Who wants to read a book called “Numbers”?! This book gets its English name from the censuses found at the beginning and the end. (I know. Sounds boring, doesn’t it!) But there is a truly incredible insight hidden here that you will find astonishing. This Torah portion also includes the only place where a Hebrew letter is broken in two. What could this possibly mean? Listen and find out.
Numbers 25:10 And Adonai said to Moses, “Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back My wrath from the people of Israel, in that he was jealous with My jealousy among them, so that I did not consume the people of Israel in My jealousy. Therefore say, ‘Behold, I give to him My covenant of peace, and it shall be to him and to his descendants after him the covenant of a perpetual priesthood, because he was jealous for his God and made atonement for the people of Israel.’”
שלום (shalom) = “peace”
שלים (shalim) = “complete”
שלם (shaleim) = “complete”
Numbers 1:45-46 So all those listed of the people of Israel, by their fathers’ houses, from twenty years old and upward, every man able to go to war in Israel – all those listed were: 603,550.
Numbers 26:51 This was the list of the sons of Israel: 601,730.
603,550 – 601,730 = 1,820
1,820 = 26 x 70
YHVH (י-ה-ו-ה) appears 1,820x in Torah
בראשית = “In the beginning”
בית = 412
ריש = 510
אלף = 111
שין = 360
יוד = 20
תאו = 407
Total – 1,820