משנה and תורה at skip 50 in Exodus 11 and 12

The observation

In Exodus 11:9, start from the מ of משה. Every 50th letter reads מ, ש, נ, ה. That spells משנה. It runs through Exodus 11:10 and ends in the word הזה in Exodus 12:2.

Then, in Exodus 12:11, start from the ת of אתו. Every 50th letter reads ת, ו, ר, ה. That spells תורה, and it ends in Exodus 12:13.

Put together, the two read Mishneh Torah. The two first letters stand exactly 613 letters apart. Mishneh Torah is the name of the great law code of the Rambam, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon. The number 613 is the traditional count of the commandments. And the same Exodus 11:9 contains the words רבות מופתי בארץ מצרים, whose first letters are ר מ ב מ, read as the name Rambam. Those initial letters are a different kind of reading from a skip. We mention it since the story always includes it.

Where it comes from

This observation is attributed to Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandl by his students and has been repeated widely since. We have not been able to confirm the first place the skip and the 613 were put together in print, and we do not guess.

The measurement

In two chapters, 3 found against 0.15 expected looks large. But the scope of two chapters was drawn around the find, so that comparison flatters it. The fair scope is the whole Torah. There, at this one skip, משנה has 9 sequences and תורה has 21. Both counts are above chance, and the 21 includes the 8 in Exodus that this gallery already discusses.

Then we can ask the real question. Those two sets make 189 pairs. How close do they get? The closest pair in the Torah is 293 letters apart. This one, at 613, is second. The next is 2,292. So this pair does stand out: the two words really are close here, compared with the other pairs at this skip.

About the number 613

Of 189 pairs, exactly one is 613 letters apart. That gap has no privileged place in a test. Many gaps would have a story of some kind: 70, 248, 365, 613. The number's weight comes from the tradition, and it is a lovely point for a teacher to make. For a measurement, it is one value of many that would have caught the eye. A rule set in advance, such as "the first letters of these two sequences will be exactly 613 apart", is what a test needs, and nobody set one.

The same goes for the skip of 50, the scope, the book, the choice of forward, the choice of first letters as the measuring points, and the choice of משנה. It could have been הלכה, or the title of a different work by a different scholar. Each of these was a choice, and ten yes-or-no choices already make a thousand possibilities.

How to read it

This entry shows how a real measurement and a rich reading can stand side by side without being the same thing. The sequences are there. The closeness is real, and we can rank it: second of 189 at this skip. The meaning is what a reader brings. That is an honest and old way to read Torah, and it does not need a statistic to support it. A statistic cannot carry it either.

Open it in the laboratory with both terms loaded and look at the matrix at width 50. Both columns stand straight, in the same picture. Then try the Controls bench on the pair, and see how often a shuffled text does as well.