Ariel Sharon's Legacy

Former Israeli PM Ariel Sharon has passed away on January 10th, 2014.  BD"H.

He suffered a stroke in the evening of January 4th, 2006, as CBSNews reported at the time:

Sharon fell ill at his ranch Wednesday evening and was rushed to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, where he was diagnosed with a cerebral hemorrhage.

As the evening is the beginning of the following day in Jewish law, it is as if his illness began on January 5th, 2006, as both were the 5th of Tevet, 5766.  From January 5, 2006 until January 10th, 2014 is 2927 days.

There are exactly 2 verses in Tanach that have the gematria of 2927 (thanks to GezaGeza).  We'll start with the second one first.

Daniel 8:6:

וַיָּבֹא, עַד-הָאַיִל בַּעַל הַקְּרָנַיִם, אֲשֶׁר רָאִיתִי, עֹמֵד לִפְנֵי הָאֻבָל; וַיָּרָץ אֵלָיו, בַּחֲמַת כֹּחוֹ.

And he came to the ram that had the two horns, which I saw standing before the stream, and ran at him in the fury of his power.

As the commentators point out, this verse is referring to Alexander the Great, who defeated the Persian and Median Empires with the fury of his power.

Ariel Sharon was not called "Bulldozer" for nothing. His military genius was granted by HKB"H for a reason - to defeat the Arabs who threatened Eretz Yisrael and the Jews therein.  Just as HKB"H gave Alexander the Great the ability to bulldoze his way through every country he attempted to conquer, Sharon was granted that same ability to defend the Jewish people by bulldozing through Arab-led front lines.

And both the Tosefot Rid and the Maharal pretty much equate the kingdoms of Persia and Yishmael.  So, just as Alexander the Great defeated Persia, Ariel Sharon defeated Yishmael.

The first verse with the gematria of 2927 is from Parshat Vayigash:

Bereishit 47:13:

וְלֶחֶם אֵין בְּכָל-הָאָרֶץ, כִּי-כָבֵד הָרָעָב מְאֹד; וַתֵּלַהּ אֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם, וְאֶרֶץ כְּנַעַן, מִפְּנֵי, הָרָעָב.

And there was no bread in all the land; for the famine was very sore, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished by reason of the famine.

Perhaps, we can homiletically consider the bread that is absent in the land as "words of Torah", as we find similarly in Eliyahu Rabba.  Due to the Disengagement, there is now no Torah to be found in the entire Gaza Strip as the Jews who would have studied it have been expelled.  There is therefore a "famine of Torah", causing problems for both Israel and neighboring Egypt.

But even on a simple level, this verse depicts a situation that is both bad for Egypt and Eretz Yisrael - namely, the famine.  What other kind of situation is bad for both Egypt and Israel?  A situation that puts a territory run by terrorists directly on the border of both nations.  That is what the Disengagement caused.  Besides all the Jews who had to leave their beautiful homes and properties, besides all the graves that needed to be uprooted, besides all the thriving businesses and agricultural land that the Jews owned that needed to be abandoned, besides all the synagogues and Yeshivot that were deserted and torn asunder by the monsters who are the current inhabitants - a terrorist territory was created by the Disengagement.  This territory was the source of numerous terrorist acts - including rocket attacks - against Israel - and the source of other terrorist acts against Egypt.  How did the brilliant military strategist Ariel Sharon not foresee this when he decided to expel Jews from their homes?  HKB"H hid that knowledge from him for unknown reasons.

These 2 verses, whose gematrias both equal the number of days that he was in a coma, encapsulate the up-and-down legacy of Ariel Sharon.  On the day when synagogues read אריק חרבי, he returned his soul to his Maker.  May his Maker have mercy on his soul.



See also Shirat Devorah and Tomer Devorah.