Posted October 6 2008
Soapbox Hobo 2: Gambling with Sevens
There was a poem someone might have meant to write that could have gone like this: “It’ll be 21 years from when I wrote this song/Maybe 22 -we won’t be ’round long/As time hurries on/That which was green turned to brown.”
21 is an interesting number as it is 3 times 7, both of which are very important numbers in Jewish thought. Without going into the background on the numbers now, some thoughts to ponder. You can call it coincidence but notice the sevens that have made an appearance in the last month. September is so named because it once was the seventh month. The largest single day drop off of the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 777 points in September of this year. Until today. Today, October 6, the Dow fell 782 points. Before the 777, the largest point decline was 7 years ago on September 17, 2001 (when it fell 684). Of course that decline was on the first day the market was open- day 7 after the terror attacks of 09.11.01- when 3 buildings were knocked down and people were abundantly misquoting a Zohar which claimed that Mashiach would come 17 or 70 days later- on Yom Kippur or Channukah depending on who told you the Zohar. (The text says 70, Zohar, Parshat Balak 212- for those who wish to look it up. It’s very interesting in context.)
And while all this is very fun, The Soapbox Hobo would like to draw your attention to the matter of 9.11.01. Adding up the numbers you arrive at our magical number of 21. The first cycle of 7 years has just passed us. The second and third still await us. It is the fourth which should be most feared, as the prophet says in the name of the Almighty “on three sets you shall prevail, but I will not return you from the fourth.”
Let the next and final 21 years be testimony. As the seven of the past have already shown: the green idol of the world is turning to brown. It shrivels in the wind. It has tumbled to the ground.
That’s all there is.
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3 Comments currently posted. 
hmmm says:
Moshe Glasser says:
Wow, Daveed - the Soapbox Hobo should have his own commentary section on Paul Harvey. The line comes from a Paul Simon song, and depending when the recording is from, he says, “I was 21 years when I wrote this song/23 now but I won’t be for long.” The question is not whether we’ll survive this and the next set of seven, but if we’ll even make it through the next season. (We will.)
David Gertler says:
Now you couldn’t have honestly thought I didn’t know the real lyrics. And yes the next few years shouldn’t be too bad, but the psalmist warns in the year 2015 of the man-made gods of silver and gold (and other metals). We are warned that God will appear to have abandoned the earth, and many godless people will die in that year… 7 years from now. 2016 will be pretty bad, 2017 will appear to be a positive turn, but 2020 will thrust us back to despair with 2022 being a year marked by judgment for all the earth.
ok