With one stroke of a pen - or few strokes on a keyboard - I'm going to ruin the modest reputation I've built for myself as a man of reason over the years. But the time has come to come clean: The first thing I read in the newspaper, whether daily or weekly, is the horoscope.

It took some time until I realized this and I tried to explain this anomaly to myself. As I am a journalist, the first explanation that came to my mind was that as I know how reliable newspapers generally are in reporting the news and prognosticating about them, I go straight for the bits that will not disappoint me: I know outright that any resemblance between the horoscope and reality is purely coincidental.

But I discarded that explanation. After all, for thousands of years people have relied on what the stars told them, based on the exact hour of their birth. And we do live in a new age in which "New Age" aspires to be the secular religion, and we respect people's beliefs even if we do not adhere to their faith ourselves.

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But when, as an Aries (you can tell by my small horns, woolly back and meek nature!) I read on one Web site that on December 27, 2006, "the transit of Mercury into Capricorn will temper that impulsive streak, which is just as well, because the moon in Aries suggests that you'll be more headstrong than usual today. Even so you should avoid spur-of-the-moment decisions today, and give yourself time to reflect!" But when I read elsewhere, on another astrological site, "Feel like going solo so you can avoid any negative energy around you? The stars say you can turn this restlessness to your advantage. An unhappy situation forces you to find a solution that's amenable to all" - I realized that all those prognoses are general enough to suit everybody.

Then I read something about avoiding conflict with members of the family, and tried to walk on tiptoes around my wife, which of course made her wonder. I looked guilty, as I always do, one word led to another and - well, you can see how a horoscope is a self-fulfilling prophecy and what is wrong with it.

So, still in need of some reliable predictions for 2007 - mainly so I will have something to laugh about a year from now - I turned to gematria, numerology. At least this is something I know I can't take seriously, mainly because you can always get somewhere with the inventive addition of numbers.

'Small print'

Nowadays we have software to help us find a verse for every number, so I keyed in 2007, and the software came up with the verse: "But in the fourth year all the fruit thereof shall be holy to praise the Lord" (Leviticus 19:24).

This passage in itself does not embody a prophecy per se, but the chapter is worth perusing. It is one of the "small print" clauses including bylaws and amendments to the Ten Commandments, as spoken by the Lord to Moses. It is a chapter full of God's ego: Eight times it says there "I am the Lord," another eight times it says "I am the Lord your God," and in Leviticus 19:2 it states: "Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy."

But apart from the things the holy children of Israel are obliged to observe in their relations with the Almighty, this chapter offers many guidelines for leading a righteous life, and is well worth reading and remembering at the beginning of 2007.

For instance, "Ye shall fear every man his mother, and his father ... And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger ... Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another."

Leviticus 19:14 applies to the "local authorities": "Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbor, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning." And it continues: "Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind ... Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbor. Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people: neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbor."

The next verse includes the bit that, according to Rabbi Akiva, is the most important thing in the whole Torah: "Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him. Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."

The little problem I always have with this is what happens with my neighbor if I do not love myself so much?

Hair-raising

Leviticus 19:17 should arouse protest from all the hairdressers: "Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard." However, "Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you" will be applauded by parents of teenagers. "Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a whore; lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness" needs no commentary.

To the verse (19:32) "Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old man" - I say "hear, hear!" And the next is intended for the immigration police and all those members of Knesset who voted in favor of the amendment of the Citizenship Law: "And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."

The 35th verse applies to all of us, but mainly to those who thrive in the worlds of commerce and law: "Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure. Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall ye have."

I was so enthusiastic about this chapter and its applicability to our life in 2007 in Israel, that I almost overlooked one of the verses - namely: "Neither shall ye use enchantment, nor observe times." Which sort of makes this auguring based on numerology totally null and void.