Kabbalah Library

125. There are 248 words in the Shema reading, as the number of the 248 organs of a person. One who reads the Shema reading properly, each organ takes a word for itself and is healed by it. This is “It will be healing to your navel and a potion to your bones.”

126. In the meantime, that child arrived, weary from the way, and sat before them. He heard these words that they said, rose to his feet and said, “But there are only 245 words in the Shema reading!

127. “I heard from my father that in the Shema reading, there are 248 words minus three from the number of man’s organs. It was established that the messenger of the public repeats these words three times, ‘the Lord your God, true.’ In order to complete to 248 words for the public, and so as not to stop between ‘your God’ and ‘true,’ it is necessary to repeat no less than three words, and not more than three words.”

128. The first Hassidim [people belonging to the Hassidut movement] established the Shema reading corresponding to the ten Sefirot, and corresponding to the 248 organs of a person.

129. In the prayer, they stablished the first three blessings and the final three blessings. In the Shema reading, they established three names in the beginning, “The Lord our God, the Lord,” and three names in the last one, “The Lord your God, true.” Anyone who reads the Shema reading in this manner, it is known that he will not be harmed on that day.

130. Anyone who says the Shema reading not with the public, does not complete his organs since he lacks the three words that the messenger of the public repeats. He should aim in the fifteen letters Vav that there are in the blessing, “True and Steadfast.”

121. For this reason, my father would declare about him, “corrupted that cannot be corrected and cannot be counted.” Those three words in the Shema reading that the messenger of the public repeats, he will not be able to count them to complete the 248, like the rest of the public since he did not pray with the public.

132. One day, Rabbi Bon was carrying a load after Rabbi Shimon. Upon climbing a mountain, at the top of the mountain, they saw a bird flying away from her nestlings, and others came and pecked at her wings. He said this verse about her, “Like a bird that strays from its nest is a man who strays from his place.”

133. As they were walking, they saw a snake that killed a man and went away, and they saw a lion that hunted an ear and ate. Rabbi Shimon said, “What good did the killing do to that snake, who killed for nothing, for he takes no pleasure in his killing, since all his food is dust.”