Reading Room

HINT:Use the Glossary of Yiddish and Hebrew (122KB) if you don't understand a word.

Breaking the Code, by Living It!
by Rabbi Yosef Hodakov

Michael Drosnin's book, The Bible Code, has created quite a stir. Religious leaders, scholars, mathematicians, critics and laymen have all questioned, debated, doubted, defended and probed the validity of the code, our ability to read or inability to interpret it.

I am not a mathematician, so I cannot honestly deal with the mathematical efficiency of the code. As a religious man, however, I am not at all surprised that the code is there. It is common knowledge that the Torah, commonly referred to as the Bible, indeed includes all events that ever did or will transpire.

The Mishnah (first written compilation of the oral Jewish law), completed in the year 189 c.e. states regarding the Torah: "Delve in it and continue to delve in it, for everything is in it!" (Avot, 5:21).

The Zohar, Judaism's primary book of Kabbalah, or Mysticism, had predicted that the "gates of wisdom" would be opened in the "sixth hundred year of the sixth thousand," - 5500, or 1740. This coincides with the increased development of the new sciences and technologies of the Industrial Revolution, which ushered in a new era in the history of mankind (Jewish Timeline Encyclopedia, page 221).

But all this is beside the point. The following story will illustrate:

Isaac the wood chopper, who lived in Krakow, had a strange recurring dream: Buried under the bridge near the king's palace in Prague, he'd find a great treasure. What did he have to lose? In hope of putting a rich end to his poor life, he traveled to Prague.

When he arrived, however, he found the bridge to be heavily guarded. Early in the morning he'd arrive at the bridge, pacing back and forth, wondering how to begin digging, only to return disappointed to his hotel late each night.

After a few days, he was approached by the security chief, who demanded that he explain his strange activity there. Heartbroken, he related the dreams he'd been having.

The guard could hardly control, nor did he try to conceal, his laughter: Because of a dream?! Why, I've been having a recurring dream, that buried under the fireplace in the home of Isaac the wood chopper of Krakow, I'd find a great treasure buried. Would I travel there?!

Isaac paled at the sound of his name. He hurried home, and indeed found a treasure buried under his very own fireplace. He understood that he had traveled the great distance, only to learn that the treasure was right there, in his own home.

The Hebrew word Torah has the same root as the word Hora'ah, meaning direction, or instruction.

A code in the Bible might lead some of us to appreciate a divinity within the Bible. It might give us some vague insights of possible futures. But focusing on the code within the Bible, is like traveling to Prague and staying there, when the treasure is buried in our own backyard.

In fact, Judaism teaches us that the Torah is the blueprint of the world. The Zohar states: "The Holy One, blessed be He, looked into the Torah and created the world; human beings look into the Torah, and sustain the world" (Volume 2, page 161b). The world was created with Torah as its blueprint; we sustain the world by looking at the blueprint, and following the instructions given therein.

Rather than looking for codes - codes which we might never completely decipher, much less understand correctly - we should put our energies into reading the Torah itself, and see what it is telling us!

If we do so, we will indeed find that the entire Bible is a code. A code by which we would do very well to live.