The Three Longest

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Take the sum of the sons (Naso et rosh) of Gershon also, by their father’s houses, by their families.       Numbers 4:21-22

 Naso, with 176 verses is the longest parasha in the Torah. The longest chapter of the Bible is Psalms 119, entitled “Happy are they who are upright in the way,” which also has 176 verses. As well, the longest tractate of the Talmud, Bava Batra, has 176 pages.

My father suggested that this apparent coincidence is quite meaningful. The literal translation of “Naso et rosh” is “raise the heads of.” The people will be raised by “being upright in their ways,” through exercising care in monetary relations between neighbors (the subject matter of Bava Batra), as our Sages taught, “one who wants to be pious must be careful in monetary matters.”