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I've often wondered if someone has compiled anything about the "special letters" in the Torah: All the letters that are either big or small. Together, do they read as something special? One or more anagrams?

(I suppose this was prompted by last week's parsha with the Shema and the עד at the ends of the first and last words.) Also, I think there are fewer "small" letters than large ones.

Perhaps a book about Torah codes has an answer?

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    Madeleine, Welcome to Judaism.SE, and thanks very much for the fascinating question! Please consider registering your account so that the site can keep track of your contributions no matter where you log in from.
    – Isaac Moses ♦
    Aug 17, 2011 at 15:58
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    Great question! I have never thought about or encountered such a book, but I am now interested to read it!
    – WAF
    Aug 17, 2011 at 16:56
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    After all the great answers, below, I would point out to an essential problem in trying to compile such an index: there are many different traditions that all have differing lists of specially-sized letters. While working in the IDF's central Sefer Torah workshop and repository, I saw hundreds of scrolls from all over the world. While I was not specifically researching this issue, it became clear that there is not one superset from which all others derive, but that there was a divergence at some point.
    – ygesher
    Aug 29, 2017 at 14:25

6 Answers 6

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Try Sefer Katan Ve'Gadol, by Rabbi Zvi Ron. It brings together all the different midrashim about every big or small letter in Tanach.

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  • Thanks; I found this book elsewhere (at HebrewBooks.org); I plan on integrating this capability of identifying which exact letters are large and/or small into our TorahBibleCodes free, open source software ASAP, G-D-willing. ACADEMIA: academia.edu/104334275
    – TorahBibleCodes
    Jul 13 at 12:57
  • Many thanks to DoubleAA for the reference to ספר קטן וגדול. it seems to have a list of all occurrences of large and small letters from aleph to tav. The posted link seems to be broken, here is an alternative link: hebrewbooks.org/53295
    – mttyhw
    21 hours ago
  • @mttyhw that link only was created in 2015, thanks for sharing! Note his list, like all lists, is incomplete since there are so many variations out there.
    – Double AA ♦
    14 hours ago
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Throughout the Torah there is a full alphabet in big letters and a full alphabet of small letters.

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    There are actually variant traditions (I think they're quoted in either Encyclopedia Talmudith or Torah Sheleimah) as to whether these two full alphabets exist in the five books of the Torah alone, or spread out throughout all of Tanach.
    – Alex
    Aug 17, 2011 at 16:01
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    Do you have a source for this?
    – Menachem
    Sep 19, 2011 at 6:21
  • @Menachem hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14179&pgnum=11
    – ertert3terte
    May 13, 2012 at 5:10
  • @menachem there is also an "official list" of big and small letters in the Mikraos Gedolos Divrei Hayamim
    – ertert3terte
    May 13, 2012 at 5:19
  • @ShmuelBrin: link? hebrewbooks.org/14254
    – Menachem
    May 13, 2012 at 5:28
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This is a list online. Mesorah Gedolah at the beginning of the Torah also records all the big letters (I can't find a similar list for small letters).

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Not a book about the letters taken together and forming an anagram or the like, but there's a rather extensive write-up on the odd letters in the Tora in Tora Sh'lema. I think it appears after his commentary on M'tzora, or possibly Tazria.

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Israel Yeivin, Introduction to the Tiberian Masorah (ed. E.J. Revell; Scholars Press, 1985) discusses these "large" and "small" letters (among other peculiarities pertaining to letters) on pp. 47-48 (§§ 84-85).

He refers to the Masorah's listing of "a few dozen" examples of large letters, although in the list provided in a previous answer there are 29 (so, two-and-a-bit dozen?). Only a few of these, he claims, allow for some kind of cogent explanation:

  • those that begin a book (Bereshit, Shir HaShirim, Divrei HaYamim, Mishlei) or section (ס at Qohelet 12:13);
  • those that fix attention on something of significance, e.g. Vayiqra 11:42 (half-way point in Torah counting letters) and 13:33 (counting words);
  • providing a warning that "reading must be precise", as in Devarim 6:4.

But most, he believes, don't admit of any rationale (e.g. Bereshit 30:42; Devarim 29:27).

There are fewer examples of small letters, citing from the Masorah:

  • three small final nuns: Yeshaya 44:14; Yirmiyahu 29:13; and Mishlei 16:28;
  • others listed as: Bereishit 2:4; 27:46; Vayiqra 1:1; Devarim 32:18.

Finally, Yeivin also notes that such marking is not consistent across the older mss, e.g. Leningradensis having only three of each (large and small).

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There are plenty of commentators who discuss why some letters are bigger (or smaller) than others. The Baal Ha'Turim, for example, has a commentary on the Torah that focuses primarily on the gematria (the counting system) of the words in the Torah, but he also discusses why some letters are in different forms.

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