Who knows fifty-four?
Please cite/link your sources, if possible. At some point in the next few days, I will:
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asked Jun 24, 2010 at 0:59
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5 Answers
54 parshios in the Torah (Count 'em)
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I count 53. Here's a classical list dropbox.com/s/bhg6joc6cll175j/…– Double AA ♦Commented May 15, 2017 at 19:45
54 are the years that the Jewish People studied the laws of Terumah and Maaser before actually being able to put them into practice. (Kiddushin 40b)
$54 is "triple chai." Due to inflation, people have been saying that a "chai" donation ($18) isn't what it used to be; in some shuls, you tend to hear more pledges for double or triple chai, or "chayim" ($68). Or at least that was back before the current economic downturn, so never mind ...
An opinion in Mechilta Beshalach says that the Jews ate the Manna for 54 years:
אחרים אומרין ארבע וחמשים שנה אכלו ישראל את המן ארבעים שנה במדבר ושבע של כבוש ושבע של חלוק שנ' עד בואם אל ארץ נושבת מה ת"ל ארץ נושבת מלמד שארבע עשרה שנה אכלו ישראל את המן אחר מיתתו של משה
Others say that Israel ate the manna for fifty-four years: Forty years in the Wilderness, seven of conquest, and seven of allocation. As it says, "Until their arrival at a settled land." What does "a settled land" indicate? It indicates that for fourteen years, Israel at the manna after Moses' death.
Mi Yodeya community translation
answered May 15, 2017 at 19:43
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Woah! What does that opinion do with Yehoshua' 5: 12, which says explicitly that the manna stopped right after the first Pesach after the Israelites crossed the Jordan?– Isaac Moses ♦Commented May 15, 2017 at 19:53
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@IsaacMoses - The Possuk explicitly says את המן אכלו ארבעים שנה Commented May 15, 2017 at 19:57
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OK, so that's two explicit pesukim this Mechilta seems to dispute. What's up with that?– Isaac Moses ♦Commented May 16, 2017 at 14:40
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"Even in the Megillah itself, where Hashem's name is not mentioned a single time and He appears to have abandoned us, He is still there protecting us through Mordechai and Esther. The Rokeach points out that Haman's name appears 54 times in the Megillah, and the Vilna Gaon notes that there are 54 letters in the names of Haman's 10 sons who were hanged on the gallows. Correspondingly, Esther's name also appears 54 times. Memuchan, which is Haman's other name, appears once, as does Esther's alias, Hadassah. While Haman's name appears 54 times, the name of his wife Zeresh is mentioned only four times. To allude to Mordechai's ability to thwart them, his name appears 58 times."
https://www.shemayisrael.com/parsha/alport/archives/tetzave77.htm
