Jewish sages and the shemittah year

Dear friends:

THIS IS QUITE PROFOUND AND IS ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE OF THE SHORT COUNTDOWN IN WHICH WE FIND OURSELVES!

Yesterday I received in the mail from a friend a copy of an article by Bible teacher Billye Brim, titled, "The Shemittah Year." The article contained information that really got my attention. Billye Brim is an outstanding teacher and knowledgeable of Israel, Hebrew and Jewish customs, often with wonderful insights. She frequently is a guest on Gloria Copeland's television program.

The article was about "the shemittah year," which is a sabbatical year according to Leviticus 25:1-4.

I will not try to transcribe and include the whole article, but will excerpt pertinent portions. Billye says:

"When I went to my Jewish source in Israel in May (AFCM Tour 2001), he reminded me again that ‘SEPTEMBER 11, 1999, WAS THE YEAR EVERYTHING CHANGED AND THE BEGINNING OF THE JUDGMENT OF THE NATIONS’ (emphasis supplied… see below about Jewish year 5760).

"He told us that according to the sages and the Oral Tradition, once ‘the year everything changes occurs,’ a war will start on the next shemittah year following that, beginning a war cycle. ‘After this war cycle is completed’ -- his eyes lit up as he spoke -- ‘it is the year of Meshiach ben-David’ (Messiah, Son of David)!

"In September 2000, the next ‘shemittah’ year after September 1999, war began. We were witnesses to this fact as Ariel Sharon went to the Temple Mount to pray and Arafat declared jihad (’Holy War’) the following day. This was the beginning of the ‘war cycle’ just as the sages had predicted.

"On September 11, 2001, terrorism struck our nation. Now the United States is in a war.

"According to the Jewish sages, the war cycle will end at the end of a ‘shemittah’ year -- as little as one year or a set of sevens, up to 49 years (until the Year of Jubilee). (BRAMLETT COMMENT: THE NEXT SHEMITTAH YEAR WILL BE 2OO7.)

"The year following the ‘shemittah’ year after the war cycle ends is the year of King Messiah. (Billye then quotes from Zachariah 12.)

"I’m not saying that I absolutely believe that Jesus will come on the year following a ‘shemittah’ year, or set up His kingdom then, but it could happen. Prophecy is being fulfilled around us on a daily basis. We are very close to the day of His appearing, the Rapture, and His coming to establishing His Kingdom here on earth."

(End of Billye Brim quote.)

 COMMENTS:

Some of the above insights are amazing, such as the significance of September 11, 1999, a year before the beginning of the jihad war in the Middle East and two years before the attack on the Twin Towers. As a reminder, September 11, 1999 was Tishri 1 on the Jewish calendar, or the first day of Jewish year 5760.

Now we learn that September 11, 1999 (which began year 5760) "was the year everything changed and the beginning of the judgment of the nations." There were many things pointing to year 5760 as one of the most important days in history; for example:

1. First, with this year, according to credible scholars we may have an unprecedented confluence of three of the most profound events in all history: (1) the end of the sixth millennial days of creation and beginning if the seventh; (2) the end of the second millennial day since Christ's birth and the beginning of the third; and (3), the Jubilee year (50th anniversary) of Israel officially declaring Jerusalem its capital on January 23, 1950, and shortly after Israel's own Jubilee year, both no doubt of great prophetic significance.

2. Second, the following, which came to me from various sources, seems amazing:

The gematria, or letter/number equivalents of the Hebrew language, for the words SIX DAYS multiplies to 5760 and also the words THIRD DAY multiplies to 5760 (both with extra zeros). The statistical improbability of such an outcome must be astronomical.

3. Creation was in six days. Six days X 24 hours = 144 hours. If these six days were a type of the 6,000-year earth lease, and assuming 1 hour = 1generation, and 1 generation = 40 years, we have 144 X 40 = 5760!

4. Verse number 5760 in the Hebrew Bible is Deuteronomy 32:7:"Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations…" But that’s not all: This verse exactly follows 50 verses from Deuteronomy 30:5 which speaks of Israel's rebirth in 1948, and the year 5760 exactly follows 50 years from Israel's rebirth! This is truly amazing.

5. Israel, the "fig tree" of Matthew 24:32, "put forth its leaves" in the June 1967 miracle six-day war by acquiring the Golan Heights, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem, also a fulfillment of Luke 21:24. Jesus said the generation which saw this would not pass away until "all these things have happened." June, 1967 was Jewish year 5727. If a generation is 40 years, then 5727 + 40 = 5767 (which coincides with A.D. 2007). Year 5767 minus seven years (possibly Daniel's 70th week) = 5760.

6. Counting multiple books as one (e.g., 1 and 2 Samuel), Revelation is book number 57 in the Bible. Book 57 verse 60 happens to be Revelation 3:11: "I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown." Counting numbered books also, Revelation is the 66th book of the Bible, making verse 3:11 verse number 66:60!

7. Finally, here are some more fascinating tidbits: (1) A cube has six sides, eight corners and twelve edges, and 6 X 8 X 12 = 576, showing the importance of the number in God’s design. (2) The gematria of "Messiah the Prince" in Daniel 9:25 = 576. (3) Similarly, "He shall appear in His glory" in Psalm 102:16 = 576. (4) Oddly, there are 5,760 grains in one pound (troy) of gold. Gold is symbolic of royalty and the coming King. (5) On the first day of the Jewish year 5760, monster hurricane Floyd was born, one of the largest in history, menacing the entire East Coast of the U.S. Multiplied, the Hebrew gematria for FLOYD (pe, lamed, vaw, yod, daleth) = 5760 (00), a pointed reminder of Psalm 98:7-9: "Let the sea roar, and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell in it... For He is coming to judge the earth. With righteousness he shall judge the world."

8. In addition to the above, below is an interesting commentary from "Ask the Rabbi" about the year 5760

ASK THE RABBI is written at Ohr Somayach Institutions / Tanenbaum College 22 Shimon Hatzadik Street, POB 18103 Jerusalem 91180, Israel Tel: 972-2-581-0315 Fax: 972-2-581-2890

Dear Rabbi,

I heard recently that some great Rebbe in Jerusalem said that this year, 5760, will be a difficult, (G-d forbid) hard year for the world in general. Are there -- in the gemara or various different sources--opinions to back up this claim? Have you heard of it? Doesn't 5760 stand for "Tehai Shnat Segulot -- It should be a year of treasures?"

Dear Debbi,

One of today's great Torah Sages, Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliyashev, in regard to questions such as yours, said the following: "Those who know don't say; those who say don't know." He meant that those who purport to definitively predict the future are only speculating; anyone truly wise enough to know the future is also wise enough to know how much to reveal, when, and to whom. However, some interesting things have been said about the year 5760:

In Jewish law, the number 5760 represents purity. Thus, one of the kabbalistic writings (Chesed L'Avraham, written around 200 years ago) saw 5760 as the year in which G-d will "remove the spirit of impurity from the land." (Zecharia13:2)

The connection between 5760 and purity is as follows: In Jewish law, ritual purity is achieved by immersing in a pool of naturally gathered waters called a mikveh. Now, for a mikveh to be valid it must have a certain minimum amount of water. The Oral Torah (the unbroken chain of information going back to Mount Sinai) teaches that this minimal amount is 5760 "egg-volumes." Thus, 5760 symbolizes a mikveh and hence the removal of impurity.

(An "egg-volume" is the amount that spills from a totally full cup when you put an egg in it. Ancient mikvehs discovered in Israel, such as those at Qumran and Massada, are built precisely to this standard. One se'ah =144 eggs; hence, a minimum 40 se'ah mikveh = 40 x 144 egg-volumes, or 5760.)

Another source, the Yalkut Reuveni, wrote that 240 years before the year 6000, the world will be engulfed by a flood. But didn't G-d promise Noah never again to flood the entire world with water? What kind of "flood," then, is being referred to?  Earthquakes in Mexico City, Taiwan, Turkey, Peru and California; deadly storms in Central America, Japan and Florida; volcano alerts in Ecuador and the Philippines.

This flurry of tragedies prompted CNN to ask "Is there a Link Between Recent Natural Disasters?" Add to this a nuclear meltdown in Japan, the train tragedy in London and a military coup in nuclear-capable Pakistan; all of these which occurred in the few weeks since the year's beginning on Rosh Hashana. Could these events be the rumblings of a deluge of disaster?  Or will the "millennium bug" bring an ocean of information crashing down around us?

The possibilities are endless. Let's pray for another possibility, that a flood of love and kindness will engulf the globe, and that "the earth will be full of G-dly knowledge, just as the waters cover the ocean." (Isaiah 11:9)