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The Gematrias of 5771

A year of Divine aid

In preparation for the new year, like every year, we would like to explore the secrets of the number of the coming year—a year that will, God willing, bring with it good things.

The coming year is 5771, which is usually abbreviated as 771 (dropping the thousands, as is customary). In Hebrew it is designated as, תשע"א (771).

In the 5750s, the Lubavitcher Rebbe made a custom of noting possible acronyms made up of the letters of the year. The first two letters (which do not change throughout an entire century) always stand for, “May it be a year of” (תְּהֵא שְׁנַת ). What changes is the reference made by the final two letters, in our case עא . Following the Rebbe’s example, let us say that they stand for “Divine aid” (עֵזֶר אֱלֹקִי ). Thus the simple acronym of the coming year, 771, is May it be a year of Divine aid (תְּהֵא שְׁנַת עֵזֶר אֱלֹקִי ).

Specifically, as we shall see since this year is essentially connected with the advent of Mashiach, may this be a year of Divine aid in everything that we do, especially in completing our final task, bringing the Mashiach.

Coming of Mashiach, Coming of the Mashiach

We are now finishing the year of 770, whose value is (among other things) “the house of Mashiach” (בֵּית מָשִׁיחַ ). The simplest way to add 1 to a word or phrase is to insert the letter alef (א ) in it. In this case, adding an alef to “the house of Mashiach” yields the phrase, “the coming of Mashiach” (בִּיאַת מָשִׁיחַ ). This phrase is very similar but not quite the same as the more well-known idiom “the coming of the Mashiach” (בִּיאַת הַמָּשִׁיחַ ), which equals 776.

Before getting into the difference in meaning between these two phrases, let us note that in terms of letters the only difference is the letter hei (ה ). Recall though that when referring to the year, we usually drop the leading thousands—5771 becomes 771. Using Hebrew letters, 5771 is written ה'תשע"א , with the prefix hei (ה ) designating 5 thousands. If we take this prefix hei and add it as is into the phrase “The coming of Mashiach” (בִּיאַת מָשִׁיחַ ), we get the second phrase, “the coming of the Mashiach” (בִּיאַת הַמָּשִׁיחַ ). So in a manner, the year 5771 refers to both phrases.

But now, let us turn to explore the difference in meaning between the two phrases. In Hebrew, prefixing a word with the letter hei (ה )—הַמָּשִׁיחַ  vs. just מָשִׁיחַ —is equivalent to the word “the” in English. Here then, the difference is between “Mashiach” and “the Mashiach.” How can we understand this in terms of the “coming of Mashiach?” Without the declarative “the,” Mashiach refers to every individual’s personal Mashiach, i.e., the spark of Mashiach within each and every Jew that is equivalent to the fifth and highest level of the soul, the singular one (יְחִידָה ). With the declarative “the,” “the Mashiach” refers to the Mashiach we are all waiting for and with whose coming we will begin to experience the true and complete redemption. “The Mashiach” is who Maimonides refers to in the 12th of his Thirteen Principles of Faith. Thus, the coming year is the year best suited for each of us to reveal the highest and most essential of our soul powers.

Normally, when we look at different interpretations for the same thing (in our case the different phrases that equal 771) we put them in perspective by corresponding each to a particular sefirah (or other element in another Torah model).  Though we will seem to begin the same way, this time we will show something a little different. In most cases, the correspondence will be to interactions or vectors flowing between sefirot. Altogether, we will have a picture of what kind of spiritual work we are particularly expected to do in the coming year.

Crown

The first phrase that we will look at that equals 771 is taken from the Bible, specifically from the Book of Daniel. To understand this phrase, let us quote from the beginning of chapter 8 in Daniel,

In the third year of the reign of king Belshatzar, a vision appeared to be, I Daniel… behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns. And the two horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last. I saw the ram pushing westward and northward and southward so that no beasts might stand before it and there was none there that could provide deliverance from its hand. But, it did according to its will and magnified itself. As I meditated upon what I saw, behold a male goat came from the west across the face of the whole earth and it did not touch the ground. And this goat had a conspicuous horn between its eyes. It came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran at him in the fury of its power. I saw it comes close to the ram, and it was enraged against it and smote the ram and broke its two horns. The ram had no power to stand before it, but it [the goat] cast it [the ram] down and trampled upon it. And there was none that could deliver the ram from the hands of the goat.

Like all of Daniel’s visions and dreams, this one too is intricately linked to history. The ram symbolizes the Persian Empire, which extended far to the west and reached Greece, conquering and subduing all in its way. But, then came the turn of the Greeks, symbolized by the male goat. The “conspicuous horn” extending from the goat’s head symbolizes the greatest Greek conqueror, Alexander of Macedonia, better known as Alexander the Great. Alexander died when he was 33 years old, but in his short life had conquered most of the ancient world. The value of “conspicuous horn” (קֶרֶן חָזוּת ) is exactly 771.

What connection is there between Alexander the Great and the coming of the Mashiach? Alexander was a Greek Hellenist—Aristotle himself was his mentor— and given the ideals he upheld and advocated he cannot be divorced from the sacrilegious and unholy part of reality that he represented in thought and belief. Still we see that the sages have a fondness for this particular Greek and, in spite of his background, his contemporary Jewish leaders acknowledged his greatness, and his name is even given to Jewish children. The numerical value of Alexander (אַלֶכְּסַנְדֶר ) is 365, the number of prohibitive commandments in the Torah and the value of “Joseph the Tzadik” (יוֹסֵף הַצַּדִּיק ).

What did Alexander do that was so great? The Malbim explains that Alexander’s greatness was not in his ability to conquer the world by brute force alone, but by exercising his mind and wit, a throwback perhaps to his studies as a youth. The sages relate that he was the eighth person to unite the entire world under the rule of a single individual. They then continue to state that the ninth such unification of the entire world will be by the Mashiach, who will then restore rule over the entire world to the Creator. As the eighth such individual, Alexander already represents a super-natural state, as does everything connected with the number 8. But, the Divinely ordained purpose in his conquests and his rule was to pass his sovereignty to the ninth king the Mashiach. Recall that the word “nine” (תֵּשַׁע ) in Hebrew is equal to 770, the year now nearing its end.

Even though there are a few thousands years separating the Mashiach from Alexander, the Mashiach will actually rekindle Alexander’s claim and ability to rule over the entire world. What we learn from the sages in this case is that a residue of Alexander’s global rule still exists. In practice, it is this residue that motivates, whether consciously or sub-consciously, the Western bid to spread its current ideology (which is actually not very different from Alexander’s) globally. Whether Alexander’s own dream of uniting the world is achieved through the export of democracy and the United Nations or whether it happen thanks to the equalizing power of technology and globalization, the dream of a single world government is still very much alive.

There is an interesting allusion to the connection between Alexander and the Mashiach. The Talmud¹ relates that when Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi saw the Mashiach he asked him when he would come and his one word reply was, “today.” As we know, the Mashiach did not come on that day some 1800 years ago. When he did not, Rabbi Yehoshua asked Elijah the prophet whether the Mashiach had not told him the truth. Elijah explained that the Mashiach meant to say that the one word reply “today” was actually the first word of a verse, “Today, if you follow His [God’s] laws.”² Meaning, that the Mashiach’s coming is conditional upon following God’s will. But, note that the second word of the verse, “if” (אִם ) is the Hebrew initials of Alexander of Macedonia (אַלֶכְּסַנְדֶר מוֹקְדוֹן ), the way Alexander the Great is referred to in the Talmud implying the link made by the sages between the rule of the Mashiach and Alexander’s unification of the ancient world.

The symbol of a conspicuous horn for Alexander’s prowess also refers to his sharpness, his ability like an animal using his horn to sift through dirt or reach its prey, to invade the darkest and farthest regions of the globe in order to spread his rule. The sages liken Alexander himself to darkness, which is why he was drawn to the darkest regions of the earth. We too have to adopt the same approach, spreading light to the farthest and darkest regions of the world.

On various occasions we have developed the Torah’s conception of what we call “conscious determination” (קְבִיעָה רְצוֹנִית ),³ a 4 stage process that allows us to set goals and work to achieve them, even while being nullified before God’s own will. Nowhere is conscious determination more important than in bringing the Mashiach and the true and complete redemption.

If there is any symbol in the Bible that can be taken as a symbol for the stages of conscious determination it is this conspicuous horn. The horn itself represents an image of the sefirah of crown, whose three parts are faith, pleasure, and will. Faith and will are the first 2 stages of conscious determination. The horn’s conspicuousness, its visibility, represents concealed wisdom, the actual power of thought harboring in the mind. This is the 3rd stage of conscious determination. Finally, Daniel describes the horn as situated between the goat’s eyes and the eyes represent—like “the eyes of the congregation”⁴—the fully developed and palpable state of the goal we want to achieve, which then allows us to open our eyes and see it in reality. The eyes are then the 4th stage of conscious determination. So we have here a beautiful image to meditate upon during the coming year, an image that holds within it the entire process needed in order to bring to fruition our good thoughts and intentions in bringing the Mashiach.

Even though we are currently in the exile of Edom (Rome), the mindset that we need to free ourselves from is the Greek mindset, which was shared by the Romans. The wisdom of Rome was practical, more like technology or applied science. But, Greek wisdom was more theoretical. The wisdom of taking the Greek mindset and theories and turning them into something applied is how Rome complemented Greece. Technology is relatively easy to transform into something holy, but the theoretical mindset is a lot more difficult to rectify, if it can be rectified at all. What we are saying now is that this coming year, we will be able to take advantage of the positive residue left by Alexander, a positive residue of his unique Greek mindset. Of course, to succeed we need to replace his horn with our horn, alluding to the well known image of “the horn of Israel” (קֶרֶן יִשְׂרָאֵל ) and “the horn of David” (קֶרֶן דָוִד ).

Crown and the awe-inspiring

771 is a multiple of 3 so that when we divide 771 into 3 the result is 257, the gematria of the word “awesome” or “awe-inspiring” (נּוֹרָא ). This word appears exactly 3 times in the Pentateuch, strengthening its identification with 771. One way of stating the relationship is to say that the coming year will be a triple awe-inspiring  year. But, let us look at the three appearances of the word in the Pentateuch in detail and see how they correspond to the three parts of the crown, faith, pleasure, and will. These three verses are relatively well known.

The first is, “How awesome is this place”⁵ (מַה נּוֹרָא הַמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה ). These words, referring to the then future location of the Holy Temple, were spoken by Jacob after waking from the dream in which he saw the ladder and angels ascending and descending on it. It is from these words that the Ba’al Shem Tov gleaned his second most important principle of serving God called the “unification of awe and the awe-inspiring” (יִחוּד יִרְאָה נוֹרָא ).⁶ We have discussed this principle elsewhere in depth.

The second instance of “awesome” appears in the Song of the Sea, sung by Moshe Rabbeinu and the Jewish people after their ascent out of the Reed Sea. It reads, “Who is like You, O’ God among the gods, Who is like You glorious in holiness, Awesome in praises, performing wonders”⁷ (מִי כָמֹכָה בָּאֵלִם י־הוה מִי כָּמֹכָה נֶאְדָּר בַּקֹּדֶשׁ נוֹרָא תְהִלֹּת עֹשֵׂה פֶלֶא ).

The third and final appearance of this word in the Pentateuch is in the final verse of the Torah reading for public fast days. The verse reads, “He [God] said, ‘Behold I am making a covenant. Before your people I will perform wonders, the likes of which have never been created on the earth and among all the nations; your people, in whose midst you are, will see the act of God, for it is awesome that which I shall perform for you’” (וַיֹּאמֶר הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי כֹּרֵת בְּרִית נֶגֶד כָּל עַמְּךָ אֶעֱשֶׂה נִפְלָאֹת אֲשֶׁר לֹא נִבְרְאוּ בְכָל הָאָרֶץ וּבְכָל הַגּוֹיִם וְרָאָה כָל הָעָם אֲשֶׁר אַתָּה בְקִרְבּוֹ אֶת מַעֲשֵׂה י־הוה כִּי נוֹרָא הוּא אֲשֶׁר אֲנִי עֹשֶׂה עִמָּךְ )

Again, these are the only 3 instances of the word “awesome” (נּוֹרָא ) in the Pentateuch. The notion of something being awe-inspiring or awesome is naturally associated with the crown.

Apropos our discussion of how these three instances of “awesome” relate to the crown, let us make a general point about the adjective “awesome.” The fact that Jacob, the archetypal soul of the sefirah of beauty, makes the first mention of “awesome” alludes to crown and beauty both being along the middle axis of the sefirot. In fact, the connection between crown and beauty is that though we cannot fully experience is awe-inspiring, it remains beyond description like everything associated with the crown, still part of the experience seeps down into beauty. Subsequently, the part of the experience that comes down imminently into our consciousness is felt in the emotive sefirot as awe or fear, the inner experience of the sefirah of might. Might (like loving-kindness) is considered an extension of beauty, just as their bodily counterparts, the arms (loving-kindness and might) are extensions of the torso (beauty).

Now, looking at how these three instances correspond to the three parts of the crown, its three heads, let us begin with the statement made in the Tanya (ch. 4) that the source of the soul’s garments (לְבוּשִׁים )—thought, speech, and action—is higher than the source of the soul’s powers (כֹּחוֹת ).⁸ The source of the revealed powers of the soul begin with the sefirah of wisdom, but the source of the garments is in the three heads of the crown, in order: the highest head, called the unknowable head (faith) is the source of thought; the middle head, the head of nothingness (pleasure) is the source of speech; and the lower head, the long head (will) is the source of action. Likewise the first verse, in which Jacob states that, “I did not know,” alludes to the extension of the highest head, the unknowable head into thought. The second verse is part of the Song of the Sea. Of course poetry and song represent the most advanced form of verbal expression (speech). Thus the second verse relates to speech and to the middle head of the crown, the head of nothingness. Finally, the third verse, which speaks explicitly of God’s actions, corresponds to the third and lowest head, the long head of will.

Wisdom and Understanding: The Menorah and the Table of the Showbread

So far our model (partzuf) has been relatively straightforward with a single word, phrase, or verse corresponding to each part of the sefirah of crown. But, as we now go downwards in the chart of the sefirot, we will see a more complex relationship between the sefirot and the phrases that equal 771.

One of the requirements relating to the layout of the sanctuary in the Tabernacle (and later in the Temple in Jerusalem) is that, “the Menorah [must be] facing the Table of the Showbread”⁹ (הַמְּנֹרָה נֹכַח הַשֻּׁלְחָן ); the value of this phrase is 771. Note that in the original Hebrew these 3 words have a symmetric structure: 5, 3, and 5 letters, respectively. Their initials spell the word “behold” (הִנֵּה ), an expression of revelation whose numerical value is 60, alluding to the 60 letters of the Priestly Blessing.¹⁰ The gematria of the middle word, “facing” (נֹכַח ) is 78, which is 3 times the value of God’s essential Name, Havayah (י־הוה ), alluding to the three instances of Havayah found in the Priestly Blessing.

What do the Menorah and the Table represent in terms of the sefirot? Usually, the Menorah is related to loving-kindness, as it is placed in the southern part of the sanctuary, referred to in the Torah as the right side, or loving-kindness. Following the same reasoning, the Table, placed near the northern wall of the sanctuary, the left side, corresponds to might.

However, the sages explain that the Menorah and the Table are sources of wisdom and wealth. In their words, “One who wants to grow wise should go south, one who wants to grow wealthy should go north.”¹¹ The Menorah, from which emanates the light of wisdom to the sanctuary and from there to the entire world is placed in the south, thereby linking the south (this includes the south of the Land of Israel as well) with wisdom. In the same vein, the Table of the Showbread is considered the source of all physical sustenance and wealth. It is the table of the Almighty from which the priests ate the bread once a week on the Shabbat and through whom Divine sustenance for the rest of the world flows.¹² Thus, this particular verse centers not merely on the physical location of the Menorah and the Table of Showbread, but on the revelation that emanates out of the space that lies between them, as implied also in the two allusions to the Priestly Blessing. In other words, this phrase describes a state of balance between the sources of wisdom and wealth.

What this tells us is that in the coming year we should strive to balance the revelation of the physical and spiritual in our lives. We should work to attain a state of harmony between our spiritual and physical wealth.

Sometimes, spiritual and physical effluence are described metaphorically as light and sustenance (אוֹר וְשֶׁפַע ), respectively, which themselves correspond to the two intellectual sefirot of wisdom and understanding, or the father and mother principles. Looking for instance at chapter 31 of the Book of Proverbs, we clearly see that the father/husband’s role is to provide for spirituality and wisdom and the mother/wife’s role is to cultivate the family’s physical wealth. Of course, the balance between wisdom and understanding, located on opposite sides (right and left) of the sefirot chart, is struck by the sefirah of knowledge, located on the middle axis between them. In our phrase, knowledge corresponds to the word “facing” (נֹכַח ), which as we mentioned is equal to 78, also the gematria of the word “bread” (לֶחֶם ), the primary source of knowledge and consciousness in reality.

Loving-kindness and Victory

Having covered wisdom, the first sefirah lying on the right axis of the sefirot, we come to the two lower right-axis sefirot: loving-kindness and victory. The first, loving-kindness, is also the first of the emotive sefirot, which also include might and beauty. One particular gematria corresponds to the totality of the emotive sefirot. It is the names of the first three of Jacob’s sons, the first three tribes, Reuven, Shimon, and Levi (רְאוּבֵן שִׁמְעוֹן לֵוִי ), whose sum is 771. They correspond, in order, to the emotive sefirot.

More particular to loving-kindness is the well known verse, “Cast your bread upon the water [for after some time, it will return to you]”¹³ (שַׁלַּח לַחְמְךָ עַל פְּנֵי הַמָּיִם ). The literal meaning of this expression is that you should not be too picky about giving charity. You should see charity as a type of investment that will give you returns over time. Invest in charity, even if you are not 100% sure for what it will be used, or whether it is really needed, or whether your giving will have an impact. As long as you feel that you can trust the recipient, give! Charity is of course the central act of loving-kindness that we can do for others. But, the additional insight that we have gained from this verse is that charity is related to time. Nowhere is this clearer on a conceptual level than when observing the right axis of the sefirot and seeing that loving-kindness extends into victory (נֵצַח ) and the Hebrew name of this sefirah also means “eternity.” Of all the sefirot, only victory/eternity implies temporality. Giving by itself is a symbol of loving-kindness, corresponding to the right hand. But, when a person extends his hand in charity, the actual act, the actual extension of the hand, represents the extension of loving-kindness into victory/eternity, turning the act of charity into an actual investment.

Regarding this verse, the Talmud recounts a number of stories of people who cast their charity in this way and sometimes after a long while, sometimes after shorter periods of time, saw it return to them. This gematria then—that “Cast your bread upon the water” equals 771—contains a very straightforward and understandable directive to take with us into the coming year. 

Incredibly, this revealing relationship between loving-kindness and victory, whose inner experiential motivator is defined as confidence (בִּטָּחוֹן ), is seen through a simple mathematical analysis of the full number of the coming year, 5771. Whenever, we analyze a number, one of the first things we do is identify its prime factors. 5771 has exactly two prime co-factors. They are 29 and 199. In other words, 29 ∙ 199 = 5771. 199 is relatively well-known as the gematria of “charity” (צְדָקָה ), while 29 is the gematria of the word for “promise” (הַבְטָחָה ), which in Hebrew stems from the same root as “confidence,” the inner motivator of victory/eternity! So we have that 5771 is the product of multiplying charity with promise, implying that we can promise and commit to give charity in whatever amount we desire this year (casting our bread upon the water), and do so with confidence that we will both be able to keep our commitment and that we will see the return on our investment.

Practically speaking, even before this year begins we should make a commitment, and resolve to give a great deal of charity, and by saying this with sincerity, the Almighty will help us fulfill our promise.

Might and Foundation

Regarding the second of the emotive sefirot, might, we find a gematria that connects it not with its extension on the left axis, acknowledgment, but rather with the sefirah of foundation that lies on the middle axis. The phrase in this case is taken from the blessing that Jacob gave to his son Dan, “May Dan be a snake lying upon the path” (יְהִי דָן נָחָשׁ עֲלֵי דֶרֶךְ ), whose numerical value is of course 771.

In this verse, Jacob is blessing the tribe of Dan with the quality of leadership, associated with the sefirah of might. Indeed, the name Dan itself implies might, as it stems from “judgment” (דִּין ), a synonym of might. The traditional interpretation of this verse is that it refers to Samson, a scion of the tribe of Dan who led (“judged,” in the Bible’s idiom) the Jewish people at the end of the period of the Judges. Normally, kingship—leadership that is higher than that of the Judges—is understood to rely on the power of judgment in the sefirah of might. In the idiom of Kabbalah, “Kingdom is assembled from elements of might” (בִּנְיָן הַמַּלְכוּת מִן הַגְּבוּרוֹת ). But, before a true king can assume power, might and its power of judgment contribute to the sefirah of foundation from which kingdom, the sefirah of kingship, eventually emerges. For this reason, in Jewish history, prior to the kingdoms of Saul and then David, there was a period of judges that lasted for 400 years. These judges, together with the first king, Saul, are associated with the various parts of the sefirah of foundation (Saul with what is described as the crown of foundation, i.e., the most externally extended part of foundation, from which kingdom—king David’s kingdom—develops), which as a whole is associated with the male procreative organ.

Of all the Judges that ruled in this interim period between Moshe Rabbeinu and King David, the one who is most closely identified with the figure of Mashiach is Samson, who as noted, judged the Jewish people at the very end of the period. Yet, for all his tremendous faith and trust in God (Samson was born lame in both feet, like a snake with no feet), Samson was constantly embattled with his personal failings in the realm of foundation. Samson’s powerful enmity towards the Philistines—the contemporary version of the Arabs inhabiting the Land of Israel today—and his campaigns of vengeance, were fueled by the energy coming from the sefirah of might into the sefirah of foundation. Indeed, foundation and the covenant associated with it (the covenant of circumcision and the covenant of refraining from improper sexual conduct) are described as, “A sword avenging the vengeance of the covenant.”¹⁴ Among Jacob’s words, “May Dan be a snake lying upon the path,” the snake is considered a symbol of the sefirah of foundation. Additionally, many times the notion of a “path” is also identified with foundation.

What we learn from the connection between Jacob’s blessing, the period of the Judges, and the character of Samson is that in the coming year, 5771, new energy will flow from might to foundation, strengthening the same qualities that prepared the Jewish nation 3000 years for the rule of a true leader in the figure of King David. Most importantly, this energy represents the ability to, like Samson, to overcome the enemies of the Jewish people.

Beauty: From end to end

The most concise description of the sefirah of beauty (תִּפְאֶרֶת ), which serves as a definition even of what beauty means, is that it “interlocks all from end to end”¹⁵ (מַבְרִחַ מִן הַקָּצֶה אֶל הַקָּצֶה ), like the middle crossbeam of the desert Tabernacle that ran from one end to the other, within the walls of the perimeter. The value of this phrase is 771. In many respects beauty is the most dynamic of all the sefirot, functioning as an intermediate or cohesive force running through the entire middle axis, from the crown at the very top to kingdom at the very bottom.

In our present meditation we can see this unifying principle behind beauty acting explicitly. Beauty acts not only vertically but horizontally as well, between victory and acknowledgment, thus it acts to unify the vector of the promise of charity that we have already seen and the vector of righteous conversion that we will see shortly.

The crossbeam that ran from one end of the desert Tabernacle’s perimeter to the other is said to have been miraculous as the crossbeam was one long piece of wood that somehow turned corners. For this reason the central beam is described as a snake, alluding to our description of the vector force running from might to foundation, of Dan being like a snake.

Finally, beauty’s ability to bring opposites together in the emotive realm in a rectified manner is dependent upon balance being attained in the intellectual realm, the topic of our description of the Menorah and the Table of the Showbread; and vice versa. Intellectual harmony is a perquisite to emotional balance and in turn, emotional balance affects the intellect.

Kingdom and acknowledgment: Ruth, Na’amah, and sincere conversion

We have so far covered all the sefirot except for kingdom and acknowledgment (הוֹד ). The Zohar states that “He is in victory and she is in acknowledgment” (אִיהוּ בְּנֶצַח וְאִיהִי בְּהוֹד ). There are various interpretations to this statement; the Arizal identifies it with the victory and acknowledgment of the partzuf of Arich in the crown. Another is that it refers to the unification of Ze’er Anpin (the small countenance) and his feminine aspect, Nukva (the female). Ze’er Anpin, who in the sefirot is represented by beauty thus descends to victory and Nukva, kingdom in the sefirot, ascends to acknowledgment.

So we now have a vector force between kingdom and acknowledgment that is revealed when kingdom unifies and ascends to its masculine counterpart. This ascending vector is the energy entailed in the act of sincere and righteous conversion to the Jewish people carried out by Ruth the Moabite and Na’amah the Amonite, the two righteous princesses of the two nations that were born out of Lot’s incest with his daughters.¹⁶ Ruth and Na’amah thus represent the energy inherent in kingdom, representing in this case the non-Jewish nations of the world, allowing them to sincerely connect with the Jewish people out of a sense of true lowliness before the truth carried in and by God’s chosen people. The sages learn many of the laws of conversion from Ruth’s actions recounted in the Book of Ruth.¹⁷ Ruth herself is known as “the mother of [the Jewish] kingdom,” as her great-grandson was king David. Na’amah was King Solomon’s wife, the mother of the next king in the house of David. Mashiach must be a descendant then of both Ruth and Na’amah (relating back to this being the year of the coming of Mashiach). The numerical value of their two names (רוּת נַעֲמָה ) is of course 771.

This is thus the year in which kingdom rises to acknowledgment, giving strength to those righteous individuals of the nations who wish to acknowledge the truth of the Torah and to sincerely convert to Judaism.¹⁸

The inner aspect of kingdom

Though we have already covered kingdom as it ascends to acknowledgment, there are two additional gematrias for the coming year, 771, that correspond to other vector forces in kingdom.

The first is in the verses, “Like a ram yearning on streams of water, so my soul yearns for You, God. My soul thirsts for God, for the God of Life….”¹⁹ The words, “My soul thirsts for God, for the God of Life” (צָמְאָה נַפְשִׁי לֵא־לֹהִים לְאֵ־ל חָי ) equal 771.

The various commentaries linger on why the word for “ram” (אַיִל ) is masculine while the verb “yearns” (תַּעֲרֹג ) is in the feminine form. One explanation is that the verse is referring to the actions of both the ram and the female ram as they thirst for water. The ram pushes his horns into the ground, while his female cries out in yearning during labor, both thirsting for rain waters that will replenish the earth. This is then an image of how kingdom, which has descended into mundane reality yearns for the life-force given to it by the sefirah of foundation (referred to here as “the God of Life”). Thus, kingdom in its yearning ascends towards foundation. But, because of the principle that every returning light (and kingdom here is returning upwards to its source above) returns to its initial source, kingdom not only reaches foundation in its ascent but climbs all the way up to the top of the middle axis of the sefirot, reaching the unknowable head of crown. What this means is that as much is kingdom represents the epitome of self-consciousness and conscious experience (that is what its descent into the mundane translates into in our reality—our ability to be self-conscious and to experience that which occurs as related to ourselves), in yearning and ascending for “the God of Life,” it is able to reach the highest state of unifying with God and putting its experience of itself on hold—the state of the unknowable head of crown.

Because of the importance of these words from Psalms as a subject of meditation, they have been set to music many times by the Jewish sages. One most famous melody for these words was composed by the third Lubavticher Rebbe. Rabbi Avraham ibn Ezra, author of the well-known Biblical commentary, authored an full length song based on these words, to which the fourth Lubavitcher Rebbe, the Rebbe Rashab composed a melody. There are a few melodies to this song by the ibn Ezra. In any case, in preparation for 5771, it would be appropriate for everyone to learn to sing these different songs and melodies based on this verse.

Kingdom’s power of rectification

Just as the inner aspect of kingdom ascends, so kingdom (the sefirah of kingdom as it is in the World of Emanation) has the power to descend even further and enter the three lower Worlds of Creation, Formation, and Action in order to rectify and fix them. This vector of descent for the purpose of rectification is described in Moshe Rabbeinu’s blessing to Joseph where we find an allusion to foods produced by the earth through lunar influence. These are described as, “produce that emerges forth by the moon”²⁰ (גֶּרֶשׁ יְרָחִים ). The gematria of this phrase is 771. Just as there most types of produce are nurtured by the sun, there are certain types of produce that are ripened by the moon at night.²¹ This again, is an image for how kingdom (symbolized by the moon) descends in order to rectify the reality of the three lower Worlds.

This particular gematria ties back with the Table of Showbread which we saw earlier corresponds to the sefirah of understanding, since kingdom receives from understanding. The blessing of wealth in 5771 is thus understood to manifest through the descent of kingdom into mundane reality in order to ripen produce through the light of the moon. It would certainly be a good idea to eat a lot of dishes made from these vegetables in the coming year.

Summary