Author Topic: Judgment Day 5/21/11?  (Read 3361 times)

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Offline nopeaceforland

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Judgment Day 5/21/11?
« on: May 15, 2011, 03:09:00 PM »
Guys, what is happening with these stupid billboards? For those who haven't seen it, there are signs about "Judgment Day is coming 5/21/11" everywhere.

Offline muman613

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Re: Judgment Day 5/21/11?
« Reply #1 on: May 15, 2011, 04:04:40 PM »
Guys, what is happening with these stupid billboards? For those who haven't seen it, there are signs about "Judgment Day is coming 5/21/11" everywhere.

I did not pay attention, but my peripheral neural network has the impression that this is due to a Christian understanding of Bible codes which supposedly predict that 'judgement day' will occur on May 21, 2011. According to Jewish Kabbalah the day seems to have no real importance, at least not according to the one Rabbi I listen to who investigates Torah Codes. Rabbi Glazerson has found a Torah code which reveals the date of Osama Bin Ladens death, but he revealed it after the event occured. This is because it is very difficult to use Torah codes to firmly confirm future events. We believe that everything that occurs, and will occur, is somehow represented in Torah codes... But it is very nearly impossible to use them to predict the future...

You shall make yourself the Festival of Sukkoth for seven days, when you gather in [the produce] from your threshing floor and your vat.And you shall rejoice in your Festival-you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are within your cities
Duet 16:13-14

Offline muman613

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Re: Judgment Day 5/21/11?
« Reply #2 on: May 15, 2011, 04:10:20 PM »
The thing I don't get is how these doomsday groups get so much recognition and publicity in just a small amount of time.  Who is funding them?

I have seen a resurgence of Doomsday discussions recently. I was under the impression it was due to the Mayan prophecy of 2012.

You shall make yourself the Festival of Sukkoth for seven days, when you gather in [the produce] from your threshing floor and your vat.And you shall rejoice in your Festival-you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are within your cities
Duet 16:13-14

Offline Rubystars

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Re: Judgment Day 5/21/11?
« Reply #3 on: May 15, 2011, 04:14:55 PM »
We can laugh at the people who believed it on 5/22/11

Offline TheViper

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Re: Judgment Day 5/21/11?
« Reply #4 on: May 15, 2011, 04:19:58 PM »
I have seen a resurgence of Doomsday discussions recently. I was under the impression it was due to the Mayan prophecy of 2012.



The Mayan doomsday was proven to be a couple hundred years off.
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Offline Kahane-Was-Right BT

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Re: Judgment Day 5/21/11?
« Reply #5 on: May 15, 2011, 04:25:56 PM »
Guys, what is happening with these stupid billboards? For those who haven't seen it, there are signs about "Judgment Day is coming 5/21/11" everywhere.

I don't know, but May's stock options contracts expire on that date, so maybe people have a lot of money hanging in the balance and indeed their judgement will come that day!

Offline Kahane-Was-Right BT

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Re: Judgment Day 5/21/11?
« Reply #6 on: May 15, 2011, 04:27:08 PM »
We believe that everything that occurs, and will occur, is somehow represented in Torah codes... But it is very nearly impossible to use them to predict the future...


Speak for yourself.   I do not believe this, and many frum Jews do not believe this.   Not everyone subscribes to the so-called "Torah codes."    And I mean A LOT of frum Jews.

Offline syyuge

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Re: Judgment Day 5/21/11?
« Reply #7 on: May 15, 2011, 05:19:52 PM »
The only worst thing is that the times are really getting worst. But the fear if any shall be kept away. 
There are thunders and sparks in the skies, because Faraday invented the electricity.

Offline muman613

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Re: Judgment Day 5/21/11?
« Reply #8 on: May 15, 2011, 05:24:03 PM »
We believe that everything that occurs, and will occur, is somehow represented in Torah codes...
Speak for yourself.   I do not believe this, and many frum Jews do not believe this.   Not everyone subscribes to the so-called "Torah codes."    And I mean A LOT of frum Jews.

You certainly can disagree, but the concept that everything is in the Torah comes straight from the Talmud. Whether this refers to Torah Codes, or hiddent secret wisdom, can be debated.



http://www.torah.org/learning/perceptions/5759/tetzaveh.html

Quote
The Talmud asks:

Where is there an allusion to Haman in the Torah? "From (heh, mem, nun) the tree did you eat?" (Bereishis 3:11). (Chullin 139b)

Purim was a holiday that was established after the Torah was written down. The Torah ended its narration with Moshe's death in 2448/1273 BCE, and the miracle of Purim didn't occur until the year 3408/353 BCE. The Talmud, basing itself on the well-known principle that everything is in the Torah, looked for and found a hint to the story of Purim, even though it occurred long after the close of Torah.

However, the Talmud wasn't simply looking for a matching word. Yes, it is true that the word G-d used to ask Adam if he had eaten from the forbidden Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil has the same letters as Haman. Nevertheless, the Talmud's question runs deeper: What is the source of Haman in creation? What made the existence of Amalek possible in creation in the first place? What empowered him to do evil in G-d's world?

http://ohr.edu/holidays/purim/the_story_of_purim/1485
Quote
The Torah is the blueprint of reality. Through this blueprint, the great Rabbis of every generation have illuminated and elucidated the world we live in. They know this blueprint to a depth and subtlety which is almost beyond comprehension. They can see into the depths of the world's construction just like a builder visualizes a building by looking at its blueprint. Nothing is new to them because everything is in the Torah. G-d gives these Torah sages a power - a distant hint of prophecy - to guide the Jewish People. It is they who can read His "guidebook" better than anyone else. Everything is contained in the Torah, either explicitly or covertly, but it takes a Rabbi Akiva, a Maharal or a Vilna Gaon to be able to accurately extract its meaning and apply it to a contemporary context. The great talmidei chachamim (Torah Scholars) of every generation are given a unique insight into the ways of the world. This qualifies them to lead the Jewish People as no one else can.
« Last Edit: May 15, 2011, 05:29:49 PM by muman613 »
You shall make yourself the Festival of Sukkoth for seven days, when you gather in [the produce] from your threshing floor and your vat.And you shall rejoice in your Festival-you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are within your cities
Duet 16:13-14

Offline muman613

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Re: Judgment Day 5/21/11?
« Reply #9 on: May 15, 2011, 05:42:25 PM »
I have already stated that I don't put much faith in codes which purport to predict future events. It is always interesting to see what the codes say after the fact...

See this page for info on Torah Codes : http://torahsearch.com/page.cfm/3126

Quote
RABBI MOSHE CORDEVARO on Torah Codes

RABBI MOSHE CORDEVARO (1522-1570), also known as the Ramak, served in the illustrious position of Head of the Rabbinical Court ("Av Beit Din") in Tzfat, Israel, during the 16th century - a time when Tzfat stood as the worldwide center for Jewish scholarship. The following piece appears in Pardes Rimonim (68a), the Ramak's voluminous commentary on the classic kabbalistic work, The Zohar.

"The secrets of our holy Torah are revealed through knowledge of combinations, numerology (gematria), switching letters, first-and-last letters, shapes of letters, first- and last- verses, skipping of letters (dilug otiot) and letter combinations."

These matters are powerful, hidden and enormous secrets. Because of their great hidden-ness, we don't have the ability to fully comprehend them. Further, to see different angles through these methods is infinite and without limit. On this the Torah says, "its measure is longer than the world."
« Last Edit: May 15, 2011, 05:51:50 PM by muman613 »
You shall make yourself the Festival of Sukkoth for seven days, when you gather in [the produce] from your threshing floor and your vat.And you shall rejoice in your Festival-you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are within your cities
Duet 16:13-14

Offline muman613

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Re: Judgment Day 5/21/11?
« Reply #10 on: May 15, 2011, 05:56:50 PM »
http://torahsearch.com/page.cfm/3204
Quote
Vilna Gaon on Torah Codes

THE VILNA GAON (1720-1797), also known as the GRA, is acknowledged as one of the greatest rabbis of the past 500 years. At age 5, the GRA knew the Five Books of Moses by heart; he went on to author numerous volumes of Jewish philosophy and law. The following piece appears in his commentary on a work of Jewish mysticism, The Book of Hidden Things ("Sifra Ditzniuta" Chapter 5).

"The rule is that all that was, is, and will be until the end of time is included in the Torah from "Bereishit" (the first verse of Genesis) to "L'eynei kol Yisrael" (the last verse of Deuteronomy). And not merely in a general sense, but including the details of every species and of each person individually, and the most minute details of everything that happened to him from the day of his birth until his death."
You shall make yourself the Festival of Sukkoth for seven days, when you gather in [the produce] from your threshing floor and your vat.And you shall rejoice in your Festival-you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are within your cities
Duet 16:13-14

Offline muman613

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Re: Judgment Day 5/21/11?
« Reply #11 on: May 15, 2011, 06:05:15 PM »
And one last point I want to make... When I say 'We' of course I am not speaking for all Jews. I am just speaking for those whom I have learned with and from... I realize that there are different beliefs and I don't mean to negate them...

You shall make yourself the Festival of Sukkoth for seven days, when you gather in [the produce] from your threshing floor and your vat.And you shall rejoice in your Festival-you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are within your cities
Duet 16:13-14

Offline The One and Only Mo

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Re: Judgment Day 5/21/11?
« Reply #12 on: May 15, 2011, 06:33:45 PM »
Everything is in the Torah. I don't know if the codes we have are real, however.

Offline Kahane-Was-Right BT

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Re: Judgment Day 5/21/11?
« Reply #13 on: May 15, 2011, 06:34:07 PM »
Speak for yourself.   I do not believe this, and many frum Jews do not believe this.   Not everyone subscribes to the so-called "Torah codes."    And I mean A LOT of frum Jews.


You certainly can disagree, but the concept that everything is in the Torah comes straight from the Talmud. Whether this refers to Torah Codes, or hiddent secret wisdom, can be debated.



http://www.torah.org/learning/perceptions/5759/tetzaveh.html

http://ohr.edu/holidays/purim/the_story_of_purim/1485

You have misinterpreted what you quoted.  

Offline Kahane-Was-Right BT

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Re: Judgment Day 5/21/11?
« Reply #14 on: May 15, 2011, 06:37:34 PM »
http://torahsearch.com/page.cfm/3204

Is this a joke? 

"TORAH CODES" did not exist in the Vilna Gaon's time.   That term has a specific meaning today, and it refers to predictions of future events based on related words appearing with "ELS's" - equidistant letter sequences.  They are being deceptive with articles like this.  The Vilna Gaon had various textual methodologies to uncovering ideas in the Torah.    This did not include what is done today with ELS's, computers, and "predicting" events after they already happened.

Offline muman613

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Re: Judgment Day 5/21/11?
« Reply #15 on: May 15, 2011, 06:38:32 PM »
You have misinterpreted what you quoted.  

I am not sure if I did. What you said is that a lot of Jews don't believe Torah Codes. In a sense I am saying that Torah codes are a way of seeing that everything is indeed in the the Torah. That is my only point. That when we look into the Torah to see how events are 'in the Torah', these codes reveal that this understanding {that 'everything is in the Torah'} is true...

I am sorry if you feel I misrepresented you. Indeed I am aware that there are those who do not put any faith in what they call 'Torah Codes'. But you know that 'Torah Codes' simply refers to ELS {Equidistant Letter Sequenes} which are revealed by computers searching varying letter distances for names and places. The sages of the Talmud did similar things in order to understand Torah better, thus we have gematria and other numerical ways of understanding Torah.


You shall make yourself the Festival of Sukkoth for seven days, when you gather in [the produce] from your threshing floor and your vat.And you shall rejoice in your Festival-you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are within your cities
Duet 16:13-14

Offline muman613

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Re: Judgment Day 5/21/11?
« Reply #16 on: May 15, 2011, 06:39:25 PM »
Is this a joke? 

"TORAH CODES" did not exist in the Vilna Gaon's time.   That term has a specific meaning today, and it refers to predictions of future events based on related words appearing with "ELS's" - equidistant letter sequences.  They are being deceptive with articles like this.  The Vilna Gaon had various textual methodologies to uncovering ideas in the Torah.    This did not include what is done today with ELS's, computers, and "predicting" events after they already happened.

Indeed this method was used by the Rabbis of the Talmud. I believe the Baal HaTurim employed such methods.

You shall make yourself the Festival of Sukkoth for seven days, when you gather in [the produce] from your threshing floor and your vat.And you shall rejoice in your Festival-you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are within your cities
Duet 16:13-14

Offline muman613

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Re: Judgment Day 5/21/11?
« Reply #17 on: May 15, 2011, 06:45:32 PM »
Quote
http://www.torah.org/learning/perceptions/5764/kisisa.html
G-d told Moshe and Aharon, "Since you did not believe in Me to sanctify Me before the Children of Israel, you will therefore not bring this people into the land which I have given to them." (Bamidbar 20:12)

Those familiar with the Torah Codes may also be familiar with the controversy they have created. While some are clearly enthralled by them and see Divine messages in them, others dislike them, to say the least, for a variety of reasons, few of which have anything to do with a Torah outlook.

What is new is not Torah Codes, per se, but the usage of the computer to find them. For example, Rabbeinu Bachayay (1263-1340 CE) refers to the concept of dilug -(skip) in his commentary on Parashas Bereishis. Kabbalah itself uses all kinds of similar systems to bring to the surface hidden messages in the Torah, many of which are far more outlandish to the uninitiated than the Torah Codes.

Torah Codes, that is, words and phrases embedded in the verses of the Torah, but which are not easily seen by the eye, belong to the realm of Torah learning called Remez -(hint). Pshat refers to the simple reading of the verse, Remez to that which is learned through the anomalies in the verses and such, Drush to that which is part of the Oral Tradition but not necessarily evident from the verses themselves, and Sod to the Kabbalistic explanation of the words and phrases.

After the Twin Towers were destroyed, Torah code researchers began a computer search for allusions to this horrifying event that might be encoded in the Torah. Over the last two years their findings have been frighteningly accurate. They are a part of a specific presentation by the researchers that is available in papers and seminars, and hence, I am not going to describe their contents in this essay.

However, I do want to address an idea that is evoked from the principal location in Torah that the Twin Towers codes were found - i.e. just after the episode of the Parah Adumah, the Red Heifer, this week's special Maftir. For, as Rashi explains, the Red Heifer and all of the details, are none other than a rectification for the golden calf (Rashi, Bamidar 19:2).

The key word for this table of codes is the Hebrew word Ta-omim -(Twins), as in Ya'akov and Eisav. The number of letters that separate each of the letters is THIRTY-SIX - the number that represents the light with which G- d made Creation, gave Torah, and will bring the Final Redemption. It stands vertically like a tower, with its foundation (the final letter, Mem) in the posuk:

G-d told Moshe and Aharon, "Since you did not believe in Me to sanctify Me before the Children of Israel, you will therefore not bring this people into the land which I have given to them." (Bamidbar 20:12)

What was the big deal, and how did the punishment fit the crime? So Moshe brought water from the rock by hitting it as opposed to speaking to it, it was still a great miracle, wasn't it? And what did it have to do with living in Eretz Yisroel, that Moshe lost the right to go there as a result?

The answer has to do with the essential difference between certain TWIN brothers, and an essential difference that a Jew has to recognize and acknowledge if he is to find himself on the right side of the RED (Esaiv's favorite color) line, and for that matter, on the right side of the ocean.

For, as the Bais Levi teaches, it is the RED Heifer that is the key to ending Golus Edom, the exile of the one who was born RED and ruddy. It's no small wonder that the first nation we confront after the episode of the rock is Edom.

MELAVE MALKAH:
You shall make yourself the Festival of Sukkoth for seven days, when you gather in [the produce] from your threshing floor and your vat.And you shall rejoice in your Festival-you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are within your cities
Duet 16:13-14

Offline Kahane-Was-Right BT

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Re: Judgment Day 5/21/11?
« Reply #18 on: May 15, 2011, 06:49:01 PM »
Indeed this method was used by the Rabbis of the Talmud. I believe the Baal HaTurim employed such methods.



No, he didn't.  There were no computers then.   He did not use ELS's to "predict" events that had taken place.  The modern-day invention called "Torah Codes" is a mathematical system based on statistical analysis.  And it has been refuted scientifically.   It was invented by Witztum, Rips, and Rosenberg.  (Published in 1994).  Another group used their same methodology but applied it to a Hebrew translation of War and Peace, and they were able to duplicate some of their supposed results/codes.

Furthermore, what you are saying is not consistent with what point you are trying to make.  "predicting" a rabin assassination after it has already occurred (as just one famous example), based on some jumble of mathematical code and scrambling of letters from our Holy Text, is NOT the same thing as pointing out sod and remez level understandings of Torah (which IS what rabbinic scholars have often done, and using certain exegetical methods to do so)!

You are conflating multiple viewpoints in your attempt to defend the "Torah Codes" and in doing so you are arguing against a straw man in some cases.   I do not disagree that certain textual methods can uncover sod level understandings of the parsha.   Similarly, I do not disagree that certain ideas and profound wisdom are sometimes only hinted at by the Torah, which requires a deep investigative method by our greatest scholars to uncover.   But I DO DISAGREE when you claim that the Torah predicts every single world event and contains every form of human knowledge.   A simple proof against you is that the Tosfos and other rishonim say that we DO NOT follow the medical advice of the Talmud (not even talking Torah in that case, but Talmud, but the point is still the same - Chazal according to you should have been able to "divine" true medical knowledge and advice from the Torah text if it was really contained in there.  But Torah is not a medical textbook, it does not contain that info, and therefore, when medicine advanced to a level higher than that known in the world chazal lived in, the Rabbinic scholars we rely on rightly advised that we should discard any outdated medical advice from a previous era even if it was recorded by chazal in our holy Talmud).   Please think deeply about what I've said here.
« Last Edit: May 15, 2011, 06:58:27 PM by Kahane-Was-Right BT »

Offline muman613

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Re: Judgment Day 5/21/11?
« Reply #19 on: May 15, 2011, 06:55:41 PM »
No, he didn't.  There were no computers then.   He did not use ELS's to "predict" events that had taken place.  The modern-day invention called "Torah Codes" is a mathematical system based on statistical analysis.  And it has been refuted scientifically.

That is not true. Statistical Analysis? Did you watch the video I posted...

That is absolutely not true. It is counting an equal number of letters from a starting point. The letters will then spell out names and places which correspond to historical events. It is not statistical analysis. It looking for patterns which are spelled out in the Torah, nothing more, nothing mystical or mathematical. The sages have done it, the Rabbis of the Talmud have done it, and the medieval sages have employed this technique. I have read Baal Haturim and he is very cognizant of the number of times words appear, and the way they are spelled, and the spelling of words equal distant.

I don't know where you learned what you are saying, but there are certainly codes in the Torah. This is also learned, as I posted above, from Purim where we learn a lot of codes.

Of course you can disregard this, yet I don't know how you can believe that everything is in the Torah, which is a very important part of complete emmunah. This statement is is Pirkie Avot, amongst other sages who have stated this.

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/680290/jewish/Chapter-Five.htm
See 5:21

You shall make yourself the Festival of Sukkoth for seven days, when you gather in [the produce] from your threshing floor and your vat.And you shall rejoice in your Festival-you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are within your cities
Duet 16:13-14

Offline Kahane-Was-Right BT

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Re: Judgment Day 5/21/11?
« Reply #20 on: May 15, 2011, 06:59:32 PM »
That is not true. Statistical Analysis? Did you watch the video I posted...

No, I did not watch your video.  I already know something about this subject.   They DO use statistical analyses to confirm their selection of a given code and to assert that it is valid.  Furthermore, they DO use computers to search for them initially.


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Re: Judgment Day 5/21/11?
« Reply #21 on: May 15, 2011, 07:02:22 PM »
This article has a good discussion of the questions about mathematical probability of these sequences...

http://www.ou.org/index.php/jewish_action/article/28299/

Quote

JA: What would have made Torah Codes seem important?

Gans: “Important” is a subjective term. If I say to you, I was just walking down the street and I saw a man with a green tie, you would probably accept my claim. If a claim is plausible, you’re likely to believe it with very little evidence. Yet how important is this information?

Most people would agree that if flying saucers exist, it would be important to know about them. Their existence could impact our lives. But it is a very unusual claim. So most people, including myself, not only do not believe in the claim but would also not bother investigating it. They would consider it a waste of their time and resources.

The Torah Codes claim is important because the authorship of the Torah has been debated for centuries. Bible critics have persisted in asking whether the Torah was written by human beings, and if so, by one person or multiple persons. If the Codes exist, they basically answer that question.

One pattern [in the Seminar book] was mathematically interesting. It is referred to as the Aharon Code, and it appears in the first Torah reading of Vayikra. The Torah text concerns the sacrifices made in the Temple by the Kohanim, the sons of Aharon. The code consists simply of the word “Aharon,” which appears as an ELS in this section 25 times.

JA: How can you be sure that this isn’t coincidental?

Gans: There’s no such thing as being absolutely sure that a phenomenon is not coincidental. But we can speak of probabilities.

I don’t remember the exact fraction, but the claim in the Discovery book was that mathematicians had calculated a random expectation of around 8 ELSs in that paragraph. This is considerably fewer than 25.

So the first thing I did was check the calculations myself. I got the same number. I then calculated the probability of observing 25 such ELSs when around 8 were expected by chance. The probability was significantly small: less than 1 in 500,000.

It was at that moment—sitting there with my calculator in hand—that I thought,

“Hmm.” For the first time, I thought that maybe Torah Codes couldn’t be dismissed so quickly.

JA: How did you go about researching it further?

Gans: Somebody put me in touch with Rabbi Ezriel Tauber, a Torah lecturer, who invited me to attend an Arachim Seminar where the codes were going to be presented. I decided to go, and to ask Dr. Andrew Goldfinger, a close friend of mine and a senior physicist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, to come along. I thought that between the two of us, we would be able to catch any mathematical flaws.

So there we were, the two skeptics at the Seminar. They would show the class one pattern after another and my friend and I would just sit there looking over at each other with blank expressions. None of the examples was demonstrably a priori.

I felt uncomfortable—it couldn’t have been easy to have us there, neither for the teachers nor for our fellow seminar participants. I remember one of the codes they presented—typical of the kind they were presenting that day—consisted of the Hebrew word for “diabetes” in close proximity to the word “insulin.” The people in the class seemed very impressed by this, and the instructor was eager to hear our response. My friend and I didn’t want to be rude. We would just look at each other and think, “Oh, no.”

There was, however, one presentation which caught our attention. This was a complicated scientific experiment, designed and executed by Dr. Rips and Doron Witztum, which later became known as the Great Rabbis Experiment.

They had found that the names of great rabbis in Jewish history were encoded in close proximity to the encoding of their dates of birth and death. The Great Rabbis Experiment is relatively complex. It appeals to the scientist, not the layman.

JA: If I, as a layman, can intuit correctly whether three coins on the street have fallen on top of each other by coincidence, without doing complex mathematical calculations, what would be wrong about my going by intuition here, too?

Gans: Any text will produce a certain number of meaningful-looking patterns and word associations, even the back of a cereal box. Your subjective judgment may lead you to imagine relationships between words and to perceive meanings, where none may exist.

The computer enables us to look through millions of configurations in search of interesting or unexpected patterns. A mathematician can then calculate the likelihood that these patterns happened by chance, while a non-mathematician would be at a loss to evaluate them correctly.
You shall make yourself the Festival of Sukkoth for seven days, when you gather in [the produce] from your threshing floor and your vat.And you shall rejoice in your Festival-you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are within your cities
Duet 16:13-14

Offline Kahane-Was-Right BT

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Re: Judgment Day 5/21/11?
« Reply #22 on: May 15, 2011, 07:03:26 PM »
You are conflating multiple viewpoints in your attempt to defend the "Torah Codes" and in doing so you are arguing against a straw man in some cases (as is often the case when you argue with me - or with "me," actually - so it seems.  I think this happens often because you are reacting viscerally in a global sense to what I say rather than considering PRECISELY what thing I have actually said and limiting it only to what I said and not 10 other things I did not say.   I guess because you are defensive or emotional about the way you believe certain things, and this causes you to overreact to what you perceive as a challenge to these beliefs, you then ascribe to me beliefs that are not mine.  It does get annoying.  But I digress).

I do not disagree that certain textual methods can uncover sod level understandings of the parsha.   Similarly, I do not disagree that certain ideas and profound wisdom are sometimes only hinted at by the Torah, which requires a deep investigative method by our greatest scholars to uncover.   But I DO DISAGREE when you claim that the Torah predicts every single world event and contains every form of human knowledge.   A simple proof against you is that the Tosfos and other rishonim say that we DO NOT follow the medical advice of the Talmud (not even talking Torah in that case, but Talmud, but the point is still the same - Chazal according to you should have been able to "divine" true medical knowledge and advice from the Torah text if it was really contained in there.  But Torah is not a medical textbook, it does not contain that info, and therefore, when medicine advanced to a level higher than that known in the world chazal lived in, the Rabbinic scholars we rely on rightly advised that we should discard any outdated medical advice from a previous era even if it was recorded by chazal in our holy Talmud).   Please think deeply about what I've said here.

Offline Kahane-Was-Right BT

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Re: Judgment Day 5/21/11?
« Reply #23 on: May 15, 2011, 07:04:25 PM »
This article has a good discussion of the questions about mathematical probability of these sequences...

http://www.ou.org/index.php/jewish_action/article/28299/


I thought you just argued that they don't use statistical analyses?

 ???

Offline Kahane-Was-Right BT

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Re: Judgment Day 5/21/11?
« Reply #24 on: May 15, 2011, 07:07:08 PM »
And again I will stress that uncovering a deep wisdom by hints in the text and connections with other parts of the text, etc, is NOT THE SAME as taking a jumble of letters and spaces and uncovering AN EVENT IN THE CALENDAR that has already happened and is supposedly a "prediction" of said event in a completely unrelated set of verses and words etc.   It's just not the same thing.    But do not say I disagree with both possibilities!  I only disagree with the LATTER.

By all means, use the Baal Haturim to strengthen your emunah.  I like those kind of analyses as well, and I also find that work to be a great thing for kiruv and getting Jews to follow in the Torah.   

But "Torah codes" on the other hand have been disproved and function on a mistaken principle.   Baal Haturim's principle was correct - the Torah , within the text itself and within its own knowledge and wisdom that it is imparting - is consistent and unified, including in secret ways that we can find only through deep investigation.      But the "Torah Codes" operates on a  principle that EVERY SINGLE THING KNOWN TO MAN AND EVER TO HAPPEN IN THE WORLD will be found somewhere in Torah.   That is taking external notions and events which the Torah does not mention, and trying to say that secretly you can find them there anyway.   That's simply not true, or else cancer would be cured by now.
« Last Edit: May 15, 2011, 07:17:31 PM by Kahane-Was-Right BT »