The Gematria of This Year's Appellation

 Jews like to take the year they're in and give the year a titular title, to suggest that that title will prophesy for them the general scenario that will play out that year.

This year, 5786, has been personified (by a Rabbi Y. Ginsburg) by the acronym for

"It will be a year of 'Be fruitful and multiply'"

תהי׳ה שנת פרו ורבו

And what would the Gematria of that potentially prophetic phrase predict assuming its numerical find is significant?

The gematria of 1670 in Torah is found in only two verses:

Below are those verses, and their translations:

1) Devarim (2:15)

וגם יד יהוה היתה בם להמם מקרב המחנה עד תמם

2) Parsha Shoftim (20:4)

כי יהוה אלהיכם ההלך עמכם להלחם לכם עם איביכם להושיע אתכם 

1) Also the hand of the Lord was upon them, to destroy them from the midst of the camp, until they were consumed.

2) For the Lord, your God, is the One Who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.

My hope is these verses portray the end of terror - the end of Hamas and the end of hate of the Jewish People - this year.

WATER in Tanach

It is interesting that the 3 letters that spell water, namely, מים, can have all letters of the Hebrew alphabet immediately precede them, with one exception -- the letter פ.

Water is a special substance. It can contain all sorts of ions and molecules that we know about, but water itself defies the rules. When frozen, water expands; all else contracts. It's got at least 4 phases: Solid, EZ gel phase, Liquid and Vapor or Gas. It comprises most of us, through and through. It energizes with far infrared light, which itself is ubiquitous. It can resonate inside our tissues and provide electricity.

How fitting that the word מים can attach to all letters. 

Anyone have an idea about the פ exception? Only these letters cannot be found attached in Tanach ==> פמים

One quick thought: Did you know Arabs can't pronounce that letter. They cannot say "Pay". Instead they say, "Bay". What's the connection? No idea!


P.S.   How did I learn of this "discovery"? I searched for מים to see how many times the word, water, appeared in Torah, but this one word happens to be, as I now found out, after having used the toraware.org program for many many years, a problem my program could not handle. None of my search options could significantly reduce the number of hits I got so I can at least visually try and assess the right count. It is extremely cumbersome because every letter but one can precede this suffix.

Some GEMATRIA to Consider Regarding Years 5784 - 5786

During 5784, we were warned of the horrors that can befall us if we misjudge the innocent and instead favor the wicked.

The gematria of 5784 matches the 3 successive verses in Tehillim that read:

How long will you judge unjustly and favor the wicked forever?
עד מתי תשפטו עול ופני רשעים תשאו סלה
Judge the poor and orphan; justify the humble and the impoverished.
שפטו דל ויתום עני ורש הצדיקו
Release the poor and the needy; save [them] from the hands of [the] wicked.
פלטו דל ואביון מיד רשעים הצילו

We paid a heavy price on October 7, 2023 for appeasing the Hamas neighbors when according to Jewish law we should have taken the offensive - long before October 7th! We were obligated by Torah law to attack them and kill them! See Shulchan Aruch below. Not only did we not kill them, not only did we offer them food, water and electricity, we even allowed them to enter our borders to earn money.

The year after:
The gematria of 5785 matches this single verse in Torah:

Or if it was known that it was a [habitually] goring bull since yesterday and the day before yesterday, and its owner does not watch it, he shall surely pay a bull for a bull, and the dead body shall be his.
או נודע כי שור נגח הוא מתמול שלשם ולא ישמרנו בעליו שלם ישלם שור תחת השור והמת יהיה לו

Last year, 5785, we hesitated to kill the raging bull, allowing world opinion to stop us from destroying the enemy. Until today, in fact, the enemy still has water, food and electricity that sustains them - at our mercy. We must simpy destroy them with no compromise. Alas we paid a dear price this year as well in terms of human life.

I am not insinuating the solution is psychologically simple and that we must not consider saving the hostages, but according to Torah, the law is clear - we should stop all their access to food and electricty. We must obliterate them.

Now that 5786 is upon us, there are two successive verses in Torah - again related to a bull:

You shall bring the bull to the front of the Tent of Meeting, and Aaron and his sons shall lean their hands upon the head of the bull.
והקרבת את הפר לפני אהל מועד וסמך אהרן ובניו את ידיהם על ראש הפר
You shall then slaughter the bull before the Lord, at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.
ושחטת את הפר לפני יהוה פתח אהל מועד

Again we see that in 5786, we need to slaughter the bull. Period.

What, in fact, is the Torah laws that apply to this "Palestinian"/Hamas question? We need look no further that Orach Chaim #329:

עכו"ם שצרו על עיירות ישראל אם באו על עסק ממון אין מחללין עליהם את השבת באו על עסק נפשות ואפי' סתם יוצאים עליהם בכלי זיין ומחללים עליהם את השבת ובעיר הסמוכה לספר אפילו לא באו אלא על עסקי תבן וקש מחללין עליהם את השבת: הגה ואפילו לא באו עדיין אלא רוצים לבא [א"ז]:
Regarding non-Jews who besiege Jewish cities: if they come for money, we do not desecrate the Shabbat [to protect ourselves], but if they came to kill or come with no presented reason, we go out with weapons and desecrate the Shabbat. In a city that is near the border, even if they just come for straw or hay, we desecrate the Shabbat. Rem"a: Even if they haven't come but they want to come (Or Zarua).

יש מי שאומר שבזמן הזה אפי' באו על עסקי ממון מחללין שאם לא יניחנו ישראל לשלול ולבוז ממונו יהרגנו והוי עסקי נפשות [ומ"מ הכל לפי הענין] (פסקי מהרי"א סי' ק"כ):
There is one who says that in our times, even if they come for money, we desecrate the Shabbat, because if we do not allow them to plunder the money, they will kill, and so it becomes a case of saving life. (In any event, everything is according to the situation(Piskei Mahara'i Chapter 156).)

This is the year (5786) it is incumbent upon us to slaughter the enemies at out borders - once and for all!

ALL Hostages Will Be Released This Hebrew Year - 5785!

This Shabbos happened to be Tu B'Av, the 15th of Menachem Av. This day in Jewish tradition is extremely significant; It is held to be one of the most joyous days of the year. It ranks with Yom Kippur! Many great events in Jewish history occurred this day. They stopped dying in the desert ... Unmarried girls went out dancing ... etc

On this Shabbos we read the Torah portion of Veetchanan (ואתחנן). Possuk 5:4 reads as follows:

פנים בפנים דבר יהוה עמכם בהר מתוך האש

That verse's gematria equals =  תהי׳ה שנת פדיון כל השבויים

It just so happens that this is the only possuk in the entire Torah with that gematria value of 1743!

I hope the Torah is trying to tell us something; That we have great news albeit not yet noticed. 

There still remain about 1¹⁄₂ months before we arrive at year 5786. 

May it occur in this very year, that all the hostages finally get to come home!

The Recent Jewish Turnaround Amid a World of Rebukes

In Torah portion KiTavo, Hashem lists many curses that will betake Jewish people should they stray from Torah's ways. After mentioning several such horrible circumstances, there's an interruption, a break in the string of horror events. There is this one verse that's interjected as a promise of Hashem. Then Hashem continues with a much longer list of horrible events the Jews might suffer.

This one interjected verse is Hashem's promise to exact these miseries upon the Jewish people should they not follow Torah's precepts, saying that it will be a forever promise.

The implication of this verse is to remind Jews that they have a choice in the matter, for all generations to come.

This single verse in the midst of many frightful verses, says, as I understand the words to mean, “It can be good or bad, and you and generations after will always have this switch you can turn off or on, to control your destiny. It could be horrible at one point, but suddenly, as easily as a flip of the switch, Jews can immediately reverse the tide to flow in the opposite direction, to make it all good. Literally the possuk (KiTavo 28:46) says, “And they will be as a sign and a wonder, upon you and your offspring, forever.” "They" refers to the curses, "sign" refers to the actual tragedies, and "wonder" I figure could mean when it's all good, and this promise will stand "for all generations", today's included.

It's as if Hashem is telling us, after having begun His long list of tragedies that can happen, a by-the-way sentence in midstream, that we should know that all this bad stuff here to be recounted need not befall the Jews if only they choose to go in Torah's ways.

The gematria of this one verse, might give us a hint that points to the same thesis. The gematria of KiTavo 28:46, 1573, we find that it is equal to the value of 7 words inside a verse found in Esther 9:1, namely, the phrase: "ונהפוך הוא אשר ישלטו היהודים המה בשנאיהם"

This phrase from the Purim story is exactly appropriate because it alludes to the miraculous turnaround we experienced in Persia under Queen Esther and King Achashverosh, and that which we see happening in Judaism today.

Today too Hashem is remodeling the lives of Jews everywhere. Until only a century ago, Jews were hounded whereever they lived, usually oppressively, yet today there's hardly a Jew anywhere on the globe that cannot be free and do as he wishes, without any oppression at all. And no Jew is so far in identity from being out of reach.

And the most recent events, as Israel has triumphed miraculously against so many of its enemies in a matter of weeks and months, while destroying Iran's (x-Persia) nuclear might and threat from all its proxies in the North, South and West of Israel - we are are the good path - on a great path towards final redemption, it seems quite clear.

Open your eyes folks, we're into the new Era of Final Redemption and soon will greet our King Moshiach.

Reconciling with Truth

Can people have completely opposite views? Can a so-called Palestinian believe the exact opposite of what a Jew wholeheartedly believes, when both are certain of their truths?

Torah, the only source of ultimate truth, confirms this contradictory possibility. 

Consider an example from Torah's word "abomination", which means absolutely disgusting or hated. 

Torah first mentions the word "abomination" in the story of Joseph, when he sets two tables apart for his 2 groups of house guests, for a meal. One table he sets up for his Jewish brothers. For his fellow Egyptians he sets up a separate table. Why this separation? Torah (Miketz 43:32) explains that Egyptians would not share in the beef eaten by the Jewish guests because they regarded sheep as divine. Partaking in such a meal they would deem an abomination. It would nauseate them seeing Jews eating what they considered sacred and divine.

Here then is an example where the same animal is regarded from entirely opposing viewpoints. One view regards the animal as holy, while the other relishes it as edible.

The second appearance of that word in Torah (Achrei Mot 18:22) is when Torah commands the Jews to avoid male homosexuality. The verse says, "And a male you should not bed as you would a woman for that is an abomination."

Is the word "abomination" used in Torah merely as a figurative hyperbole? Is its mention used just to appear stringent but not strictly punishable? Perhaps it just means bad, but not extremely bad?

The 3rd mention of this same word in Torah (Kedoshim, 20:13) answers this question in no uncertain terms: "The man who beds another male as he would a woman, both committed an abomination, both should die, the blood is on their hands."

So we see, what is an abomination to one person can be what another actually aspires for. Two people or two nations can have entirely opposite and contradictory viewpoints.

Of course the final truth between opposing views can only be as Torah deems it. It's up to individuals themselves to learn the real truth because only one side is ultimately correct.

A Change of Name Addendum

I lost the TORAWARE.COM domain name. 

(If you don't catch the expiration time, someone will snatch it up to make money.)

So I purchased the TORAWARE.ORG name. That's good now for at least 10 years.

Please visit my site and take it for a spin.

AND, please note, this blog's name has accordingly been changed to:

torawareDotOrg.blogspot.com

(whereas before this it was called

torawareDotCom.blogspot.com)

This Jewish New Year -- May the Hostages Be Freed Already

 Re: the Gematria of 

תהי׳ה שנת פדיון השבויים

Here's a finding that hints at the present tragic status of hostages being held in Gaza by the worst of terrorists.

Of many phrases that suit this Jewish new year's acronym for 5785, תשפ׳׳ה, this one fits well:

תהי׳ה שנת פדיון השבויים

This "predictive" Hebrew phrase, with a Gematria of 1693, matches 3 verses in all of Torah. 

(In Nach itself there are 8 more such gematria "hits".) 

1) Vayigash (45:15)

ינשק לכל אחיו ויבך עלהם ואחרי כן דברו אחיו אתו

2) Emor (21:2) 

כי אם לשארו הקרב אליו לאמו ולאביו ולבנו ולבתו ולאחיו 

3) Emor (21:11)

ועל כל נפשת מת לא יבא לאביו ולאמו לא יטמא 

Note how all these verses 

-- deal with family members;

-- kissing and crying over them; 

-- And of course the dead too are remembered. 

 May it happen very very soon. May God protect them!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

P.S.

Only 1 verse in all of Torah has this gematria value when using the "At-Bash" valuation of the letters:

12.  But if it does not make peace with you, and it wages war against you, you shall besiege it,

יבוְאִם־לֹ֤א תַשְׁלִים֙ עִמָּ֔ךְ וְעָֽשְׂתָ֥ה עִמְּךָ֖ מִלְחָמָ֑ה וְצַרְתָּ֖ עָלֶֽיהָ:

Here you have a clear warning to destroy the enemy if they don't cooperate!

Toraware Retires for Now

It's necessary to keep up with fresh demands on developers, by both Google and Apple, throughout the years. It's not as if you create a successful app and that's it. No. These companies that shelve developers' products in their "play stores" keep insisting developers change their adjunct code because they are changing their platforms continuously. They do no grandfather in so OUR code will work no matter the new future changes they make in THEIR platforms.

I wanted an App, created one and figured that's it. So I could go on and indulge in other hobbies.

Nope. To have an app always available, the developer must remain actively involved, even if the "developer" is really not into coding all his life and wants to pursue entirely other fields.

So, my Toraware app is no longer available and cannot be downloaded from the Play Stores. If I want to use the app now, I can only do so because I have it in my own computer. Those things that make it non-functional at the Play Stores really has nothing to do with my program's code!

THUS my progress notes on toraware dot com comes to an end (for now at least).

Toraware's App Now Accessible for an Android Install

Two days ago my toraware app got published in Google's Play Store.
(I needed a Private Policy for my site because children can use it too.)

For some strange reason, inside the Play Store, upon searching for "toraware", scores of Chinese apps appear in the results well before mine. My app appear somewhere near the bottom of that very long list.

To get around that problem, I added an image link on my website, in the form of an icon at the bottom right, and now the user can link to the Play Store -- with my app already "found" for him, to have it installed. There's no need for the user to do a search for my app because the my link's API finds the app with pinpoint precision, bringing the user one click away from an install!

The new Home Page of http://toraware.com today, sporting its new icon link, is shown below:

P.S. 
The iPhone version will not be pursued. For one thing, it requires a $100 yearly fee. And this website, as well as its app, are free and generate no income. Google's Play Store charges a one-time $25 fee. I think Apple should pay the developers, and not that developers should pay Apple!

A Birthday Present from Hashem, 21 Tammuz 5780

By divine providence, I managed to upload my toraware app to Google Play store. It happens to be my birthday, the 21st of Tammuz. It's now in queue, "up for review".

The Chassidic dictum comes to mind, "Think good; Will be good!"

Exhibit A:
Source: Transaction with Google Play's Console.

It took some hours, but this submission began on my birthday!

By divine providence, after an exchange of emails with a responder to one of my posted questions, as I surf the internet for solutions, this contact suddenly points me to a site - his own site - and sure enough, a few days later, I was well on my way to bringing my goal to fruition. More like a dream than a goal. Because I've been for many years coding and hoping this app would end up portable on a handheld device.

So it happened, that I succeeded following Android's path, after failing to fulfil the Apple Store's pretzel-loop discombobulate requirements. So, Boruch Hashem, and it all happened within a week, and toraware shall be available for download from the Google Play store, where it ought to be catalogued under "REFERENCE" (or perhaps "BOOKS and REFERENCE")

By the way, the product that helped out immensely (by divine providence!) is by a zealous fellow called George Henne, who runs https://volt.build/about/. His web service, which runs from a "cloud": zips your project, uploads to VoltBuilder, and downloads executables for Android or iOS. So here I shout out a thank you to George! (I had visited 3 or 4 other sites promising to do the same; I croaked with each; But his runs like a smooth engine.)

Thank G-d, Toraware's App is Finally Born!

Thank God, that which I started out planning, several years ago, has finally come to fruition. From the start I meant to create code that I could "stuff" into a handheld gadget. That aimed-for gadget then became the smartphone. And since my design always held that end-goal in sight, it made the final metamorphosis of my website code into an app rather easy to accomplish. The image above is the face of my new app!

It would have been impractical or burdensome to transform my website version into an app because most of its methods are not of practical use. Only its first two search methods have real preacticality for everday use. So I stripped away the impractical and remain with the Find a Word and Find a Phrase methods.

Those other methods on the website I had added in the course of time just in case somebody has use for these eccentric searches.

Any learner of Torah would find the Find a Word and Find a Phrase methods extremely handy.  There are so many times this app finds relevance in everyday experience. Until today I use my own app almost every day.

This app is now suitable for deployment onto an Android. Soon enough it may also be suitable for an iPhone, iPad or a Windows mobile gadget.

It turns out that in the end I did not even need to learn the native languages used by Apple and Android, because other technologies came along to let me bypass these steep learning curves. To master these would have years to learn. As the chasidic saying goes, "think good and it'll therefore turn out good!" I began my project in 2015 or 2016, to be sure, even as Xcode and Android Studio lingered forebodingly on the horizon. Just as I was about 100% completed with my program's code, thank G-d, other easier deployable solutions suddenly came along and showed promise, like PhoneGap, like Chrome developer, the PWA (Progressive Web Application) route, and software products that turned Javascript code into native languages. All of this thankfully vindicated my original choice, namely, to use the browser platform for my code.

Actually, just now, my program can be downloaded for an Android device. It requires the user to go to a specific site and therefrom download my app. So, I must now still give instructions to people on how to download the code. But soon enough - which I'm presently working on - is to get the software into the app STORES and then my instructions to everbody can be to tell them which store to go to to get it.

Because apps require responsible handling of distributed code, which requires that a secure server handle the distribution, this move was something I could not yet afford (I live on a small pension). But just then the GitHub website came along and provided me with a website on which to deploy my site securely, security being a key issue for PWA, for free.

So, for now, here's how you, the reader, can now get this free app.
Using Chrome, type in https://toraware.github.io, and
then "Add to Home Screen".

Did it ever occur to you "Where in Tora is the first mention of a particular word"?
Or, "How many times does such a word repeat itself in Tanach"? Or, instead of a word, maybe you want information on a set of words or phrase.

Toraware is a small, free, handy Torah tool with which you can instantly search through Tanach. In 2 or 3 clicks you can find any word or phrase, instantly. If you can do a "Goggle Search", you can easily learn this adept Torah tool to full advantage. And especially for learners of Torah, this reference tool is perfect for you.

Hope you'll try it, and if you have suggestions or comments, I'd appreciate your feedback.

Consecutive Possukim that Begin with Vov

Here's an interesting tidbit:

How many possukim that begin with the letter Vov can you find in succession in Torah?

Answer: 52

And how many .. in all of Tanach:

Answer: 71 (see below)

Version 55 Combines 4 Methods into 2

Until now, version 54's Home Page showed 8 methods in total, occupying 8 lines.

But if more methods were contemplated, the list would become too long to neatly fit on the Home Page.

So I came up with the idea to combine Roshe Teivot and Sofei Teivot into one method, displacing their choice to the Options Page instead. Similarly, I combined the Roshei Possukim and Sofei Possukim methods into one method, the choice between them being shifted to the Options Page as a choice.

I thereby saved two lines on Home Page and, in fact, render the program and its display more economical.

Here now are the new views entailed in these changes:

A Significant Step Towards Creating an APP

The next version (54) of toraware was needed to convert toraware.com's website to run as a mobile app.

The main obstacle had been one of the options for the gematria method where I allow the user to choose between keyboard textual input or numerical input.

Although from the very beginning of my development I foresaw adapting my website to be suitable for an app, as you can see from the site's navigation paradigm, I did not foresee that this option to display for use of the keyboard would get in the way. Because deploying the site as is would have the site's keyboard and the smartphone's keyboard both be on display the same time.

In other words, I had created a pop-up keyboard feature that would be intrusive to the user of a mobile gadget when his screen pops up a 2nd keyboard, besides his usual mode of keyboard entry. So I had codeo my way out of this problem.

(The two images below demonstrate that troublesome 3rd option still existing in version 53, one that I originally introduced when it wasn't very common to have Hebrew language input readily available on the casual user's computer screen. It's the one that reads, "How will you enter the value?")

User can enter a number directly

Keyboard pops up on this option

In effect, I had coded myself into a design dilemma. But then I realized how to easily remedy the situation. I could simply suppress all keyboard display on my part, leaving the user with only his own gadget's keyboard for entry, and all I had to do was identify - inside the program's code itself, whether the input was numeric or textual. Problem solved with some change of code, is all.

Here's how the new Options Page for the Gematria Method looks like now. Note how the 3rd set of options on this page has been bypassed.

User can now enter EITHER text OR a number in the same field

With this significant change in place, app creation will probably be rather simple.

These changes, in fact, relieved the size of the download by more than 20K bytes.

Inasmuch as this new version is to expedite navigation to a working app, the previous version remains deployed as the version in production.