On the eve of last Sunday, September 29th, the Jewish calendar showed that the world entered into year 5780, which according to Torah is the birthday of the first man Adam and his wife Eve. It is not related to the age of our universe, which is according to the information I found on Google is 13.8 billion years, and Planet Earth is about 4 billion years old. For my story, I am going to focus on the much lesser number – 5780. The event is called Rosh Hashanah, which literally translates to ’Head of the Year’. My first thought was, what size does a birthday cake have to be to fit 5,780 birthday candles on it? But I will let you figure this out by yourself. Meanwhile, I wanted to check the meaning of each of the numbers 5, 7, 8 and number 20, which is the sum of other three numbers. There are different systems that define the meaning of the numbers; among them are Numerology, Gematria (a form of Jewish numerology), Angel Numbers and some others. Numerology is any belief in the divine of mystical relationship between numbers and one or more coinciding events. Gematria is a Kabbalistic method of interpreting Hebrew Scriptures by computing the numerical value of words, based on those of their constituent letters. And Angel Numbers are sequences of numbers that carry divine guidance by referring to specific numerological meaning.
The number 5 is the number of harmony and balance. It is also the number of divine grace. Five symbolizes man, health and love. It is the number of marriage. There are five senses – sight – hearing – taste – smell – touch.
The number 7 is a highly spiritual number that is associated with intuition, mysticism, inner wisdom and deep inward knowing. In the Torah, God rested on the seventh day, creating the basis of a seven-day-week that we use to this day.
The number 8 is generally an indication of material abundance and career success. The Angel Number interpretation is that the number is a balance of both the material and spiritual aspects of our experience.
The number 20 means infinite potential when it comes to relationships. Since it is a combination of the number 2, which means being part of a group and harmonious companionship, and the number 0, which stands for potential and choice when it follows number 2, it makes the number 20 more successful at relationships.
Now you can put all of this knowledge together to interpret that the year 5780 will be a great success.
There are a number of traditions associated with Rosh Hashanah, which among different names is called Yom Hadin – “The Day of Judgement”, since ten days later it is followed by Yom Kippur, The Day of Atonement”. Therefore, Jews greet each other on the Jewish New Year with, “May you be inscribed in the book of life, and sealed for a good year”.
As far as food is concerned, it is traditional to eat slices of apple dipped into honey. This goes together with the other common greeting, “Shana Tova u Metuka”, which means, “Wishing you a Good and Sweet Year.” And this is what I am wishing you. Another tradition is to ask for forgiveness from people before Yom Kippur which is going to be on next Wednesday, for the sins known and not known to us. I would like to use this opportunity to ask from you for your forgiveness.
P.S. I used my artistic ability to share these four images with you. Each has a different numbers of apples: 5, 7, 8 and 20. The most challenging part in this project was to put twenty images of apples into one frame.
Enjoy and Share with a Friend!
