Rabbi Daniel: Thoughts on Torah

Dear friends,

In 5786 we read the first third of each weekly parsha.  In parshat Shemot, the fifth verse of the first aliyah reads as follows:  
 
וַֽיְהִ֗י כׇּל־נֶ֛פֶשׁ יֹצְאֵ֥י יֶֽרֶךְ־יַעֲקֹ֖ב שִׁבְעִ֣ים נָ֑פֶשׁ וְיוֹסֵ֖ף הָיָ֥ה בְמִצְרָֽיִם׃ 
The total number of persons that were of Jacob’s issue came to seventy, Joseph being already in Egypt.

One of my favorite subjects is numeric symbolism in the Torah.  This verse contains the number 70, an often used number with important symbolic meaning.  First of all, how do we know that the number is symbolic?  Well, you can't take the number literally in this context.  Jacob had twelve sons alone and they all had families.  There is no way that the total added up to only seventy individuals.

The commentator Chizkuni says that שבעים נפש, “seventy persons.” was written primarily to tell of God’s miracles, to remind the reader that whereas only 70 persons of Yaakov’s family migrated to Egypt, after 210 years over 600,000 male adults between the ages of 20 and 60 left Egypt, presumably at least two and a half million people in all.  

It is interesting that this commentator wants us to think of seventy as a small number; when looking at our tradition's multiple uses of this number, we get the sense that it is actually quite large - a myriad of people as it were.   The rabbis of the Talmud pick up on this number when they proclaim that there are seventy nations in the world and that the Torah ought to be translated into 70 languages.  The most significant use of the number is when the rabbis tell us that there 

are "seventy faces" to Torah (meaning essentially unlimited interpretations).  

But this is more than the rabbis simply telling us that in all these cases we are dealing with numbers that cannot be counted (like looking out over an ocean).  Beyond the seemingly unending mass, is the varied element of the collection -  the fact that there are countless or very many elements or aspects.  It is important to establish that the group is not monolithic or homogeneous.  Each group (people, nations, languages, or "faces") is rich in its diversity.  

Let us celebrate this message of diversity and may we cherish the ability to repeatedly unearth new treasures within any "70's" collection.

Shabbat Shalom 
Rabbi Daniel Victor