Symmetrically Designed Sifrei Torah: A Quantitative Analysis - Hakirah

182 : Hạkirah, the Flatbush Journal of Jewish Law and Thought
5. Verses
והתגלח של פסוקים…בעי רב יוסף והתגלח מהאי גיסא או מהאי גיסא?‏
א"ל אביי פסוקי מיהא ליתו לימנוי'.‏ בפסוקי נמי לא בקיאינן דכי אתא רב
אחא בר אדא אמר במערבא פסקי ליה להאי קרא לתלתא פסוקי ויאמר ה'‏
אל משה הנה אנכי בא אליך בעב הענן.‏ תנו רבנן חמשת אלפים ושמונה
מאות ושמונים ושמונה פסוקים הוו פסוקי ס"ת.‏
The two statements concerning the middle verse and the total
number of verses in the Torah are each at odds with the Torah we
currently have, as well as inconsistent with each other. Based on the
count of verses as summarized in Table 22 2, there are 5,845 verses in
the Torah with verse 2,923 rd ח׃ח , 23 ‏,ויקרא the true middle verse. The
‏,ויקרא יג׃לג ‏,והתגלח middle, verse the soferim identified as being in the
is the 3,082 nd verse. This undercount of 160 verses 24 is almost 5.2%
(i.e. 160 out of 3,082) of the total number of verses. Moreover, the
Gemara’s final total count of 5,888 verses differs from our count of
5,845 and its middle is verse 2,945. When the Gemara says we are not
experts in letters or verses it is saying that over time we have lost part
of our ‏.מסורה As such, a slight error in the count is possible.
However, an error rate of over 5% means that we have a mistake on
the average once every 20 verses. It is difficult to believe that in as
important a document as the Torah, where meticulous care is given
to the preservation and transmission of the text, 25 such a high error
22 Table 2 gives the number of verses in each parasha, Chumash and the
entire Torah (i.e. 5,845) as given in most standard Chumashim. We have
also supplied the number of verses in each parasha and Chumash based
on an actual count of the verses as they appear in our Chumashim.
Although the actual count has a total of 5,846 verses, without loss of
generality, we will use 5,845 for this paper.
well. as פסוק reports this מנחת שי 23
says we need an extra 160 verses in the 2 nd half of אגרות משה או״ח א׃לה 24
the Torah to make והתגלח the correct middle. In fact we need 320 more.
25 When we talk about the preservation of the text and Masorah, there is a
major difference between letters/words and verses. Letters/words
comprise the written text and must be recorded correctly so that the
S”T be permitted to be used. To satisfy any Torah reading, in addition
to reading from a text that is properly written, the letters/words must