A Time Of Terrible Distress

When Hillary Rodham Clinton lost the Democratic Nomination for President to Barack Hussein Obama, many thought that she would disappear from the world stage for years. But her name in Hebrew hinted that something different would happen. Our attention was gained by her unique name expressed in Hebrew letters. Never before did we see the following occur in anyone's name. Hillary הילרי, Rodham רודהם, and Clinton קלינטון each have a gematria of 255. Imagine that a person's first name, middle name and last name all have the same exact value! When the value of the entire name is calculated, the total gematria is 765 (255x3), the same value as עת צרה (Time of terrible distress). This finding indicated that Hillary would not disappear into the sunset so quickly. She would be (as she has become) an influential voice reprimanding the State of Israel.
The term עת צרה comes from the Book of Daniel 12(1) which describes the time when Michael, the guardian angel of Israel, will stand in defense of his people at this time of catastrophe. The atbash gematria of עת צרה is 106, the same value as the letter נ nun, spelled out נון.
No verse in the Ashrei prayer (Psalm 145) begins with the letter נ nun. There are 21 verses in this psalm and each verse (in order) begins with the remaining 21 letters of the Hebrew aleph bet. This is because in the verse that speaks of G-d supporting the fallen, the letter נ can be taken as an allusion to the word נפילה, Israel's future downfall, G-d forbid. King David refused to use a letter to begin a verse that could suggest such tragedy. But knowing that downfalls must take place as they have throughout our history, King David comforted Israel with the verse that begins with the letter ס samech (the letter that follows the nun in the Hebrew alphabet). The full verse beginning with the samech states "Hashem supports all the fallen ones and straightens all those who are bent." With this verse, King David made a guarantee to the Jewish People that even when a dreaded downfall occurs, the people can count on Hashem's support.
Today, the leader of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahou בּנימין נתניהו, has not one, but 4 nuns in his name, representing the 4 exiles of the Jewish People. We have gone from one exile to another, falling down and then being lifted up by Hashem. We kept falling into galus because we would not learn from our mistakes and make adjustments in our lives. The purpose of falling is to arise and lift ourselves to a higher level, not to the same plane. When G-d tests us in our personal lives and we fall down through illness, financial setbacks or person tragedy, we must pull ourselves not only back to where we were before the fall, but to greater heights.
In a previous blog that we posted on 5/25/09 dealing with The Blessing Of The Sun, we mentioned that our calculation of Daniel's famous "Time, Times and a half of Time," resulted in a time being 32, times being 64, and a half being 16. Thus, 112 represents the entire end period. Of course, no one knows whether it's 112 hours, days, weeks or years from a point in time. This will be revealed by Hashem in due course.
The question arises why 3 1/2 and not 4? Shouldn't there be a relationship between the 4 exiles and the final time period releasing us from exile permanently? If the other half (16) would be added on, the total time period would rise to 128 which would equal the word סומך, "to support." Perhaps our redemption is being held up by the imperfect 3 1/2. Perhaps our redemption will be realized when we can turn the imperfect 3 1/2 into 4 (representing all our exiles). How can we do this? When we finally push our arrogance aside and acknowledge that it wasn't because of our merits, or our actions, or the actions of our leaders or our armies that brought us out of our previous exiles, but by the HAND OF G-D that saved us over and over again. Then we can finally change the 3 1/2 time period into 4 complete periods and adjust the total value from 112 to 128. For it has always been Hashem that supports us like a parent encouraging, lifting up and supporting their child learning to walk. It has always been our Father In Heaven, and it's time to acknowledge that. The 16 (1/2 of time) that has been missing equals בּיד (by a hand). We must realize that to survive the terrible Time of Distress that the Jewish People will shortly face, we must grab and hold on to Hashem's Hand.
The letter נ is the 14th letter in the aleph bet. This is the gematria of דוד (David) whose descendant will shortly be sent by G-d to redeem us. May we all dance with joy when that wonderful moment arises.