Thread by @RabbiHarvey

I'm feeling very "teachy" tonight after writing my article, and so I'd like to share with you some answers as to why you may see the number "7" in the Torah so often. I'm certain it's plagued you! Why seven? What does it mean? Jump in an learn with us! #Thread #ThreadsOfLight

Let's start with the fact that numbers have a great deal of meaning in the Torah and Tanakh. No, I'm not speaking about numerology or gematria, no secret codes or mystical ideas. I'm speaking about how ancient literature was written for the reader (or listener) to understand. /1

While Judaism has its fair share of mystical fun with numerology, non-Jews have admittedly gotten out of hand and turned the whole numbers thing into some kind of global conspiracy/treasure hunt, which inevitably brought us to the Monster drink lady:/2

Now that your day is ruined just as mine was, let's get back to the real scholarship and that is that numbers in allegories have meaning for its listeners. Near Eastern literature had its own genres, motif adaptions and most importantly, literary tropes. What are those??/3

Literary tropes are time-tested methods of employing figurative language to enrich a written work. In Biblical literature, they are "signals" to the reader, just as genre markers are as well. For more on this see my thread on "how to read the Bible." /4

So what are some common numbers and their meanings? Remember that Biblical literature wasn't historical, not for a LONG time. The idea that it was divine, the idea that it was history, these are relatively LATE ideas that ruined the vast genre of allegories and legends. /5

So, when you read something like "three days," such as in Genesis 30:36, 40:12, 18, 42:17, Exodus 3:18, 5:3, 10:22, 15:22, Numbers 10:33, and 10:38, what are you reading? Are all these situations taking 3 days? Of course not. 3 days was a signal to the reader. /6

Imagine sitting around the campfire listening to the stories of your people and you hear "And he put a distance of three days’ journey between himself and Jacob, while Jacob was pasturing the rest of Laban’s flock." or "And he confined them in the guardhouse for three days." /7

Since we, in 2022, do not live in time nor see our lives in that that cultural repertoire, we have the habit of wondering why three? However, scholarship tells us that "3 days" was a signal to the listener, and then reader, that this was a "short time." That's it. /8

So then, what about forty days? Genesis 7:4, 12, 17, 8:6, 50:3, Exodus 24:18, Numbers 13:25, 14:34, Deut 9:9, 9:11, 9:18, 9:25, 10:10. Were all these incidents forty days? Of course not. The "forty days" was a signal to the listener to mean a "long time." /9

Storytellers will understand this, as they both understand literary tropes, and genre markers; additionally they know what makes a good story. Familiar tropes, familiar ideas, and things easy for people to understand. This is how the Torah allegories were written. /10

I know what you're thinking. That's silly Rabbi, surely people of the time didn't see things that way. But they did! And don't call me Shirley. Think about our own idiomatic expressions and story telling. We barely can keep up with the next generations' use of slang! /11

Imagine in 1,000 years someone opening a book and reading "cat got your tongue." That person does not live in our time, does not understand our cultural repertoire and would have to STUDY our idioms to understand that it means "to be speechless." No doubt some fanatic will.../12

...read these passages and say "what a barbaric time it was in the 20th and 21st century, wherein cats were used to tear out people's tongues!" The scholars will shake their heads, and the tweet (or whatever exists in 1000 years) will get millions of "likes." /13

So, be smarter. Don't be like those people. Ask the experts, learn the idioms, learn the culture.
Now...on to the number seven. Does the number seven occur in the Torah quite a bit? Oh yes. At a certain point did it mean "a medium amount of time"? Maybe. But.../14

The real "obsession" with seven is much more fascinating. The number seven mostly occurs in the priestly writings within the Torah, meaning those writings written by the priestly authors, the descendants of Aaron (or those representing them). We call it the "P" source.../15

...in the Documentary Hypothesis. We can actually track, thanks to Hebrew literary analysis, what texts were most likely written or edited by the Priestly school to further their agendas. It's actually pretty awesome. Now, as I've taught before, the Priests of the time.../16

...believed it was their job to maintain order within the chaos of the world, attempting to mirror the order God created in Genesis 1 (A priestly text), meaning a lot of binaries and categories, Heaven & Earth, Evening & Morning, Day & Night, Sun & Moon, Sky & Sea, etc. /17

This meant no two kinds of seed in one place, no two different kinds of fabric, no mixing certain foods, and all kinds of "purity" laws. It was the Priest's job to maintain order and "seven" was that shield against chaos. It's so cool. Check this out: /18

We read SO many priestly texts with seven, most having to do with creation or agriculture. The Priests know things blend, and so they see ritual as being that activity which reestablishes the categories. In order to maintain holiness, Seven radically separates the holy... /19

...from the mundane. It was SEVEN that kept out the Tohu Va'Vohu, the swirling chaos and void from entering God's order. It was with the erformative vew of language, that the Priests saw. The wor
ld was created through speech: “God said, ‘Let there be light, etc/20

The Priests believed that language was the key. God used language to literally shape matter into distinct categories. The primary anxiety of the priests was that God, through language, one could pull those distinctions away! /21

Such as those between water and earth (flooding), or the Balance of rain and clear skies (drought).
The Priest’s job was to keep the margins in place, mirror God’s creation, and keep order.
As Mary Douglas teaches: Margins are dangerous. If they are pulled this way or that.../22

...the shape of fundamental experience is altered. Any structure of ideas is vulnerable at its margins.
The language of Seven was the priestly defense against chaos, keeping out the primordial monsters, bad weather, and chaos, and speaking to God through the "gap" of sacrifice/23

...and purity.
Most students of Bible never get to see the deep down studies like this, of what things actually mean, what people believed at the time and how they expressed themselves. I make it my life work to bring those high register lessons to you. Enjoy!
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