"Bread" from heaven...

There's tons of tagin stuff in the Song of the Sea, as well as in the narrative preceding it, and I'm sure a lot of it is very interesting, but I have access to this manuscript only in the microfilm room at the National Library, and that is closing in under 45 minutes, and will not be open tomorrow (Friday), so I'm afraid we'll have to skip that all. Gives us something for next year, if I decide to re-open the blog when we hit Exodus again next time. (We should all be alive and healthy, and say ye Amen.)

Anyway, here's an example from later in the parasha, the story of the manna. In this example (unlike, apparently, the one in my previous post), the number of tagin is important:

Exodus 16:4:

וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יְהוָה֙ אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֔ה הִנְנִ֨י מַמְטִ֥יר לָכֶ֛ם לֶ֖חֶם מִן־הַשָּׁמָ֑יִם וְיָצָ֨א הָעָ֤ם וְלָֽקְטוּ֙ דְּבַר־י֣וֹם בְּיוֹמ֔וֹ לְמַ֧עַן אֲנַסֶּ֛נּוּ הֲיֵלֵ֥ךְ בְּתֽוֹרָתִ֖י אִם־לֹֽא׃

Then ſaid the Lord vnto Moses, Behold, I will raine bread from heauen for you: and the people ſhall goe out, and gather a certaine rate euery day, that I may proue them, whether they will walke in my Law, or no.

Our commentator writes:

הנני ממטיר לכם לחם מן השמים. הנני ממטיר, אף לעתיד לבא הקדוש נותן להם מן, כדאיתא בחגיגה שחקים ששוחקין מן לצדיקים:

דבר אחר: אנני ממטיר לכם לחם: זו רוח הקודש שתבא עליהם מן השמים וידעו התורה מאת הקב"ה, וזהו לחם זה תלמוד. וזהו ולקטו שילקטו כל יום תורה וזהו הילך בתורתי:

ממטיר. התגין מרמזין לעתיד לבא. על ט' ארבעה תגין, ארבע טיתין ל"ו -- ל"ו מסכתות גמרא. דבר אחר: רמז על העתיד:

Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. Also in the [messianic] future, too, God will give them manna, as it says in Ḥagiga [12b]: Sheḥaqim is [the level of heaven] where they grind up manna for the righteous.

Another interpretations: Behold, I will rain down bread. This means the holy spirit, which will descend upon them from heaven, and they will know the Torah from God. This is what it means when it says [in Ḥagiga 14a]: "Bread refers to the Talmud." Thus, they will gather a certain rate means that they should collect some Torah every day. Thus, the verse ends: "They will walk in my Law [Torah]".

I will rain (mamṭir). The tagin allude to the [messianic] future. There are four tagin on the ṭeth. Four times ṭeth (9) is 36, which refers to the 36 tractates of Gemara. Another interpretation: [The tagin] allude to the messianic future.

What's this about 36 tractates of Gemara? Well, there are 63 tractates of the Mishna, but the Talmud Bavli happens to contain exposition on only 36 of them. (This is mentioned already in the poem אזהרת ראשית, from late antique / early Gaonic Babylonia, which we recite in Musaf on the second day of Shavu‘oth.)

This is classic Ḥasidé Ashkenaz exposition of the Torah -- find in the verse an allusion to some work of Torah literature which would be written far later than Biblical times. (For example, Rabbenu Ephraim reads the word פרח, in the phrase כפתר ופרח, as being initials of the phrase פירוש רבינו חננאל.)