• The First Aliyah

    The esoteric Torah, the Kabbalah, teaches that the Creator made the world by means of the creative power of the letters of the Hebrew language, the alef-bet. The story goes that each letter came before the Lord of the Universe to plead its case for being the first letter of the Torah. The Alef | א, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet naturally based its claim on it being the first letter of the letters; however, the second letter, the ב | Bet, which is the first letter of the word of ברכה | blessing, was selected to begin the Torah’s first word: B’raesheat | בראשית | In-the-beginning-of. How amazing it is to discover that, after all, the ‘א’ was not overlooked; it turns out to be the midpoint, the very center of the first aliyah and more! In this center, it is the first letter of the word ‘Elohim’, a name of God. To generate the complete aliyah, use the Torah Horoscope Finder and input ‘October 11, 2025’ and check ‘After sunset’.

  • Astrology as a System

    I am interested in astrology as a system that supports and enforces the Torah spiritual (moral) values; I believe that the dictum, Deuteronomy 30:19 – ‘ובחרת בחיים’ | ‘Choose Life’, may be interpreted in light of the Midrash Genesis Rabbah 10:6: ‘Rabbi Simone said every herb without exception has a heavenly mazal [angelic supervisor] that strikes it and says to it: ‘Grow!‘ The herb grows to fulfill its purpose to become an ointment or potion for healing. All the more so, a heavenly mazal strikes a person to ‘Choose Life!’, to grow and live, as an eternal soul, by spiritual values, to mature and to fulfill a unique purpose in the lower world.

    The fateful events that occur to individuals create an opportunity to choose a response guided by spiritual values, values that lead to actions that promote peace and friendship between individuals and thus, ultimately, intranationally and internationally. The transits and cycles of the planets through the zodiac reflect the mandates of the heavenly mazalot, angelic supervisors to enforce the One Deity’s rule over the inhabitants of our mundane world. Being privy to the workings of this astrological system is to understand Torah and its spiritual values through the lens of astrology.