Symmetrically Designed Sifrei Torah: A Quantitative Analysis - Hakirah

218 : Hạkirah, the Flatbush Journal of Jewish Law and Thought
Sefer Torah based on either letters or words. We note Maseches Soferim
9:2 suggests that the vav of gachon be large because it is the middle
letter and to put רש דרש on separate lines because they are the
central words. Maseches Soferim thus felt it necessary to do something
to highlight these letters and words even though they are the middle
letter or words only in a specially designed S”T. Note that neither the
need to enlarge the vav nor to separate דרש דרש is mentioned in
Maseches Sefer Torah. We suggest it is precisely because Maseches Sefer
Torah was written much earlier and used the 46-verse-per-page S”T.
As such, both the vav of gachon and דרש דרש appeared on the top of a
page and did not require any further highlighting.
12. Conclusion
ד
The scenarios we have outlined in this paper concerning the physical
evolution in the S”T, we feel, are well motivated and address many
issues and Gemaras that have never been fully explained or linked. In
the process we have also demonstrated that the symmetry we are
stressing exists only if our current Torah is almost exactly the one the
original soferim had. Thus, rather than this Gemara challenging our
current Masorah, it in fact validates it. We have also addressed almost
all of the questions we originally asked, with the exception of the
Zohar’s claim of 600,000 letters. Suffice it to say without detail that
this too can be explained in terms of the design of a S”T that has an
equal number of spaces (i.e. letters and blanks) per page. The details
are no different from what we have already done for verses, letters
and words.
We note in closing that the words of the Gemara in Kiddushin
30a quoting from the results of the Soferim read almost like the
middle page of a three-page how-to booklet where the 1 st and 3 rd
pages were lost and everyone is trying to determine the objective of
the entire 3-page booklet. In this vein, even if our conjectures as to
what the Soferim really wanted to accomplish are incorrect, we feel we
have identified some fascinating mathematical symmetries in their
calculations that cannot be ignored and opened up a new, more
mature way of looking at the Gemara that will ultimately succeed in
divining the soferim’s true objectives.