A gemara regarding the middle letters, words, and verses of the Torah and Tehillim seems simple to understand when studied superficially, but becomes extremely difficult to understand when we closely examine our versions of the Torah and Tehillim.

For centuries, scholars struggled to bridge the large discrepancies. Amazingly, it was a modern-day talmid chacham, once a mathematician in the Soviet Union, who found answers to some of the most baffling questions on this gemara

Even great scholars versed in all areas of Torah occasionally come across a Talmudic sugya (topic) that is difficult to understand. This is most common with aggadic passages, which people will often study once or twice, and then give up, realizing that they haven’t reached a true understanding of the passage.

One passage that has baffled great scholars throughout the ages seems at first glance to be straightforward. In Kiddushin 30a, the Sages record several rules of mesorah, the tradition of how Scripture should read. The Gemara specifies which letter is at the exact midpoint of all the letters in the Torah; which word is at the midpoint of all the words; which verse is at the midpoint of all the verses; and some other information related to the number of words in Torah, Neviim, and Kesuvim.

While we can read this passage without difficulty, when we examine the data closely, it seems that the numbers don’t add up. We know that some details of the mesorah have gotten lost or confused — but that would only account for minor discrepancies in the numbers. The actual discrepancies we face in some of these cases number in the thousands of letters.

It would seem, then, that there must be an alternative explanation for this passage.

The Raw Data

The Gemara states: “The earlier generations were called ‘sofrim’ because they would count [sofer] all the letters in the Torah. They said the letter vav in the verse, ‘all those who go on their gachon [belly]’ (Vayikrah 11:42) marks halfway point of all the letters of the Torah. The words ‘darosh darash [demanded diligently]’ (ibid. 10:16) is the halfway point in terms of words. The verse beginning with ‘Vehisgalach [and he shall shave]’ (ibid. 13:33) is the halfway mark of the verses.

“In Tehillim, in the verse ‘The boar from the forest (mi’ya’ar) gnaws at it’ (80:14), the ayin of ya’ar is the halfway point of letters; and the verse ‘Vehu rachum yechaper avon [But He is merciful, He expiates iniquity]’ (78:38) is the middle verse of Tehillim.”

The Sages of the Gemara proceeded to analyze these facts:

“Rav Yosef asked: Does the vav of gachon belong to the first half or the second [i.e., does it conclude the first half of the Torah or begin the second half]? They [the scholars] said to him: Let a sefer Torah be brought and we will count them! Did not Rabbah bar Bar Chana say: They did not stir from there until a sefer Torah was brought, and they counted them? [In a similar incident, Rabbah bar Bar Chana relates that the Sages resolved a doubt by bringing a sefer Torah and counting the letters.] He [Rav Yosef] said to them: They were thoroughly versed in the chaseiros v’yeseiros, and we are not.”

Rav Yosef asked another question:

“Does vehisgalach belong to the first half or the second [Does the verse beginning with ‘and he shall shave’ belong to the end of the first half of the Torah or the beginning of the second half]? Abaye said to him: For the verses, at least, we can bring [a sefer Torah] and count them! [Rav Yosef answered back:] In the verses too we are not certain. For when Rav Acha bar Adda came, he said: In the West [Eretz Yisrael], the following verse is divided into three: ‘And God said to Moshe, Behold, I come to you in a thick cloud, etc.’ [Thus, Rav Yosef proved that we are not experts in the exact division of the verses either.]”