Who Knows Three?

Rabbi Melanie Aron

April 17, 2004

At the Seders, earlier this month, our thoughts were focused on the number four. Four promises, four cups of wine, four questions, four sons, and, of course, the four corners of the earth from which God’s Messiah would someday gather us up.

This morning, everything is three’s. Now, three is a pretty good number. Some say it’s hardwired into us, three being what’s easiest for us to remember. That’s why we say “extra, extra, extra”, and “third time’s the charm”, not to mention the three primary colors.

While we sometimes associate the number three with the Christian faith, there are lots of Jewish three’s.

Here’s a few:

Adam had three sons, Cain, Abel and Seth and Noah’s ark had three stories.

Abraham and Sarah were visited by three angels, for whom Sarah baked three cakes, and then Abraham traveled 3 days to Mt Moriah.

In the book of Exodus, the plague of darkness lasted for three days and Jewish law teaches that a man must provide his wife with three things: food, clothing & conjugal rights.

Samuel was called by God three times and the unified kingdom had three kings Saul, David and Solomon.

Balaam struck his donkey three times and three times blessed the Israelites.

Job was visited by three friends and Daniel also had 3 associates: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego

and I could go on and on.

Of course I haven’t yet touched on the really important threes. These include the patriarchs, fathers of the Jewish people Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, each of whom our tradition associates with one of the three daily services, Shacharit, Minchah and Maariv, the morning service, the afternoon service and the evening service. We had three leaders in our desert wanderings as well, Moses, Aaron and Miriam, and three types of leaders later in the Biblical period Prophets, Priests and Kings. There are three major Biblical pilgrimage holidays, Passover, Shavuot and Succot. The Jewish people are often divided into three groups Priests, Levites and Israelites, Kohen, Levi, Yisrael, and our Jewish Bible is also divided into three sections, the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings.

The Jewish star is two triangles, that is two sets of three’s which some interpret to refer to important basic Jewish concepts. One triangle stands for God , Torah and the people Israel while the other stands for their relationships: Creation, Revelation and Redemption

Why three? Perhaps the rabbis understood that three points determine a plane. After all they taught: The world stands on three things. Three encompasses everything as with three axis you have all six directions: up & down, north & south, east & west. That’s true with time as well – everything is either, the past, present, or the future. Three also can’t be divided into like 2, x and not x, and so it stands for distinction.

I like the explanation in Proverbs that three is exponentially stronger than two. “A three fold cord cannot be broken.”

Becky, Alexa & Rebecca – through this process and on the Bimah today, you each expressed your own unique personality and through your friendship, showed support and were strengthened by each other’s presence.