In Judaism, everything is correspondences and symbols. Nothing is a coincidence. This article takes you through the correspondences between letters, numbers and symbols.
How were numbers written before the use of Indo-Arabic symbols, 1, 2, 3 etc.? Europe used the Roman system: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X,... L..., C..., M... The Hebrews introduced a different system based on their alphabet: each letter also has a numerical value. The first 10 letters are the units, from 1 (with the letter aleph א) to 9, then we continue the alphabet with the tens from 10 (with the letter yod י) to 90, then the hundreds 100 (qouf ק), 200 (resh ר), 300 (shin ש), 400 (tav ת). Higher numbers are formed from combinations and abbreviations of these letters.
But Hebrew numbers also have an intrinsic symbolism whose source is biblical, therefore divine for those who believe in the Bible. The symbolism of numbers is found in many details that a tourist guide can tell you about during a visit to a given site, or to a particular place of worship. Let's see what the first 10 numbers are about.
Number 1, letter aleph א
The number 1 obviously symbolizes the unity of God: God is One.
The God in His action as creator (Genesis 1) is called Elohim (אלהים) which begins with the letter aleph.
The 10 commandments (in Hebrew) begin with the letter א which proclaims that God is One.
The shape of this letter is a letter which stands as if having two legs and two arms, and which is formed of three other letters: a vav across and two yods inverted one another. Now the numerical value for one vav + two yod is 6+10+10 = 26 which is the numerical value of the name of God written with 4 letters, namely the tetragram. We see that the shape of the letter aleph intrinsically hides the name of God. But I am not going to go into the symbolism of the shape of the letters here, beyond this example, because it would require a much longer text. There are published works dedicated to this subject which would take us too far away from our numbers.
Number 2, letter beth ב
The number 2 represents the two tables of the Law, revealed to Moses at Mount Sinai.
The Torah itself begins with the letter beth ב in the word bereshit בראשית usually translated as "In the beginning".
The meaning of the number 2 is obviously the duality which is the way the world exists: night and day, good and evil, hot and cold, pure and impure, etc. Everything is everything and its opposite. We find this duality in man and woman also in some way (Genesis 2:18 : I will make him a helper, against him, textually in Hebrew). So, the message is that the world is made of opposites (scientists have even discovered that it is made of matter and antimatter, that's saying something!). How can it hold together without these opposites nullifying one another? By the divine will. Yes, duality exists but it is the Unity of God which makes the necessary adhesive for opposites to coexist and for the world to exist. This is why the letter beth is also used for the word beracha ברכה which means (divine) blessing. The adhesive is His blessing that He gave to the world for it to exist. And this is why the Torah also begins with this letter ב. “In the beginning…” inherently contains the necessary divine blessing for the world to materialize out of nothing. Nothing can then become Everything, that is to say its opposite.
Number 3, letter gimel ג
The number 3 symbolizes the three patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is through them that the first divine revelation of postdiluvian generations takes place. The symbolism of this number is that it takes three to achieve completeness. God reveals himself to Abraham who fathered Isaac but also Ishmael, then to Isaac who fathered Jacob but also the violent Esau/Edom; and only with Jacob, the creation reaches the point where God can finally reveal Himself completely: it is the descendants of Jacob, from the 12 Tribes, who will carry the divine torch. So it takes 3 to achieve completeness. And this 3 is found in many concepts in the Bible. It takes 3 daily prayers without which the day is incomplete. There are 3 religious festivals per year (Pesach, Shavuot, Sukkot), without which the year is not complete. And 3 meals on Shabbat. And 3 judges in a court of law, without which there is no fairness in human justice. And 3 sons of Noah, to fill the entire world after the Flood. In summary, if you want to get something done right, check your work 3 times. And if you want to say something important, think about it 3 times before saying it.
Number 4, letter daleth ד
4 is the number of Matriarchs: Sarah, wife of Abraham, Rebecca, wife of Isaac, Leah and Rachel, the two sisters, wives of Jacob. As 4 represents mothers, 4 is also the number of types of sons that a father can have (they are described in the Jewish Passover Aggada), namely: an intelligent son, an evil son, a simpleton son, and a son who doesn't even know how to ask questions. And, as mothers represent life because they generate humanity, the number 4 is also associated with the annual cycles of life, which are the 4 types of new year in the cycle of the Jewish calendar, namely: the 1st Nissan (annual festivals), 1st Elul (tithe for livestock), 1st Tishri (cycle of years count), 15 Shevat (tithe for fruits, beginning of spring). The number 4 is also the number of letters in the name of God, the tetragram, because He alone directs these 4 cycles in the Jewish year. We also find the number 4 in Nature, with the 4 cardinal points, the 4 seasons, the 4 fundamental elements (fire, water, earth and air), etc. So, we see the importance that the number 4 is associated with the matriarchs without whom the “natural” world, as God wanted it, could not have been produced.
Number 5, letter heh ה
This is the number of books of the Torah known in English as Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. This letter ה appears twice in the name of God (the tetragram). There are twice 5 commandments in each of the two tables of the Law. Likewise, there are 5 fingers on each hand (and each foot). Each of the 4 fringes of the tzitzit (the prayer shawl) contains 5 knots. The number 5 therefore represents the spiritual in the world which would otherwise only be material. The number 5 represents the presence of the divine (or the divine 'hand') in our material world. And if we look closer, the word five in Hebrew is called chamesh and is written with three letters: חמש. These three letters correspond to divine choices: the letter ח is the initial of the word chai (חי) which means Life, which God established on earth; the letter ש is the initial of the word Shabbat (שבת) which is God's gift to humanity as a day of rest; and the letter מ is the initial of the word milah (מילה) which is the circumcision and therefore God's pact with humanity through His representative on earth, the people of Israel according to the Bible.
Is this why many Middle Eastern cultures have considered the 'hamsa (which means five in Arabic and is shaped like a hand with 5 fingers) as a good luck charm? No doubt, so that the divine hand watches over us. Muslims have in fact copied this symbol and call it the “hand of Fatima”.
Number 6, letter vav ו
As much as 5 symbolizes the spiritual, 6 symbolizes the material. It took 6 days to create the material world. The man generally works 6 days a week before resting. In Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah) there are also 6 periods of 1000 years before the final redemption (which is the post-messianic period), that is to say that it will be the end of the material world, before the spiritual world takes over.
The number 6 is also the number of treatises of the Mishnah which is the basic text of the Talmud. The Mishnah was written to provide a human level, i.e. materialistic, understanding of the world created by God. And it indicates how man must act in His creation by fulfilling the mitzvot, meaning God's commandments stated in the Torah. In a way, the Mishnah is man's user manual for the world that God created for him. We therefore understand the correspondence between the material world, the Mishnah and the number 6.
Number 7, letter zayin ז
This number is special. The 6 represents the materialistic, and the 7 represents what is above the materialistic and, in fact, its 'mechanics'. Everything in the world is united in a single supervision: this is what is symbolized by the 7. What is it? The materialistic creation was made in 6 days, and the 7th day is Shabbat which oversees the weekly cycles. In fact, many aspects in the world are governed by a combination of the number 7. There are 7 days of the week, 7 lights in the menorah (the candlestick of the Temple), 7 planets apart from Earth (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter , Saturn, Uranus, Neptune; Pluto has for several years been excluded as a planet), 7 continents (North and South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, Australasia, Antarctica), 7 oceans (North and South Atlantic, North and South Pacific South, Indian, Arctic and Southern), 7 seas of the ancient world when the vast oceans were not known yet (the Adriatic, Arabian Sea, Black Sea, Caspian Sea, Mediterranean, Red Sea, Persian Gulf Sea), etc.
Man has also borrowed the divine number 7 to fix the 7 wonders of the world, the 7 virtues and the 7 deadly sins. It is not a coincidence. The number 7 for the wonders of the world was set by the Greeks who believed that this number had a certain spirituality (they surely borrowed this knowledge from the Hebrews or the Bible). And for the 7 virtues, it was Saint Paul who fixed them. Now Paul's name was Saul, he was a Jew from Tarsus, who was knowledgeable about the scriptures, and he had addressed the Corinthians (therefore Greeks) to whom the biblical number 7 already spoke as spiritual.
Note also that the cycles of time are governed by the rules of Nature: the day is governed by the rhythm of the arrival of night and day (this cycle is arbitrarily divided into 24 hours), the month by the cycle lunar (28 days), the year by the cycle of the seasons (of which there are 4). But only the week (of 7 days) has no natural or astronomical origin: God established it to benefit the world.
The number 7, supernatural, is also the number of other cycles outside of Nature: it is the cycle of shmita (in Israel, we cultivate the land for 6 years and we let it rest and produce by itself the 7th year) and the Jubilee cycle (which is the year after 7 shmita cycles, therefore the 50th year since it is 7x7 +1). These two divine cycles are only applicable in the Land of Israel.
The human world is also managed by laws to distinguish it from the animal kingdom. The “natural” human laws are called the Noahide Laws (those given by God to Noah and his sons after the Flood) and there are 7 of them.
The human life cycle is also made up of three stages: birth, marriage, and death. But we find the number 7 in these steps. Birth is only effective after 7 days have passed: for a boy it is then the time for his circumcision on the 8th day. Marriage is a contract (called ketuba) between the groom and... God (who is the guarantor of the rights of the wife): it is symbolized by the 7 blessings of marriage. Death is only effective after 7 days of mourning (a period called shiva, which literally means 7).
The number 7 is found in many biblical narratives, when divine act or divine will is in action. For example, the Levites circled 7 times (for 7 days) around the walls of Jericho so that they would collapse. Two major holidays (Pesach, the Jewish Passover, and Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles) both last 7 days. As for the 3rd major holiday of the Jewish calendar, it is Shavuot, a word that means Weeks, because it involves counting 7 weeks since the exit from Egypt (therefore 49 days because 7x7). These holidays have their equivalents in the Christian calendar, for example Pentecost for Shavuot.
Number 8, letter heth ח
The three previous numbers symbolize the spiritual (5), the material (6) and the divine (7), and the number 8 finally symbolizes the covenant with God, and the hidden reason for this alliance which is guarantor of everything in Creation. Because the number 8 is the number of days to wait before circumcision (which is the sign of the covenant with God), in the number of days of Hanukkah festival (where God's presence is hidden), in the total number of religious days established by God in the festivals' annual cycle (2 days for Passover, 1 for Shavuot, 2 for Rosh Hashana, 1 for Yom Kippur, and 2 for Sukkot), in the number of threads necessary for the 4 corners of the tzitzit. It is therefore obvious that the number 8 symbolizes the alliance with the divine because it is through the execution of His commandments listed above that man can transcend himself and approach God.
Let us also note that David was the 8th son of Jesse and that from David's descendants will come the Messiah.
It should be noted that the number 8 is also found in the celebration of Shemini Atzeret, which is the 8th day after the 7 days of Sukkot. Why is it important? Because Sukkot is the last religious holiday of the annual festivals cycle and therefore Shemini Atzeret “closes” this completed cycle. Once this cycle is complete, the world can hope that God will sustain His creation for the next cycle in the same way that we celebrate the end of the harvest and pray that the next season will be fruitful again. So, the number 8 is the end and the beginning of cycles. This is why this day is also chosen for the feast of Simcha Torah, also meaning the end and the beginning of the cycle of weekly readings of the Torah. We can then say that the number 8 is like the 8th day of Creation: after the 6 material days, and the 7th spiritual day of Shabbat, the 8th day announces the end and the beginning of the weekly cycle of the week. It is thanks to this 8th day that humanity can reassure itself and understand that God has not stopped Creation after 7 days but continuously repeats it, or rather recreates it, by His will from week to week. This is His role and His promise in our covenant with Him.
Number 9, letter thet ט
With the number 9 we return to the importance of women in Creation. Because 9 represents the 9 months of pregnancy, and therefore the repeated mother/child cycle which creates life (there is a parallel with the divine Creation of the world). In her prayer to God (I Samuel 2:1-10), the barren Hannah appeals 9 times to the name of the Lord (the tetragramm), and her pregnancy then begins.
The number 9 obviously also recalls the 9 candles of Hanukkah, which are the 8 corresponding to the 8 days of celebration + 1 candle lit each day to "watch over" the other candles: this 9th candle has a special role as it symbolizes the divine "guarantor" for the 8 others by which, in fact, we light the 8 other candles successively.
Number 10, letter yod י
The number 10 symbolizes the essence of God. It is with this letter that His name (the tetragram) begins. The number 10 also echoes the number 1, in the sense that 1 is God and 10 are His actions.
At the human level, an action often requires two hands and, allegorically, divine actions also require His "two hands" because the hand is worth 5 (see 'hamsa above) and two hands are worth 10.
In Judaism, we find many references of the number 10 as a symbol for divine actions: the 10 Commandments, the 10 plagues of Egypt, the 10 Sefirot (which are the divine emanations explained in the Kabbalah), the execution by hanging of the 10 sons of the evil Haman (at the time of Queen Esther and of the feast of Purim) which has its parallel with the 10 Nazi leaders hanged in Nuremberg in 1946. Also, on a human level, when a community wants to pray together, it requires 10 men at a minimum to allow them to add the divine name to their prayers: this count of 10 men is called the minyan.
We could certainly continue with the symbolism of numbers and go as far as the number 400 represented by the last letter Tav ת of the Hebrew alphabet, but that would exceed the size of this short text. It would take a whole book! In any case I hope the subject has been of interest to you.
Albert Benhamou
Tour Guide in Israel
April 2024
