Mathematical Code
of Qur’an Found in Previous Scripture
Continued from page 1
The people [Jews] in France made it a custom to add [in the morning
prayer] the words: “'Ashrei temimei derekh [blessed are those
who walk the righteous way],” and our Rabbi, the Pious, of
blessed memory, wrote that they were completely and utterly wrong.
It is all gross falsehood, because there are only nineteen times
that the Holy Name is mentioned [in that portion of the morning
prayer], 18 …and similarly you find the word 'Elohim
nineteen times in the pericope of Ve- 'elleh shemot…19
Similarly, you find that Israel were called “sons” nineteen
times, and there are many other examples. All these sets of nineteen
are intricately intertwined,20 and they contain many
secrets and esoteric meanings,21 which are contained
in more than eight large volumes.22 Therefore, anyone
who has the fear of God in him will not listen to the world of the
Frenchmen who add the verse “ 'Ashrei temimei derekh,”
and blessed are the righteous who walk in the paths of God’s
Torah,23 for according to their additions the Holy Name
is mentioned twenty times….. and this is a great mistake.
Furthermore, in this section there are 152 words, but if you add
“ 'Ashrei temimei derekh” there are 158 words. This
is nonsense, for it is a great and hidden secret why there should
by 152 words… but it cannot be explained in a short treatise.
PLEASE NOTE THAT 152 = 19 x 8
Another aspect of the same process is the attitude towards the
text of the prayers. Rabbi Judah warned his neighbors in France
and Britain that if they allow even the most minor changes in that
text, their prayers will become “like the songs of the uncircumcised
non-Jews.” Free expression of feelings, religious or secular,
was regarded by Rabbi Judah as a non-Jewish song, which has no place
in the framework of worship. While this argument was not directed
against rationalistic philosophers but against fellow halakhists
and pietists, the problem faced in this commentary by Rabbi Judah
is the same one that bothered the philosophers and all thinkers
of that period: Why does God insist on a repetitive prayer, said
again and again several times every day in exactly the same words,
instead of allowing free expression of the individual’s religious
feelings in his personal words, reflecting every special occasion?
The framework of rationalistic philosophy did not offer a popularly
accepted answer to this question, a fact that necessarily weakened
the position of the traditional text of the liturgy in the eyes
of the intellectuals of the age. It seems that the school that Rabbi
Judah represented was the first to offer an answer to
that problem – a nonrational answer, bordering on a mystical
attitude, namely, the existence of a hidden, esoteric harmony between
the text of the prayer and a divine structure, mainly a numerical
structure, which is also reflected in the Scriptures, in history
and in the creation. Therefore, every deviation from this structure
destroys that harmony and secularizes the text of the prayers, turning
them simply into collections of words and meanings, like the songs
of the non-Jews.
It is possible that this new approach was merely “academic,”
and it was not regarded as necessary to keep all the numerical combinations
and associations in mind when actually praying. However, there can
be no doubt that this new attitude had two results, one of which is
manifested in this treatise, while the other is evident from all Ashkenazi
Hasidic treatments of the subject: (a) No change can be tolerated
in the text of the prayers, not even a minute one, because every change
– even of one letter – would destroy the numerical harmony
inherent in the text. It does not matter, therefore, whether the change
is beneficial from
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