Why is the Sabbath before Pesach called Shabbat HaGadol? What does it have to do with Creation, Judgement Day, and the Final Redemption? Find out in this class where we also take a deep dive into the various Jewish calendars that were used 2000 years ago at the end of the Second Temple era, and how the “great calendar debate” still affects us today. Plus: the Zohar on the secret behind the solar calendar and why Earth’s orbit is 365 days.
The Science & Kabbalah of Salt
Salt emerging from the Dead Sea
This week we begin reading the third book of the Torah, Vayikra, or “Leviticus”, which is primarily concerned with priestly laws and sacrificial rituals. We are commanded that “You shall season your offerings of grain with salt; you shall not omit from your grain offering the salt of your covenant with God; with all your offerings you must offer salt.” (Leviticus 2:13) As is well-known, the sprinkling of salt was an absolute necessity for the offerings brought in the Tabernacle and Temple. Incredibly, the Talmud (Menachot 20a-b) says that even if a person brought a wood offering, the wood had to be sprinkled with salt! The minimum wood offering was two blocks of wood, and some say a handful was chopped off and diced up to be burned upon the altar. Others taught that wood offerings do not require salting, just like wine libations didn’t require it, nor did incense offerings. That said, we know that melach sdomit, “Sodomite salt”, was added to the Ketoret incense as one of the additional ingredients. The big question is: why is salt so important?
In ancient times, salt was an incredibly valuable commodity. It had a wide range of uses, not only for flavouring food, but more importantly for preserving food (in an era without refrigeration), as a cleaning agent and an antimicrobial agent, as a weapon of war (to “salt” the earth of the enemy), and even as a form of payment. In fact, the root of the word salary is the Latin sal, meaning “salt”! Same is true for the root of soldier, from sal dare in Latin meaning to “give salt”, since soldiers were paid in salt. (Wrote a lot more about the fascinating history of salt, including Sodomite salt, in Secrets of the Last Waters.) Agreements and covenants were sealed with salt, which we find throughout the Tanakh. In commenting on the above verse in Leviticus, the Ramban (Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, 1194-1270) points out that Hashem even forged a “salt covenant”, brit melach, with King David* to establish his eternal dynasty (as it says in II Chronicles 13:5). Similarly, the Temple offerings all had to be brought with salt to affirm that we have a binding and eternal “salt covenant” with God. Continue reading
What Does Authentic Judaism Look Like?
Today, there are so many different subgroups and denominations within Judaism – which is the most “authentic”? How can we determine what makes Judaism authentic? Find out as we explore the ten major qualities of Judaism based on the framework of the Ten Sefirot, and conclude with a list of ten critical questions for every Jew to ask about their Judaism.