JEWISH BY NUMBERS

Parshat Bamidbar focuses on counting the Jewish nation – hence the alternative name for Sefer Bamidbar: “Numbers”. The final count is just over 600,000, and the Zohar tells us that this corresponds with the number of letters in the Torah.

The problem is – there are only 304,805 letters in the Torah, so what does the Zohar mean?!

Rabbi Dunner explores various explanations for this strange anomaly, and also shares a piece from the Nesivos Sholom that sheds light on the significance of the number 600,000, and the backdrop to why knowing how many Jews there were in the wilderness is as important now as it was when they were counted.