B"H

DEFINITION OF ZERO/DEFINITION OF INFINITY IN ALPHANUMERICS

The following is an excerpt from the first section of a book that I am writing that discusses the presence of the names of the vowels and the cantillation marks in תורה entitled מאוצר אור החלופים - פרשת מקץ. The first section of the book is almost complete and can be found on:

http://www.geocities.com/dordot2001/ParshatMiketzAdditions.html

Within the words פני הארץ that appear in verse מא:נו in ספר בראשית, פרשת מקץ we see the word אפס if we add the letters נ + י to arrive at the value ס. Although we will not be discussing פרשת ויגש, the next פרשה in ספר בראשית, in the space of this paper; it behooves us to mention that we encounter the word אפס twice in פרשת ויגש, in verses מז:טו and מז:טז. Actually, we encounter the word אפס many, many times in פרשת מקץ. First, let us notice some of the cases in which we find the anagram/imperfect permutation of the word אפס, that being אףס. There is certainly no difficulty finding instances in which the name יוסף is preceded or succeeded by a word that contains the letter א in פרשת מקץ, thus we would find the word אףס in all of those instances, including in the verse presently being discussed, within the contiguous words יוסף את. While the presence of a ף, and not a regular פ, in the word אפס may not seem convincing or intellectually satisfying at first sight, it is, in fact, very important to notice. The letter ף is, of course, equal to 800. One חלוף for the value 800 is the word שרש, which is at once a biological, linguistic as well as a mathematical term, being the analog of the English terms root and radical. The word פעמים and the expressions כל פעם and נ פעם are also equal to 800. In addition to the word שרש, the letter ף should be understood to be the three arithmetical terms פַעֲמַיִם and/or פְעָמִים and/or נ פעמים concomitantly. Therefore the name of the letter אל"ף can be read ל"א פעמים (i.e. 31 x 2 and/or taken 31 times), while the word אףס can be read ס"א פעמים (i.e., 61 x 2 and/or taken 61 times). The letter ף is also equal to the expression כל פעם, as we have indicated. The letter therefore should indicate constancy in the mind of the reader.

We can also find many cites in פרשת מקץ in which the word אפס appears to us as we are accustomed to seeing it, written with a regular פ, within discrete words or within contiguous words. A verse within which the word אפס appears written with a regular פ within two contiguous words is מא:מט. Herein we find the words אין מספר within which the word אפס is easily discerned. The presence of the word אפס in the phrase אין מספר is significant. On the one hand the word אפס can be taken literally to mean no number, no quantity of or zero. On the other hand, we see from the context in which the phrase appears that the expression אין מספר, within which the word אפס appears, is a number so great that it is incalculable. The contention that the Hebrew word אפס also means the innumerable, as well none at all, is substantiated by verse בראשית טו:ה, in which the words אם-תוכל לספר appear. We find the word אפס within the words אם-תוכל לספר as well as in the expression אין מספר that we find in verse בראשית מא:מט. Thus the meanings innumerable as well as nothing are the purely numerical Hebrew conceptions of what אפס is – nothing at all and/or a number so vast that it is not within human capability to grasp the sum, if indeed there be a sum at all. The fact that the expression אין-סוף contains the word אףס, while in the inflections אין-סופי and אין-סופית we see the word אפס written with a regular פ, lends further support to the understanding that the word אפס is both zero and number without end for us. If we transliterate the English word infinite into Hebrew letters, thus: אין-פינית we see the word of negation אין at once. The letters remaining after we subtract the word אין from the transliterated word אין-פינית are פינית, the transliteration of the word finite, quite obviously. We can add one of the יוד"ין to the letter נ in order to arrive at the value of the letter ס. After doing so, switch the order of the letters ס and פ such that the ס comes first. We now see that the word infinite after being transliterated into Hebrew letters and having a very simple גימטריא and חלוף performed on it becomes אין ספית. Does the reader wonder where the “missing” ו is that is needed to complete the expression אין-סופית? We have learned about the expanding and contracting of letters. Any letter יו"ד or ת"ו contains a ו . (This is obviously true of the names of the other letters that contain the letter ו as well. The examples of the letters יו"ד and ת"ו are being mentioned here specifically because the transliterated English word infinite contains both when transliterated into Hebrew letters). The letter ו contained in the names of other letters can be expanded into its name, producing another ו. (In fact, the expansion of the letter ו can go on indefinitely because the name of the letter ו"ו is perfectly symmetrical. Each ו expands into two ו"וין when expanded into its name ad infinitum.) Therefore, there is no problem whatsoever writing אין-ספית, the original result we obtained from performing a transliteration, addition of letters and changing of the order of two letters on the English word infinite, as אין-סופית, the correctly spelled Hebrew compound word that means infinite. One of the cites in which the word אפס appears within one word is another verse that opens with the word ויפתח, namely מב:כז. Within verse מב:כז we see the word מספוא and the compound word את-כספו, both of which clearly contain the word אפס written with a regular פ. With these examples, the author is confident in the readers ability to find many more examples of where the word אפס appears within פרשת מקץ and elsewhere in תנ"ך.

Yet, for all of the considerations of the meaning of the word אפס above, there is one simple fact that we have overlooked. The consonants of the word אפס equal to 141. Since this פרשה is פרשת מקץ and we have seen again and again that the גימטריא of the name of the vowel קמץ plays a most prominent role in this פרשה, any word that contains the value 41 should be considered carefully as the גימטריא of the name of the vowel קמץ and whatever the remainder may be. The word אפס is equal to קָ. The word עָל is equal to the consonants of the word אפס as well. A word such as מִקְרָא contains the word אפס within it too. If we consider the two סגולין that punctuate the word אֶפֶס we see that taken together their value is 99 x 2 = 198, or קבוצ. Therefore the word אֶפֶס, en toto, equals ק + ָ + ֻ. Do you see how we are treating אפס as a mathematical concept, but yet very, very differently than does classical mathematics?

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat