Fourth Reading: The Ten Commandments
One of the most famous Torah concepts known the world over is the Ten Commandments. However, the Torah does not mention that God spoke Ten Commandments at Mt. Sinai. In the description of the Torah’s Giving at Mt. Sinai in the Book of Exodus, there is no number associated with the event. It is only in our parashah that we find a trace of this idea. However, the exact phrase the Torah uses to refer to what God said at Mt. Sinai and what was written on the Tabelts of the Covenant is, “the Ten Sayings” (עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים). Indeed, the enumerators of the Torah’s commandments agree that the Tablets do not contain ten commandments. Let us take a short excursion into the beautiful mathematical associations and equivalencies surrounding this phrase, “the Ten Sayings” (עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים).
The Ten Sayings and Havayah
A beautiful gematria revealed by Rabbi Abraham Abulafia is that the numerical value of the number 26 when written out in words, “twenty six” (עשרים וששה) is 1231, the exact same value as the gematria of our phrase, “the Ten Sayings” (עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים)! Since 26 is the gematria of God’s essential Name, Havayah (י-הוה), we have here a beautiful numerical illustration of the sages’ statement that by Giving the Torah at Mt. Sinai, God essentially wrote Himself into the Torah’s words.
Another point Rabbi Abulafia makes is that the value of just the first word, “twenty” (עשרים), is 620, the same as the value of “crown” (כתר), which you may recall is the number of letters in the Ten Commandments as they appear in parashat Yitro. The value of the second word, “and six” (וששה) is 611, the value of “Torah” (תורה). Indeed, these two words together “the crown of Torah” (כתר תורה) appear in the Tractate of Avot in the famous mishnah that states that there are three crowns, “the crown of Torah,” “the crown of Priesthood,” and “the crown of Kingship.”
Word Fillings
Just as we can write out numbers in words, we can write out the filling of a word in Hebrew by writing out the actual names of the letters that make it up. The filling of the letter alef is thus אלף, of the letter bet it is בית, and so on. The complete filling of “twenty six” is thus: עין שין ריש יוד מם ואו שין שין הא, and the value of the entire filling is 1839, a very important number in Torah.
For starters, 1839 is 3 times 613, 3 times the number of commandments in the Torah. In addition, 613 is the average value of three foundations of Divine service: Torah (תורה), prayer (תפלה), and Teshuvah (תשובה), whose values are 611, 515, and 713. 1839 is also the value of the verse, “Open my eyes so that I may see the wonders of your Torah” (גל עיני ואביטה נפלאות מתורתך).
Doing the same for the phrase, “the Ten Sayings” (עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים), we find that its filling is: עין שין ריש תו הא דלת בית ריש יוד מם, whose value is 3342. Amazingly, this number is the sum of the values of all ten sefirot from wisdom to kingdom together with the crown, which is the common origin of all the sefirot: “crown” (כתר), “wisdom” (חכמה), “understanding” (בינה), “knowledge” (דעת), “loving-kindness” (חסד), “might” (גבורה), “beauty” (תפארת), “victory” (נצח), “acknowledgment” (הוד), “foundation” (יסוד), and “kingdom” (מלכות).
(excerpted from a forthcoming book on the number 1820)
