Three verses
Many times, we find that a particular phenomenon has three singular examples in the Torah. One of these, found first in our parashah, is a verse that begins with the words, “This is the Torah...” (זֹאת הַתּוֹרָה). The verse in our parashah reads, “This is the Torah regarding the burnt offering, the meal offering, and the sin offering, and the guilt offering, and the offering of ordination, and the peace offering” (זֹאת הַתּוֹרָה לָעֹלָה לַמִּנְחָה וְלַחַטָּאת וְלָאָשָׁם וְלַמִּלּוּאִים וּלְזֶבַח הַשְּׁלָמִים). The second such verse appears in parashat Metzora “This is the Torah regarding all lesions of leprosy, for scalls” (זֹאת הַתּוֹרָה לְכָל נֶגַע הַצָּרַעַת וְלַנָּתֶק). The third verse can be found in parashat Chukat, “This is the Torah: When a person dies in a tent, whoever enters the tent and whoever is in the tent shall be unclean seven days” (זֹאת הַתּוֹרָה אָדָם כִּי יָמוּת בְּאֹהֶל כָּל הַבָּא אֶל הָאֹהֶל וְכָל אֲשֶׁר בָּאֹהֶל יִטְמָא שִׁבְעַת יָמִים).
The verse from parashat Tzav contains 9 words and 47 letters. As an example of what is known as self-reference, the first and last letters are zayin (ז) and mem (ם), whose combined value is 47, the same as the number of letters in the verse. The value of the entire verse is 2764. The value of the opening phrase, “This is the Torah...” (זֹאת הַתּוֹרָה), which we said opens three verses in the Pentateuch, is 1024, or 210.
Six Types of Sacrifices
The verse describes six different types of sacrifice: 1) the burnt offering (עֹלָה), 2) the meal offering (מִנְחָה), 3) the sin offering (חַטָּאת), 4) the guilt offering (אָשָׁם), 5) the offering of ordination (מִלּוּאִים), and 6) the peace offering (זֶבַח הַשְּׁלָמִים). The combined value of these six types as written in the verse is 1536, or 6 times 256, the value of Aharon [the High Priest] (אַהֲרֹן), or 6 times 28.
We saw that the opening phrase equals 1024, which is 4 times 256. Thus, the opening phrase plus the six types of sacrifices equal 10 times “Aharon” (אַהֲרֹן), or 2560. This number is also the value of the 7 inner powers of the soul along the middle axis of the sefirot, “faith, pleasure, will, unification, compassion, truth, and lowliness” (אֱמוּנָה תַּעֲנוּגִים רָצוֹן יִחוּד רַחֲמִים אֱמֶת שִׁפְלוּת).
The six types of sacrifice can also be corresponded to the six emotive sefirot, from loving-kindness to foundation, like so:
- might – sin offering
- loving-kindness – burnt offering
- beauty – offering of ordination
- acknowledgment – guilt offering
- victory – meal offering
- foundation – peace offering
Meditating on this correspondence, we discover an interesting phenomenon: that the sums of almost all combinations of sacrifices are multiples of God’s essential Name, His Name of compassion, Havayah (י-הוה), or 26. The one exception is the sin offering (for there are guilt offerings, אָשָׁם, that do not come because of a definite sin), which will be made irrelevant when the Almighty irradicates the spirit of impurity from the face of the earth, thereby cleansing reality of sin.
The sum of “burnt offering” (עֹלָה) with the “meal offering” (מִנְחָה) is 208, or 8 times Havayah. 208 is also the value of “Isaac” (יִצְחָק) and of a “special nation” (עַם סְגוּלָּה).
