Ayin Gimmel 5773

L'Shanah Tova Tikatevu

The season of recompense in the sense of benefitting, indicating that the nature of the giving can lead to either blessing or judgment for the one who gives. In other words, how one chooses to "run" the race in will determine the outcome of one's life. Practice of kindness toward others, pressing yourself to forgive yourself and others so not to stop or hold you to move on.

The Complete Victory Against Ancient Giant

The name "Og" [ayin-gimel] is etymologically related to the root ayin-vav-gimel or ayin-gimel-gimel, which means, "to form a circle." Thus, it refers to the mucous membrane which encircles the glans of the penis underneath the foreskin, and which must also be peeled back as part of the rite of circumcision. The removal of the foreskin is called milah ("cutting") and the removal of the mucous membrane is called periah ("peeling" back).

Og personified the type of evil identified with the mucous membrane which covers the organ of circumcision. As it is written, "he drew a circle". This is a particularly difficult form of evil to deal with inasmuch as it is very close to holiness.

This membrane is obviously much more subtle and delicate than the coarse foreskin. It therefore embodies a much more abstract, delicate form of evil that is therefore much more difficult to root out than the usual, coarse evil.

In Deut. 3:11 and later in the book of Numbers and Joshua, Og is pronounced as the last of the Rephaim. Rephaim is a Hebrew word for giants. Deut. 3:11 declares that his "bedstead" /ranjang (translated in some texts as "sarcophagus") of iron is "nine cubits in length and four cubits in width" (13.5 ft x 6 ft) according to the standard cubit of a man. It goes on to say that at the royal city of Rabbah of the Ammonites, his giant bedstead could still be seen as a novelty in those days. If the giant king's bedstead was built in proportion to his size as most beds are, he may have been 13 feet in height. However, Rabbinic tradition has it, that the length of his bedstead was measured with the cubits of Og himself. The Talmud further documents that Og was so large that he sought the destruction of the Israelites by uprooting a mountain so large, that it would have crushed the entire Israelite encampment. Moses, fulfilling the LORD's injunction not to fear him, seized a spear of ten cubits length, and jumped a similar vertical distance, succeeding in stabbing Og in the ankle. The LORD then caused Og's teeth to lengthen until they grew into the mountain he held aloft; millions of ants then swarmed into his mouth, killing him. - Joel Harahap