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Volume 1 and 3 of Shvus Yaakov have 182 responsa in each, corresponding to the numerical value of the author's name, Yaakov. Volume 2 has 188 responsa. After responsum 182 of volume 2, the author notes that, since in 5 places Yaakov is written with the vov, he added 6 responsa that were written during publication of the volume to make it 188 (in the volume up on Hebrewbooks, they do not have the last 6 in volume 2, but in the copy in our beis medrash, it does).

My question is, did the author just happen to have exactly that many responsa that he felt were worthy of publishing, did he add some that he felt weren't worthy of publishing in order to complete the gematria, or did he leave out some that were worthy of publishing in order to maintain the significant number?

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    Or, related to what the Shach (YD 196:20) suggested about the T'rumas HaDeshen, were some of the questions written by the Sh'vus Ya'akov himself?
    – Fred
    Commented Jan 1, 2016 at 8:15
  • @Fred nice. I was thinking the same thing as I was reading the question.
    – user6591
    Commented Jan 1, 2016 at 15:47
  • @Fred my chavrusa and I were actually compiling a makeshift list of shu"t seforim of that type (i.e. gematria numbers of teshuvos). Although with Terumas Hadeshen, it is much easier to assume the name came after the final # of teshuvos.
    – Y     e     z
    Commented Jan 4, 2016 at 0:41
  • judaism.stackexchange.com/a/69876/759 gematria title
    – Double AA ♦
    Commented Mar 30, 2016 at 15:01
  • he.wikipedia.org/wiki/… claims the 112 chapters in the work are related to its name.
    – Double AA ♦
    Commented Jan 23, 2017 at 4:08

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