Tag Archives: Biblical Chronology

Abraham and the State of Israel

This week’s parasha, Lech Lecha, begins in the year 2023—of the Hebrew calendar, that is. In traditional Jewish chronology, Abraham was born in the year 1948 AM (Anno Mundi, or “world year”). At the start of the parasha, we are told that Abraham was 75 years old when he settled in the Holy Land, meaning it was 2023 AM. Many have pointed out the intriguing “coincidence” that the forefather of the Jewish people and the first to settle in Israel was born in the same numerical year as was born the State of Israel and the Jewish people’s return to independence in the Holy Land in 1948 CE. More amazingly, we find that key dates in the life of Abraham align with key dates for the State of Israel, all the way up to the present situation that we find ourselves in today.

‘Abraham Journeying to the Land of Canaan’, by Gustav Doré

The Torah has very little to say about Abraham’s early life. In fact, all it tells us is that he was born, got married, and left Ur-Kasdim. The Torah then jumps ahead to his 75th birthday. What happened in the first half of Abraham’s life? Rabbinic tradition fills in a lot of the details, including that he was imprisoned for ten years! (Bava Batra 91a) At the end of that decade came the most notable event of Abraham’s early life: He was brought before the king and commanded to abandon monotheism and worship idols. Abraham refused, and was thrown into a fiery furnace. God miraculously saved him—marking the first time God openly revealed Himself to Abraham. Immediately after this, Abraham left Ur to settle in Haran. This event happened when Abraham was 52 years old, in the year 2000 AM. It launched what the Talmud calls “the Era of Torah”, lasting 2000 years until 4000 AM. (The first 2000 years of history, starting from Adam, were called “the Era of Chaos”.)

We find a similar monumental shift for the State of Israel in the year 2000 CE. A few key things happened then. In May of 2000, the IDF withdrew from southern Lebanon, where they had been stationed since 1982. This allowed for Hezbollah’s subsequent takeover of the region. (Just a few months later, Hezbollah terrorists launched a cross-border raid and abducted three Israeli soldiers.) In July of 2000, Prime Minister Ehud Barak headed to Washington for the Camp David Summit with Bill Clinton and Yasser Arafat. Barak offered Arafat just about everything he wanted, including all of Gaza and over 95% of the West Bank, with land transfers to make up for the other parts. Arafat notoriously walked away from the table without offering any explanation why, then launched the Second Intifada. A peaceful resolution to the conflict was not in the interest of the corrupt Palestinian leadership.

These events were the nail in the coffin for the Oslo Accords, and proved that the Palestinian leadership didn’t care for any two-state solution. Their goals were obvious: the destruction of the State of Israel and the takeover of the entire region “from the River to the Sea”. The peace process had always been a ruse. That year, 2000, officially marked the death of the peace process, and wiped away the possibility for a two-state solution. The majority of the Israeli population woke up to realize that peace had only been a dream. Since then, Israeli society has noticeably and understandably shifted right-ward. More broadly, the years that followed saw a religious revival in Israel and in Jewish communities around the world, with a large and global baal teshuva movement reminiscent of Abraham’s “Era of Torah”. Thus, just as the year 2000 AM marked a great shift in the life of Abraham, the year 2000 CE marked a great shift in the life of the State of Israel and Jews worldwide. The parallels don’t end there.

After 23 years living in Haran, God commanded Abraham to finally settle in the Promised Land. However, Abraham was confronted with a difficult reality upon arrival. There were hostile Canaanites in the land (Genesis 12:6), as well as rampant famine (12:10), forcing Abraham to head south to Egypt. There, his wife Sarah was abducted. After returning to the Holy Land, Abraham settled between Beit El and Ai. He finally found prosperity, but this led to quarrels within the family, particularly with his nephew Lot. And so, we find that in 2023 AM, Abraham experienced economic difficulties, hostile neighbours, abductions of family members, and internecine brotherly conflict, much like the people of Israel have experienced in 2023 CE.

Some years later, a war came to the Holy Land, with the Sodomite confederation of five cities falling to an alliance of four Mesopotamian kings. Many of the Sodomites were taken captive, including Lot. Abraham went to war and rescued them. When the Sodomite king offered Abraham riches as a reward, Abraham refused and said he wouldn’t take even a “thread or shoe strap”. The Talmud (Sotah 17a) states that in the merit of this, Abraham’s descendants were gifted the mitzvot of tzitzit (the threads) and tefillin (the leather straps). Both contain immense spiritual power, and are said to confer protection to Jewish warriors. It is therefore fitting that there has been an immense desire for IDF soldiers to get tzitzit, and volunteers have tied over 60,000 shirts so far. Meanwhile, Jews around the world are newly inspired to lay tefillin, and over 2300 have already signed up to receive a free pair.

Right after the War of the Kings, God appeared to Abraham and Abraham complained that he was still without a child (Genesis 14). God allayed his concerns and told him he will indeed have much progeny. Right after this comes the account of the birth of Ishmael, forefather of all Arabs and, by extension, all Muslims. Ishmael was born when Abraham was 86 years old, in the year 2034 AM. Ishmael would go on to cause a lot of trouble, but our Sages say that he did ultimately repent and died a righteous man (see Rashi on Genesis 25:17).

What does all of this mean for us, as we look ahead to the next decade? Will things get worse before they get better? Will there be a larger, long-lasting regional war as in the days of Abraham? And will, at the end of it, the House of Ishmael experience a “rebirth” and find righteousness like their ancestor? Perhaps then we can finally have peace.

In the Torah’s chronology, the long-awaited Isaac would be born when Abraham was 100, in the year 2048 AM. And our Sages teach that Itzchak (יצחק) is ketz chai (קץ חי), symbolic of life at the End of Days. Isaac is the only forefather who dwelled securely in the Holy Land and never had to leave. He enjoyed me’ah she’arim, hundred-fold prosperity. The Zohar (I, 137a, Midrash haNe’elam) compares his “return” following the Akedah at age 40 to a “resurrection” of sorts, and sees this as a sign of the final Resurrection of the Dead, to come forty years into the Messianic Age. Based on the Abraham-Israel connection and the pattern outlined above, the Torah years of 2034 AM, 2048 AM, and 2088 AM might offer us hope to expect events of great significance to come in 2034 CE, 2048 CE, and 2088 CE.

As for the present, the Zohar (I, 83b) says that when Abraham entered the Holy Land at age 75, in the year 2023 AM, he received a brand new nefesh. It was like he became a totally new person. Then, when he went south (before going to Egypt) he received a new ruach, the second and higher soul. It was only years later, after returning from Egypt, parting from Lot, and becoming even more prominent—right before the onset of the War of the Kings—that Abraham received the lofty neshamah, at the moment when “he built an altar to God” (Genesis 13:18). For the State of Israel, too, 2023 CE will undoubtedly be the year that it received a brand new nefesh. In light of what has happened in recent weeks, the country will never be the same again, nor will its people. And following the model set by Abraham, the next decade will surely transform the country as it receives a new ruach, too, and eventually its true divine neshamah. We hope it will then become the proper holy kingdom of God that the State of Israel was always meant to be.

Mashiach: Now or Never

How has the coming of Mashiach been understood throughout Jewish history? Are we long overdue for the arrival of the Messiah? How might we understand Mashiach ben Yosef, Mashiach ben David, and their adversary “Armilus”?

Find out in this class, where we also discuss whether a Jew is required to believe in the notion of a messiah, how long the Israelites really spent in ancient Egypt, and explore mysterious figures like Zerubbabel and Nehemiah ben Hushiel.

More End of Days secrets from Nistarot d’Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai here.
For a list of fulfilled prophecies, see here.
For a brief bio of the intriguing life of Abba Hillel Silver, see here.

Archaeology Discovers Moses

One of the most common questions that people ask about the Exodus is: where is the evidence? The truth is that there is a great deal of evidence supporting the subjugation and liberation of the Israelites from ancient Egypt. Much of the evidence has been deliberately suppressed (as explained here), and other pieces of evidence are just not discussed or not well-known. Perhaps the greatest of the latter variety is the Mose Stele. This incredible archaeological find is possibly the best proof that we have of the existence of Moses, and the details of his unique life.

The Mose Stele, currently housed in the Roemer und Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim, Germany.

The Mose Stele was found in the village of Qantir, just two kilometres away from the ancient Egyptian city of Pi-Ramesses. The Torah states explicitly that the Israelites built the city of Pi-Ramesses (Exodus 1:11). We know that Pi-Ramesses was built atop the more ancient city of Avaris, which was actually a Hyksos city. Recall that the Hyksos were Semitic foreigners who migrated to Egypt and, at one point, even took over much of the kingdom. Excavations at Avaris (in the northeast of Egypt, a region the Torah calls “Goshen”) show architecture in Canaanite and Syriac style. Amazingly, archaeologists have even found numerous seals bearing the name “Yaqub”.

For these reasons, among others, scholars both ancient and modern believe that the Hyksos and the Israelites are one and the same. Already two millennia ago, Josephus identified the Hyksos (which he translated as “shepherd kings”) as the Israelites. If not completely one and the same, it is also highly possible that the Israelites were part of a larger wave of Semitic migration, and were initially a small group among the Hyksos. Whatever the case, the Hyksos as a whole were officially defeated by Pharaoh Ahmose I, who established the 18th dynasty around 1550 BCE.

The following dynasty, starting in 1292 BCE, was founded by Ramesses I. His grandson was Ramesses II, the Great (r. 1279-1213 BCE), who ruled for a whopping 66 years. It was Ramesses II who built Pi-Ramesses and made it his new capital, and it is Ramesses II who is typically identified as the pharaoh of the Exodus. This is disputed for several reasons, including that the timing of Ramesses’ reign is both too long after the Hyksos defeat and a bit too late to fit with traditional Jewish chronology (which holds that the Exodus was in 2448 AM, or 1312 BCE). However, Ramesses’ reign is quite close to the Jewish dating and the chronology of ancient Egypt is not exactly known and may very well have discrepancies.

One of the artifacts that we have from the time of Ramesses II is the Mose Stele. It describes a great general in Ramesses’ army. The general’s name is Mose (hence the name of the stele). In ancient Egyptian, this word simply meant a “son” or “begotten by”. Ramesses, for instance, means “son of Ra” or “begotten by Ra”, Ra being the sun god and one of the chief deities of the Egyptian pantheon. We find many Egyptians with mose or mses as a suffix in their name, including Ahmose, Thutmose, and countless others. “Mose” would just mean “son”, which is strange at first glance, since it carries no qualifying prefix. However, it makes perfect sense when we go to the Torah and remember that the daughter of Pharaoh adopted baby Moses and named him. While the Torah says she named him Moshe because she took him out (meshitihu) of the water (Exodus 2:10), it is highly unlikely that an Egyptian princess would give the baby a Hebrew name. She would have named him Mose, in Egyptian, meaning the long-awaited “son” she always wanted. Moshe is indeed his true Hebrew name, as God intended, which is why the Torah records the proper Hebrew etymology. Of course, in Hebrew both Moshe and Mose would be spelled exactly the same anyway (משה), since the shin and sin are one letter with interchangeable sound. Thus, he could simultaneously be “Moshe” to his Hebrew brethren, and “Mose” for his fellow Egyptian royalty among whom he grew up!

The Mose Stele says that Mose was a victorious soldier, and Ramesses is shown lavishing gifts upon him. Ramesses declares: “How good is what he has done! Great, great!” Was the Biblical Moses a soldier? The Torah doesn’t quite say so explicitly, but the Talmud and Midrash do describe Moses as a warrior in several places. The most famous is where Moses is described participating in the battle against Og, and smiting the giant himself (Berakhot 54b). Lesser known is the Midrash that says Moses was once a great general in the land of Cush (see, for instance, Yalkut Shimoni I, 168). This is how he ended up marrying a Cushite woman, as the Torah later mentions in Numbers 12:1 (for more on this see ‘Did Moses Have a Black Wife?’) While the Midrash generally assumes that this happened after Moses fled Egypt and before he came to Midian, Josephus provides an alternate account that says Moses fought in Cush while still an Egyptian prince (Antiquities, II, 10:239). Before he fled, Moses was a highly decorated general in the Egyptian army, and helped the Egyptians subdue their Cushite neighbours.

The Mose Stele fits perfectly with Josephus’ ancient account. Moses returns from battle with Cush as a victorious general, and is praised by Ramesses. The stele adds that Mose is “beloved of Atum and greatly favoured by him”. Atum was none other than the Egyptian creator god, the first of their gods, and the originator of all the others. It is fascinating to note that while Ramesses’ patron god was Ra, the stele describes Mose as being favoured by Atum, not Ra. We can learn from this that Moses was already something of a monotheist among the Egyptian royalty: he made sure that they knew he worshiped only the one true creator God. For the Egyptians, the closest thing to that was Atum! This is how Moses could have masked his Hebrew beliefs while growing up with idolaters in the palace.

There is one last connection to Moshe in the Mose Stele. Ramesses is quoted as saying that he is “pleased with the speech of [Mose’s] mouth”. The Torah tells us that Moses was “heavy” of speech, and Moses himself humbly sought to shy away from oration. The fact that the stele mentions the speech of Mose is unlikely to be a coincidence. Perhaps Ramesses put it there specifically to address the critiques of others who disparaged Moses for his speech difficulties. Moses silenced his critics, and Ramesses declared that he is pleased with the speech of Moses, despite what others might say.

All in all, the Mose Stele is an amazing piece of evidence that strongly supports the existence of the Biblical Moses. It was likely commissioned by Ramesses II while Moses was still a young Egyptian prince and general, before he fled, and long before he returned decades later to liberate his people. We can imagine that after the events of the Exodus, the angry Egyptians would have destroyed any mention of Moses, and would have tried to expunge any relic of his name or life. Thankfully, at least one piece of evidence has nonetheless survived, buried and hidden away for millennia. What other incredible treasures are still lying deep under the sand, waiting to be uncovered?

For more on dating the Exodus and finding scientific evidence, see Did the Jews Build the Pyramids?