This reflects the principle that when a woman conceives first, she gives birth to a male child. The ultimate rectification comes when conception and birth unite to bring about the birth of Mashiach (מָשִׁיחַ) whose letters can spell “there is warmth” (יֵשׁ חֹם), referring to sanctified warmth between husband and wife.
The Year of the Suspended Guilt Offering
One of the special types of sacrifices brought to the Temple was a Suspended Guilt-Offering (אָשָׁם תָּלוּי), whose value is 787. This type of offering was brought in cases of uncertainty regarding an offense carrying spiritual excision (karet), holding judgment in suspension until the truth is clarified. Though we cannot bring sacrifices without a Temple in Jerusalem, the Torah continues to be eternal and a suspended guilt offering parallels a subconscious existential doubt we harbor in our psyche.
Particularly, just as the suspended guilt offering is brought in cases where one’s very spiritual existence is in doubt, so the type of doubt it corresponds to is the existential doubt of “Do I truly exist?” The suspended state is resolved by forging a renewed covenant with God who is described as, “He who suspends the earth over nothingness”[11] (תֹּלֶה אֶרֶץ עַל בְּלִי מָה), and whose value is “In the beginning” (בְּרֵאשִׁית), hinting at the spiritual and psychological work we can perform at the beginning of the year.[12] The sweetening of the existential doubt is to recognize that all of Creation depends on it. I exist precisely because I can doubt my existence, because I realize that my existence cannot be taken for granted at all, as it is entirely God’s will. In fact, all of Creation exists because at its root it is entirely dependent and conditional on God’s true will (as above).
Thus, 5787 holds the potential for the subconscious to surface into conscious clarity, resolving our existential doubt about ourselves. Rectification occurs by acknowledging that “God is all and I am truly nothing.”
The Year of Rectifying Love and Relationships
There is another type of conditional in our lives that relates to 5787. This is the conditional love between Amnon and Tamar, two of David’s children (not from the same mother).[13] Amnon (אַמְנוֹן) and Tamar (תָּמָר) equal 787. Conditional love means love that is dependent on some external condition; when the condition ceases, the love ceases.[14] Amnon fell in love with Tamar, but it was not his true will, it was not true love, it was not his true story.
Though sometimes love begins because of an external motivation, a condition, if a man and woman have chosen to join in holy matrimony, that is a sign from above that there is great potential to discover their true will in their marriage. For this reason, many marriages reach a certain breaking point that is meant to separate the external condition out and force the couple to search for their deeper bond. In other words, conditional marriages seem at first to be based on unshakeable pillars and foundations. However, as the condition weakens and disappears, the covenant of marriage must be replaced with a renewed covenant between the partners that recognizes that everything in this world truly depends on God’s will.
In the deepest sense, every marriage, every bond, every covenant must be dependent on a recognition that it is God that holds it together through His will and that our will can only reflect His. This is the deep meaning behind Rabbi Akiva’s statement that when a husband and wife merit it, the Divine Presence is between them[15]—they come to feel that it is God Himself, in a Creation-like act, that brings them together. May this year indeed be the year in which we renew our covenant with each other (in love of our fellows), with our spouses and families (recognizing the Eternal One who binds us together), with the Torah, and with the Land of Israel.
Slow to Anger, Patient in Spirit
5787 is a year encapsulating compassion from the Almighty. Two related connotations for God are “Slow to Anger”[16] (אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם) and “Patient in Spirit”[17] (אֶרֶךְ רוּחַ). Their sum is 787. In Kabbalistic terms the first is the essence of God’s 13 Attributes of Compassion, revealed after the Sin of the Golden Calf and thus corresponds to the 13 Rectifications of the Beard of Arich Anpin, the lower part of the sefirah of crown. The Sages relate that when Moses fell on his face before God when He taught him these 13 Attributes of Compassion, it was specifically because of this attribute “slow to anger.” Moses in a sense embodied this attribute from then on and it became the source of his humility and lowliness, as the Torah writes, “And the man Moses was extremely humble.”[18]
The second attribute “patient in spirit” corresponds to Ze’er Anpin, the small countenance and to the 9 Attributes of Compassion, which Moses repeated when asking God for forgiveness for the Sin of the Spies through humility and patience.[19]
The sum of the values of the two complete verses in which these attributes appear (וַיַּעֲבֹר י־הוה עַל־פָּנָיו וַיִּקְרָא י־הוה י־הוה אֵ־ל רַחוּם וְחַנּוּן אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם וְרַב חֶסֶד וֶאֱמֶת and טוֹב אַחֲרִית דָּבָר מֵרֵאשִׁיתוֹ טוֹב אֶרֶךְ רוּחַ מִגְּבַהּ רוּחַ) is 4928, which is the product of 22 and 224. 22 is the total number of Divine Attributes of Compassion 22 (13 plus 9, as well as the 22 letters of the Torah, alluding to the word “in You” (בָּךְ) appearing in the verse, “and I will trust in You”[20]). 224 is the value of “way” (דֶּרֶךְ) indicating that one should be an expert in the ways of “run and return” of the soul—the pulse of the soul’s life—which was formulated in Chasidut as the phrase, “God is all and all is God.”
A Year of Supernal Lights (Revelations)
787 is the sum of five of the most important numbers discussed in Kabbalah and Chasidut. They are the numbers most often associated with the first five supernal sefirot: the 620 Pillars of Light (תרך עַמּוּדֵי אוֹר) that descend from crown to kingdom, the 13 Rectifications of the Beard in Arich (יג תְּקוּנֵי דִּיקְנָא) the lower part of the crown, the 32 Pathways of Wisdom (לב נְתִיבוֹת חָכְמָה), the 50 Gates of Understanding (נ שַׁעֲרֵי בִּינָה), and the 72 Bridges of Lovingkindness (עב גְּשָׁרִים) that are rooted in the coronet of loving-kindness in knowledge.[21]
The year 5787 brings a general and individualized revelation of all these Supernal Lights. Incredibly, the sum of “pillar” (עַמּוּד), “rectification” (תִּקּוּן), “pathway” (נָתִיב), “gate” (שַׁעַר), and “bridge” (גֶּשֶׁר) together with their number (620, 13, 32, 50, and 72, i.e. 787) is 3210, the exact numerical value of the full text of the 13 Attributes of Divine Compassion, that correspond to the 13 Rectifications of the Beard (discussed in the previous allusion), providing another connection to God’s compassion in the year 5787.
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[1]. Isaiah 60:21.
[2]. Tanchuma Naso 16. See Wisdom issue 123 (Sukkot-Bereishit 5785), p. 14ff.
[3]. Class from the 3rd of Shevat, 5785.
[4]. See also the class from the 24th of Tevet, 5767 regarding the value of repeating true stories about true tzaddikim.
[5]. Genesis 16:11.
[6]. Judges 13:5 and 7.
[7]. Exodus 19:6.
[8]. Shabbat 77b.
[9]. It is not by chance that the contemporary genocidal enemies of the Jewish people have named themselves after the Philistines.
[10]. Ibid. 76a.
[11]. Job 26:7.
[12]. The value of the words meaning, “nothingness” (בְּלִי מָה), is 87, the value of “gold” (פָּז), the two last letter of this year, “May it be a golden year” (תשפז).
[13]. 2 Samuel ch. 13.
[14]. Avot 5:16.
[15]. Sotah 17a.
[16]. Exodus 34:6.
[17]. Ecclesiastes 7:8. The full verse reads, “Better is the end of a thing than its beginning and the patient in spirit is better than the proud of spirit” (טוֹב אַחֲרִית דָּבָר מֵרֵאשִׁיתוֹ טוֹב אֶרֶךְ רוּחַ מִגְּבַהּ רוּחַ).
[18]. Numbers 13:3.
[19]. For an in-depth treatment of the 13 and 9 Attributes of Compassion, see our series beginning with Wonders 198 (for parashat Shelach 5786).
[20]. Psalms 55:24.
[21]. For more on these see What You Need to Know About Kabbalah, part 3.
