This piece is by Education Fellow Amanda Winer.
As I was flying home from a recent trip to one of the amazing communities I get to visit as an ISJL Education Fellow, a hilarious thought came to my mind: sometimes, the only DOWN time I get is when I’m UP in the air.
That seemed meaningful – and made me think of what other meaning I might find if I put my mind to it. So I grabbed my pencil and started jotting down a list of all of the trips I had been on. And I feverishly tabulated. That’s when I realized that since beginning my fellowship in June 2012, I’d been on 88 individual airplanes.
88 apple juices with no ice in 88 tiny plastic cups. 88 pretzels or peanuts, though I usually choose the latter. 88 take offs and 88 landings. 88 times the flight attendant asked to turn off all electronics because the door was closed.
Since I was suspended 10,000 feet about the air with no cell phone reception to distract me, I kept just thinking. 88 is a pretty significant number in my life. First, there’s the fact that I love music, and there are 88 keys on the standard piano keyboard. Then, as is typical, I turned to my Jewish educator roots.
One of the many tools Judaism gives us to find meaning is
gematria
, a sort of “Jewish numerology,” which explores the significance of numbers and uses that to find meaning in the seemingly mundane. Now, seven is an important number in Judaism and gematria. It is a number that signifies perfection, wholeness. God created the world in an order of seven days. We rest on the seventh day. The omer, or the counting of days between Passover and Shavuot, is seven weeks.
So, what about eight?
Eight is a number that symbolizes what is beyond whole; something amazing and miraculous. Hanukkah, the holiday in which we celebrate miracles, lasts eight days. There’s the tradition of performing b’rit milah when a baby reaches eight days old – to celebrate the miracle of life. Eight is a miracle-number, and I like to think that miracles serve as a device, to remind us not to take life too seriously. Miracles are something to remind us how special and holy our lives are, and sometimes to distract us. Like magic! Therefore 88, two of these “magic” numbers side by side, must be significant.
The reality is, numerology is the same as anything: if you make the time to find the Jewish connection – it’s there! And as I continue traveling, the number of planes and visits will continue to grow and change, but the trips will all be meaningful… as will the numbers surrounding the journeys.
What do you think about gematria/numerology? Are there any numbers that have particular significance to you?
