22
Umm, 2 years later, and no one has gone with:
One is Hashem, the Holy One, Blessed Be He, Creator of Heaven and Earth.
19
300 cups of chemicals must be poured over a persons head before the skull softens enough to permit brain surgery! (Kesubos 77b)
R' Eliezer knew 300 laws about planting cucumbers through magic, and 300 laws about a specific form of tzaraas, that no one (except R' Akiva) ever asked him about. (Sanhedrin 68a)
R' Meir had 300 parables involving foxes (Sanhedrin ...
19
Jacob had twelve sons, and on spiritual matters, we count those twelve. With Levi as one and Joseph as one. (That's for instance what you'd find on the High Priest's decision breastplate.)
On financial/land matters, however, Levi did his own thing, and Joseph got a double portion as his sons Ephraim and Menashe. For instance, there were spaces for twelve ...
18
The following is just my understanding of the sources, and if there are any mistakes (ex: in the Ramban's reasons to disagree with the Rambam, the titles given to mitzvos, etc.), please point them out to me. I used the Mishneh LaMelech's Derech Mitzvosecha § 1, this article, and the Ramban's summary at the end of his Hasagos to help with this list.
In ...
17
There is a little known Chassidic text published in 1834 entitled Pri Yitzchak that details all 613 Mitzvot and the corresponding limbs for positive mitzvot and 365 Gidim for negative commandments. It has not been translated from the Hebrew. It is a very sophisticated work.
He uses the list of halachic limbs listed in the Mishna, and uses the Rambam's list ...
17
Mesushelach was 300 years old when his father Chanoch passed away Bereishis 5
Yosef gave Binyamin 300 silver shekels after revealing his identity Bereishis 45
Hashem made Gideon and his 300 men victorious over the Midianites Judges 7
300 Foxes that Shimshon used to burn the Plishtim's wheat Judges 15
King Solomon had 300 pilagshim (concubines) 1 Kings ...
17
According to Mechon Mamre:
TL;DR
TOTAL - 16,818 (+ 104)
Hamada` - 725
Ahavah - 730 (+ 63)
Zemanim - 1,738 (+ 41)
Nashim - 1,207
Qedushah - 1,140
Hafla'ah - 820
Zera`im - 1,582
`Avodah - 1,537
Haqorbanot - 651
Taharah - 2,317
Nezaqim - 993
Qinyan - 1,191
Mishpattim - 1,141
Shofettim - 1,046
Hamada` - 725
Yesode'i HaTorah - 140
De`ot - 130
Talmud Torah - ...
16
Six are the cities of refuge (for accidental killers).
16
The part of the arm that matters when counting the number of loops around the arm is from the elbow to the wrist. The Chabad custom is to wrap the straps so that there are 6 complete loops and 2 half loops. This equals 7 complete loops, but may look like one is wrapping 8 loops.
As you can see from this picture from Chabad.org's article about Tefillin, the ...
15
The straightforward answer to this question is that whereas the Christians are discussing what Hashem is made up of, the Kabbalists are discussing the ways in which He chose to reveal Himself.
Just like we can understand that ה' ממית ומחיה is not reminiscent of trinity, since it is simply a reflection of what Hashem will do about different circumstances, ...
15
The Talmud (Megillah 14a) writes:
הרבה נביאים עמדו להם לישראל, כפלים כיוצאי מצרים, אלא, נבואה שהוצרכה לדורות - נכתבה, ושלא הוצרכה - לא נכתבה.
Many prophets arose for the Jews: more than twice the number of Jews in the Exodus [1200000, but this language is likely meant to be understood as a really, really big number]. However, those prophesies which ...
15
The RaMBa"M is likely quoting this directly from the Gemara in Sanhedrin 2A (Hebrew, English):
סנהדרין גדולה היתה של שבעים ואחד וקטנה של עשרים ושלשה מנין לגדולה שהיא של שבעים ואחד שנאמר אספה לי שבעים איש מזקני ישראל ומשה על גביהן ר' יהודה אומר שבעים
The Great Sanhedrin consisted of seventy-one members; the small sanhedrin of twenty-three. Whence do ...
14
6 Constant Mitzvos
To believe in God, and that he created all things.
Not to believe in anything else other than God.
To believe in God's Oneness.
To fear God.
To love God.
Not to pursue the passions of your heart and stray after your eyes.
14
The list of differences can be found in an appendix to the Minchas Chinuch.
Ramban includes all of these positive mitzvos, which the Rambam doesn't
Mitzvah 1: Positive mitzvah of eating maaser sheni.
Mitzvah 2: Positive mitzvah of not eating impure trumah
Mitzvah 3: Positive mitzvah of not selling shvi'is fruits
Mitzvah 4: Positive mitzvah of settling ...
13
י and ה by themselves do form a Divine name, used in several places in the Bible (e.g., Ex. 17:16). All of the laws about not erasing a name of G-d apply to it as well (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah 276:10).
As for י and ו, we do find those used as a representation of G-d's name in personal names like יוחנן (Yochanan/Johanan, "G-d is kind") and יוכבד (...
13
The Chinuch, in his introductory letter, breaks it down like this (apparently differently than the Chofetz Chaim):
There are 613 Mizvot, 248 Positive and 365 Negative. (The Chinuch bases his sefer on the Rambam's enumeration of the Mitzvot.)
The Total amount of Mitzvot that a person can do these days is 369, however 99 of them (78 Positive and 21 Negative), ...
13
Mesheces Chullin 90b lists three things that Chachimim exaggerated in:
The Ash Heap - 300 kor (see Tamid 2:2)
The Golden Vine - 300 Chohanim to carry it (see Middot 3:8)
The Paroches - 300 to immerse it (see Shekalim 8:5)
13
The Maharal (Chapter 56 of Gevuros Hashem) points out that the plagues follow a pattern, split into units of 3 - the first of each group (plagues 1, 4, and 7) are preceded by a warning to Pharaoh issued by the Nile. The second of each group (2, 5, and 8) are preceded by a warning issued to Pharaoh while sitting on his throne. The third of each group has no ...
12
Rabi Menachem Azaria from Pano says that the Thirty commandments is sections of the 7 commandments (עשרה מאמרות, מאמר חקור דין חלק ג פרק כא).
Rashi on the Gmara says that we don't know what is the list of the 30 commandments.
See also the Talmud Yerusalmi (מסכת ע"ז דף ט,א פרק ב הלכה א גמרא) that says in the future Bnei Noach get 30 commandments. Maybe ...
12
Well, I'll just treat this as a programming assignment. If we use mechon-mamre's masoretic text without vowels; if we ignore punctuation and paragraph marks; if we use the ksiv and not kri (occasionally there's a note -- "the scroll will say this, but read that out-loud instead), I'm getting 135 such verses. A lot of them you'd expect to find repeated a lot, ...
12
I actually saw a dvar torah this week that claimed that the tribe of Gad showed that the others were actually exact by a miracle in Mail Jewish (quoted below). See the quote from Rav Chaim Kanievsky below based on what his father the Steipler Rav told him.
Another explanation is that the counts were actually rounded to the nearest fifty or rounded up to the ...
11
On three things the world depends -- al ha-torah, v'al ha-avodah, v'al gimilut chasadim (Pirke Avot 1:2).
And the world is sustained by three things -- by truth, by justice, and by peace (Pirke Avot 1:18).
11
Six are:
The orders of the Mishnah
Items on the Seder Plate
The days of the Six Day War
The things we remember every day:
Exodus from Egypt (Devarim 16:3)
Receiving the Torah at Mt. Sinai (Devarim 4:9)
Amalek (Devarim 25:17)
The sin of the Golden Calf (Devarim 9:7)
The Sabbath (Shemot 20:8)
Miriam (Devarim 24:9)
11
Six are the millions of Jews who were murdered by Nazi Germany during WWII, HY"D.
11
6 Aliyos (portions read in the torah) on Yom Kipur
11
Sevens
by Ari Lesser
Passover extends seven days my friends
And from the night after the first day ends
We count seven times seven days till Shavuot
Refining our souls with the seven Spheriot
We go through Tiferet, Malchut, Yesod
Chesed, Gevurah, Netzach, and Hod
We’re not tzaddiks but after seven weeks
We’re ready to receive the words G-d ...
11
RaSh"I, Metzudath Tziyon, Metzudath David and "Yemei Kedem" (MaLBI"M???) say nothing on this. (http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=39985&st=&pgnum=162) However, if we look at other examples of numbers being used that way, we find, for example, in the Shabbath morning prayer service, in Pesukei DeZimra, that "A thousand thousand thousands of ...
11
I wrap it seven times, but have been told I wrap it eight times because people count differently than I. That is, from the elbow, I wrap it half a time, seven full times, and whatever's necessary to bring it around again (i.e., another half). So it's seven, see? No, really. Seven. Count 'em.
No, count 'em this way. :-)
As to why I put the extra halves, I ...
11
This number has, to the best of my knowledge, no significance whatsoever in Judaism.
You can search according to gematria here but, as my teacher Rabbi Tzvi Aryeh Rosenfeld z'l said in a shiur, the average person shouldn't really come up with their own gematrios, generally speaking, and expect anything from them.
You will find that there are many ...
11
They are a Gershayim, a Hebrew diacritic used in a number of ways, but generally to indicate that a certain set of letters does not spell a word in the ordinary sense. In this case, it is used to indicate that the letters are to be taken as numerals.
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