The root of the Hebrew word for “a deep frying pan” (מרחשת) is רחש and it appears only 3 times in the entire Bible, here, in the word meaning “in the deep frying pan” (במרחשת) and a third time, in the root form, “My heart stirs with good things.”
This root means to quiver or stir and suggests “movement,” and Rashi indeed explains that the deep oil causes the loaves to quiver and move in the pan. There is a well-known principle that “all that is alive, moves.”
Looking at the name of the deep frying pan (מרחשת), we see that the first and last letters spell “dead” (מת), but that within there is a sign of life, the “quivering” (רחש). So something that is alive is quivering or stirring in that which is dead.
The sum of the two appearances of this deep pan in the Torah—מרחשת במרחשת—is 1898, or 26 times 73, where 26 is the value of God’s essential Name, Havayah (י-הוה) and 73 is the value of “wisdom” (חכמה), alluding to the verse, “They shall die, but not in wisdom.”
The word preceding the “deep frying pan” is “an offering of” (מנחה), whose first and final letters also spell “dead” (מת). The middle letters in both words spell, “Noach” (נח) and “quiver” (רחש). Noach was a righteous man in his generations, and as such is like the “living organ” (the organ of procreation) that entered the ark to escape the death raging outside. The sum of “Noach” and “Quiver” (נח רחש) is “Mashiach son of Joseph” (משיח בן יוסף), suggesting that this “quivering of life” inside death is like the King Hadar, the eighth king of Edom, who externally seems to have died—as mentioned explicitly in Chronicles—but internally remains alive, as no mention of his death is found in Genesis.
This analysis of the word for “deep frying pan” into life in death reminds us of the first appearance of an isomorphic word in the Torah, “hovering” (מרחפת), “And the spirit of God was hovering above the waters.” The sages tell us that this spirit is the spirit of the Mashiach. The Kabbalists analyzed this word and found that the middle letters, רפח, refer to the 288 sparks of holiness fallen from the World of Chaos into the shattered dead vessels, and continue to quiver and stir within them, yearning for their rectification. When the “spirit of God” (רוח אלהים) whose value is 300, the value of the letter shin (ש) instead of the pei (פ) in “hovering” (מרחפת), it transforms into the word for “a deep pan” (מרחשת).
Amazingly, “hovering”—which indicates the holy spark alive within the dead vessel—is the 18th word from the Torah’s start, and 18 is the value of “alive” (חי). This phenomenon of life within a dead shell is well-known from other Hebrew words. Regarding the “half of a shekel” (that it is customary to give in the month of Adar), we find that the word “half of” (מחצית) also has “dead” (מת) on the outside, with “life” (חי) on the inside, surrounding the letter tzaddik (צ). This is understood homiletically to mean that when the Jewish people connect to the tzaddik and give “half of” a shekel donation, then they are granted life. “You who cleave to Havayah your God are all alive today.”
A similar teaching is found regarding the word “Your doorposts” (מזוזת) or Mezuzot—the plural form of mezuzah. The first and last letters again spell death, but this time we add the fourth letter to spell “death” (מות), and the remaining letters spell “moves” (זז). The understanding is that the death lurking outside moves and does not enter the house thanks to the mezuzah that has written on it the Name Shakai, the Name corresponding to the sefirah of foundation and to the “living organ” (as in Noach, above), the organ that gives life. Without moving itself, the mezuzah moves death and so it is described as the “the unmoved mover.”
Likewise, the deep frying pan, externally represents the sefirah of understanding, from whence harsh judgments emanate leading eventually to death. But the life within the pan caused by the quivering deep oil, which corresponds to the sefirah of wisdom, ensures that there will be abounding life.
