The Secret Code of Jewish Years by Rabbi Mordechai Bulua attempts to demonstrate that verses in the Torah allude to major events in Jewish and world history that occurred in the corresponding year of the Hebrew calendar. Rabbi Bulua says each verse corresponds to a Jewish year in a straight linear order, a notion ascribed to by the Kabbalists of Safed, Israel. He learned about it from Rabbi Benjamin Blech, Shlit"a. Using only a calculator, Rabbi Bulua begins with the Jewish year that an event occurred and counts that number of verses from the first verse of the Torah with year 1 starting with the creation of Adam and Eve. He uses the timeline of Jewish history contained in Rabbi Zechariah Fendel’s book The Legacy of Sinai to date the biblical events. In some instances, he turns to Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki) or other traditional commentators on a particular verse to find the allusion.

In his book, Rabbi Bulua provides more than 100 examples of allusions to historical events, from the creation of Adam to the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. While most are biblical events, he also includes such historical landmarks as Columbus discovering America, the Wright brothers’ first successful flight, the beginning of World War I, the Holocaust, and the first manned landing on the moon. The founding of the State of Israel was also apparently foretold, as were such other newsmakers in Israel as Adolf Eichmann’s trial, the Six Day and Yom Kippur wars, the late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem, the assassination of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and even 9/11!

One striking example is the birth of Maimonides in 1138 (4898), which corresponds to Deuteronomy chapter 1, verse 5: “On the other side of the Jordan, in the land of Moav, Moses began explaining this Torah,” referring to the commandments in that Book. Maimonides’s magnum opus was the Book of Commandments, explaining the 613 commandments. Deuteronomy is also called the Mishna Torah, which is the name of another of Maimonides’s great books. Moses was also Maimonides’s first name.

Rabbi Bulua studied at Yeshivat Sha’alvim in Israel and received smichah (rabbinic ordination) from the late Rabbi Pinchas Hirschprung, zt"l, former chief rabbi of Montreal.