The Birthday Date – Torah Aliyah Connection
The traditional bar or bat mitzvah at age 13 or 12 respectively, is the birthday event that signals the beginning of a new burden of responsibility in a young person’s life. That young person, now transformed into an adult according to Jewish tradition, will celebrate that event by reading the Torah portion or the haftorah portion in Shul, synagogue or temple. But is there a more personal meaning to becoming an adult? Can we find a personal spiritual significance of that Torah reading for an individual?
The Torah portion is read on the Sabbath, one chapter or Parasha per week in a yearly (or less commonly, in a Triennial) cycle, week after week. Also, the Torah reading may vary from that read in Israel and that read outside of Israel. However, the reading is divisible into seven sub-readings or aliyot (plural of ‘aliyah’ or ‘ascent’), corresponding to the seven days of the week. The Torah Horoscope Finder is designed to find the weekly Parashah according to the custom of the Land of Israel. Some Torah readings are full of wonderful stories and teachings that convey blessings and wisdom. And some Torah verses express stern judgment and warnings, whose blessing and wisdom are hidden and are, therefore, less obvious. It is best to not take these fearful verses as, so to speak, the ‘malefic planets’ of the Torah.
The Torah teaches how the world and its inhabitants are designed and created by the One Deity to interact with the world and with each other. To gain this knowledge is to become wise. That the truth of the esoteric Torah (Kabbalah) has a direct and personal meaning to every person is realized through study and practice. One way to study Torah and gain its wisdom is to become familiar with the aliyah that corresponds to a birthday. Every aliyah has a certain number of letters, words, and verses. To contemplate the midpoint letter, word, and verse reveals a spiritual dimension that is available to all.
Click here to view an example of a hidden meaning found in the first aliyah of the first Parasha of the Book of Genesis.
To find the aliyah for a birthday date, visit the Torah Horoscope Finder page and enter the date into the search field below. The search returns the Torah aliyah for that day. It also calculates the midpoint letter(s), word, and verse of the aliyah, which is the secret or hidden spiritual message of the reading.