Shishim - mi yodeya?

Question

Who knows sixty?

Please cite/link your sources, if possible. At some point in the next few days, I will:

• Upvote all interesting answers.

• Accept the best answer.

• Go on to the next number.

Answer 1

60 are the number of letters in Birkas Kohanim. These are compared to valiant warriors who guard and protect the Jewish People. (Tanchuma, Naso 9, et al, interpreting Song of Songs 3:7)

Answer 2

In Bavel, they asked for rain (tal umatar) 60 days after Tekufas Tishrei (Taanis 10a)

Answer 3

Sixty describes a verse in Song of Songs that Artscroll interprets two different ways.

Artscroll siddur page 293:

Behold! The couch of Shlomo! Sixty mighty ones round about it ...

Same Hebrew verse, same exact Artscroll siddur, eight pages later:

Behold the resting place of Him to Whom peace belongs, with sixty myriads of Israel's mighty encircling it.

---

Sixty is the rule of thumb for the point at which most normal foodstuffs are diluted, by volume, beyond tasteability. (As Rabbi Moshe Dovid Tendler has pointed out, the notion of homoeopathic dilutions really doesn't click with this.)

The practice of some Sephardic Jews is to prefer to use a non-Jewish taste tester instead, but Ashkenazic practice relies on this rule of thumb, more or less exclusively*.

It's not per se that sixty-to-one is a halachically-magical number; I'd asked a medical-ethics posek if 1.6% is ever a threshold used in Halacha in the various discussions of odds and risk in Halacha; he said no, that's just about food.

Flavorings, including some food concentrates, are famously not nullified by 1:60; thus, if a non-kosher coffee flavoring is usually added 1:100 into plain coffee, that coffee remains non-kosher. However, the resulting flavored coffee is now a normal foodstuff, and would in turn be nullified if mixed 1:60 with plain coffee.

The Achronim debate, in the case of a non-kosher flavoring added 1:60+, whether the foodstuff is Biblically or Rabbinically prohibited. The logic to say it's Biblically prohibited is straightforward: it tastes non-kosher, it's non-kosher; 60 was just a rule of thumb. Those who argue it was Biblically permitted say (e.g. Chochmas Adam) that the Torah prohibition is only on "normally tasteable" proportionate tastes, not "trace" tastes. Which is awfully close to saying that 60 is a magic number ... (Well at least it's a unitary perfect number ...)

(* Yes there are exceptions, but that's too complicated for here.)

Answer 4

60 is how many myriads of Israelites there were in the desert.

Also the proportion of a stingy person's crop to the amount he gives as t'ruma.

Also death:sleep.

Answer 5

Hineh mitaso sheliShlomo, shishim giborim saviv lah Migiborei Yisrael. Shir Hashirim 3:7

This can refer to: 60 myriads that left Egypt (Rashi); The 24 priestly shifts + 24 Levite shifts + 12 divisions of Israel during the time of the Beis Hamikdash who conquered their (bad) inclinations (Metzudas David); The 60 letters that the Kohanim bless Yisrael with (Unkolos); etc.

Answer 6

60 is the age at which one becomes a senior (Pirkei Avos 5:25) (in contrast to the opinion of the AARP).

Answer 7

Zohar Vayigash 211:1 says that the amount Agalos that Yoseph sent to Yaakov was 60.

Answer 8

60 is the gematria of גאון (Gaon) - the title given to one who has mastered all of the 60 mesechtos of Shas by heart. (The three Bavas are counted as one mesechta, and Sanhedrin and Makkos are counted as one - רדב"ז; רלט-שלג, or by counting Ma'aseros and Ma'ser Sheni as one, see here)

Answer 9

Bechoros 8a says that a pig's pregnancy lasts 60 days.

Answer 10

The angels Gabriel and Metatron are given with sixty fiery lashes (Yoma 77a, Hagigah 15a). Gabriel for disobeying orders and Metatron to demonstrate the unity of Gd.

Elijah is also punished in this way, (B. Metz 85b)

Answer 11

SIXTY is the number of the daughters of רחבעם [RECHAVAM] (דברי הימים ב` י"א:כא)

Answer 12

The sixty rams of the peace offering corresponded to the sixty myriads of Israel's fighting hosts; the sixty he-goats to the sixty empires; and the sixty he-lambs to the building of the second Temple that measured sixty cubits in height and sixty in width. Legends of the Jews 3:3:65. When I get access to my library, I'll find the source.

Answer 13

Bereishis 25:26 - Yitzchak was 60 when Yaakov and Eisav were born

וְאַֽחֲרֵי־כֵ֞ן יָצָ֣א אָחִ֗יו וְיָד֤וֹ אֹחֶ֙זֶת֙ בַּעֲקֵ֣ב עֵשָׂ֔ו וַיִּקְרָ֥א שְׁמ֖וֹ יַעֲקֹ֑ב וְיִצְחָ֛ק בֶּן־שִׁשִּׁ֥ים שָׁנָ֖ה בְּלֶ֥דֶת אֹתָֽם׃

Then his brother emerged, holding on to the heel of Esau; so they named him Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when they were born.

Answer 14

The Gemara (Megillah 15b) says that an angel stretched the King’s golden scepter, which was originally two amot — cubits — towards her either twelve or as much as sixty amot.

Answer 15

Doniel 3:1 - Nevuchadnezzar made a gold statue measuring 60 amos high.

נְבוּכַדְנֶצַּ֣ר מַלְכָּ֗א עֲבַד֙ צְלֵ֣ם דִּֽי־דְהַ֔ב רוּמֵהּ֙ אַמִּ֣ין שִׁתִּ֔ין פְּתָיֵ֖הּ אַמִּ֣ין שִׁ֑ת אֲקִימֵהּ֙ בְּבִקְעַ֣ת דּוּרָ֔א בִּמְדִינַ֖ת בָּבֶֽל׃

King Nebuchadnezzar made a statue of gold sixty cubits high and six cubits broad. He set it up in the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon.

Answer 16

Melachim I 5:2

וַיְהִ֥י לֶֽחֶם־שְׁלֹמֹ֖ה לְי֣וֹם אֶחָ֑ד שְׁלֹשִׁ֥ים כֹּר֙ סֹ֔לֶת וְשִׁשִּׁ֥ים כֹּ֖ר קָֽמַח׃

Solomon’s daily provisions consisted of 30 kors of semolina, and 60 kors of [ordinary] flour