Irene (TF 3-n82
raised the issue of why 4 occurs so much (4 spieces, 4
rivers...) in Judaism
and she says she "welcomes all explanations...even
Kabbalistic"
Well how about a mathematical explanation. First some facts:
Other
numbers occur frequently also: e.g. 3... 3 festivals, 3 patriarchs,
the
"three fold cord" (mentioned in KOheleth).
As Irene notes 4 occurs alot also. Why? Because 4 = 2 *2:
Example 1: Personality types (Symbolism of Ethrog---sweet smell,
backbone)
Ethrog--has both (Sweet and hard working)
Lulav- has only one (A
hard worker)
Hadas -has only one (Sweet)
Aravah--(has neither)
Example 2: 4 types of watchers---paid/not paid and I/he asked
Watch my
belongings for nothing---free + I askED
Watch my belongings for a fee----paid
######
borrow this article of yours--free and he asked
In other words: whenever we have 2 attributes call them X and Y there
are
always 4 possiblities (A & B, Only A , Only B or neither). That
explains
why there are 4.
So FRUIT can be SWEET(Ethrog/Hadas) or NOT SWEET(Lulav/Aravah) FRUIT
can
HARD (Ethrog/Lulav) or SOFT (Hadas/Aravah).
So the two attributes SWEET and HARD generate 2*2=4 possibilites
(Both,
only one, only one, and neither). Since this resembles the 4 types
of
people (works hard vs not//easy to get along with vs not) we have
the
symbolism.
Similarly when I have an article of my friends which I have to return:
Either there is PAYMENT(He pays me to watch//I pay him to rent) or
NO
PAYMENT(he doesn't pay me to watch//I borrow free)
Either I ask to get the article (Rent/Borrowing) or he asks for me to
watch
it (for money or not)
In general many areas of Torah where 4 occurs have 2 attributes and all
4
possibilities.
Russell Jay Hendel; Ph.d.;ASA; rhendel @ mcs drexel edu