Who knows five?
Please cite/link your sources, if possible. In about a day, I will:
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Please cite/link your sources, if possible. In about a day, I will:
Upvote all interesting answers.
Accept the best answer.
Go on to the next number.
Five are...
The daughters of Tzelafchad
Words in the most common pasuk in Torah ("Vayedaber Hashem el Moshe leimor")
Five are the chapters of the Mishna - of Fathers.
Each of the tablets Moshe brought down from Shamayim had 5 of the Aseres HaDibros inscribed
Five are the books normally considered m'gilos: Rus, Koheles, Shir Hashirim, Echa, and Ester.
5 are the amount of children of Yaakov who either did or didn't need an extra blessing (I'm not unsure, it's a machlokes).
Five are the number of kings in the House of Jehu, the longest dynasty of the Northern Kingdom: Jehu, Jehoahaz, Jehoash, Jeroboam, and Zecharia.
Five prutot and five fifths as enumerated in Mishna BM 4, 7-8:
(חמש פרוטות הן) A perutah was specified in five instances:
(ההודיה בשווה פרוטה) Admission must be [at least] the equivalent of a perutah.
(והאישה מתקדשת בשווה פרוטה) A woman is betrothed by the value of a perutah.
(והנהנה בשווה פרוטה מן ההקדש, מעל) He who benefits from hekdesh to the value of a perutah is liable to a trespass offering.
(והמוצא שווה פרוטה, חייב להכריז) He who finds [an article] worth a perutah is bound to proclaim it.
(והגוזל את חברו שווה פרוטה, ונשבע לו--יוליכנו אחריו, אפילו למדיי) He who robs his neighbour of the value of a perutah and swears [falsely] to him [concerning it], must follow him to return it even as far as media.
ד,ח : . . . . .
(חמישה חומשין הן) [the addition of] a fifth [to the principal] is prescribed in five cases:
(האוכל תרומה, ותרומת מעשר, ותרומת מעשר של דמאי, והחלה, והביכורים--מוסיף חומש) One who eats terumah, the terumah of the tithe, the terumah of the tithe of demai, hallah, and the first fruits, must add a fifth.
(הפודה נטע רבעי, ומעשר שני שלו--מוסיף חומש) He who redeems the fourth year planting and his own second tithe adds a fifth.
(הפודה את הקדשו, מוסיף חומש) He who redeems his sacred objects adds a fifth.
(והנהנה בשווה פרוטה מן ההקדש, מוסיף חומש) He who benefits from hekdesh to the value of a perutah adds a fifth.
(והגוזל את חברו שווה פרוטה, ונשבע לו מוסיף חומש) And he who robs his neighbour of a perutah's worth and swears [falsely] to him [concerning it] must add a fifth.
You can see that 2 items are common to the both lists.
Five books of the Torah (obviously)...
Five are the uninterrupted sequences of days of mikra kodesh: Pesach, Shavuos, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kipur, and Sukos-Sh'mini Atzeres. Presumably for this reason, many machzor (holiday prayer book) sets have five volumes.
According to the Rambam (Mishnah Torah Hilchos Tefillah Uvirchos Kohanim 4:1) five are the requisites that without which hinder the proper recital of the service even when its due time has arrived.
They are:
Cleansing the hands
Covering the body
Assurance as to the cleanliness of the place where the prayers are recited
Removal of distractions
Concentration of the mind
FIVE is the number of different women in Tenach who had the name MAACHOH - מעכה
This is the most common women's name in Tanach.
נפש - רוח - נשמה - חיה - יחידה
these are Kabalistic terms which refer to the 5 subdivisions of the soul.
אלו דברים שאין להם שיעור - הפאה - והביכורים - והראיון - וגמילות חסדים - ותלמוד תורה
[פאה פרק א משנה א] (Peah 1:1)
(translation from sefaria with slight presentation adjustments)
These are the [five] things that have no measure
I think there are five types of manifestations of speech proper: אמר. דבר, הגיד, ספר, ניב, As best as I can figure, amar comes from the hanhaga of chesed, davar from the hanhaga of din, sipur from the sefirot, higid is the révélation, and niv is the prophecy. I find it amazing that there are 5 types of speech which sustain the world and 5 motza of articulation: dental, linguals, palatals, labial, gutterals. That last one is from sefer yetzirah.
chumshei torah... perhaps also the luchot habrit consisted of 2 sets made of 5: Rabbi Chanina ben Gamaliel said: "How were the Ten Commandments given? Five on one tablet and five on the other."
Also the gematria of the letter ה
The Hebrew word for the number five is חמש - chamesh. Another set of words that would seem to have the same root are chamush חמוש - armed and tachmoshet תחמושת - ammunition. Is there a connection between them?
The earliest source that might provide an answer is Shmot 13:18 - וַחֲמֻשִׁים עָלוּ בְנֵי-יִשְׂרָאֵל, מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם. "Bnei Yisrael went up, chamushim, from the land of Egypt". Most translators and commentaries explain chamushim here as meaning "armed". (There are some exceptions. The Septuagint translates chamushim as "the fifth generation", despite translating chamushim in Yehoshua 1:14 as "armed". Apparently the unusual translation is due to the difficulty explaining the source of the armaments. And as far as the midrash that Rashi quotes, that only one fifth of Bnei Yisrael left Egypt, it is appropriate to quote Ibn Ezra's response: "We have enough trouble explaining to the Arab scholars how 55 males could have 600,000 males over the age of 20 within 210 years - and there's even more when you include women and children!")
So is there a connection between the two meanings of חמש? Klein believes that there may be. In his entry for חמוש, he writes:
Of uncertain origin. It is possibly related to חמשה (= five), and refers to the division of the army into five parts: van, body, rear and two wings. Hence related to Arab. hamis (= army; properly 'army divided into five parts') from hams (= five.)
Steinberg, in his Milon HaTanach, says that חמש in Arabic means "collection and connection", and this is the source of the number chamesh, which means "clenching of the five fingers". He gives examples from other languages where the same word means hand and five, for example piast' and piat' in Russian. He therefore explains the meaning of chamush as armed, because the soldiers are gathered and collected together. (We saw something similar in our explanation of the connection between lechem and milchama.)
Five are the gates leading into Har haBayit: Two Huldah gates, Kiponos, Tadi, and Mizrahi.
(Middot 1:3)
5 is the maximum amount of consecutive days possible on which the Torah is read without previously having said Hallel on that day.
In a year which Rosh Hashanah falls on Thursday and Friday, We read the Torah on 5 consecutive non-hallel days:
Thurday-Friday= Rosh Hashanah
Shabbos= Parshas Hashavua (weekly Torah reading)
Sunday= Fast of [Tzom] Gedalia Monday = regular weekday Torah reading
5 are the Olamot Elyonit(Adam Kadmon, Atzilut, beriya, yetzirah, asiya) in accordance to Rabbi Aryeh kaplan's innerspace
During Kaddish Derabbanan, the phrase, ואמרו אמן is said 5 times.
It's probably "coincidence" but it's interesting to note that learning Torah is considered the "most important" mitzvah of all. Kaddish Derabanan is said after learning Torah. Numerical of 5 is letter ה which is a reference / allusion to G-d's name.
ת"ר חמשה נבראו מעין דוגמא של מעלה וכולן לקו בהן שמשון בכחו שאול בצוארו אבשלום בשערו צדקיה בעיניו אסא ברגליו
§ The Sages taught in a baraita: Five individuals were created with a characteristic that is akin to a representation of the One on High, and they were all stricken by that characteristic. Samson was glorified in his strength, Saul in his neck (see I Samuel 9:2), Absalom in his hair, Zedekiah in his eyes, and Asa in his feet. (Sefaria translation & notation)