תורה backward at skip 50 in Numbers

The observation

Read against the text at 50 letters apart, near the opening of Numbers, and you can spell תורה. The ת is in the word אתם in Numbers 1:3. Going back 50 letters, the ו is in שמות in verse 2, the ר is in מצרים in verse 1, and the ה is the last letter of משה in verse 1.

Where retellings differ

The story is told with Rabbi Weissmandl's observations, and the versions we have seen disagree on details. Genesis and Exodus each start at the first ת of the book, so a reader expects something as neat here. Is there one? We tested the natural candidates on the Leningrad text.

So the neat version does not reproduce. The sequence that does exist runs from the ת in Numbers 1:3 back to the ה of משה, the last letter of the fourth word of the book. It is close to the opening and it spans the first three verses. It does not start from any first letter of the book. If you read a claim that it does, that claim fails in this text.

An older edition might differ. Our result is for the Leningrad text only. A claim that fails here may hold somewhere else, and we would be glad to see its edition and exact letters.

The measurement

The second backward sequence starts at Numbers 16:22. Two is what chance gives, near enough. Nearly half of shuffled copies of Numbers do at least as well. Forward at the same skip, there are 3. The one at Numbers 16:22 has no story attached to it. A story picks out one hit and leaves the others unmentioned, which is one more reason to read the whole count.

The opening position is the only feature left to discuss, and it can be measured too. Allow any skip from 2 to 100, in either direction, and count the sequences of תורה that begin in the first 250 letters of Numbers. There are 2, and chance alone gives 1.3. Once the skip is free, a sequence near the opening is what you should expect.

A fair test would fix the rule first. Say the rule is this: תורה, at skip 50, in either direction, with its lowest letter in the first 300 letters of the book. Applied to all five books, it gives one hit each in Genesis, Exodus and Numbers, and none in Leviticus or Deuteronomy. That is more than chance would give, and the Deuteronomy entry has the full measurement. The rule itself was written after the hits were known, and that limits what the number can tell us.

How to read it

We keep this entry for what it teaches. A pattern told across five books sounds like one fact. Measured one book at a time, it is five separate facts of different strength. In Genesis and Exodus the start is exact. In Leviticus the term and skip change. In Numbers the direction changes and the start moves off the first letter. In Deuteronomy the skip changes too. Each change is a new degree of freedom, and a pattern that can flex in so many ways is easier to find.

The next time you meet a story like this, ask for the exact start, skip and edition. If it is told loosely, check it yourself in the laboratory. That takes one search, and it costs nothing to look at the letters.