Q: Why is there a large letter in the sidra of Shmini?
A: In that parasha, Shmini, the letter “vav” in the word “gachon” is
enlarged. Marginal note tells us that it
is written in large print because it is the middle letter in the entire. How
many letters are in the Torah?
It is a
most difficult task to count all the letters of the Torah. Not only are they many, but there are some
without vowel indications (like vovs) and others that are whole. This could mean that the letters in our Torah
may not be the same number as the original letters in the first Torah. Transmission
errors and duplications have made the process of counting letters most
difficult.
According
to the Masoretic note, there are 600,805 letters in our sefer Torah. The veracity of the number is debatable.
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