Our Gemara on Amud Aleph derives from a verse that the Divine Presence does not rest upon the Jewish people if they number fewer than 22,000.  However, the way this idea is illustrated by the Gemara is difficult to understand. 

דָּרֵישׁ רַבִּי דּוֹסְתַּאי דְּמִן בֵּירֵי: ״וּבְנֻחֹה יֹאמַר שׁוּבָה ה׳ רִבְבוֹת אַלְפֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל״ – לְלַמֶּדְךָ, שֶׁאֵין שְׁכִינָה שׁוֹרָה עַל יִשְׂרָאֵל פָּחוֹת מִשְּׁנֵי אֲלָפִים וּשְׁנֵי רְבָבוֹת. חָסֵר אַחַת, וְהָיְתָה אִשָּׁה מְעוּבֶּרֶת בֵּינֵיהֶם וּרְאוּיָה לְהַשְׁלִים, וְנָבַח בָּהּ כֶּלֶב וְהִפִּילָה, נִמְצָא זֶה גּוֹרֵם לַשְּׁכִינָה שֶׁתִּסְתַּלֵּק מִיִּשְׂרָאֵל.

With regard the prohibition of raising dogs, Rabbi Dostai from Biri expounded: It is written in connection to the Ark of the Covenant: “And when it rested, he said: Return, O Lord, to the myriads of the thousands of Israel” (Numbers 10:36). This verse serves to teach you that the Divine Presence does not rest upon the Jewish people if they number fewer than two thousand and two myriads, where one myriad is equal to ten thousand. The plural form of “myriads” and “thousands” indicates at least two of each. If they are lacking one individual from this total, and there was a pregnant woman among them, who was fit to complete the number by giving birth, and a dog barked at her and she miscarried as a result of the fright, this owner of the dog is found to have caused the Divine Presence to depart from the Jewish people.

The Gemara’s logic seems out of tune. If one was careless regarding a barking dog, and it scared a pregnant woman and caused her to miscarry, that is tragic enough. Does the Gemara need to add to the deterrent by informing the person that this causes the divine presence to depart? It’s like saying, “Shooting someone is a terrible thing. The spilled blood might cause someone to slip.”

Let us study the idea further. Ben Yehoyada says this number of 22,000 is a multiple of 22, which are the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Similarly, there is another tradition regarding the 600,000 letters in the Torah, which correspond with the Jewish population census in the wilderness.  The Torah itself and the Jewish people are connected in some fundamental manner, using combinations of letters, which represent dimensions of expression. Zohar (Acharei Mos 299) says that Hashem, the Jews and the Torah are intertwined. How can we understand this idea? Each person as he or she lives, expresses the will of God. The Torah, along with the letters, represent a written version of God’s will. When the chosen nation fully manifests itself, represented by that number 22,000, comprising the sum total of every positive human dimension of God’s will, the Shechina.

The barking dog represents the impulses toward impurity, and the sudden miscarriage represents the disruption of the potential positive cognitions and actions. Notably, Yoma (21b) reports that in the Second Temple, the fire on the altar no longer assumed the shape of a lion, but rather that of dog. Not coincidentally, the Gemara also reports that the Shechina was not present in the Second Temple. I believe the Rabbis were alluding to the idea that the collective Jewish people at times acheive a critical mass of embodying God’s will in all dimensions, so as to cause a manifestation of the Shechina. Yet, even one disruptive cancellation of a single person’s spiritual expression can topple the apple cart. As we saw in the Psychology of the Daf blog post (Bava Kamma 81), each Jewish soul has a mitzvah or aspect that connects to him in a special way. The shechina can only come when each individual type of soul finds its proper form of expression. 

Translations Courtesy of Sefaria, except when, sometimes, I disagree with the translation

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