The cultural code of "Numbers" in the Jewish pictorial Semiosis of the Crimea

Kotliar Elena Romanovna PhD in Art History Associate Professor, Department of Visual and Decorative Art, Crimean Engineering and Pedagogical University named after Fevzi Yakubov 295015, Russia, Republic of Crimea, Simferopol, lane. Educational, 8, room 337 allenkott@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Zolotukhina Natal'ya Anatol'evna PhD in Cultural Studies Associate Professor, Department of Fine and Decorative Arts, Crimean Engineering and Pedagogical University named after Fevzi Yakubov 295015, Russia, Republic of Crimea, Simferopol, lane. Educational, 8, of. 337 allenkott@mail.ru

Nikolay Yakovlevich Danilevsky (1822-1885), a well-known Russian cultural critic, in his program work "Russia and Europe" (1869) identified several "cultural and historical types" whose main category of identity is religion. "Religion is the moral basis of any activity" ^{[1, p. 157]}, "Religion is the predominant interest for the people at all times of their life" ^{[1, p. 225]}, "Religion was the most essential, dominant (almost exclusively) content of ancient (...) life, and (...) in it it is the prevailing spiritual interest of ordinary (...) people" ^{[1, p. 577]}. Before the globalization of the twentieth century, social identity was based on belonging to a particular religion. This thesis was also confirmed by Vladimir  Vasilievich Stasov, as well as other ethnographers.

Understanding the morphology and semantics of the Jewish cultural code is impossible without referring to the fundamentals of Jewish religious beliefs.

The term Jew has several aspects. The most general definition is belonging to a social group whose religion is based on the Torah (the Mosaic Pentateuch), without continuations (unlike representatives of other Abrahamic religions – Christians and Muslims, in whose religious doctrine the Torah is supplemented by subsequent subsections). Consequently, such a definition distinguishes groups by confessional, and not by ethnic (anthropological). According to the presented classification, Jews include:

- Ashkenazi Jews;

- Sephardic Jews;

-Jews-mizrahim – common name of Eastern Jews – (Bukhara Jews, mountain Jews, Georgian Jews, Ethiopian Jews, Persian Jews);

- karaites;

- Krymchaks;

- Russian Judaizers;

- subbotniks.

The second meaning, narrower, consists in the designation by the term Judaism of both a denomination and a Jewish ethnic group, in which case Judaism is defined as a national religion ^[2].

Our research does not concern the issues of anthropology and ethnogenesis, we consider pictorial semiosis exclusively on the examples of preserved artifacts, most of which date from the second half of the XIX – the first third of the XX century.

Ethnic groups professing Judaism include:

Ashkenazi Jews are a people professing Talmudic Judaism, whose doctrine is based on the Tanakh (consisting of the Torah (the Pentateuch of Moses), the books of the Prophets and Hagiographers) and the Talmud (the book of interpretations of the Tanakh by the sages). The term Ashkenaz comes from the Hebrew name of medieval Germany, the mention of which is found in Jewish sources since the tenth century. Ashkenazim were called Jewish immigrants from Germany, who settled in Poland and the Baltic States as a result of migrations. The spoken language of the Ashkenazim was Yiddish, a dialect of German, and the language of worship was Hebrew (Hebrew). In the liturgy, Ashkenazim support the Palestinian tradition.

The second Jewish subcultural region was Sefarad, which included the south of France and the Iberian Peninsula. Jews originating from this region are called Sephardim. Sephardim are followers of Babylonian worship, their literary language has long been Arabic, and their spoken language is Ladino.

The subcultural type of Italian Jews combines signs of Sephardic and Ashkenazi traditions.

The monument of the Jewish presence in the Crimea is a manumission stele, the text of which dates back to the I century AD, but subsequently for a long time (up to the XIV century) there are no surviving monuments about the Jewish communities of the Crimea. The Crimean Jews include Karaites and Crimeans who have lived on the peninsula since the Middle Ages. The Jews who moved to Crimea in the XIX century, after its annexation to the Russian Empire, for the most part belonged to the Ashkenazim, who later formed a traditional community on the peninsula ^{[3, p. 52]}.

Karaites – ("readers") (self–designation - "Karai", "karai" in the singular, "Karaim, karaylar" – in the plural), the people of Crimea, professing non-Talmudic Judaism (self-designation Karaism), which is based on a literal understanding of the Torah and the denial of its interpretations (including the Talmud). The spoken Karaite language belongs to the Kypchak group of Turkic languages, as well as the Crimean Tatar and Crimean Tatar, but at the same time the alphabet of the Karaites and Krymchaks is Hebrew ^[5].

The Krymchaks (self–designation "krymchakh" – ed. ch., "krymchakhlar" – mn. ch.) are the people of Crimea, whose religion is Talmudic Judaism of the Sephardic direction with some influence of local traditions.   The ethnonym "Krymchak" originally appeared in official documents of the Russian Empire in 1844, to distinguish this Jewish group from Ashkenazi Jews ^[6].

Decorative and applied art of any polyethnic region, including the Crimea, is an example of the synthesis of ethnocultures. This mutual influence is inevitably the result of the compact residence of peoples on a single territory. The continuum of ethno-cultural codes of art serves as a clear confirmation of this thesis.

The relevant direction in this context is the comparative semantic-symbolic, typological and stylistic study of the works of ethnic art of the Jews, as well as the analysis of stable symbols-habitations based on a single source – the Torah.

Pictorial semiosis is a part of semiotics, a science whose subject is sign systems and their meanings of connection. The pictorial semiosis is the most visual reflection of the traditional mythologeme in signs and symbols. The ontology of signs and symbols in the pictorial semiosis reveals stable habitations that are identifiers of cultures.

Semiotics emerged at the end of the XIX century, as part of philosophy, developing in parallel in two directions: semiology and pragmatics. The foundations of semiology are devoted to the works of the Swiss philosopher, linguist and semiotic Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), who studied the meanings of linguistic symbols and derived the theory of a "two-sided sign" consisting of a signifier (word) and a signified (form value).  The connection of the signifier and the signified, according to Saussure, is conditional: the values of identical signs may be different for different recipients ^[13].

The founder of pragmatics – the American mathematician, logician and philosopher, Charles Sanders Pierce (1839-1914) considered signs from the point of view of logic. Pierce called a sign everything that means a certain object. Pierce called symbols signs that outwardly differ from the signified object ^[12].

The Belgian group of semiotic authors Mu (based on the transcription of the Greek letter ?) (founded in 1967), has developed a three–level semiotic structure, including symbolic, iconic, index symbols.

Italian cultural theorist, philosopher, specialist in medieval aesthetics and semiotics, writer Umberto Eco (1932 – 2016) developed the concept of signs and their aggregates to codes meaning a common object. Eco called the information transmitted by a series of signs or a sign a text.

The theory of cultural text became the main one in the research of the Soviet and Russian cultural critic and semiotic Yuri Mikhailovich Lotman (1922-1993). He owns the theory of the "semiosphere" of culture, created on the basis of the works of French structuralists. Later, the definition of "Cultural text" was included in the category of culturological concepts by the Russian culturologist Andrei Yakovlevich Flier (born 1950).

The elements of any traditional ethnic image are divided into two types:

1. Elements of the ornament;

2. Separate stable images and/or plots.

According to the definition from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, ornament (ornamentum – "decoration" (Lat.) accentuates or reveals the architectonics of the object, the decoration of which is. The elements of the ornament are stylized or abstract motifs. The pictorial symbolism of the fragments of the ornament originally had an applied, magical purpose. The second most important function of the ornament is aesthetic. Both functions continued to exist in synthesis, which made it possible to determine the values of individual elements of ornaments and their groups, knowing the cultural codes of certain ethnic groups.

Russian Russian educator and art theorist, Vladimir Vasilyevich Stasov (1824-1906) in his work "Russian folk Ornament" expressed the idea of symbolism and archaic ethnic ornament: "The ornament of all new peoples in general comes from the depths of antiquity, and the peoples of the ancient world never concluded a single idle line: every dash here has its own meaning, it is a word, phrase, expression of well-known concepts, representations.   The rows of ornaments are a coherent speech, a consistent melody that has its own main reason and is not intended for the eyes alone, as well as for the mind and feelings" ^[14].

In addition to the ornament, that is, compositions of elements repeated in a certain periodicity, stable pictorial plots are characteristic of ethnic art. The etymology of these plots goes back to magical or religious habitations. All elements of ethnic pictorial semiosis are divided into three categories: physiomorphic (including images of objects), abstract (geometric) and epigraphic (textual). In turn, physiomorphic are divided into five components: zoomorphic – images of real and mythical animals, anthropomorphic – images of a person, phytomorphic – images of plants, skewomorphic – images of objects and astral – images of celestial bodies.

Interest in the Jewish artistic tradition arose at the end of the XIX century, at a time when small towns began to empty due to globalization and the desire of young people to big cities. In order to preserve the cultural heritage, ethnographic expeditions were organized, led by ethnographers S. Ansky (Shlomo Rappoport), S. Taranushenko, P. Zholtovsky, who initiated ethnographic collections of Jewish art. The subject of the study of the Jewish figurative semiosis, in particular, were drawings made during the expeditions by artists S. Yudovin, P. Zholtovsky, etc., where they captured subjects on relief tombstones and synagogue murals. These subjects formed the basis of studies of Jewish art by Zinaida Yargina, Rachel Bernstein-Vishnitzer. Later, researchers of Ashkenazi Jewish towns, professors of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Veniamin Lukin, Boris Khaimovich, Nelly Portnova, Vladimir Levin, Professor of St. Petersburg State University Valery Aronovich Dymshits and others wrote about the Jewish plot and its symbolism. Nevertheless, all these authors considered traditional subjects in a general historical and cultural series, without separating them into a separate study, and did not deal with the morphology and semantics of the circle of traditional images, considering them not from a generalized philosophical, culturological point of view, but from a historical and art criticism.

The presence of different types of pictorial elements in the Jewish tradition was distributed heterogeneously. In Ashkenazi art, the main images were symbolic animals, birds, fish, as well as chimeras. Many images also included a human figure or part of it. Plant and astral elements were present in the art of Eastern European Jews to a lesser extent. In Sephardic folk art, geometric and plant elements formed the main circle of images.

To define the concept of the Jewish cultural code of folk art, it is necessary to clarify which of its functions is the basic one for this study.

Under the cultural code, culturology understands the key to deciphering a particular picture of the world. The concept of "code" comes from technology, its meaning consists in deciphering languages, but later this term was expanded to a philosophical understanding. There are a number of definitions of the cultural code:

1. Cultural code as a sign structure (in pictorial semiosis – a designated circle of images);

2. The cultural code as a system of ordering (embedding) symbols (in our case – in pictorial semiosis, for example, in ornamentation – the canon: composition, type of construction, regulation of values, order, etc.);

3. Cultural code as a kind of natural or accidental correspondence of the signified and the signifier (in images it can be applied to archaic symbols inherent in many cultures at the same time, for example: sun, tree, flower, star, wave).

The functions of the cultural code are:

a) deciphering the meaning of certain phenomena (texts, signs, symbols) – in the absence of a code, the text of culture remains closed (in the example of a traditional image, in this case it is perceived only from the point of view of compositional features, stylistics, colors, etc., without deciphering the meanings of elements and their aggregates)

b) the relationship between the signifier (sign) and the signified (object, phenomenon, meaning);

F. Saussure explained the meaning of the term cultural code with the help of philology, language construction ^[12]. However , the topic of our article is closer to the proposed U. Eco is the concept of the S-code (semiotic code), according to which the image is constructed according to certain canons (rules of combinatorics). According to Eco, the same text (image) can be perceived from different angles by representatives of different groups. In the case of an ornamental motif (for example, a flower), its meaning can be deciphered by representatives of different ethnic groups in different ways.

The concept of code is multidimensional and multifaceted, the codes of cultures can undergo changes within their own framework. In particular, for the Jews, the cultural code, its preservation and identification was especially important as for the Diaspora, which for a long time did not have its own land and preserved its identity precisely through religious and cultural doctrine. It is noteworthy that having undergone significant changes over time, from traditional culture with its focus on the study of the laws of the Torah and Talmud, to the Jewish Enlightenment of the XVII century – Haskalah, and later to the globalization of the twentieth century and subsequent technocracy, the Jewish cultural code has not lost its main marker – elevated to the paramount importance and righteousness of lifelong education.

Exploring an extensive range of artifacts, we consider it expedient to represent the codes of the Jewish pictorial semiosis in the form of a scheme like Euler circles (Fig. 1). The diagram of the Prussian, Swiss and Russian mathematician and mechanic Leonard Euler (1707-1783) – "Euler circles" allows you to visualize the relations between subsets by superimposing planes on each other.

fig. 1

We have identified five codes, with the help of which the main meanings of any images traditional for Jewish culture are distinguished, with the following names ^[9]:

1. Sefer Code (Book)

2. Menorah Code

3. Number Code

4. The Rimon Code

5. Bestiary Code

Code Sefer – "Book" (Hebrew) it is the main one, it includes all the other codes, in the diagram this code is depicted in the form of a large lilac circle, inside which the four remaining circles (codes) are placed. The Sefer code includes all the main basic verbal sources of Judaism. Honoring and preserving the law of God through reading the Torah is the basic marker of the Sefer code and the code of Judaism in general. 

The main difference between Judaism and other ancient religions was monotheism. According to the ideas of the Jews, God, through the prophet Moses, gave them a Covenant – a set of laws in the form of stone tablets. Subsequently, this covenant was formalized into a number of sacred books, including the Torah (the Pentateuch of Moses), Neviim (the Books of the Prophets) and Ktuvim (the Scriptures), which are the basis of Judaism as a creed. Sometimes the whole cycle of books is simply designated by the word Sefer – Book, in many parts, Sfarim – Books. The Commandments and Laws of Moses constitute "the semantic core of Judaism ... the basis of the Jewish religion, as well as the basis of Jewish ethics and law"; this is "the central document of Judaism" ^{[7, p. 5]}.

The canonical version of the written Torah was written down by the scribes Ezra and Nehemiah. In 457 BC, Ezra, the scribe priest, brought a version of the Torah from Babylon to Jerusalem, which was in use among the Babylonian exiles. In Jerusalem, there were also other versions of Scripture, so there was a need to streamline the canonical version of the Torah. Ezra and Nehemiah, with the support of dignitaries and elders (the autonomous Administration of Judea), have done this work for 13 years. After the completion of the written Law, it became necessary to explain and implement it. Thus, the second part of the Law was formed – the so-called oral Torah, which consisted of interpretations of the written Law.

The active process of forming the Oral Torah began in the IV century BC. Eschatological ideas were prescribed in the oral Torah, not illuminated or poorly illuminated in the written version: about the afterlife, the immortality of souls, the Last Judgment – posthumous retribution for violations of the commandments, as well as prescriptions concerning religious and household rules ^{[7, pp. 3-27]}. The written formalization of the oral Law – the Talmud – dates back to the II–V centuries. According to the characteristics of the Israeli Torah translator, rabbi, founder of the Institute for the Study of Judaism Adin Steinsalts (1937-2020), "If the Bible [means the Torah – author's note. articles] are the cornerstone of Judaism, then the Talmud is its central pillar supporting the entire spiritual and philosophical code ... (It) is a collection of oral laws developed by generations of sages in Palestine and Babylonia up to the beginning of the Middle Ages."

The Oral Law, united by the common name Talmud ("teaching" – Hebrew), consists of two parts: the Mishnah and the Gemara.

The Mishnah, in turn, includes Halacha, Midrash and Haggadah. The Mishnah in its present state was edited by Yehuda Ha-Nasi in the third century.. The first printed edition of the Mishnah appeared around 1485 . 

Halakha is a set of prescriptions of the isacons. The Code of the basic laws of Halakha, used up to the present time inclusive – Shulkhan Aruch (lit. "set table" – Hebrew) It was written down and structured by the Spanish rabbi, a major authority and expert on the Jewish canon, Yosef ben Ephraim Karo (1488-1575).

Midrash is a genre of exegetical and homiletic literature consisting of parables, sermons of sages, which explain the essence of a particular section in the Torah.

A ggada is a real story or parable from the life of the sages, presented with artistic fiction, creatively reworked, demonstrating the effect of a prescription or punishment for its non–fulfillment in the form of an allegory. The Aggada is essentially a midrash. The earliest Midrash that has come down to us is the Easter Haggadah, which contains a description of the Passover holiday and prescriptions regarding its traditions.

The name Gemara was originally understood as a later synonym of the Talmud, that is, interpretations of the Torah and Mishnah that arose during the era of persecution of the Talmud as an anti-Christian work. In a number of sources, Gemara is called the Talmud as a whole or its individual chapters. However, in fact, the Gemara is a later separate source containing the interpretations of the sages and additions to the already existing chapters of the Mishnah.

Kabbalah belongs to one of the most widespread and well-known mystical and esoteric currents of Judaism, where the role of God and his ontological essence are considered, as well as interpretations of a number of hidden meanings of the Torah are included. The current arose in the XII century, but its main distribution dates back to the XVI century. The term Kabbalah originally referred to all books that were not included in the Pentateuch, and later – the entire Oral Law, but from the XII century. the sages began to emphasize the esoteric component of the teaching. During the heyday of Kabbalah teaching (1270-1320), its main book was written – Sefer ha-Zohar, or, abbreviated, Zohar ("book of radiance" – Hebrew). It contains mystical interpretations of various Torah plots. In fact, the Zohar is a book of Midrash eschatological content, the main theme of which is the knowledge of God, and at the same time, the recognition of his unknowable, recorded on behalf of travelers to Eretz Israel (the Land of Israel).

Yellow Circle – Menorah code;

The name Menorah (as the most ancient symbol of Judaism) is given to a code covering a group of skewomorphic images (Jewish cult attributes).

The initial description of cult objects is found in the Torah in the form of covenants given by God to equip the Tabernacle of the Covenant (a portable Temple, a place to store the tablets of the Torah), and subsequently the First and Second Temples.

The main shrine of Judaism is the Torah ^[9]. Reading the Torah is the basis of the liturgical tradition on Saturdays and holidays, the main commandment and virtue. The Torah is a parchment scroll written by a specially trained copyist, Soifer (from the word Sefer – "book" (Hebrew); every four pages of parchment are sewn together with special threads, forming ieria sections, combined, in turn, into a scroll. The ends of the scroll are attached to round wooden rollers etz Chaim – "Tree of Life" (Hebrew), with handles on both sides; wooden discs are worn between the handles and the roller, supporting the scroll when it is in an upright position ^[10]. Among the Sephardim, the Torah was placed in a wooden or metal case, among the Ashkenazim – in an embroidered cloth cover, most often velvet. Since the Middle Ages, it has become customary to decorate the Torah case – it was crowned with elegant finials – Keter Torah crowns - "Crown of the Torah" (Hebrew), or finials made of metal in the form of garnets – rimmonym. Suspended on a chain is a plate for separation (bookmark) with a hammered ornament, often inlaid with semi–precious stones - torashild or tas ^[3]. Since it was forbidden to touch the parchment with your hands, when reading the scroll, a special yad pointer is used – "hand" (Hebrew), which reproduces the shape of a human hand with an outstretched index finger. A ritual object close in design and meaning to the Torah scroll is Megila Esther – "the scroll of Esther" (Hebrew) – one of the Old Testament books traditionally read during the Purim holiday.

 According to the text of Scripture, the covenant on the manufacture of the menorah was given to Moses by the Almighty on Mount Sinai along with the commandments [Exodus (Shmot) 25:9]. This commandment is associated with the purifying function of fire, which is an archaic connotation in many cultures. Literally translated, the menorah is a "lamp" (Hebrew), but this concept is applied to the synagogue seven–candle, all branches of which are deployed in one plane. With all the variety of menorahs, regardless of the period of their creation and territory, they all have a resemblance to a tree, which is directly indicated in the text of Scripture. Three-four-five-candle lamps are also close to the menorah, both for temple and household needs. A special variety is represented by hanukkah – nine-barrel lamps used on the days of one of the holidays of the Jewish calendar – Hanukkah.

The basic subjects in Jewish liturgical practice include such elements of men's costume as:

- talit (Hebrew) or tales (Yiddish) is a rectangular prayer blanket of white color, with several black or black-and-blue stripes. In the middle of the longitudinal part of the talit, an atara is sewn – "crown, crown" (Hebrew) – a rectangular piece of fabric to distinguish the upper outer and lower inner parts. The talit is put on the head during the reading of the Shaharit prayer, all four ends of it are thrown over the left shoulder, forming an Ismail wrap, after which it falls on the shoulders;

- tsitsit (the Crimeans chichit, the Karaites chichit or arba kenafot – "four corners" (Hebrew)) – brushes or a bundle of threads at the four ends of men's clothing, according to the prescription contained in the Torah [Numbers (Bemidbar) 15:38-41]. In each bundle there should be a blue dyed thread, when looking at which a person should remember the commandments. The tzitzit should be visible from under the clothes. In some Hasidic communities, it is practiced to wear talit katan – small talit (Hebrew) under clothes (in comparison with talit gadol – big talit (Hebrew)), which necessarily has a tzitzit. The Karaites chichit (arba kenafot) is a scarf with embroidered patterned ends, with blue, white and green tassels on its edges. Karaite chichit was not only worn on the shoulders, but also hung on the walls of kenas, understanding the commandment to "look at chichit" literally;

- kippah (yarmulke) – literally "covering, dome" – a knitted or wedged round cap worn by Jews and Crimeans on the crown, under the main headdress. Crimean Karaites, instead of a kippah during prayer, wore a kalpak – a pointed hat (the daily headdress of the Crimeans and Karaites was a black lamb cap of the Crimean); Karaites also did not wear long curls at the temples, the commandment of which is contained in the Tadmud.

- tfilin (Hebrew)or phylacteries (Greek) – two leather or wooden boxes with leather laces, with fragments of texts from the Torah placed inside, worn by a man on his forehead and on his hand, respectively, during certain prayers, in fulfillment of the biblical covenant [Deuteronomy (Dvarim) 6:6-8; cf. Exodus (Shmot) 13:9, 16; Deuteronomy (Dvarim) 11:18]. Karaites, unlike Jews and Crimeans, do not wear tefillin.

One of the obligatory items used in the synagogue ceremony is bsamim, or godes (hadas) – "myrtle" (Hebrew) – a special vessel for incense. Bsamim, as a rule, are metal vessels of various shapes, with holes for burning incense ^[8]. This cleansing tradition with the help of the smells of herbs and their disinfecting properties is also archaic and characteristic of many cultures. The same applies to anointing with oils, in Judaism with myrrh – a mixture of fragrant vegetable oils.

Special ritual objects also include: 

- special knife for circumcision;

- Elijah's chair – carved wooden chair for moel – performing the rite of circumcision;

- a bowl for the circumcision ceremony;

- Chupa –wedding canopy for the wedding ceremony;

- ktubba (shetar Karaites) – decorated marriage contract;

- silver ring-a ring worn by the groom on the bride's index finger with the inscription Mazal Tov;

Vessels have a special purpose, for example, a tzedakah – a mug for donations, as well as jugs for ritual washing of hands.

Purple Circle – code Bestiary;

The Bestiary code combines zoomorphic as well as zooanthropomorphic symbols: animals, as well as birds, fish (including mythological, chimerical). Zooanthropomorphism is a distinctive eschatological feature of this code, since animals or chimeras embody human images, including sometimes visually (animals are often depicted in human poses – for example, lions walking on two paws, bears, muzzles resembling a face, animals with human eyes, etc.).

The Jewish bestiary has an allegorical meaning, each of its images is the personification of God, people or their individual qualities. Images of symbolic animals are most often found in three types of compositions. The first, most common, is the canonical composition of Aron Hakodesh in the form of a portal, on the sides of which the niche for storing the Torah is guarded by guards (lions or a lion and a unicorn), an eagle or a lion (or a double–headed eagle) crowns the top of the composition, and birds are depicted in the branches of the paradise tree above the portal. Such a composition is repeated with slight variations in book graphics, wood carving, artistic metal, embroidery, etc.

The second type of bestial compositions adorns Ashkenazi tombstones-matzevs in the towns – the line of Jewish settlement established by Catherine II for the residence of Jews in the Russian Empire, as well as in Western and Eastern Europe. Their symbolism is different. A number of images directly indicate the names of the buried, for example, a bear (Ber in Yiddish) was depicted on the matzev of a man named Ber, a Lion (Arye) – on the grave of a man named Arye-Leib, etc.  Other images on matsevah depict human persons of the Torah in the form of animal allegories.

Zooanthropomorphic images on mats can also include parts of the human body in the meaning of the whole. Such a naive departure from violating the commandment not to portray a person was not accepted in all Jewish communities, in particular, those who were geographically close to Islamic culture (Crimeans, Karaites, Spanish and Italian Sephardim) adhered to stricter enforcement of the ban. However, for Eastern European towns, especially for Hasidim, this reading was characteristic.

The third type of bestial images includes the Zodiac, borrowed and reinterpreted as the personification of the twelve main Jewish holidays. Zoomorphic images in it are adjacent to anthropomorphic ones, and depicted in a different order than in the classical zodiac circle. So, for example, the Gemini sign was depicted in the form of two hands in a castle or simply located side by side, Sagittarius in the form of a hand with an arrow, etc.

 The green circle is the Rimon code – "garnet" (Hebrew); the name Rimon is chosen for the code combining phytomorphic images. Garnet is repeatedly mentioned in the Torah and Talmud, this symbol is multidimensional and is associated with a number of transcripts. Thus, according to the Talmud's parables, pomegranate symbolizes Judaism, since, according to Rabbi Resh Lakish, it has 613 grains – an amount equal to the number of Torah commandments; Pomegranate (along with grapes and figs) is one of the fruits of the land of Israel, which were brought by people sent to investigate its fertility [Numbers (Bemidbar) 13:17-24]. Later, Moses named the pomegranate among the seven fruits representing the wealth of the fertile Promised Land; the pomegranate in the Torah and Talmud is also a symbol of human beauty. Thus, in the Song of Songs, the image of a loving woman is compared to a pomegranate [The Book of Songs of Solomon (Shir Ha-Shirim) 6:7]; Two rows of golden garnets, according to the Torah, decorated the tops of the two main columns of the Temple – Yahin and Boaz [The Third Book of Kings (Dvarim) 7:18, 42]; Next to golden pomegranates, interspersed with bells, God commanded Moses to decorate the edges of the clothes of the high priest Aaron and his descendants, the Cohens, or Aaronids [Exodus (Shmot) 28:31]; Pomegranate is a symbol of the Jewish New Year – Rosh Hashanah, a blessing is pronounced over the fruits of pomegranates at the beginning a festive meal, so that the coming year would be as full of good deeds as pomegranate seeds; Jewish immigrants, moving to a new place during migrations, brought with them and planted pomegranate seeds in memory of the Land of Israel. Thus, the etymology of the name of the city of Granada in southern Spain goes back to the Arab-Moorish name "Garnata al-Yahud" – "Jewish pomegranates".

The image of a pomegranate as a symbol of unity is also used in other ethnic groups and cultures, however, it has a different meaning, for example, among the Turks it symbolizes the unity and multiplicity of the genus, family. Images of pomegranate in this meaning are found in the decorative and applied art of Karaites and Crimeans, who borrowed the motif of the ancestral tree from Crimean Tatar art.

The Torah includes references to many plants, some of which have a symbolic meaning, and some is a description of the grace of nature of the Promised Land, rich in plants of agricultural importance. The first mention of vegetation is found in the opening chapter of the Torah, Genesis (Bereshit), in the description of the third day of Creation, when God created vegetation: "And God said, Let the earth grow green, grass that sows seed, a fruitful tree that bears fruit after its kind, in which its seed is after its kind" [Genesis 1:11].

The main plant symbol of the Torah is the Tree. The book of Genesis describes two Paradise Trees: "And the Lord God grew out of the earth every tree that was pleasant to look at and good for food, and the tree of life in the midst of paradise, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" [Genesis (Bereshit) 2:9]. The Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the prohibition associated with it, its subsequent violation and expulsion from Paradise are the prototype of the humanitarian paradigm, the moral choice that man has faced: the prohibition given by God and the opposition of the Serpent – antipode, the enemy of God, tempting man with divine knowledge, which, if used incorrectly, can be reversed. for evil [Genesis (Bereshit) 3:1-24].

Images of the Tree of Paradise (the Tree of Life), or sometimes its parts (branches with flowers, fruits and singing birds on them, as well as vases with flowers and fruits), serve as a reminder of the lost Paradise and the desire to return the lost harmony with God. The Paradise tree or its parts are an obligatory element of the composition of altars – Aron Hakodeshey (Gekhals). The branches of the Paradise Tree frame the portal, inside which there is a Torah scroll, symbolizing the path to Paradise lost, leading through the wisdom of the Torah and the fulfillment of its commandments. The Menorah is traditionally depicted in the form of a Paradise Tree. The synthesis of the Rimon code and the Menorah code is visualized in the image of the Menorah: its description in the Torah definitely indicates the likening to a tree – an allegory of the living wisdom of the Torah.

The original image of God and his appearance to Moses is also conveyed in the Torah through the allegory of a plant – a burning, but miraculously not burning in the fire of a thorn bush. The image of God in the form of a burning bush is found in the traditional pictorial semiosis – in book graphics. and synagogue murals

In the Torah there are mentions of various plants: pomegranate, grapes, figs, palm trees, cedar, aloe, almonds, olives, etc. Images of these plants as an indication of the Promised Land are found in the paintings of synagogues, mizrahs, pinkas. Plants are also symbols of holidays, in particular, Sukkot and Shavuot.

Red Circle – Number Code;

The Number code combines numerical symbols, and is also named identically to one of the books of the Torah. Let's consider this code, which is the subject of our article's research, in detail.

Numerical symbolism is ubiquitous and is characteristic of all cultures in different interpretations, however, the symbolic meanings of numbers in different ethnocultures are different, in some examples we can talk about connotations of the meanings of specific numbers, and in others they are opposite or completely different, unrelated to each other. The meanings of the number symbols depend on the culture and its foundations, primarily religious and mythological. In some cultures (for example, in Hindu, Babylonian, Egyptian, Pythagorean, etc.), numbers are of exceptional importance, they are considered the basis of everything.

Numerical symbolism can be considered on three levels. The first

– arithmetic, in which a number and its symbolic meaning depend on various derivatives that make up it, or are composed by it. For example, the Pythagoreans considered the ideal number to be the number 10, which completes a series of single-digit numbers and is the sum of four consecutive numbers (1+2+3+4=10);

The second level is geometric, in which the number is represented as vertices and/or faces of a geometric figure, which, in turn, is given one or another sacred and magical meaning. Sacred geometry is of great importance in the construction of geometric ornaments, and given that they are inherent in all cultures, it is the sacred-geometric aspect that is the main one in the study of pictorial semiosis;

The third level is actually sacred, associated with numbers in their quantitative or ordinal meaning, mentioned in the sources of religious doctrine or folk mythology of various ethnocultures.

As a rule, numerical symbolism and its interpretations in different cultures are considered in a complex way, often some levels follow from others or are influenced by neighboring cultures, and sometimes a sign or symbol having a numerical value has a territorial etymology completely far from the culture that has received it. Thus, the famous six–pointed hexagram star, which is the emblem and part of the flag of the State of Israel, has ancient Indian roots and originally (as two crossed triangles) meant the interpenetration of male and female principles, spiritual and bodily, earth and sky. The origin of the legend is unknown, according to which the hexagram called Magen David is the "star of David" (Hebrew) She decorated the shield of King David and the ring of his son, King Solomon. The use of the hexagram as a Jewish symbol began only in the XIX century, when it became, in particular, part of the Rothschild family coat of arms.

The use of numerical codes and various types of encodings that make it possible to decipher the hidden meanings of the Torah is characteristic of Judaism and, according to Jewish teaching, is an indicator of the highest levels of knowledge of the Torah. In Judaism, there is a concept of Pardes "Garden of Eden" (Persian) – four levels of knowledge of the Torah: pshat, drash, remez and Sod. The first of them, pshat, is the study of the literal meaning of the text of the Torah, understood verbatim. Comments of the pshat level are also contained in the most common commentary of Rashi (a Jewish Talmudic scholar from France, Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki, 1040-1105). The direct mention of specific numbers in the Torah and their meanings can be attributed to the level of pshat. Symbolic numbers in Judaism are, for example: 1 – the unity of God; 2 – two guards of the Gates of Paradise and the gates of the Temple; 7 – the number of days of creation, days of the week, branches of the Menorah; 12 – the number of tribes of Israel (descendants of Jacob (Israel), each of which inherits a certain land [Genesis (Bereshit) 49:1 – 27]); the number of stones of the altar of Moses [Genesis (Bereshit) 24:4]; 40 days and nights of Moses' stay on Mount Sinai with God [Exodus (Shmot) 24:16-18]; 40 years of wandering in the desert [Numbers (Bemidbar) 33:38-39]; 613 – the total number the commandments given to Moses by God, etc.

The second level, drash, is an abbreviation that has several meanings and is understood as "interpret, teach". This level includes the homiletic literature of the Midrash Talmud, explaining in the form of parables the meaning of a particular place in Scripture. The interpretation of the drash level aims to understand the logical meaning of the text of the Torah, using thirteen ways of its interpretation, first mentioned in connection with the sage Hillel (112 BC – 8 AD), and later designed and recorded by Rabbi Ishmael. The Drash-level Torah commentaries derive from its texts the rules that were given to Moses at Sinai, but subsequently lost.

The third level of Torah cognition, remez (hint), consists in an allegorical interpretation of the Torah, leading to the knowledge of hidden symbolic meanings, in other words, deciphering hints. The sages believed that the text of the Torah contains all the information about the world, since the Almighty created the world guided by the Torah. Various encodings were used to decipher hidden meanings. There were quite a lot of them, the most common of them was, for example, adding the first or last letters of words after a certain numerical interval, and getting new words or meanings. The interval number was important and had to relate to the requested topic.

The direct role of the number was to decrypt with the help of gematria – the numerical code of the word, since in Hebrew numbers are written in alphabetic characters. Thus, each letter corresponds to a numeric value, and the sum of the numeric values of the letters forms the numeric value of the word. The search for meanings is based on comparing words that have the same numerical value. So, for example, the numerical value of the word "money" is equal to the numerical value of the word "gallows" – in both cases 165, and studying the Scroll of Esther, the sages deduced a correspondence between the money that Ahashverosh had to give to the treacherous vizier Haman, and the gallows on which he was hanged [The Book of Esther].

Sometimes, when deciphering numerical values, the letters of the word were replaced with a cipher from the cryptographic alphabet of gematria, which gave rise to new meanings. For example, the numerical meaning of the word (incense) with such a substitution forms 613, indicating the number of Torah commandments, one of which is the burning of incense [Bemidbar Rabbah XIII, 15, 16].

An interesting type of encoding is the addition of a unit to the numeric code. To one of the terms of equality or to both, one unit or even two units can be added, as an "external number" of those words whose numerical value is taken. For example: ( (Torah) and ( (awe) equals 611, adding 2, the "outer number" to this number, we get 613 in total. [Bemidbar Raba XVIII, 21].

The last, fourth level of knowledge of the Torah, called sod (mystery), reveals to students the hidden parts of the Torah its structures belonging to the abstract world. This level is achievable only after passing and understanding the previous three. Gematria is widely used in Kabbalistic teaching, according to which the whole Creation developed through emanation from an unknowable essence – En Soph (infinite), which is synonymous with God. The term En Sof belongs to the outstanding Jewish Kabbalist of France Isaac (Isaac ben-Abraham) the Blind (c.1160–c.1235). En Sof, according to his teaching, is an infinite unknowable multitude of creative forces, the main potential, the beginning of everything. The result of this development was the emergence of the ten Sefirot – the primary, or ideal numbers, originating from En Soph and forming all manifestations of God. The totality of the Sefirot forms the "Tree of the Sefirot", they correspond to the ten names of the Creator, the actors (persons) The Torah, the five levels of the development of the spirit, the five worlds of the removal of divine light from the creations according to the theory of emanation. Collectively, the hierarchy of the Sefirot expresses a philosophical understanding of the connection between the Creator and Creation, and is a variant of the cosmogonic theory of Creation.

According to this theory, 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet developed from the last, tenth Sefirot, from which the whole world emerged. Thus, these letters (and their corresponding numbers) are dynamic forces, and all their derivatives are numbers at the same time. The number thus expresses the essence of things. Important is not only the number itself corresponding to a particular word, but also its functions, derivatives, addition, multiplication, addition of numeric values, etc. Thus, when applying various encodings, Torah researchers could obtain new meanings.

Let's consider the basic numbers and connotations of their meanings used in the Jewish pictorial semiosis. For our work, it is advisable to choose a sacred geometric interpretation of numbers, in which numbers are the number of angles and/or sides of the figure.

The number 1. One in the geometric sense is a point, the smallest minimum particle, in classical Pythagorean philosophy a monad, in modern natural science an atom, from which everything consists and is built ^[15]. Mentioning the number one as the personification of the one (or the strongest, supreme) God is found in different cultures, in particular, in ancient Egypt, the unit was the personification of Amun Ra ^[4]. The Pythagoreans had a thesis that everything is born from a number (from unity), since it is the starting point of reference, and in this sense, God, as the beginning of everything, also has a code 1. The Pythagoreans also justified the essence of the one God as a circle that has no corners, since He is "everywhere like", that is, omnipresent, and therefore equal on all sides, which corresponds to a circle, or, in its reduced form, a point. (In various cultures, the essence of the beginning, the infinite and unknowable "nothing" is given either to one or to a round zero, the discovery of which belongs to the Mayan culture. The personification of the divine essence in any case is given to the initial number from which the countdown is conducted, and this is either 1 or 0). In Judaism, there is a stable expression – a quote from the Torah: "One is our God, in heaven and on earth."

In traditional images, 1, as a symbol of God, appears in the form of a pommel of Aron Hakodesh – an image of a lion as a symbol of the family of David, or an eagle – an animal and a bird, a comparison with which is found in the Torah. Also, the symbol of divine power is the image of the crown crowning Aron Hakodesh. The number one also symbolizes the Temple (although there were two Temples, the First and the Second Temple, but consecutively, and at the same time there could be only one Temple).

The peculiarity of the unit in the geometric sense is that it can mean not only a point, but also a circle. The circle in Judaism is embodied in the form of a kippah, mandatory for men to wear and symbolizing the patronage of the Almighty and at the same time worship before him, a kind of protective "dome" (in Hebrew the word means "dome"), the image of an invisible Temple destroyed in reality, but existing in the image of Covenants and their fulfillment. In fact, the kippah is a sign of belonging to the ethno-culture and denomination, a marker of Judaism, both for the Jew and for his environment. The infinity of the circle symbolizes the infinity of the Almighty.

The number 2 in geometry is a segment – two points connected by a line. In the philosophical understanding of different cultures, it has different meanings: from equality (related twins) to polar opposites, opposition. In some cultures, for example, in ancient Chinese, 2 represents the masculine and feminine principles and their interaction ^[4]. In Judaism, the number two means God and the world created by him, or God and man created in His image and likeness, that is, the reflection of the Creator in Creation. The second meaning of the number two consists in the difference between a person's aspirations – good and bad, which leads to the idea of sinfulness as non-observance of covenants.

In the Jewish pictorial semiosis, the number two occurs in the form of paired stable silhouettes of two tablets – a symbol of the Oral and Written Torah. The images of two paired columns framing the niche with the Torah in Aron Hakodesh are also traditional – their prototype is the copper columns Yahin and Boaz, according to the description of the Torah, standing near the entrance to the Temple of Solomon.

The traditional depiction of the battle of two symbolic animals – a Lion and a Unicorn, according to the Midrash, preceding the coming of the Messiah, is the personification of the clash of equal units, that is, binary opposition. This interpretation corresponds to one of the methods of studying the Torah – pilpul, when there are opposites in the text, and interpreting them, the sages eventually come to an understanding of the truth, in which these two opposites are explicable. The same interpretation applies to the image of the guardians of the Temple gates and Aron Hakodesh in the form of two lions opposing each other, simultaneously symbolizing both the image of the Temple, the house of David, and the truth to be sought in the Torah covenants.

The number 3, a geometric triangle, is a rigid figure. The troika is an iconic number and image for many cultures: for example, in Hinduism, it embodies the essence of three gods: Brahma – the creator, Vishnu – the guardian and Shiva – the destroyer. Similar triads of gods existed in ancient Egyptian and Ancient Persian mythology. In Christianity, the image of the triune God is expressed in three entities (images): The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit ^[4]. In Judaism, 3 is associated with three patriarchal fathers: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The story of Noah and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, is also a frequently quoted passage in Scripture regarding ethics. Also, the number three corresponds to the three days of purification [Numbers (Bemidbar) 19:12].

In Jewish pictorial practice, the number 3 is found in images, especially characteristic of tombstones-mats: three hares running after each other in a circle, or similarly, three fish swimming in a circle. This image means an infinite cyclicity of time, and the triangle, as a rigid structure, does not allow to break this cycle. Such infinity is a sign of En Sof – God as the highest matter in Kabbalistic teaching.

The number 4 in geometry is a square (or another quadrilateral – rectangle, rhombus or trapezoid). A square and a rectangle are stable figures, which is expressed in the impression of inviolability, order in their embodiment. In the philosophical understanding of different cultures, the square has just such a function, for example, in ancient China it symbolized the Earth as a solid foundation for life ^[4]. In Pythagorean philosophy, the number four, as the first "equal" or "symmetrical", "square" number was considered an image of stability, balance, harmony. The four in different cultures also symbolizes the four cardinal directions ^[15].

In Judaism, the number 4 is very important and iconic, and is primarily associated with the commandment of Arba Kenafot "four corners", aka tzitzit, described above. In addition, the quadrangular shape is inherent in many iconic cult objects accompanying Jewish life throughout its entire length: the four corners have a talis (talit), a tefillin, a chupa – a wedding canopy, a shroud. The high priest's breastplate, the ephod, described in the Torah as a prescription for the vestments of Temple servants, was also quadrangular. All these objects also appear in traditional images. The "stability" of the form gives these objects timelessness, permanence, inviolability of cultural tradition, and as a result, an anchor of culture that allows the ethnic group to identify itself in the diaspora.

The number 5, a geometric pentagram, has an iconic coloration in various world cultures. The Pythagoreans considered it the number of marriage, since it is the sum of the first even, "female" number 2 and the first odd, "male" number 3. Even numbers were considered by the Greeks to be "female" because they are divided into equal parts, that is, they reproduce themselves, while odd numbers are not divided. The number five was also considered by the Romans and Etruscans as the number of primary elements that make up everything: fire, air, water, earth, ether. In ancient China, five was considered a masculine number, and also personified the five cardinal directions (north, south, east, west and center), five colors, tastes, smells, customs (holidays, mourning, hospitality, armies and wishes of happiness). In medieval mysticism and occult movements, the pentagram was considered the number of Lucifer ^[4].

In the Jewish understanding, the number five represents the Torah (the Pentateuch of Moses), as well as the five sections of the Book of Psalms of David. In folk art (in particular, in the decoration of tombstones and book graphics), sometimes there is an image of the Torah not in the form of tablets or scrolls, but in the form of five books of the codex form standing side by side on a shelf. In the eschatological understanding of Kabbalah, as mentioned above, the number five corresponds to the five levels of knowledge of God as infinite wisdom.

The number 6, or geometric hexagram, in different cultures was considered a symbol of stability and balance, since it is divided into two and three equal parts. In addition to the mentioned ancient Indian interpretation of the two intersected triangles of the hexagram, the number six was considered a symbol of harmony and creation in the Persian Avesta, according to which the world was created in six periods: heaven in 45 days, water in 60, earth in 75, plants in 30, animals in 80, man in 75 (in total – for 365 days). In Christianity, the combination of three sixes is considered the Number of the Beast (devil) ^[4].

In Judaism, the number six means the days of Creation (weekdays), as well as the six sections of the Mishnah. On the shoulder pads of the high priest there were 6 stones with the names of the tribes of Israel [Exodus (Shmot) 28:1-2]. The images of the hexagram until the XIX century were only decorative in nature, which has no special significance for traditional understanding, and later the hexagram became the personification of Judaism, in particular, the state symbols of Israel.

The number 7. The seven was important in many world cultures, as in the Eastern (Mesopotamian, Arabic, Persian, etc.) so it is in Greek classical philosophy. For example, in ancient Egyptian mythology, seven gods of light and seven gods of darkness were mentioned. In ancient Greece, the seven signified development, evolution. In Christian doctrine, the number seven means seven deadly sins, and in the Revelation of John the Theologian it is a symbol of abundance and at the same time a symbol of God's punishment.  In Islam, the number seven is interpreted as seven heavens, seven earths, seven hells, seven gates of paradise.  The seven prophets, according to the Muslim understanding, correspond to the seven subtle bodies and seven colors. The seven is a calendar unit (week) ^[4]. The geometric embodiment of the seven, the heptagram, is quite rare in the decor, since it is asymmetrical and complex in outline.

In Judaism, the seven means the seven branches of the Menorah (purification of the Temple). The total number of days of Creation is seven, which later became the commandment to rest from work on the seventh day of the week. The seven colors of the rainbow that God showed Noah meant that he would no longer destroy people [Genesis 33:1-36]. The number seven is often found in prophecies, for example, the cupbearer's dream about seven fat and seven lean cows coming out of the Nile, interpreted by Joseph as seven abundant and seven lean years [Genesis 41:1-36]. In the Jewish pictorial semiosis, seven appears in the images of the Menorah, as the main and most ancient symbol of Judaism. Seven-pointed stars are found on Karaite tombstones, where abstract symbolism mainly replaces the subject.

The number 8, or octagram, in the cultures of the world has the meaning of paired perfection, as it is divided into two and four parts, representing a sample of paired equilibrium, ideal symmetry. It is the number 8 that symbolizes infinity, so in a number of cultures it was personified with the image of Chaos, from which the whole world emerged. The octagram was also a solar symbol in ancient Babylon, Egypt and Arabia. Thus, the ancient Egyptians believed that the number eight represented four pairs of cosmic deities, which in turn gave birth to the World Egg, from which the supreme god Ra emerged. In Buddhist understanding, the number eight appears repeatedly: it is equal to the number of spokes of Buddhist law, eight rules of ethics, eight laws of Tao, etc. In Chinese philosophy, there are eight symbols of Confucianism, eight medical signs (hot-cold, external-internal, thin-thick, negative-positive) ^[4].

In Judaism, the number 8 symbolizes a number of rituals and holidays: for example, on the eighth day a baby is circumcised, Hanukkah, Sukkot, Pesach are celebrated for eight days (in the diaspora). According to the Zohar treatise, the number 8 means new beginnings, and symbolizes the beginning of a new week – Avdalah (separation of the Sabbath from the new week) after the seven days of Creation. Octagram images are more common on Karaite tombstones. It is curious that the octagram, as the intersection of two squares, which are originally symbols of stable inviolability, when one of them is set in motion, becomes the most active figure in philosophical understanding, the image of movement and Creation.

 Number 9. In the geometric image, nine was depicted both as three intersected triangles and as a square divided into nine parts.  The ancient Greeks (in particular, the Pythagoreans) considered 9 to be the second ideal number after 4 (reproduction of a deuce), since it is a reproduction (square) of a triple ^[15]. Among the ancient Slavs, the three triangles that make up the nine–pointed star represented Nav, Rule and Reality - the world of gods, deceased ancestors and living people. The triangles crossed in the form of a star signified the connection between these three worlds. In ancient China, there was an idea of nine worlds, into which all space is divided.

Among the ancient Turks, the symbol of the ancestral Tree had a nine–part structure: three parts vertically: the roots – the symbol of the ancestors, the trunk – a man, the elder of the family, and a rose (or carnation) in the center - a woman, the mother of the family; horizontally, the crown included the right part, the top and the left part, in which the symbols of the descendants were located genera: tulips, pomegranates – men, roses, daisies, etc. – women. This structure was adopted from the Crimean Tatar culture also by Karaites and Crimeans and is present mainly in embroidery.

In Judaism, nine is the number of candles in Hanukkah – a lamp that is lit on the days of Hanukkah, eight candles of which symbolize the eight days of the consecration of the Temple and one acts as a shamash – "acolyte", from which all other candles are lit. Hanukkah images are found both in book graphics and in the decoration of ritual vessels, paintings, etc.

Number 10. In ancient Greek Pythagorean philosophy, the number ten (decade) was considered an ideal number that contains all (single-digit) numbers, accommodates both even and odd, personifying the entire universe. Among the Maya Indians, according to their calendar, the number ten in the decimal system meant the end of one cycle and the beginning of the next, so 10 among the Maya was considered the number of life and death ^[4].

In Judaism, the number 10 means the ten basic commandments. The ten Sefirot – their scheme of intersections (paths) forms a Kabbalistic tree.

          Fig. 1. Kabbalistic Tree of the Sefirot (Tree of Life).

Each of the ten Sefirot means a hidden stage of knowledge of God – the path to the Light of En Sof, located on the Sefirot diagram in the upper part above the Tree. The possibility of cognition consists in the passage of light through the stages of the Sefirot: light freely passes through the three upper levels, called paradise. Below these three levels, the flow of light gradually decreases and reaches the lower, earthly Sephirah in a minuscule amount. The essence of the teaching is to increase one's wisdom by delving into the essence of the wisdom of the Torah and Talmud, and increasing the spiritual level, to come to the knowledge of Light.

The abstract, cosmogonic nature of the doctrine of En Sof and the ten Sefirot is difficult to understand and requires a base in the form of detailed knowledge of the previous levels. A characteristic feature of Judaism is that in its doctrine spirituality and knowledge of God and education are identical, that is, the purpose of education is not only the development of intelligence, but knowledge is a covenant, a prerequisite for achieving a high spiritual level. This aspect can be called one of the characteristic features of the cultural code of Judaism.

Number 11. In Arabic philosophy, the number 11 corresponds to the eleven stages of the knowledge of God. In ancient China, the number eleven, as the sum of the numbers 5 (the number of the Earth) and 6 (the number of Heaven), symbolized the unity of the Tao (the Path to perfection) ^[4].

In Judaism, 11 appears in Joseph's prophetic dream, in which he saw the sun, moon and eleven stars bow down to him, which subsequently meant the elevation of Joseph at the court of Pharaoh [Genesis 37:9-11]. This allegorical astral plot is found in the paintings of synagogues and book graphics.

Number 12. In Eastern astrology, 12 corresponds to the number of signs of the Zodiac circle, which was also adopted by the Jews, interpreting the signs of the Zodiac as symbols of the twelve main annual holidays. In Judaism, 12 means the twelve tribes of Israel (the sons of Jacob, called Israel by God, who inherited parts of the Promised Land) [Genesis (Bereshit) 48:5]. The number twelve also appears in various chapters of the Torah. The altar of Moses consisted of twelve stones [Exodus (Shmot) 24:4]. In the prescriptions concerning the high priest's robe, there was a covenant about a breastplate that included 12 stones [Exodus (Shmot) 28:15-30], according to the number of tribes (sons) Jacob (Israel). This breastplate – the ephod – was often depicted in synagogue paintings and book graphics. Also in synagogues, the Zodiac was traditionally depicted in the meaning of the annual cycle of holidays, the passage of time, however, most often not in the form of a circle, but located in the upper part of all walls except the altar, and thus the synagogue space personified the entire annual circle of Jewish life.

Number 13. Among the Aztecs, the number 13 meant the number of earthly and heavenly worlds. In the pre-Christian period, the number 13 signified the end of the old and the beginning of a new cycle, therefore it was associated with death ^[4]. In a number of world cultures, this number is considered cursed, unlucky, in a number of countries there is no 13th floor and 13th place in the hall.

In Judaism, the number 13 is the numerical meaning of the word (one), therefore it is associated with God and Creation. The age of thirteen corresponds to the Jewish coming of age – a bar mitzvah. Also among the Jews, the number 13 is the actual number of the tribes of Israel, since the tribe of Joseph represented his two sons [Genesis (Bereshit) 48:5].

The number 40. Forty is a signed number in the Torah, repeated repeatedly. 40 means forty years of Moses' wanderings with his people in the wilderness [Vayikra (Leviticus) 33:38-39]. Moses spent forty days and nights on Mount Sinai before giving the Torah to the people [Exodus 24:16-18]. It rained for forty days during the flood [Genesis (Bereshit) 7:12]. Kings David and his son Solomon ruled for 40 years. The tenfold four means the multiplication of traditions, the establishment of their order and inviolability.

The number 613 is equal to the total number of commandments in Judaism, among which there are ten main ones.

Let's consider the comprehension of some numbers in Judaism according to the formula n + 1, where n is the original value of the number, and 1 is the addition of one to it as a symbol of God. A similar interpretation is found among the Pythagoreans: the beginning of numbers, in their opinion, is a monad (unit, reference point), since it consists of even and odd: the monad is both even and odd; he proved this based on the fact that it generates both odd and even numbers: added to the even, it generates odd, and to odd – even. However, we will consider this action in application to the Jewish sign-philosophical system. The unit in this case, as a symbol of God, is a larger quantity than the number to which it is added, and gives the original number a new meaning.

1+1. The symbol of the new meaning of this expression can be considered the reflection of God in the world he created, as well as in the man he created in his image and likeness.

2+1. The deuce, as a symbol of the binary opposition, the pilpool method of searching for truth in the Torah, when adding one (God) turns into three – a symbol of the infinity of time. Found truth = infinity.

3+1. The endless passage of time, when God is added, turns a triangle into a square – the number 4, symbolizing stability, stability of understanding the world while observing the covenants.

6+1. The six weekdays of Creation, with the addition of God, acquire a festive, seventh day of rest. The six horns of the menorah, when God is added, the seventh candle (shamash) turns the Menorah into a Tree of Life.

8+1. Eight days of purification of the Temple become possible with the addition of God (the appearance of a miracle) – the image of the ninth Hanukkah candle.

600+12+1=613. The image of the balance of the number 6 multiplied by 100, with the added number 12 – the number of the tribes of Israel, with the addition of one – the symbol of God, form the number 613 – the total number of commandments given to Moses.

The synthesis of nearby codes generates new final meanings, gives them multiple connotations of meanings.

The synthesis of three of the four codes on each side (shown in bright yellow in the diagram) reveals through the synthesis of symbolism the four key meanings of Judaism: Creation, Paradise, the personas of the Torah and the expectation of the Messiah.

The center of intersection of all codes is an Eye (due to the visual similarity with the eye in the diagram, as well as in meaning), or the Heart of Jewish culture, its key meaning uniting all interpretations, the invariant embodiment of which for all Jewish ethnic groups is the synagogue Aron Hakodesh – a place to store a Torah scroll (Fig. 1, 2) ^[8].

The traditional composition of Aron Hakodesh is a symbol of the Tabernacle (Ark) The Testament, as well as the Holy of Holies of the First and Second Temples of Solomon – the place of preservation of the tablets, and later the Torah scroll. The place for storing the Torah in the synagogue (kenase, kaale) is presented as a portal to Paradise, framed by images of the temple columns of Yahin and Boaz – the code of the Number, the Menorah. On both sides of the portal are placed the symbols of the guardians of the gates of Paradise – lions, or lion and unicorn – code Bestiary. Tree branches, fruits and flowers in the upper part of the Aron Hakodesh serve as a reminder of the Garden of Paradise – code Rimon. At the top of the portal is placed the symbol of the Almighty as the royal authority – a lion or an eagle – code Bestiary, or crown – code Menorah. Above the portal are depicted tablets – codes Sefer (Book), Menorah, Numbers. A similar composition in small variations is also found in the design of marriage ktubbots or shetars – marriage contracts, pinkas – charters of various organizations, makhzors – festive prayer books, in the decoration of traditional objects – curtains-parokhets, shields for separating the heads of the Torah – tass, dishes, tombstones – mats.

Thus, the codes of the Jewish pictorial semiosis indicated by us in the art of the Jewish peoples of the Crimea are invariant, their source is the Book – Torah, as the basis of the Jewish religious doctrine. Each of the codes is a group of characters united by the Sefer code. The conjugations of the codes show the way from the common primary source – the Torah, to it – the Torah as a shrine, both in eschatological and material incarnation. A stable composition, repeated in different types of decor, indicates Jewish affiliation, and the decoding of individual symbols allows you to see the meaning of the text of Jewish culture. A number of connotations in the pictorial semiosis of the three Jewish peoples of the Crimea are insignificant, and relate more to borrowed mythology, whereas in the religious tradition the totality of pictorial codes is practically invariant and corresponds to their single primary source ^[9].

The Number code is an expanded circle of symbolic meanings that indicate both specific places in Scripture, the plots of the Torah or Talmud, and the allegorical interpretation of certain numbers and numerical expressions in the philosophical understanding of the sages. Their symbolism is invariant for representatives of different directions of Judaism. A number of introduced connotations are associated with the regional peculiarities of the Karaites and Krymchaks culture.

It is worth noting that the codes of the pictorial semiosis of the Jews serve as the most characteristic markers of cultural and religious identity, reminders of Old Testament habitations, and even in the case when some representatives of the ethnic group in the diaspora do not speak Hebrew (which is especially important for communities after the globalization of the twentieth century). Thus, the pictorial semiosis is a universal text, with with the help of which the Jewish identity is preserved.

The proposed scheme of interaction of codes is also suitable for systematization of the visual semiosis of other ethnocultures, although, of course, in this case, in accordance with a different cultural source, the names of codes and groups of symbols are subject to change.

Fig. 2. Traditional Aron-Hakodesh. Synagogue in Safed, Israel.

Fig. 3. Traditional Aron-Hakodesh.