Sefer Hekhalot on Seventy Names of Metatron and the Oral Tradition of Torah

"Seventy names has Metatron which the Holy One, Blessed be He, took from His own Name and put them upon him. And all of them were revealed to Moshe on Sinai so that he learned them during the forty days, while he was sitting up there. The Torah in the seventy faces and seventy tongues, the Halakhot in the seventy faces and seventy tongues, the Shamu'ot in the seventy faces and seventy tongues, the Hagadot in the seventy faces and seventy tongues, and the Toseftot in the seventy faces and seventy tongues. These seventy names are a reflection of the Shem HaMeforash on the Merkava which are engraved upon His Kissei Kavod. For the Holy One, Blessed be He, took from His Shem HaMeforash and installed the Seventy names in His name: Metatron."

-- Sefer Hekhalot, ch. 48 (transl. S.A.O.)


HALAKHOT : Ways of life.
SHAMU'OT : Oral traditions.
HAGADOT : Parables.
TOSEFTOT : Lucid teachings.
SHEM HAMEFORASH : Explicit Name.
KISSEI KAVOD : Throne of glory.

Talmud Bavli Shabbat on Fear as Prerequisite to Torah Knowledge

"Rabbah bar Rav Huna said: Any person who has acquired for himself Torah knowledge, but has not acquired for himself the fear of Heaven is comparable to a treasurer to whom the keys to the inner chambers have been handed, whereas the keys to the outer chambers were not handed to him. How can such a treasurer possibly gain entrance to either the inner or the outer chambers?"

-- Talmud Bavli, Shabbat 31a-b

Beit & Shabbat

Beit: first letter of Torah,
Beit: second letter of Alef-Beit.

Beit = BYT = 2+10+400 = 412 = 7,
Beit = 'house'.

A house defines inside,
and defines outside.

Work: outer processing,
Rest: inner processing.

Six days of outer processing,
One day of inner processing.

The completion of the outer Beit is Shabbat,
Shabbat is the beginning of the inner Beit.

The house is prepared to dwell inside,
The bride is welcomed into her home.

-- S.A.O.

Sefer HaZohar on the Body Parts of the Torah

"Everything exists for the sake of humanity, as is written: 'I made the earth and created humankind upon it' (Isaiah 45:12). Torah stands calling out to human beings to engage in her, strive for her, but no one bends an ear.

"Come and see: Whoever engages in Torah sustains the world, maintaining every work of creation perfectly, fittingly. Every single smooth member in the human body corresponds to a creature in the world. For just as a human being is composed of members upon members, all standing rung upon rung, arrayed one upon another, yet all one body, so too the world: all those creatures are members upon members, standing one upon another, which when arrayed actually form one body.

"All these resemble Torah, for Torah is entirely members, joints, and sections - standing one upon another, all arrayed, becoming one body."

-- Sefer HaZohar, 1:135a


This section is coded for Shi'ur Qomah.

Sar Torah on Seeking Torah and Talmud

"I know what you seek and My heart recognizes what you crave: you seek an abundance of Torah and a tumult of Talmud, you hope for a multitude of legal discussions, to ask about the law. For a tumult of extension you are longing in order to multiply testimony - mountains and mountains of it; to set down sound wisdom - hills and hills of it; to magnify Talmud in the streets and dialectic in the squares; to multiply laws 'like the sand of the sea' (Gen 32:13) and my mysteries like the dust of the inhabited world."

-- Sar Torah, §287

Midrash Rabbah Shemot on God's Inseparability from the Torah

"Is there any acquisition in which the seller himself is sold along with the acquired item? The Holy One, blessed is He, said to Israel, 'I sold you my Torah, and as it were, I Myself was sold along with it', as it is stated, 'And let them take for Me a portion' (Exodus 25:2).

"This can be illustrated by a parable. It can be compared to a king who had an only daughter. One of the other kings came and took her as a wife. Subsequently, he sought to return to his land and to take his wife with him. The father-in-law king said to him, 'My daughter whom I have given you is an only daughter, thus I am unable to part from her. But I am equally unable to tell you, Do not take her to your land. Rather, do this favor for me: Any place that you go, prepare a room for me so that I may dwell near you. For I am unable to leave my daughter.

"So too, did the Holy One, blessed is He, say to Israel, 'I have given you the Torah. I am unable to part from it, but I am also unable to tell you, Do not take it. Rather, do this favor for Me: Any place that you go, prepare a house for Me that I may dwell therein.' As it is stated, 'They shall make for me a Sanctuary, so that I may dwell among them' (Exodus 25:8)."

-- Midrash Rabbah Shemot, 33.1

Sefer haZohar on the Ten Commandments and the Holy Name of God

"Rabbi Elazar taught: In these ten statements are embodied all the commandments in the Torah, decrees and punishments, cleanness and uncleanness, branches and roots, trees and plants, heaven and earth, sea and the deeps. For the Torah is the name of the Holy One, blessed be He. Just as the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, is embodied in the ten statements, so the Torah is also embodied in the ten statements, These ten statements are the name of the Holy One, blessed be He. And the whole Torah is one name, the actual holy name of the Holy One, blessed be He. Happy is the man who gains it. Whoever gain the Torah gains the holy name."

-- Sefer haZohar, 2:90a (transl. Tishby)

Sefer haZohar on Reciting the Shema Fulfills the Entire Torah

"When the people of Israel enact unification by this verse ─ in the mystery of twenty-five letters: שמע ישראל יהוה אלהינו יהוה אחד (Shema Yisra'el YHVH Eloheinu YHVH ehad), 'Hear O Israel, YHVH our God, YHVH is one'; and ברוך שם כבוד מלכותו לעולם ועד (Barukh shem kevod malkuto le-olam va-ed), 'Blessed be the name of His glorious kingdom forever and ever', which contains twenty-four letters ─ focusing on each one of the, all those letters join as one and ascend to forty-nine gates, in the mystery of Jubilee. Then one must elevate ועד (va-ed), 'and ever' ─ no further ─ upon which gates are opened, and the blessed Holy One considers that person as if he had fulfilled the complete Torah, which appears in forty-nine facets, completely.

"Therefore, one should focus the will on twenty-five and twenty-four, elevating them by aspiration of the heart through the forty-nine gates that we have mentioned. Having focused on this, one should focus on the unification described by our Master ─ שמע ישראל (Shema Yisra'el), 'Hear O Israel! ...', and ברוך שם (Barukh shem), 'Blessed be the name...', are the entirety of the whole Torah. Happy is the share of one who focuses on them, for this is surely the entirety of Torah, above and below! This is the mystery of the complete Human, male and female, and mystery of all faith."

-- Sefer haZohar, 2:139b (transl. D. Matt, Pritzker ed. vol. 5, pp. 284-5)

One who recites the Shema is as one who has fulfilled all 248 positive commandments, which are body parts of the "complete Human" - supernal Adam.

The 3 paragraphs of the Shema contain 245 words. Including the 3 words אל מלך נאמן (El melekh ne'eman) 'God, faithful king', brings the count up to 248.

The 248 words of the Shema are coded for the mathematics of the exceptional simple Lie group E8, a 248-dimensional Lie group that is part of the foundations of mathematical physics, in particular string theory and supergravity. Below is an image of E8 projected into the Coxeter plane:

The Lie group E8

   

Sefer haZohar on the Torah as the Name of God

"The whole of the Torah is the name of the Blessed Holy One and he who studies it is like one who studies the holy name, since the whole Torah is one holy name, a supernal name, a name that comprises names."

-- Sefer haZohar, 2:124a

Tishby on the Torah's Fundemantal Nature

"When the kabbalist comes to assess the Torah's fundamental nature, its hidden mystery, he does not see it as a collection of commandments, statutes, and ordinances, of ethical pronouncements and accounts of historical events, all proceeding from the mouth of God. It is for him a massive treasury of divine forces and divine lights that have donned the form of letters and words and so revealed themselves in the book of the Torah."

-- Isaiah Tishby, Wisdom of the Zohar p. 283

Torah on Revelation to Moses - Face to Face, Mouth to Mouth

"And there was no other prophet who arose in Israel like Moshe, whom YHVH knew 'face to face' (panim el panim)."

-- Devarim 34:10

"With him I speak 'mouth to mouth' (peh el peh); in a vision and not in riddles, and he beholds the image of YHVH."

-- Bemidbar 12:8

 rחידה = iddle

Talmud Bavli Makot on the 613 Commandments of Torah

"Rabbi Simlai expounded: 613 commandments were related to Moses: 365 negative commandments, corresponding to the days of the solar year, and 248 positive commandments, corresponding to the number of parts of the human body. Rav Hamnuna said: Which verse teaches this? 'Moses commanded us the Torah as a heritage' (Deuteronomy 33:4). The numerical value of the word Torah is 611. To this we must add the first two of the Ten Commandments, 'I am YHVH your God' and 'You shall have no other gods', which we heard directly from the Almighty, and are thus distinct from the 611 commandments that we heard from Moses. All told, then, there are 613 mitzvot in the Torah."

 -- Talmud Bavli, Makot 23b

613 = 365 + 248 is probably the most important equation in Torah mathematics.

Every one of the 613 mitzvot is a fractal subspace of Torah, that is, it is resonantly self-similar to the overall 304,805-letters in the complete Torah codespace.