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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...