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The following information was gleaned from Technical Appendix A, "Details of the New Moon," in the book Cracking the Bible Code by Dr. Jeffrey Satinover (New York: William Morrow, 1997). I find this an excellent summary of these matters despite my disagreements with Dr. Satinover in other areas. The first commandment given to Israel as a people was the commandment concerning the new moon (Exodus 12). When HaShem told Moses to have every household in Israel to take a lamb or kid on "the tenth day of the first month" and then sacrifice it on the fourteenth, He was not...

The Book of Genesis begins: Berei'shit bara' 'Eloqim 'et-HaShamayim ve'et-Ha'Aretz. This is conventionally translated "In the beginning G-d created the Heavens and the Earth." However, one word cannot be translated into English. This is the word 'et, which in Hebrew is the sign of the definite direct object (though its use is not consistent in the Bible). Grammatically its use here simply means that "he Heavens" and "the Earth" are definite direct objects of the verb bara' (He created). But since the Torah is a wholly Divine text, written by G-d and dictated to Moses letter-for-letter, there is so much...

The Gemara in Berachos teaches "shma garim," that a name foretells a person's destiny. It teaches us that a name has a person's future stored in it. Thus by studying names we see the hand of Hashem - for seeing the events ahead of time in a person's name precludes any element of chance. So, for example, Hevel's name, which means "vanity" - and is quite an unusual choice for parents to make - actually prophesied his dying in vain at the hands of his brother. Similarly "Noach" has the same letters as "chein," prophesying the fact that that he...

In Jerusalem Will I Put My Name   1 Kings 11:36 And unto his son will I give one tribe, that David my servant may have a light alway before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen me to put my name there. 1 Kings 14:21 And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty and one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the LORD did choose out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there. And his mother's name was...