Pitum HaKetoret – Haravot Barzel and Gaza

Pitum HaKetoret – the gematrias of Haravot Barzel and Gaza

Since the beginning of the war, a group of girls in the “Sila Tehillim” WhatsApp group has been reciting “Pitum HaKetoret”—the prayer that the angel Samael gave Moshe Rabbeinu as an elixir against death. One of the most powerful segulot in dangerous situations involving “Pitum HaKetoret”, as taught by the great Mekubalim, is to pray while facing the four directions: north, east, south, and west, three times each, as though protecting oneself from every side and creating a special Shemirah (protection). This Shemirah is effective even in peacetime, within one's home or apartment. Since the beginning of the war, this is how we have been praying: gathering ten women from each part of Israel—forty women in all from throughout Israel—and forty women in the Diaspora. A powerful prayer. Even the “Tzofar” app, which sounds continuously, falls silent for a while after such a prayer. Moreover, as gematria enthusiasts, we discovered that the gematria of the name of the war, חרבות ברזל “Haravot Barzel”, is equal to 855, which is also the gematria of “Pitum HaKetoret”. We realized that our intuition had not led us astray. And there is more. After reciting these prayers daily, one of the girls in our group suddenly noticed that “Pitum HaKetoret” contains the following pasuk in the paragraph attributed to Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel: כדי לשרות בו את הצפורן , כדי שתהא עזה – “kedei lishrot bo et ha-tziporen, kedei shetehe azah” — (and they would soak the clove so that [its fragrance] would be stronger). עזה is the name of the hostile enclave, but in this context, the word עזה means “stronger.” It is interesting to examine what this strength and the soaking of הצפורן (the clove) are connected with. The gematrias of the word הצפורן (the clove): מרפק – elbow – 420 – צפרן עצם הבריח – collarbone – 425 – הצפרן This leads us to those parts of the body that a Jewish woman is required to cover. The exposure of these body parts makes עזה stronger.