Musar for Menachot 86:15

The mystical dimension of tithes and the mystical dimension of blessings all lead us to the same source. This is all alluded to in the verse telling us that Isaac found מאה שערים, "one hundred gates." The number one hundred is important both allegorically and halachically: Menachot 43 states that everyone is duty bound to recite one hundred ברכות, benedictions, daily. This number is based on the blessings extended by G–d to Isaac here in our פרשה when he reaped one hundred times as much as expected. Rekanati writes about this as follows: Kabbalists have described the "higher" world as consisting of one hundred "gates." Each "gate" is to be perceived as a fountain of blessings. Isaac ינק, suckled, i.e. absorbed from each one of these "gates." When the Tabernacle had one hundred silver sockets (Exodus 35,27), they symbolized these one hundred sources of blessings. Every single אדן, socket, was a בית קבול, receptacle (for heavenly blessing). Thus far the Rekanati.

The author, Rabbi Horowitz, mentions a book called שערי אורה, from which he quotes the following passage about the relationship of the sockets in the Tabernacle to the source of heavenly blessings and the need to pronounce one hundred benedictions daily, as well as the negative fallout when one fails to do so. This is what he writes: "These one hundred sockets of the beams in the Tabernacle are symbolic of the one hundred blessings which they are filled with from the great בריכה, reservoir [here undoubtedly a double entendre connected with source of ברכה, blessing, Ed]. This בריכה is called א-ד-נ-י [i.e. the attribute called א-ד-נ-י is that source Ed.]. Hence a person must utter one hundred benedictions daily in order to attract to himself all these one hundred different blessings. Should but a single one of these blessings be missing this would result in him injuring himself and becoming blemished. This mystical dimension is called , 1-10-100= ,אי"ק, בכ"ר, or 2-20-200. It is the relationship between כהן-לוי-ישראל, which in turn symbolizes the relationship between נפש-רוח-נשמה.

When our sages in Menachot 43 state that a person has to pronounce one hundred benedictions daily, they base this on Deut. 10,12: מה ה' אלוקיך שואל ממך "What does the Lord your G–d ask of you?" They suggest that the word מה should be read as מאה. I have already mentioned elsewhere that when the sages suggest an emendation in the written text of the Torah there must be a very compelling reason to do so. In this particular case I do not feel any need for this since the word מה and the word מאה are essentially the same.