Tag Archives: Hebrew

Noah’s Ark and the Tower of Babel: Not What You Think!

Where did all the water for the Great Flood come from, and is it scientifically possible? Was Noah’s Ark a simple wooden vessel, or something far more complex and of another dimension? What did the post-Flood generations really find in Shinar, and was their Tower of Babel some kind of space ship? Find out in this class where we also discuss the secrets of the Holy Tongue, the “Watchers” and Nephilim, ancient technology, and why it is that most cultures from around the world have similar myths and ancient legends.

This class is based on the essay ‘Noah’s Ark and the Tower of Babel: Not What You Think! in Garments of Light, Volume One, available here.

The Letter of Creation

The following is an excerpt from Garments of Light, Volume Two. Get the book here. 

Vayigash elav Yehudah, “And Judah approached him…” The Zohar begins its commentary on this week’s parasha by briefly citing a well-known Midrash about how the letters of the Hebrew alphabet approached God seeking to be the letter through which God creates the universe. The account is presented in full in an ancient text called Otiot d’Rabbi Akiva, and is also referenced to in multiple places, including the first chapters of Beresheet Rabbah and Yalkut Shimoni. The Zohar itself provides a detailed account in its first pages (I, 2b-3b):

…when the Holy One, blessed be He, desired to create the world, the letters of the alphabet appeared before Him (in reverse order). First came Tav and said: “Master of the Universe, may it be Your will that You create the universe with me, for I am Your seal of Truth [emet], and You are called Truth. It would therefore be fitting for the King to start His Creation with the letter of Truth.”

The Holy One, blessed be He, replied: “You are right and worthy, but I shall not create the universe with you, for you will be the mark upon the foreheads of the faithful, who fulfil the Torah from Aleph to Tav. With your mark, they shall die, for you are the seal of death [mavet].”

Being the last letter of the alphabet, Tav is the “seal” of God, and God’s seal is Truth. Tav argued it should be the letter of Creation—and the first letter of the Torah—because it represents Truth. God responded that Tav also represents death. The Talmud (Shabbat 55a) states that when a person is “marked” for death, the mark is a letter Tav on their forehead. And so, the universe cannot be created with a Tav. Next came the letter Shin: Continue reading →

Death of Hellenism, Then and Now

As we prepare for the start of Chanukah this Sunday evening, it is a fitting time to once more explore the relationship between Judaism and Hellenism, between ancient Israel and ancient Greece. This will be our third such installment: In the first one, we explored how Hellenism influenced Judaism, while in the second we took an opposite look at how much Judaism influenced Hellenism. To break the tie, we will now analyze why it is that ancient Greece ultimately collapsed while Israel flourished and, by extension, why the spirit of Hellenism that has been reignited today is doomed to fail while Judaism will continue to thrive. Continue reading →