Ilustration Credit: Elad Lifshitz, Dov Abramson Studio

We have learned a lot of notes and other special things about how the Torah is written and how we are supposed to read it together. Did you know that, in some printed versions of the Torah, each parashah has a special note at the end to celebrate what we have accomplished?

Here’s the one from the end of this week’s parashah:

Seems like a strange secret message, right? Well, this note is in a kind of code called gematria, where Hebrew letters are used to represent numbers. Here’s how the code works:

Let’s start with the first part here, saying that there are מ (mem) and א (aleph) verses in the parashah. What does that mean? If you use the code-breaking sign, you can see that 40 = מ and א = 1. So מ"א means 40 + 1 = 41. There are 41 verses in Vezot Ha-Berakhah. (You can count and double check!)

The next code words are a kind of interesting game to try to find names and words that have the same value in the gematria code. Can you see how גאואל (geu’el) and אלי (eli) each add up to 41 as well? These are names and words that appear in the Torah. (Extra points if you can find them as well!)

Geuel means something like “God’s redemption” and eli means “my God.” Perhaps these words are mentioned here because they connect to what this parashah is about. The idea might be that the berakhah of Vezot Ha-Berakhah can be found in God’s redemption and in having a personal connection to God.

It means that the total number of verses in the Torah is 5,845. And the note suggests that 5,845 equals to the word החמה (ha-hamah, the sun). Now, if you followed normal gematria rules, החמה would equal 58 (5+8+40+5). But gematria can be flexible. If the first ה were 5000 instead of 5, and if the ח were 800 instead of 8, then you’d get 5,845 (5000+800+40+5).

The phrase that includes ha-hamah comes from Yeshayahu, and it talks about how, in the future, the sun will be seven times as bright as it is now. Whoever wrote this note felt that if you learn the whole Torah, you can make the world a much brighter place. We agree!

-------------------

Click here to return to the Table of Contents for Parashat Vezot Ha-Berakhah from Devash

-------------------