In this week’s parsha, BaMidbar, we, the Jewish people are counted by the heads of families and we have a grand total of 603,550.
There is another concept that is brought down in Zohar Chadash on Shir HaShirim that the name of our nation, Yisrael – ישראל stands for Yesh Shishim Riboi Otios LaTorah ”There are 600,000 letters in the Torah.” There are also 600,000 Jewish souls, all of which were at Mount Sinai and so we have allusions to the idea that every Jewish soul is like a letter in the Torah and just like a Torah is incomplete without even one letter, so too are the Jewish people incomplete if there is even one Jew who is not fulfilling their purpose in life. (more…)