Lazer Beams

Pi - The Secret of Creation

Our Torah is sweeter than honey. Within it, you can find all the secrets of creation.

I'm going to share with you something that none of the math or geophysics professors in MIT or Cal Tech know, nor does anyone on the staff at NASA. Now hear this from your buddy Lazer:

Pi is the secret of creation. Kabbalah, our esoteric portion of Torah passed on to us by Rabbi Yitzchak Luria Ashkenazi (the famed "Arizal") and his disciple Rabbi Chaim Vital, may their holy memories arouse mercy on us, explains that Ain Sof, Hashem The Infinite, created the world by a process known as tzimtzum, or contraction, whereby Hashem had to designate a point in the middle of his Divine and all-encompassing light to make room for a physical universe. This process, super simplified, was done by hishtalshelut, a series of cocentric circles the correspond to each of the sefirot, the holy spheres that mainifest Hashem's different attributes.

Therefore, nothing in creation is square. All of creation is round, from electrons and protons to the great galaxies.

A magical number, the key to computing circles, diameters, and circumferences is Pi, or 3.14 with subsequent fractional digits to infinity.

The Holy Name that Hashem used and uses (for creation is renewed every single day) in the contraction process is שד"י, the Hebrew name Shaddai, which is made up of 3 letters, shin, dalet, and yud.

All Hebrew letters have a numerical value. Shin is 300, yud is 10, and dalet is 4. Together, the Holy Name of Shaddai equals 314. If we divide this number by 100, the number that signifies perfection - which only Hashem is - we get 3.14, or pi, the secret of creation.

Apples and Bananas

The following clip (with a hat tip to Robert Solomon from Baltimore) is a Beam's tribute to a magnificent rabbi that touched the souls of thousands of people, one of the greatest English-language darshanim (lecturers) the Torah world ever heard, Rabbi Avigdor Miller of blessed and saintly memory. Rabbi Miller has always been a tremendous influence in my life, and a shining example of what a rabbi should be. Here is a rare clip, where he talks about the wonders of an apple:

Meanwhile, three people have asked me to repost our clip about what we can learn from bananas. Here it is, with pleasure:

Shepherd's Purse

An American tourist once asked a Jerusalem rabbi how religious Israelis succeed in having such large families? The rabbi answered, "It's because Shepherd's Purse grows wild by the roadside all over the Land of Israel."

Lately, I've had numerous letters from women that complain of lengthy menstrual cycles that leave them few days of purity and reduce their chances of pregnancy.

Rebbe Nachman says there's no such thing as despair. Save your money, don't run to the gynecologist, and don't fill yourself with pills. There's an easier, more natural way to become clean on the 5th day, so with hefsek tahara and 7 clean days, the unpure period is reduced to 12 days. With ritual immesion in the mikva after sundown of the 12th day, a woman's chances for pregnancy are highest, since for many women, ovulation is on the 13th day of the cycle.

Here's all you need to do (I learned this remedy from the great Rabbi Yisroel Yaacov Fisher ob"m of the Eda Haredis in Jerusalem): Gather 5 or 6 young green leaves from a shepherd's purse plant that grows all over the place here, at roadsides and on empty lots. If you live outside of Israel, ask your local herb specialist for the leaves. Wash them off in cold water and make sure they have no bugs in them. Then, boil them in a small tea kettle with water, letting the herb tea brew for about 5 minutes. It may be a bit bitter, so sweeten the tea with a teaspoon of honey. Drink a glass of this tea on the mornings of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th day of the menstrual period. Before sundown of the 5th day, you'll hopefully be clean as a whistle, so you can begin counting the 7 clean days and therefore immerse G-d willing at the end of the 12th day of the cycle.

This remedy has worked for many families in Israel. Hopefully, it will work for you too.

Read more about Shepherd's Purse here and here.

Like the Trees in Winter

This acacia from the dunes in the south of Israel is remindful of the letter "shin" in Hebrew, the first letter of Hashem's Holy Name Sh-add-ai, to whom the trees sing constantly. These were the trees that were used to build the Holy Tabernacle in the desert. Like everything else that grows here, they have a special holiness.

Many of you probably ask why Judaism needs a separate New Year for trees. The answer according to nigla (revealed Torah) is that numerous Torah commandments deal with trees and the fruit of trees in the holy Land of Israel. For example, one must not eat orla, which is fruit from the first three years of the tree's life. Neta reva'i, or 4th-year fruit, must be eaten in Jerusalem. Other mitzvot include trumot, maaserot, maaser rishon, leket, shichacha, peah. The tree's age plays a role in the fulfillment of these mitzvot, and the trees age is calculated from the new arbor year that begins today, the 15th of Shvat commonly known as Tu B'Shvat.

The Torah says (Dvorim 20:19), “For man is a tree in the field.” This is one of the greatest secrets of Torah. It's also the story of our life here in the Land of Israel, as follows:

Tu B'Shvat always lands in the middle of winter. The trees have lost their leaves. They look brittle, weak, and unsightly. They're subjected to strong winds and storms that threaten to uproot them. An unsuspecting onlooker wouldn't believe that these bare and dry branches will ever sprout green again, much less give fruit. The cold and the frosts look like they'll finish the poor trees off...

Today, the Jewish people in the Land of Israel are just like the trees in winter. They too look weak and unsightly, as enemies from without and within slash them with the strong winds of territorial surrender and disdain for the holiness of our land. It doesn't look like our beautiful settlements will continue to exist, G-d forbid, much less expand. The cold and frosts of heresy, licentiousness, corruption, and self-hatred threaten to finish off the world of Torah and the holy settlements completely.

Wait a second, there's no reason to despair.

In a few short weeks, the weather will turn warm and The Land of Israel will blossom in all of its arbor glory. The entire country will be intoxicatingly aromatic from dunam upon dunam of flowering citrus groves and deciduous orchards. Do you know what that signifies?

As mentioned earlier, man is a tree in the field, especially in Israel. We may look ugly in the midst of this spiritual winter, but soon - very soon - Moshiach will come and the Land of Israel, her pioneer sons and her scholars of Torah shall flourish and blossom in all their glory, from Mount Hermon to the Red Sea and from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, amen.

Happy Tu B'Shvat!

For more on Tu B'Shvat, check out Lazer's editorial over at BreslovWorld.

Sabras

The sabra is a cactus that yields an indescribably sweet fruit. Among other things, the sabra is the symbol of Israel. Today's six-minute film - another addition of Emuna Outreach's Land of Israel series - shows the spiritual, inner-dimensional allusions of the sabra.

The Lesson of the Green Grapefruit

Join Lazer out in the citrus grove for a four-and-a-half minute lesson that's sure to put a smile on your face. Let's disregard last month's problems, not worry about what will be tomorrow, and concentrate on what we need to do right now,as we'll soon see:

A Journey into the Vastness of Creation

The above photo represents an area 80 light years long. This is a DNA Nebula, a galaxy-type group of cellestial bodies and gases that looks exactly like a DNA chain. We see Hashem's similar secrets both in the macrocosm and in the microcosm.

Our wonderful Emuna Outreach crew in Bet Shemesh, Israel never ceases to amaze me. They sent me this fantastic Power Point Presentation, which takes you on a journey of the macrocosm, then of the microcosm. Now think how Hashem makes the effort to confine Himself within your heart and brain, to make sure they're functioning properly. The author of this presentation probably had no spiritual intentions, but, I find this a mind-boggling aid in contemplating the vastness of Hashem and His lovingkindness.

Please allow about 30 seconds for downloading, depending on the speed of your connection, to enjoy the most thought-provoking 10 minutes you've had in a long time, here: A Journey into the Vastness of Creation.

The Lesson of the Reeds

Here in Israel, we're now entering our hottest and driest month of the year. Come join us in the dry wadi of what in winter is the Lachish river in the south of Israel, to see what we can learn from a clump of reeds there.

The Egg - Symbol of the Three Weeks

There's so much intrinsic wisdom within an egg, just like there is in all of Hashem's creatures and creations; all we have to do is to open our eyes and observe.

Eggs are closely tied to the "Three Weeks", the period between the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av, or Tisha B'Av. This period is an annual time of mourning for the Jewish people because of all the calamaties that occurred throughout our history, most notably and tragic - the destruction of our First and Second Holy Temples in Jerusalem. Interestingly, hard-boiled eggs are the food that is fed to mourners, since the round egg represents the life cycle which is also round.

Most remarkable is that the period between the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av consists of 21 days. The incubation span of an egg is - by no coincidence - 21 days. 21 is also the gematria of Hashem's Holy Name Ehye'h, which according to tradition is the Name that signifies personal Divine providence. This means that even our troubles are the product of Hashem's Divine providence, especially tailored to the minutest detail for our ultimate best.

At the completion of the 21 day cycle, the egg hatches and a baby chick - a new life - emerges. We too pray that at the termination of this difficult 21-day period, the new and eternal Holy Temple will emerge as well, shining Hashem's holy light to the far corners of the earth, amen.

The Wisdom of the Banana Grove

The Beams is always happy to show you another lovely portion of our exquisitely beautiful and holy Land of Israel. Today, we're in a banana grove right near the Mediterranean coast south of Haifa. Would you believe that there's much to learn from the banana grove? Come join us...