I’ve been thinking about the weekly practice of reading Torah.
I decided to do a bit of Kabbalistic analysis of the Hebrew word “parshah,” which means “portion” and refers to the weekly portions of Torah that are regularly read in community (and sometimes at home). This is an independent study, something I did on my own that was not necessarily related to any specific commentaries or traditional Kabbalistic teachings, though I was inspired by both.
Here is the word in Hebrew:
פרשהHere is the gematria value of that word:
I then used a methodology whereby I analyzed PRShH (585) like so:
My thought process was to determine factors of 585, looking for potentially significant gematria values in the results. And here, something jumped out at me. 65 is the gematria value of the word Adonai:
אדניADNI is the Divine Name that corresponds to Malkhut (the 10th Sefira).
There is a teaching found in the Zohar that says:
The Torah emerges from Chokhmah.
It is worth noting that the Zohar says Torah emerges from Chokhmah rather than Keter, the highest Sefira, which remains transcendent. If we include Da’at (the “hidden” Sefira), then from Chokhmah (the 2nd Sefira) down through Malkhut (the 10th) spans exactly 9 Sefirot. And since ADNI is the Divine Name corresponding to Malkhut, the final Sefira, where Torah is received and embodied in the world, when we multiply ADNI (65) by that number of Sefirot (9), we arrive at 585 (PRShH): the gematria value of the very word for the weekly Torah readings.
This felt significant to me.
I then began to look at other factors of 585. There are 12 in total:
First off, 12 is itself a significant number in this context when we consider the Twelve Tribes of Israel, the descendants of Jacob (Yaʿaqōv / יעקב), through which the Torah was handed down.
Another factor from the set that jumped out at me was 45, since the name “Adam” shares this same gematria value:
אדםContinuing with the same methodology as before, 45 is a factor of 585 like so:
This hits on another interesting idea, because 13 is the gematria value of the word “echad,” which can mean “oneness” or “unity.”
אחדExpressed in another way:
This suggests to me that PRShH (585) facilitates the unification (AChD/13) of humanity (ADM/45) with Torah.