RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:ECO-JUDAISM: RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL: FORTY AS A JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL TRANSFORMATION NUMBER

Saturday, August 23, 2014

RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL: FORTY AS A JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL TRANSFORMATION NUMBER

RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:

FORTY AS A JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL TRANSFORMATION NUMBER :

THE NUMBER FORTY USED IN THE TORAH AND TALMUD FOR JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL:

The number forty has significance throughout the Torah, and the Talmud. This is an interesting time to look at this because the period of time, now, between the first day of Elul until Yom Kippur, is 40 days. That takes us from owners of chet, (defects of character, i.e. ba'al chet) to ba'al teshuvah, masters of Jewish Spiritual Renewal, a radical change.

When a person becomes ritually impure, he goes to ritual bath, a Mikveh. According to the Talmud Bavli Tractate Eruvin 4b and the Yoma 31a , the Mikveh must be filled with forty measures of water. A person, must completely submerse himself in it.

After being submersed, he leaves the Mikveh ritually pure.The amount of water in a mikveh has to be 40 seah, (Numbers Rabbah, 18:17 ) . This is 144 eggs, or 145 liters, in volume.

A Mikveh is used for conversions, transforming someone from a non-Jew into hopefully a spiritually renewed Jew.

In the story of Noah, the rain poured for 40 days, and covered the world with water. When the flood subsided, the world was transformed and purified.

According to Rabbi Judah Loew (16th century, Prague), the number 40 has the power to raise some things to a spiritual state.

40 measures of water purifies a person. 40 days of rain purified the world. 40 days of Moses on Mt. Sinai purified the Hebrews from the mind set of being Egyptian slaves into a Spiritual Renewed nation.

The second time Moses went up Mt Sinai, was on the first of Elul. He came down 40 days later on the tenth of Tishrei which is Yom Kippur.

These 40 days were for God's forgiving the Hebrews for the sin of the golden calf, and for time for them to renew their spirituality.

Moses tells the Jewish people that he had "led them 40 years in the wilderness," (Deut. 29:3-4) after he told them that "God has not given you a heart to know, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, until this day."

It took the Hebrew people 40 years in Ba Midbar, the wilderness, before they could understand the events and teachings that took place at Sinai.

Accordingly, the Talmud in Pirkei Avot ( Ethics of Our Fathers) , "a man of forty attains understanding,'' (5:26) .

According to the Talmud, it takes 40 days for an embryo to be formed in its mothers womb, (Talmud Bavli Tractate Yevamot 69b).

The number of Makot (lashes) that a person received for certain sins is 40 (40 minus 1 according to the Sages in Talmud Bavli Tractate Makot 22b). The lashes transformed a person from being guilty to innocent and thereby purified him of sin.

Periods of life seem to be at 40, as in the case of Rabbi Ben Zakkai who lived 120 years: 40 in business, 40 in study and 40 in teaching, (Talmud Bavli Tractate Rosh Ha Shana 31b). Sarah, Ishmael, Rabbi Hillel,Rabbi Akiva, are all described of having lives in this same 40 year pattern.

I am sure there are others but it is late and I need 40 winks in order to function in my 40 hour work week.

The Hebrews may have obtained the idea of the number 40 as a transformation number from the architecture of the Pyramids in Egypt or the Ziggurats in Babylon or both.

One transformed the dead to the world here-after, the other transformed the living into gods. Both were built in a formula of 4 sides, in lengths of ten.

As they moved upward, the lengths decreased, giving us the triangle look on each of the 4 sides.

The three sided triangle, done 4 times, becomes 7, a Holy number to Hebrews but a magical number to Egyptians and Babylonians.

Here is the heavy part: The first letter of the words that are associated with the ideas mentioned previously is the letter "mem," i.e. Mikveh, Matan Torah (giving of Torah), Makot (lashes), Midbar (desert), Mabul (flood), Moshe.

The letter "Mem" in Hebrew has a numerical value of forty.

We would not say this just chance.

Hence Forty becomes a number for Jewish Spiritual Renewal, www.jewishspiritualrenewal.org/books as well as Jewish Renewal, and Jewish Spirituality, putting people of a Path of Transformation.

http://www.jewishspiritualrenewal.org/books/the-handbook-to-jewish-spiritual-renewal/

Shalom:

Rabbi Arthur Segal