Last Week's PPP (Tazria M'tzora)

[1] Across the top, left to right: (a) Shabbat candles are associated with the number 7. Of course, there are other numbers that also relate to Shabbat, but 7 is the key here. (b) A bonfire is associated with Lag BaOmer, and therefore with the number 33. (c) Rambam's Mishna Torah, a.k.a Yad Chazaka, has 14 books (that'swhere the YAD of the name comes from). Then there are hooks. A hook is a VAV in Hebrew, the letter valued at 6. The two hooks together make 66. Look at the hooks again. They actually look like 66. Altogether, we have the number of days following birth of Tum'a and Tahara - 7+33 for a boy, 14+66 for a girl.

[2] The badminton shuttlecocks are also known as birds. Two of them represent the two birds of the M'tzora.

[3] The silhouette indicates that the couple is in the process of moving, first having emptied their house of its contents, as in the procedure for N'GA'EI HABAYIT.

[4] Which brings us to the ambulance at the bottom. I'm sure that some people will give nice answers involving medicine and the like, or blood, as in the transfusion the patient in the back is receiving, but the only part of that graphic that is germaine is the red cross on the door. A cross is known as a SH'TI V'EIREV,referring to the horizontal and verticle lines, or threads, as in weaving, as mentioned in the last part of Tazria.

Radio Riddles

First asked on Torah Tibits Audio, ARUTZ-7 Thursday night, 10:10-11:00pm.

[A] Big Deal riddle: Who are the tonsorial Big Three?

[B] Noam Productions riddle: x=2y

The TT362PPP Report...

First answer in is an email from ES. Direct hits on [1,2,3]. An attempt at [4]. He's going to be hard to beat. M Ramach matched [3] and had interesting "different" solutions for most everything else. More later

Answers to the Radio Riddles

[A] The Big Three has a double meaning. The letter GIMEL is numerically equal to three. There is a big GIMEL in the word V'HITGALACH (in Parshat Tazria), and he shall shave himself... The Baal HaTurim says that the big GIMEL reminds us of the three categories of people who are required to shave all hair off their bodies:The Nazir, the M'tzora, and the Levi. These then are the tonsorial (of or pertaining to barbering) Big Three.

[B] This equation might look algebraic, but it relates to biology, specifically to genetics. More specifically to the chromosomes that determine sex - the ones known as xx for female and xy for male. In this context then, X represents female and Y represents male. In the beginning of Tazria, we find the periods of Tum'aand Tahara of a woman after giving birth: 7 and 33 days for a male child, 14 and 66 days for a girl. So X, in this case, is twice as much as Y or x=2y. (Yes, this was borrowed from last year's PPP.)

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