As we saw, there are three verses in the Pentateuch that begin with the phrase, “This is the Torah.” The Targum Yonatan (one of the three traditional translations of the Torah into Aramaic) writes that the first two verses correspond to the concepts of, “atonement” and “healing.” The third verse obviously corresponds to the concept of “purification.” The value of these three concepts (הָרֲהָה טָאּפוְה רָרָּכַּפ) combined is 816, or twice the value of “this” (אתֹז), the first word in each of these verses. 816 is also the value of “an auspicious time” (ןֹצוָת רֵע) and of lowliness (תּלוְפִׁש), suggesting that whenever a person can exercise a sense of lowliness—the foundation of a rectified psyche—it is an auspicious time for him to attain these three concepts: atonement, healing, and purification. 816 is also the product of “this” in the masculine form (הֶז), which equals 12, and “life” (יםִּיַח).
Between them, the three verses contain 125 letters, or 53. One way to draw them in geometric form would therefore be as a cube of 5. However, this is not practical or possible on a two-dimensional surface. How can we then draw 125 as a symmetrical shape? The key to answering this is to look at one of the most beautiful relationships between series of numbers: the sum of the cube numbers is the square of the triangular numbers. Let’s see how this plays out.
The cube numbers are 13, 23, 33, etc. In the table we see their sums and underneath we see the square of the triangular numbers:
What this shows is that 125 is the square of 15 minus the square of 100. Thus, if we were to draw the verses in the shape of the square of 15 minus the four corners of 25 letters each, they would fit perfectly.
Now, the fact that we have left the four corners empty begs us to complete the shape back into a square form. One question we might ask, is first, what is the most well-known Torah verse that has 47 letters? This is known to be the Torah’s final verse, “And for all the great might and awesome power that Moses displayed before the eyes of all of Israel” (דָּיַל הֹכְלוּלֵא רְׂשִּליָי כֵינֵעְה לֶׁשֹה מָׂשָרעֶׁשֲלאֹדוָּגַאהָרֹוּמַל הֹכְלהוָקָזֲחַה).
Since the end of the Torah is enwedged in its beginning, it would be fitting to add to this the Torah’s first verse, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (םִיָמָּׁשַתהֵים אִהֹ-לֱא אָרָּית בִׁאשֵרְּבץֶרָאת הֵאְו), which has 28 letters. If we add to the Torah’s beginning and end the foundational statement of faith, the Shema (דָחֶהוי' אּינוֵהֹ-לֱלהוי' אֵאָרְׂשִע יַמְׁש), which has 25 letters and that we saw above is intimately related to the, “This is the Torah...” verse, in our parashah, we have found the 100 letters needed to complete the previous shape.
Our newly completed square of 225 letters is then:
The letters in the corners sum to 73, the value of “wisdom” (חכמה). Apart from the corner letters, the sum of the first and last lines is 2236, which is 2 times 1118, the value of the Shema!
When we add the central letter, which is a yud (י), the sum of the corners and the center comes to “sickness” (מחלה), indicating that this square serves as a remedy (as noted above) for sickness.
Given that this new complete square has so many of the secrets related to health and atonement, it would certainly be fitting to share it with anyone who needs to be strengthened at this time.
