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At the end of parshat Pinchas, the korbanot for sukkot are mentioned, and since there is a slight difference between each day, they are repeated eight times. My issue is that if you look at the way it is written in the Torah, all the odd days begin with one word on the first line, and all the even days begin with three words. My question is why?enter image description here

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I think this is just an "anomaly" in your Tikkun! The only requirement is that all these parshiot are stumot, meaning that there must be a minimum of (I think) 9 letter yod's from the end of one parsha to the beginning of the next one.

Considering that within these 8 parshiot, the number of words are almost identical, it seems very likely that you would find a pattern repetition occurring.

As a matter of fact, look at this scanned page from the "old fashioned standard Blue Tikkun" (I don't recall the author, offhand.) You'll see no definitive pattern at all other than their all being stumot.

Compare your Tikkun with a few Sifrei Torah. I'll wager that it is somewhat different in each Torah. (Unfortunately, my camera won't work tomorrow, otherwise, I'd upload a pic for you ;-)

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  • Do you have a source for your assertions?
    – Daniel
    Commented Jul 14, 2017 at 21:30
  • @Daniel This should be quite obvious. During the past few days on this site, there were a few questions discussing the Vavei Ha'amudim format for writing Sifrei Torah (I asked most of them.) Those that follow the Davidovich format probably have the format OP is showing. But, there is no requirement that a Torah follows this format at all. There's also no rule I have seen anywhere that states the specific pattern OP is showing. The only requirement is regarding the stumot that's from Mesorah.
    – DanF
    Commented Jul 14, 2017 at 21:37
  • @Daniel See the link to the scanned page in my answer. It proves my point that even Tikkunim differ, let alone Sifrei Torah!
    – DanF
    Commented Jul 14, 2017 at 21:45
  • @DanF Yeah. These kind of things come down to how certain publishers found it convenient to arrange things, counting words and spaces for the column sizes they chose. There's no deep meaning to it.
    – MichoelR
    Commented Feb 23, 2023 at 13:18
  • I should mention that most Sifrei Torah have been standardized to the "Vavei Ha'amudim" format, and the newer Tikunim match that standard. So, you're more likely to see the same format used in most current Sifrei Torah.
    – DanF
    Commented Apr 18, 2023 at 15:48

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