Nitzavim

This post on Parashah Nitzavim is about the symbolic language of human consciousness and the role it plays in the path toward higher levels of consciousness (greater awareness) of the King's Name; and in this case, more specifically, the connection the Name has to the nature of a covenant between various parties. It acknowledges aspects of language that are revealed in books like Babel by Avraham Abehasera, that show how each language today is a fragment of a larger universal language with archetypal elements.

We will examine the symbolic language in this parashah as it pertains to the covenant in a moment. In the meantime, if you are new to this blog, please read each of the essential constructs listed in the column to the right before proceeding. These pages reveal some of the basic mathematic connections between the letters of God's Explicit Name and the multidimensional geometric characteristics of the luchot, both in the divided state and combined cubic form, along with the internal geometry that casts a shadow known as a magen david. There is a special connection between the Name, the luchot and the geometry of the magen, and together they form a unique signature. We refer to this geometry and its mathematic common denominator as the Signature of the Architect. The purpose of this blog is to show how all of these things connect, and to reveal where the signature geometry is hidden, not only in each week’s parashah, but the physics of time and space, quantum mechanics and celestial dynamics to name a few. Once you are familiar with these constructs you can more fully appreciate each post.

In biblical times the act of establishing a covenant was believed to be sacrosanct and the parties adhered to the terms of the covenant no matter how disreputable their character, if only because it was believed to be enforced by a higher authority.

One method used to establish a covenant was to have the parties pass between two halves of a slaughtered animal. The terms would then become binding upon the participants. If you stop and think about what happened, it doesn’t make much sense. What possible significance could this have to the parties, and how did it contribute to the validity of the agreement or the willingness of the participants to adhere to the terms of a contract?

In the ancient world, there were many civilizations that offered sacrifices to God for a variety of reasons, but in the case of a covenant established between two halves of a slaughtered animal, it was tantamount to an appeal requesting His oversight. The parties were essentially asking God to act as both Witness and Guarantor to the terms, and in so doing they recognized the necessity of honoring the agreement. 

When God made a covenant with Avraham He passed between the two halves of a slaughtered animal. This "covenant between the halves" is highly significant, not only because of what it means to Israel, but because it bears the Signature of the Architect who would be the Guarantor.

If you’ve read the essential constructs listed in the column to the right then you may already suspect why this type of covenant process was significant, whether the specific reason for the significance was known to the parties, or not. The gematria of the Hebrew word for “half” (chetzei) is 108. It also just happens to be half the number of letters in God’s Explicit Name (with two halves together being 216). When the parties to a covenant sacrificed an animal and passed between the two halves, they were in effect establishing a covenant using the King's Name.

In this parashah, the nation of Israel enters into their covenant: “Today you stand before God... that you be brought into the covenant of God... and accept the oath He is making with you... He is establishing you as a nation, so that He will be your God.”

The proclamation is made in this parashah, but it is at the conclusion of the blessings and the curses from the preceding parashah, and it is here that God affirms the terms of the covenant. However, if you read the text carefully, you will not find any sacrifice being made where two halves of an animal were involved as it was with Avraham. An altar was built and there were burnt offerings and peace offerings, but no “halves.” The King’s Signature was nevertheless a part of the covenant, as it was included in the promise to Avraham. What was it that signified the covenant relationship applied to all of Israel, at this time in particular, and what was it that signified the King’s participation in the ongoing agreement?

The Torah explains that half the tribes stood on Mt Gerizim for the blessings, and the other half stood on Mt Ebal for the curses. These two mountains of stone were like the "halves" of the sacrifice mentioned above. The people had received the stone tablets, and each half of their combined cubic form (the cubic measurement being 6 x 6 x 6 handbreadths) was 108 cubic handbreadths in volume. Moreover, just as the gematria of the word “half” is 108, so too is the word for “the stones,” both being a mathematic aspect of the Name (2 of either, times 108 is 216 the total number of letters in the Name). 

These symbols are in fact archetypes of human consciousness1, but at the same time they are symbolic "letters" of a primordial language that demonstrates the interconnected nature of reality. In this case, they are an extension of the letters in God's Name. This is why both the word for half in Hebrew, and each half of the combined cubic form of the luchot measured 108. Their intrinsic nature corresponds to the Signature of the Architect (the Guarantor of the covenant in this case). The same is true for the geometry of the star tetrahedron (one of the constructs within the combined cubic form of the luchot) that consists of two tetrahedrons married together in opposing directions having 72 triangular corners (3 x 72 = 216). Each tetrahedral (half) of the star has 36 of the triangular corners, so each half has 3 x 36 or 108 unique elements in the form of corner points, like the number of cubic handbreadths in each of the luchot, or the gematria of the word.

Just how interconnected is our reality? When half of Israel stood on Mt Gerizim for the blessings and the opposing half on Mt. Ebal for the curses, the two opposing male-female halves were like those of an animal being sacrificed, only in this case it was Israel that was separated into 'halves,' with half the people on one mountain and half the people on the other. Some sources say the people passed between the mountains as if they had passed between the halves. The point being that the King was both witness and guarantor to this covenant. 

In symbolic language, a mountain is something that is difficult if not impossible to overcome. It represents something that is enduring, like a promise; or something that cannot be moved from it's place. The letter 'alpeh' is like a mountain in both form and context. It has two 'vavs' and two 'yuds,' where the two 'vavs' are adjacent to one another, joined together, and so act as a wall to separate the two 'yuds,' like a mountain that separates one side from the other. Without the 'additional yud' as it is sometimes written, the aleph is like a 'mountain' symbolizing the Holy "One" in the "duality" of the world He has created, that is separate and apart from that creation, yet somehow a part of it at the same time.

The mountain (in this form of the aleph) is similar to the dalet when it is rotated counterclockwise 60 degrees (1/6 of 360 degrees).

The dalet represents the number four and two 'dalets' are 'eight,' like the two mountains, or "Names:" (yud-key-vav-key) and (aleph-dalet-nun-yud) that have a total of eight letters that are married together in the unification as is known (described in the post on the marriage of the letters). The letter dalet (means, or is the symbolic equivalent of) a door, also known, which is a primal concept that represents a 'path,' either toward truth, or away from truth. Two 'doors' are indicative of these opposing paths, where the one path/door leads to a blessing, and the other path/door, to a curse.

In the 'proto-language' of human consciousness, these basic concepts are associated with basic symbols, be they letters, what the letters represent, or related concepts that are otherwise attached to innate aspects of human consciousness. Higher consciousness is dependent on the ability to freely associate and integrate such symbols into one's paradigm. A person can see that a tetrahedron (a three-dimensional polyhedron) is like a mountain. The mountain is in turn a symbol for the tetrahedron that is, in turn, a symbol for each half of the Name, and also the choice these halves represent, which is the direction any given individual takes throughout his or her life, right or wrong, according to what God expects. So the symbol may be right-side-up, or upside-down, dependent on an individual's place and position in the cosmic scheme of things. This is the nature of a primal language. At this primal level, the image quickly transcends any combination of letters, which are no longer necessary to convey the thought. A simple triangle (in two dimensions) does the same thing. In each of these cases, the geometry depicts a larger reality that is (and here specifically) dependent upon God's Name. Moreover, the knowledge of this reality (which may be sublimated at the conscious level) is intuitively understood by the unconscious mind, allowing the symbolic language to speak directly to the soul. Right or wrong? Blessing or curse? Gerizim or Ebal?

The mountains above are neither Gerizim or Ebal, merely symbolic of primal concepts
as are the Two-Dimensional Triangles and Three-Dimensional Tetrahedrons

Is there any evidence of this primal language in our sources? There is a tradition that when the luchot were given at Mt. Sinai, the mountain was turned upside-down, hanging over the heads of the people (Tractate Shabbat 88a). What would ever possess a rational person to envision a mountain as being upside-down, hanging over their head? Some take this literally, suggesting that it was a threat or warning to the people: "accept the Torah, or the universe will cease to exist," and in one sense it was. However, the symbol has a deeper meaning. It must be remembered that this type of reference alludes to lofty concepts that are usually beyond human comprehension. However, in this case it is rooted in a knowledge of the Creator's One Unique Explicit Name, and the choices that one makes throughout his or her life. 

Click to Enlarge

                                     Male                         Before                      Heaven

                                   Female                        After                         Earth

                                    Good                         Accept                      Existence

                                     Evil                           Reject                   NonExistence

In the symbolic language of human consciousness, the triangle together with its upside-down counterpart are the two halves of the King's Name hidden in the geometry of the royal seal or magen david that we spoke about in Parashah Emor. However, it is also indicative of the free choice that God has given to mankind. All of this remains hidden, like the third dimension of tetrahedral geometry that is hidden within the limitations of two-dimensional space in a simple triangle. In three dimensions we perceive the connection to God's Name more clearly, by virtue of the geometry associated with the star tetrahedron and its characteristics that conform to the 72 triplets in the King’s Name, but even then the nature of the geometry requires wisdom.

A mountain that is turned upside-down is a faint reflection of this geometry, be it “right-side-up opposite up-side-down” (Sinai) or side-by-side (Gerizim and Ebal). The events are both reflections of a larger reality that is entirely dependent on the letters of God's Name embodied so clearly in the royal seal.

The Two "Doors" ~ Two Mountains

One Toward the Blessing ~ One Toward the Curse
"Four" Opposite "Four"
   yud-key-vav-key    Opposite   aleph-dalet-nun-yud

The above "symbols" are the same, yet they are different, as one is the inverse of the other. Everything that exists in this world, or the next, whether the world is moving in the right direction, or turned up-side-down and headed in the wrong direction—all that we see around us—past, present and future—is a reflection of God’s Name that is mathematically and geometrically embedded within (and defines) the combined cubic form of the sapphire blueprint (a three-dimensional cube that was divided in half and brought down by Moshe) that we know as the luchot through which the contiguous stream of 304,805 letters (in the written Torah) were received. 



________

Footnote 1 - The fact that the combined cubic form of the luchot is an archetype of human consciousness can be seen in the 'awareness' of its form and substance in, for example, films or stories where a mysterious cube is involved. The cube is seen in the plots of movies like "Captain America" where a "blue crystal cube" is the source of "incredible power," or films like "Transformers," where a mysterious cube is used either to 'create or destroy,' and thus sought after by all concerned. It's found in movies like "Contact," where a "blueprint is given to man" that cannot be understood until it is learned that 'the blueprint is three-dimensional.' The writers do not even realize the implications of their stories, which are reflections of ancient paradigms, and conform to a basic archetype that goes back to the creation of the universe. Nor do they realize its connection to God's Name.