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Meru Foundation eTORUS(tm) Newsletter
Number 13 – 25 November 2002
Copyright 2002 Meru Foundation
Written by Cynthia Tenen


NEWS
The Meru Foundation Colloquium, announced last month to eTORUS subscribers, is a great success.  Our intent is "to explore how geometric metaphor sheds new light on the deep meaning of the Hebrew letter-text of Genesis and difficult issues in Talmud, Kabbalah, Prophets and Psalms. This critical approach points to a true science of consciousness preserved in Torah tradition."

The Colloquium meets each Monday evening, and reviews traditional texts from the perspective of geometric metaphor. An "intensive" group also meets on Wednesday mornings to focus on specific texts.  Currently, we are examining discussions of some of the works of the Maharal of Prague (Rabbi Yehuda Loew, 16th Century CE), which are generally considered very difficult to understand. When read as geometric metaphor (rather than as literary metaphor alone) these works read plain and clear.  It is the loss of this geometric perspective, and its replacement by a purely literary perspective, that makes them seem difficult to understand.

One test of any theory is its ability to lend greater clarity, simplicity, and elegance to a subject than was previously possible. Thus, the greatly increased clarity (and consequent loss of ambiguity) that comes from the geometric perspective confirms the appropriateness of this approach.

If you live in the greater Boston-Providence-Worcester area and would like to join our Colloquium, please call 781-784-8902.


NEW YORK AREA COLLOQUIUM SESSIONS
We intend to extend our colloquium sessions to the New York tri-state Metropolitan area.  We need a central location with easy access by car, and a firm commitment by class members (both for their attendance, and for tuition), since it is a four-hour drive each way from Sharon, Massachusetts, to New York.  If you want to attend an ongoing Meru Colloquium in the New York tri-state area, and especially if you can help arrange a location and co-ordinate with others who want to participate, please contact us via email to meru@meru.org, or by phone at 781-784-8902.


HOLIDAY GIFTS
If you'd like to give something new this year, or know someone who already has everything, our new music CD, FIRST SOUND(tm): The Music of Genesis, may be just what you're looking for.

FIRST SOUND(tm): The Music of Genesis offers two strikingly different musical compositions, one symphonic, performed by a full symphony orchestra, and one meditative, performed by computer.  Each is a faithful rendition of the letter-text of Genesis, and each -- in its own way -- expresses the internal rhythm and structure of the text. Early reviews have been consistently positive.  We have heard from a number of teachers and meditators, who tell us that the music is helpful and an aid to their focus, and we have also heard from commuters who tell us that the Music of Genesis helps keep them calm while stuck in traffic. <smile>  FIRST SOUND(tm): The Music of Genesis "grows on you."

FIRST SOUND(tm): The Music of Genesis is available at our introductory price of $18.00 plus shipping.

You can hear a one-minute sample of the 10-minute symphonic work, The Creation Overture by Daniel Gil, at www.meru.org/Newsletter/SpecialNoticeFirstSound.html .

For a more substantial holiday gift, consider the Meru Foundation Special Edition Research Sampler.  This hand-assembled loose-leaf album of Meru Foundation's work includes both full-color graphics printed on photo-quality paper (in transparent sleeves), and original essays, some of which are not available anywhere else.

This Special Edition compendium of Meru Foundation's work, in a handsome, coffee-table edition, is available for $150 on www.meetingtent.com .

Meru Foundation supporters who contribute $1000 or more to Meru Foundation will receive the Special Edition as an acknowledgement of their generosity.

Meru Foundation's products can be ordered over the Internet, via our secure-server website at www.meetingtent.com.

If you prefer, you may also fax your order to 253-663-9273, or call 1-888-422-MERU (USA only).

Our music CD, FIRST SOUND(tm): The Music of Genesis our Special Edition Research Sampler, or any of Meru Foundation's videotapes, or 4- or 7-videotape packs, make unique and meaningful holiday gifts.  Your purchase of these gifts supports Meru Foundation, and enables us to continue our work.

Thanks for thinking of us.


THREE NEW POSTERS ON www.meru.org

Here are links to three new Meru Foundation presentation posters, with a discussion of each.

On the M'NunZp'ok Order of the 5-Final Letters of the Hebrew Alphabet
          http://www.meru.org/Lettermaps/mnzpk.html

The At-Bash Hebrew Letter Gesture Chart, which you can find at http://www.meru.org/Gestures/Atbashgest.html, shows the 22-letters of the short Hebrew alphabet, in 11 pairs, which are consistent with the AT-BaSh, Front-Back letter symmetry suggested by traditional teachings.

For many years, we have been asked about the five final letters.  These final letters -- final Kaf, final Mem, final Nun, final Pe, and final Zadi (listed here in alphabetical order) are generally not listed in alphabetical order in traditional texts.  The order given is M-N-Z-P-K, instead of K-M-N-P-Z.

There are also traditional teachings that the five final letters -- that is, the five final forms of five of the regular letters (which are used at the end of words) -- hold the "secret of redemption".

Our interpretation is shown on the M-N-Z-P-K poster, at http://www.meru.org/Lettermaps/mnzpk.html.  The five final letters are shadows of the final part of the generation of the "fruit tree yielding fruit whose seed is in itself," the self-embedded fruit and self-embedded fruit tree, mentioned in Genesis 1:11.

We will also add the hand-gestures that show these five final letter views to the alphabet-gesture chart.  With this identification of the five final letters, we now have a full set of gestures, with which to "dance" the Hebrew letter-text of Genesis.

The same final part of the "fruit tree yielding fruit whose seed is in itself" that generates the letter-shapes, also generates them sequentially in M-N-Z-P-K order.  We are suggesting that the reason for the M-N-Z-P-K order in traditional texts is that the sages writing these texts were likely familiar with the same or similar geometry.

(Text and graphics copyright 2002 Stan Tenen / Meru Foundation, all rights reserved)


Tetrahelix Sculpture - The Source of English Measurement Proportions
          http://www.meru.org/Posters/TetrahelixSculpture.html

History provides no simple, unambiguous explanation for the odd proportions of British linear measurement units.  There has been much speculation.  Do we have 12 inches per foot because there are 12 hours in the day?  Or because there were 12 tribes?  Or because there were 12 knights around Arthur's legendary Round Table?  But why 3 feet per yard?  Is this a reference to the Christian Trinity?  Or is it a reference to something more abstract, namely, that the next whole after a point -- a circle -- requires 3 points for its definition?

There seems to be a pretty general consensus that the length of the yard was determined by the length of the current "King's arm".  This seems plausible, but it doesn't explain the 12 inches per foot, 3 feet per yard, divisions of the yard.

There are traditions in the British Isles that suggest that parts of the Temple in Jerusalem -- or at least, knowledge of the construction of the Temple in Jerusalem -- may have made their way to Britain during the Roman period (or possibly earlier).  The Tetrahelix Sculpture suggests that this may have been so, because it provides an explanation for the proportions of the British yard that combine the two traditional stories.  If the length of the yard were related to the length of the temporal "King's arm", wouldn't it, by analogy, be reasonable to speculate that the proportions of the division of the yard are related to the proportions of the "Upstairs King's arm"?

The "arm" of the Adam Kadmon figure generated by the text of Genesis can be taken to be the central tetrahelical column of the 3,10 torus knot that is drawn by pairing the letters of the first verse of Genesis.  This "Upstairs King's arm" has exactly 3 full turns, and each of these turns consists of 12 sub-turns of ribbon on its faces -- as illustrated.

If the unit-turn tetrahelical column were the standard measure in the ancient world, then it would follow that a unit of 3 of them would be the next unit up, and a unit of 1/12 would be the next unit down.  The unit-turn tetrahelical column consists of 33 tetrahedra, which matches the number of vertebrae in the human spine.

For evidence that this might have been the case, we need only examine the way the number 33 would be written in Hebrew.  Because Hebrew letters also have numerical value, 33 would be most simply written as Lamed=30, plus Gimel=3.  The Hebrew root Lamed-Gimel represents an ancient measure, referenced in any dictionary.  And, the word Gimel-Lamed (Gal) usually refers to something that recycles, or is circular, or comes back on itself.  When the tetrahelical column is connected end to end, it forms the 3,10 torus knot.

In other words, there is a Hebrew measure, "LoG", that may refer to the linear unit-tetrahelical column of 33 turns.  And there is another Hebrew word, "GaL", that may refer to the 3,10 torus knot, and to the spine of Adam Kadmon.  (For a drawing of Adam Kadmon and the 3,10 torus knot, go to http://www.meru.org/Posters/AdamKadmon.html#AK-TOL.)

As noted, a tetrahelical column sitting on its lowest triangular face makes an angle of approximately 50.77 degrees with the horizontal.  This might possibly be of mechanical interest to a person building a pyramid with a slant angle of just over 51 degrees. But of course this is speculation.

(Text and graphics copyright 2002 Stan Tenen / Meru Foundation, all rights reserved)


The Tree of Abraham:  An Organic Model of Western Civilization

          http://www.meru.org/Posters/TreeofAbraham.html

The Tree of Abraham, an Organic Model of Western Civilization, is an attempt to further illustrate the intrinsic cyclic relationship among the three Abrahamic covenants. (An earlier poster introducing this model can be found at http://www.meru.org/Posters/JCI.html.) They overlap in time, and they are sequential in time.  They overlap in space, and they are sequential in space.

There is an historical flow from the perennial tradition to Abraham, and then to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.  So, we can make a model that shows the perennial pre-history, surrounded by Judaism, surrounded by Christianity, surrounded by Islam, and now again, surrounded in the world by the perennial history we are making today.  When we look back in time through Islam, we see Christianity, and when we look back in time through Christianity, we see Judaism, and before that, perennial and unbounded history.  This is the flow of civilization and time, moving from a metaphoric Jewish seed, through a metaphoric Christian tree, to a metaphoric Islamic fruit.

We also have all three traditions as three phases of life, together at the same time in our time.  The conceptual phase is identified with Judaism, the gestational phase with Christianity, and the letting-go (birthing) phase with Islam.  Of course, each of these phases of faith must include the other two, because this is all happening all at once, right now, just as it is also happening eternally, cyclically, and throughout history.

Life grows both ways.  Life grows sequentially in time, and it grows spread out in different organs within an organism at any given time.

Earlier, related comments on the Abrahamic tree, are also part of our draft proposal for the New York Trade Towers disaster site, at http://www.meru.org/ArchProp/ArchProp.html.

(Text and graphics copyright 2002 Stan Tenen / Meru Foundation, all rights reserved)


I hope you enjoy this Meru Foundation eTORUS(tm) Newsletter.  We welcome your feedback; if you have questions, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to write me at:
Cynthia Tenen <meru@meru.org>

Thank you for your interest in the work of the Meru Foundation.


The Meru Foundation eTORUS(tm) Newsletter is copyright 2002 Meru Foundation.
Past issues of eTORUS(tm) are archived online on the Meru Foundation website at
<http://www.meru.org/Newsletter/journalindex.html>.

You may duplicate and pass along this newsletter, in its entirety, as long as you include this copyright notice and the contact information below. Please send comments and questions to <meru@meru.org>.

Meru Foundation research offices:
  Research Director: Stan Tenen    Secretary-Treasurer: Cynthia Tenen
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  Sharon, MA 02067 USA
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How to order Meru Foundation Videos and Products:
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  Fax your order to 1-253-663-9273   OR
  Email: <service@meru.org>

To order by phone:
  In the U.S., call toll-free: 1-888-422-MERU (Cynthia Tenen, Meru Order Desk in Massachusetts)
  Outside the U.S., call 1-781-784-3462

EUROPEAN AND PAL VIDEO ORDERS:
  To order PAL versions of Meru Videotapes:
  Email Ron Engert in Germany at <info@syntropia.de>
  German readers may now also visit Ron Engert's Meru website:
         <www.meru-info.de>
 


Contents of this page are ©2002 Cynthia Tenen, and licensed to Meru Foundation, 524 San Anselmo Ave. #214, San Anselmo, CA 94960.
Email inquiries to the Research Staff at: meru@meru.org
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For Customer Service, call 1-888-422-MERU     or     email to service@meru.org
Home The Meru Project:
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