The ninth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is Tet, ט.
Tet or ט, represents the 9th sefirah, yesod - יסוד which means among other things “foundation”. By way of an aside, the sefirah is a kabbalistic term meaning God's emanations. There are ten sefirot that emerge from Hashem. Each sefirah points to a different aspect of God's creative nature, and together they compose the world of divine light in the chain of being. Heavy…huh?
The first tet - ט that appears in the Torah is in the word “tov” of Genesis 1:4, translated as good, as in: “And God saw the light that it was good…”. We read this later on Simchas Torah. It makes for an auspicious prediction, and I like it for that.
Getting back to the number nine. There are auspicious words whose gematria totals the number nine. Some of which are:
אֶמֶת, TRUTH, 1+40+ 400 = 441 or 9.
שַׁבָּת, SHABBAT, 300+2+400 = 702 or 9.
אדם, ADAM, 1+4+5 = 9.
Now, Kabbalah is one thing, but preparation is another. And I’ve been preparing for this race since last March, more than six months ago. There were 145 men, 61 years or older who I competed against in the 5K. Last year I ran the 5K in 43 minutes, 30 seconds. This year I must have had a strong tail wind pushing along because I finished under 40 minutes, and numbered 50 in my field…not too shabby, but just you wait til next year.