The Kabbalah of Time App Settles Into Its Form
B"H, with the recent updates, the Kabbalah of Time web-based app appears to have settled on a long-term format. Below is an overview, explaining the different Kabbalistic time structures and the texts that move through them.
The shape of a card
Every card now opens the same way. First the Kabbalistic structure — where today falls in that card's own cycle. Beneath it, under a ✧ heading, the text that structure is measuring, linked to its source. Tap the ⓘ beside a cycle's name to read what it means; tap the card itself to open the full study material.
The structure comes first because the structure is the point. The texts are chosen to fit the count, not the other way around.
The ten structures
Keter · The Three Heads — Year-Round
Keter maps directly to the Three Supernal Heads, carried through three distinct elevations (ma'alot):
- Ma'alah 1 · Emunah (Reisha d'Lo Ityada): Rashbi & Rebbe Nachman — pairing Zohar with Likutei Moharan spread across the whole year, each lesson pegged to its Hebrew date. Both names carry the year: רבי נחמן = 360 = השנה, and בכל = 52, the weeks. Accompanied by the Kabbalah of Time companion book, Living Likutei Moharan, providing daily summaries and connections to the calendar.
- Ma'alah 2 · Ta'anug (Reisha d'Ayin): The Baal Shem Tov & the Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh — pairing Keter Shem Tov with the Ohr HaChaim on the weekly parasha.
- Ma'alah 3 · Ratzon (Reisha d'Arich): The Rambam & the Lubavitcher Rebbe — pairing Sefer HaMitzvot (Positive Mitzvot) with daily Hayom Yom.
Chochmah · Alef-Bet — 22-Day Cycle
Sefer Yetzirah teaches that the world was created through the 22 letters. One letter a day completes the alphabet 17 times a year — 17 = טוב. Alongside runs the Alter Rebbe's own Torah, Torah Ohr and Likutei Torah, a folio a day, the two seforim cut so each day turns a single leaf.
Chochmah also includes its own Kabbalah of Time book, unpacking the inner workings of the 22-letter cycle along with its alignment to the 33 elements of Perek Shirah and corresponding verses in Chapters 5 and 6 of Pirkei Avot.
Binah · Sefirot — 7×7×7 Omer Cycle & The Seven Books of Song
The Omer's 49 combinations extended across the whole year, seven cycles deep — 7×7×7 = 343, plus three weeks for the three intellectual Sefirot. Beyond the forty-nine stands the fiftieth gate: Binah itself. Alongside runs Likutei Tefilot, Reb Noson's prayers drawn from Rebbe Nachman's teachings — the introduction, Part 1's 152 prayers at two days each, Part 2's 59: 364 exactly.
Binah also measures the week through the Seven Books of Song, cycling one for each day of the week:
- Book 1 (Friday): Song of Nature
- Book 2 (Shabbat): Song of Moses
- Book 3 (Sunday): Song of the Sea
- Book 4 (Monday): Song of Hannah
- Book 5 (Tuesday): Song of Songs
- Book 6 (Wednesday): General Remedy (Tikkun HaKlali)
- Book 7 (Thursday): Gathering of Songs
Chesed · Shem Ayin-Bet — 72-Day Cycle
The 72-fold Name drawn from the three verses at the splitting of the sea (Shemot 14:19–21) — five 72-day readings (360 days) with four silent days between them, 364 in all, since חסד itself equals 72. The four silences are the apertures of Birkat Kohanim's raised hands: five openings, four dividers. The text is the Mishna, ten chapters over days 1–5 of each week, then eight of Tosefta on days 6–7 — the Oral Torah, whose mode is Chesed: Torah as giving.
Gevurah · Four Seasons — 91-Day Cycle
364 divided evenly into four 91-day quarters, no gaps — the cleanest division of the year. Each season carries one of the four Chayot HaKodesh of Yechezkel's Merkavah, one of Yehuda ben Teima's animal-postures, an archangel, a house of Levi, and its own cup of wine, from red receding to white and back to red. Every season has a quiet heart at day 46 — winter's falls on Tu B'Shvat. The text is Tanach, two chapters a day: 728 chapters of Nevi'im and Ketuvim, the Written Torah, whose mode is Gevurah — fixed letters, black fire on white.
Tiferet · 13 Attributes of Mercy — 13-Day Cycle
One of the Thirteen Attributes each day, the cycle completing 28 times a year (28 = כח). Cycles 1–13 follow Micha's inner vessels, 14–26 Moshe's outer ones, and 27–28 close the year as a microcosm of the whole. The text follows the same halving: cycles 1–13 read a chapter of the Alter Rebbe's Seder Birkas HaNehenin, 14–26 one of Rebbe Nachman's thirteen Tales — the Lost Princess opening in Adar, the Seven Beggars falling in Elul — and the closing two review all twenty-six.
Netzach · 40-Day Cycle — Receiving the Torah
Nine cycles of 40 days, the Ten Commandments carried through each of the four soul-levels and worlds, ten days to each — every cycle sealed by a forty-first day of Yechidah standing between them, as Chesed's readings are parted by their silent days. 9 × 41 = 369. The 40 are the days Moshe stood on Sinai; the forty-first is the day of receiving. The text runs the same 369: Sichos HaRan's 308 conversations, then Likutei Etzot's 61 — its two introductions, its counsels, the festivals gathered under Moadei Hashem, sealing on Completeness.
Because 369 is five days longer than the year, each turn leaves the closing cycle five days to finish while the new one has already begun — the doubling from about 25 Elul to 11 Tishrei. A toggle on the card reaches those days.
Hod · 728 Half-Day Cycle
The year split in half-days, one halachah in the morning and one in the afternoon — the rhythm of the Korban Tamid, one lamb at dawn and one bein ha'arbayim, the offering that framed every day of the Mikdash. Tanna D'Vei Eliyahu teaches that whoever studies two halachot daily merits the World to Come, and Menachot 99b gives the measure from a second tamid: Rabbi Ami learned from Rabbi Yose that a chapter in the morning and one in the evening fulfils לא ימוש ספר התורה הזה מפיך, derived from the Lechem HaPanim — the old bread lifted in the morning, the new set down toward evening, the table still counted as bearing bread continually.
The 728 divide exactly: Orach Chaim's 697 simanim, then the Chofetz Chaim's introduction, its 19 klalim and 11 illustrations. Alongside runs the Zohar on the weekly parasha, giving way on Shabbat to Sefer Yetzirah, one passage per parasha. And the number says why: 728 is שבת (702) joined to שם הויה (26) — Shabbat united with the Name, so the daily study of Torah is the Shabbat of every day.
Yesod · Shovavim Cycles
The weekly parasha as a year-round tikkun, extending the Shovavim weeks across all 52. Each parasha carries Rav Yosef Chaim of Baghdad in the shape Chesed's week already keeps: five days of Rav Pe'alim, two responsa a day and ten to a parasha, then the Ben Ish Chai itself — Halachot on Friday, both years side by side, and Drash on Shabbat. All 540 responsa and the whole Ben Ish Chai complete in a year.
Malchut · Year-Round Connection & the Weekly Books
Malchut receives from all above it across three closing elevations (Ma'alot 13–15), crowning the structure with texts of practical action and divine praise:
- Ma'alah 13 · Year-Round Connection (ואתה תצוה): The Rebbe's last ma'amar, V'Atah Tetzaveh, completed section by section every 13 days, running alongside the Yad HaChazakah (the Rambam's Mishneh Torah surveyed whole every 28 days across its 84 subsections—from Kriat Shema and Tefilah to Hilchos Melachim and Moshiach). Thirteen 28-day cycles a year (13 × 28 = 364), matching King Solomon's 28 ittim in Kohelet; in a leap year, fourteen cycles, reflecting David's own number (דוד = 14).
- Ma'alah 14 · Fruits of Her Labor (מפרי ידיה): A 7-day rotation of foundational Chasidic and Mussar masters moving day by day through the week:
- Sunday: Kedushas Levi (R. Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev)
- Monday: Noam Elimelech (R. Elimelech of Lizhensk)
- Tuesday: Tanya (Alter Rebbe)
- Wednesday: Likutei Moharan (Rebbe Nachman)
- Thursday: Mesilat Yesharim (Ramchal)
- Friday: Etz Chayim (Arizal)
- Shabbat: Likutei Sichos & Toras Menachem + Stories of the Besht
- Ma'alah 15 · Works of Her Praise (בשערים מעשיה): Reb Noson’s Likutei Halachot, revealing the inner light inside practical halachah.
Ma'alot HaZman — the year as a day
Above the cards, the 52 weeks are mapped onto the 24 hours of a single day, each week a step ascending through the seven Sefirot, with weeks 50–52 — the three Mochin — hovering above the Chatzot seam. Where the cards spiral a day into the year, this spirals the year into a day.
The day as a lunar month
Fifteen ma'alot descend with the light from Keter to Malchut. As they are marked, the moon in the clock waxes; at fifteen it becomes the sun and its rays remain — "the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun" (Isaiah 30:26). Then fifteen miutim climb back from Malchut to Keter as the moon wanes and makes itself small: doing, then hearing — נעשה ונשמע. Thirty steps, a month in a single day.
Two lights mark the cards: ✦ the counted path, light drawn inward (Or Pnimi); ✧ the surrounding light (Or Makif) — companion texts and resources that accompany the day but are never counted.
The ten prayers
Each Sefirah carries one of the day's prayers — Hitbodedut in Keter, Tikkun Rachel in Chochmah, Tikkun Leah in Binah, Birchot HaShachar in Chesed, Tehilim in Gevurah, Shacharit in Tiferet, Tikkun HaKlali in Netzach, Mincha in Hod, Maariv in Yesod, Kri'at Shema in Malchut.
The prayer whose hour has come pulses gently until it is said. Unlike the ma'alot they are not sequential — each has its own time, and a day may be joined partway through. A heart in the Now card fills as the ten accumulate, and glows when they are whole. Complete, it carries both verses at once:
ואהבת את ה׳ אלוקיך בכל לבבך · ואהבת לרעך כמוך
For as the Baal Shem Tov taught, through the Maggid and the Alter Rebbe: "Love your fellow as yourself" is the commentary on "Love Hashem your God." He who loves his fellow-Jew loves God, because the Jew has within himself a part of God Above — so in loving the Jew, one loves God.
Why this feels settled
Every cycle now completes exactly. 364 days of Tanach at two chapters; 728 half-days of halacha; 369 units of Sichos HaRan and Likutei Etzot; 540 responsa across 54 parshiyot; 84 subsections of the Yad every 28 days; the 72 Names in five readings with four silences. Nothing is padded and nothing is left over.
The structures were there first — they are how the tradition already counts time. What the app has settled into is simply letting each one carry the text it was always shaped to hold.
