The Special Meaning of the Number 9

The Inside Story of Chabad in America — Through the Mindel Archives

Welcome to our weekly program, The Inside Story of Chabad in America, through the Mindel Archives. I hope we all had a good Yom Tov. We didn't have our program for a couple of weeks because I was out of town and was very busy, so now that I'm back, from now on we'll have our weekly Thursday night program.

This week is Parshas Bereishis. Bereishis is not only the beginning of Chumash Bereishis, but it's also the beginning of the entire Torah. Parshas Bereishis is an introduction to the entire Torah — it's very essential, it's a Yesod, a foundation.

It says that many Rabbis were asked about the moon — people asked them about the moon: if they have heretics in the morning who have doubts in Hashem, so they gave them the answer: to strengthen your Emunah, learn the brachos, and with that, a fortification that will give you the strengthening of Emunah. [unclear] All you can learn, all the Torah, I guess would be included through this Parsha also. This Parsha is also very unique.

The entire Torah from beginning to end is to teach Jewish children, and we see this in the first word of Bereishis and the last word [of the Torah] — this is a Rashi abbreviation, [the first and last letters] of the Torah. [Music] That means — you know — this teaches how we should teach Jewish children, that the whole Torah, in other words, is to instill Torah in children, to know that the Torah is Hashem's Torah from the beginning to the end. This teaches us how, and how we should teach children.

When children start learning Bereishis, the first thing they ask is: why does Bereishis begin with a large Beis? Also, why don't we start the Torah with an Aleph? When we learn the Aleph-Beis, Aleph always comes first, Beis comes second — so why does the Torah begin with the Beis? Of course, there are commentators who speak about it, and they say the Aleph had a complaint that the Torah should have begun with it, but [Hashem] told it that the Ten Commandments will begin with an Aleph, like "Anochi" [I am Hashem]. But there is another reason why the Torah begins with Beis, and this is an answer especially for children: they have to know that Beis is number two — [teaching] that Derech Eretz comes before Torah. In order for the Torah that they are going to learn — which the children [learn] first — how can the Torah be accepted when there is no Derech Eretz, no respect, before Torah? Also, when a child begins [learning], the teacher gives him Kabbolas Ol — they will have that before learning; then Beis, then the Torah, will be a proper learning, a proper learning of Torah.

And, as we all know, the Frierdiker Rebbe was also very much [involved] in teaching Derech Eretz before Torah, and the Frierdiker Rebbe said that's how we should learn with children, because that will give children Yiras Shamayim, and that will give them Emunah for the entire life.

Another reason for Beis, speaking about Emunah — we once spoke about the number nine. Nine is a special number, because [the word] Emes: Aleph is one, Mem is 40, Tav is 400 — 441 — and four and four and one is nine. So nine is Emes. What is the opposite of nine? Sheker — when you take a nine and put it upside down, it becomes a six. Six is Sheker: Shin is 300, Kuf is 100, Reish is 200 [reducing to six]. So every number that we multiply by nine, the answer is nine: nine times two is eighteen, eight and one is nine; nine times three is twenty-seven, seven and two is nine — until infinity — because nine is Emes, and Emes always has to go back to Emes. When we count, it's usually counting three, six, nine, twelve... [unclear].

The Torah begins with a Beis to show that the Torah is Emes. If the Torah wouldn't begin with [unclear], then let's count all of this: Aleph is [unclear], Beis is [unclear] — six, six is [unclear] — what comes after Gimmel, Daled, Hey? Vav is fifteen, five and one is six again — until the end of the Aleph-Beis. That's why the Torah begins with a Beis. That Beis comes from Beis, Gimmel, Daled — [unclear] — then comes [unclear] again, until the end of all of this. That's why that shows that the Torah is Emes, and this is the idea here: to put into children that this is the beginning of [Torah] that we should teach children.

Now let's go back to Parshas Bereishis — this is a talk that Rabbi Mindel wrote down, and it has many hagahos, many notations, from the Rebbe. That's why I'm going to go through this with you, because Rabbi Mindel put a lot of work — a lot of pages here — but I'm going to make it short.

The root of the word Torah, he writes here: at the beginning, Torah is a teacher — Torah teaches us how we should live in our everyday life, that's why it's called Torah. And as Rabbi Mindel writes here, we should know about Hashem our Creator, and follow the ways of Hashem the Creator. So the Torah begins with creation, Bereishis, so that we should know Hashem through creation. How does the Torah teach us? There are three ways. Number one: the whole Torah, the whole [set of] stories, examples, Maasim — we can learn out how we should conduct ourselves through stories. Number two: Mitzvos — they tell you, keep Shabbos, whatever it says in the Torah, you do it — how we should live, Mitzvos. And the third thing, he says, is intensive study — when you study Torah intensively, that will give you a way of life, how we should look, how we should conduct ourselves.

The Torah begins Bereishis with the story of creation, and the first human being that was born — Adam — [was created]. Rabbi Mindel doesn't write [much] — he writes it himself, [just] a short [account] — meaning that the main happenings of the first generation, the highlights of Bereishis, is creation and the birth of Adam — that's it, nothing else. The next generation also is not [elaborated] — [just] the Flood and the Tower [of Bavel]. Now we should know that the first [generations] happened within a period of 2,000 years — meaning Bereishis and Noach happened within a period of 2,000 years. Why? Because Torah is a teacher, and there's nothing that we can learn besides these few things. I'm sure more things happened within that period of 2,000 years, but there's nothing we can learn out — the only thing we can learn is the creation of the world, that's all. Now, the rest of the Torah happened within a period of [far fewer] years — the first [period] 2,000, the remaining [years from Avraham onward happened] within a period of about 500 years.

The reason for this distinction is because Avraham Avinu was born in the year 1948 — one thousand nine hundred forty-eight years after Bereishis, after creation — and 52 years later was the year 2000. This became a new phase, because this was the time that Avraham Avinu began to spread the knowledge of Hashem. And [unclear] — so this is why, from the year 2000 [onward], the Torah is — the beginning of Avram, [Parshas Lech Lecha], speaks more in detail. So all the stories that we learn, the Torah goes into [detail], because there's more that we can learn out — even until [Mattan Torah].

In other words, all the things [created] — first of all, the creation — trees Hashem created this week [of creation]: trees, birds, fishes, land animals, and man — the purpose, the sake of everything, is because of Adam. And this is what we can learn now from [Lech Lecha], which already speaks more about [various events] — about [Avraham's] war, [unclear] — he didn't want [reward], didn't want [anything from] the [other] people — and [then] the giving of the Torah, and [Mattan Torah] in the desert, and [all] that — everything that happened, happened within a period of 500 years, because this is the only thing that we can learn now, so that's why this goes into details — it always [shows] the way, the way that is paid attention to for us to learn out — this is the example, these are the Maasim, the stories of Torah. Number two is, of course, Mitzvos — we said before, what you have to do, what you don't have to do — Shabbos; why do we keep Shabbos? Because they kept Shabbos, and also the child will learn that, and whatever it says. And the third part is the deep understanding of Torah, that will bring us, by learning Torah more in depth, that will bring us [a way], how we should live in our everyday life, how we should look at the whole world.

I just want to mention, before I finish here, that Rabbi Mindel writes — but the Rebbe makes sure to correct — that people write "Adam" and, this week's Parsha covers [this], in English they call Adam "Adam," and Chava they call "Eve." And [the Rebbe] didn't like that. This also goes [for] — I hear many speakers also say "Adam and Eve," and you shouldn't say "Eve." In Old English, [the word] comes from the word "evil" — a woman is [called] "evil," which is the opposite of Torah. [In Hebrew] a woman is called "Eim Kol Chai" — she brings life into this world; she is praised, women are very important. But among [non-Jews] over the years, according to [common usage], it remained like this, that a woman is called "Eve." Just like, for example, also in Old English — I think I mentioned this once — [a word] means "to accompany," but in English they call it "funeral," because "funeral" comes from "fumes," used to burn the body. There are many, many words that have to be careful with — the Rebbe was very careful that every [word] in English has to be exact, so when people use [words that are] not correct, that's what I wanted to bring out in this [discussion].

So there's much more to speak about this Parsha, but of course we'll leave it for another time. Make sure [to join us] next week — we will continue our weekly program. Thank you very much.