I was recently asked this question:
My take-away message is this: ANYONE can read ANYTHING into ANY NUMBER, especially in Hebrew numerology, for reasons that I will explain.
I have never heard that "six million" holds any particular importance in Judaism; HOWEVER, Gematria (Jewish numerology) allows you to make practically any number meaningful, so you can probably find some black-garbed charlatan who reads cosmic significance into it.
The number 6,000,000 is represented by the disappointingly mundane combination of letters ו'א' which doesn't mean anything. In fact those two letters are especially meaningless, for they function as prefixes in many words, and the letter Vav as a conjunction. (It literally means "and")
To illustrate the point:
- According to the Hebrew calendar we're in the year 5777, so some religious Jews predict the Messiah will come in the year 6000 (2240 A.D.), - The world was created in six days
Owing to the peculiarities of the Hebrew alphabet, almost any random combination of letters could be read as a of some declension, a verb of some conjugation, etc. Take for example the number 666, which in Hebrew letters is תסור or "TSVR" , which according to the Hebrew dictionary means either to "move aside" or "to arrive". Add some light mental gymnastics and you achieve a tenuous link to the arrival of the Messiah, or the coming of Satan, or whatever eschatological clap-trap piques your interest.
I think the significance of six million is that it's a big, round number. In reality it was probably something uninteresting like 5,753,031, and may have been rounded up, but I wouldn't say to an Afrikaner that *not exactly* 20,000 died in British concentration camps or to a Ukranian that closer to 6,000,000 than 10,000,000 died in Holodomor.
I hope that helps.
I have heard many people claim that six million is a number that has religious significance to the Jews. Do you know anything about that?
My take-away message is this: ANYONE can read ANYTHING into ANY NUMBER, especially in Hebrew numerology, for reasons that I will explain.
I have never heard that "six million" holds any particular importance in Judaism; HOWEVER, Gematria (Jewish numerology) allows you to make practically any number meaningful, so you can probably find some black-garbed charlatan who reads cosmic significance into it.
The number 6,000,000 is represented by the disappointingly mundane combination of letters ו'א' which doesn't mean anything. In fact those two letters are especially meaningless, for they function as prefixes in many words, and the letter Vav as a conjunction. (It literally means "and")
To illustrate the point:
- According to the Hebrew calendar we're in the year 5777, so some religious Jews predict the Messiah will come in the year 6000 (2240 A.D.), - The world was created in six days
Owing to the peculiarities of the Hebrew alphabet, almost any random combination of letters could be read as a of some declension, a verb of some conjugation, etc. Take for example the number 666, which in Hebrew letters is תסור or "TSVR" , which according to the Hebrew dictionary means either to "move aside" or "to arrive". Add some light mental gymnastics and you achieve a tenuous link to the arrival of the Messiah, or the coming of Satan, or whatever eschatological clap-trap piques your interest.
I think the significance of six million is that it's a big, round number. In reality it was probably something uninteresting like 5,753,031, and may have been rounded up, but I wouldn't say to an Afrikaner that *not exactly* 20,000 died in British concentration camps or to a Ukranian that closer to 6,000,000 than 10,000,000 died in Holodomor.
I hope that helps.
No comments:
Post a Comment