והקרבתם עולה…לה׳ פרים, you will offer to G'd 13 bullocks, etc. It would appear that the reason why a progressively smaller number of bullocks was offered on each of the seven days of the Sukkot festival is connected to two different mystical dimensions of the number seven. The Gentile nations comprise the number seven in the "plural," i.e. 70, and they are compared to bullocks. Israel too is compared to the number seven as we know from the Zohar volume 3 page 266, and all Israel's important deeds are somehow related to the number seven. The sacrifices on all the festivals appear in sevens, the total number of festival days are seven (2 days Passover, 1 day Shavuot, 1 day Rosh Hashanah, 1 day Yom Kippur, and 2 days Sukkot/Shemini Atzeret). The Sabbath is the mystical dimension of the seven branches of the tree which contains the root of the souls of the seven righteous people mentioned in Tikkuney Hazohar. The basic message of the 70 bullocks which the Jews offered on Sukkot is that the Gentile nations will keep becoming fewer.

The fact that the number of sheep offered as part of these additional burnt-offerings on the seven days of Sukkot is constant, i.e. 14, is an allusion to Israel appearing on two different spiritual levels, the hidden level and the visible level. The "hidden" level of Israel's spirituality refers to the need for the Israelites to set free sparks of sanctity trapped amongst the Gentile nations, a concept which we have written about on several occasions. The visible element is that the Jewish people represent sanctity which is visible. The proof is that after the bullocks of the nations have all been "used up," the only ones left are the Israelites. This means that the Israelites have fulfilled their task, that all the sparks of sanctity that were capable of being set free from their Gentile jailers have been redeemed. This is alluded to by the Mussaph offering on Shemini Atzeret when G'd ordered the Israelites to offer up a single bullock and only seven sheep. These seven sheep symbolise Israel, the sacred flock. The single bullock symbolises the one remaining bullock of the Gentile nations, i.e. the one representing Ishmael. The ram of that sacrifice represents Esau. Between them, the animals in the Mussaph offering of Shemini Atzeret represent the nations descended from Abraham.