Probably there are innumerable cases where this principle holds in earthly, natural existence. And thus humans do well to study this principle.
To say that something has a measure "longer than the world" is to acknowledge the transcendent source and ground of the universe and all the things that comprise it, together with all their prospects collectively speaking.
Though I have not studied Kaballah in any kind of systematic way, the occasional insights that come to me from that source ever ring true to me.
What most amazes me about the history of human intellectual/spiritual experience to this day is that so many different cultural traditions ring the same truth. [See the Appendix to C. S. Lewis' The Abolition of Man for the relevant data.]
Thank you, A-G, for these excellent insights.
This thread has been all over the board on codes built into Scripture - both in the numerical structure as mentioned by Seven_0 on the "Standing in Awe" thread and also the Equidistant Letter Sequences (Bible Code or Torah Code). From there, it branched into Biblical prophesy concerning sealed texts. Whew...
The above post was to identify some of the roots of Jewish thinking which lead to the ELS. The oldest two are clearly Kabbalist (Jewish not new age) - but I'm not sure about Weissmandl. The very orthodox thinking is sometimes difficult to separate from the Jewish Kabbalist-mysticism.