The Middle Verse of Leviticus: A Shabbat Table Insight
Surprisingly, this isn't the middle of the Torah... By verse count, the middle verse is actually in Leviticus chapter 8. How can this be?
(Photo: shutterstock)We're at the heart of the Book of Leviticus, the central book. In Leviticus chapter 13, verse 34, appears the word "and he shall shave," with an enlarged Gimel. The Gemara suggests this is a marker for the middle of the Torah, the central verse.
Surprisingly, this isn't the middle of the Torah... By verse count, the middle verse is actually found in Leviticus chapter 8. How can this be?
The Gemara also mentions the words "demanded diligently" in the portion of Acharei Mot as the middle of the Torah in words. Yet, similar questions arise since practically, this isn't accurate either. So what did the Gemara mean?
Rabbi Yitzchak Zilber, of blessed memory, proposed a brilliant idea to explain this.
The large Gimel is the middle of the Torah in large letters. When counting all the large letters in the Torah, it appears right in the middle.
Similarly, the word pair "demanded diligently" marks the middle of the paired words like "the swarming swarm," "the crawling creepers," etc.
This reveals that these markers signify the middle of special letters and special words, not halves of verses or words in the Torah in the literal sense.
