Symmetrically Designed Sifrei Torah: A Quantitative Analysis - Hakirah

Symmetrically Designed Sifrei Torah: A Quantitative Analysis : 181
solution. He suggests 16 that the Gemara in Kiddushin is dealing not with
words but rather with pairs of words. He proceeds to list 89 places in
דרש דרש the Torah where double words are employed and shows that
is the 45 th pair. 17 As with his solution with the letters, many have
challenged this answer 18 by showing that any list of double letters is
arbitrary, 19 e.g. R’ Zilber himself first counted 77 pairs and then 85
pairs before settling on 89. And, as in the previous section, we once
again raise the question as to why anyone would be interested in
making such a list and finding the center of it. Merzbach tries to
address this question by offering the following rationale for R’
Zilber’s general approach:
“We have to remember that the purpose of the soferim in the
different counts of letters, words, verses and parashiot was to
preserve the uniformity and precision of the Written Torah. They
wanted to give all the holders of Torah scrolls simple testing
methods that would enable them to check that nothing was
omitted or added to the Torah scrolls that they hold. It is not
practical to ask a person to count 80,000 words, so they suggested
much simpler checks, though they are less certain.”
Considering: the length of the Torah and the type of errors
that can occur, the fact that the Torah is usable even if the “odd”
letters are written normally; 20 and that the double-word test is by no
means that easy to apply and of very limited usefulness, we find this
justification of R’ Zilber’s approach unconvincing. 21
אהבת תורה 16 R’ Zilber says he originally found this idea in a book entitled
written by R’ Pinchus Zalman Segal Ish-Horowitz published in 1905.
17 For a list of the 89 “doubles” דף שבועי מספר see 334 by Eli Merzbach
at (hereafter
referred to as Merzbach).
18 E.g., McKay and Cohen.
19 For example: Should:
) - words from different roots be counted? – No.
Yes. - words in successive verses be counted? – ‏(שמות ז׃טז - יז)‏ כה כה *
20 See Rambam ז׃ח - ט ‏.ס״ת Note that he never mentions which letters are
big or small.
21 See McKay for a much more critical assessment of the value of these
“supposed” tests. The author asserts that the actual middle letter, word
and verse would have been much more helpful.
ברא שית יב׃א)‏ לך לך *