The Lamed-Vav
In the Kabbalah, there is the Legend of the Lamed-Vav — the Legend of the Thirty-Six.
Why Thirty-Six?
As a mystical concept, the number 36 is intriguing. It is said that at all times there are 36 special people in the world, and that were it not for them — all of them — if even one of them was missing, the world would abruptly come to an end.
The two Hebrew letters for 36 are the Lamed, which is 30, and the Vav, which is 6. Therefore, these 36 are referred to as the Lamed-Vav Tzadikim.
This widely-held belief — this most unusual Jewish concept — is based on a Talmudic statement to the effect that in every generation 36 Righteous Scholars "greet the Shekhinah" — the Divine Presence.
And so, the Thirty-Six are known as the Lamed-Vav in the Kabbalah.
In the Template for the Maieutic Method of Socrates, there are six cycles of six questions (Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How). The six levels range upward from the most concrete to the most abstract.
There has to be someone prepared to stand up and ask whichever of the 36 questions is most timely and appropriate at any juncture in the Talmudic Plenary or Colloquium. If any one of the 36 is missing, the Conversation will abruptly come to a grinding halt when it reaches that crucial juncture.
Tzadikim ("Righteous Ones") means Conscientious, Ethical, Attentive, Studious, and Just.
And so it's useful to have a handy template for the 36 questions — six cycles of six questions — in the Maieutic Method of Socrates.
One of the reasons I wrote up that Socratic Method Template was to remind me to consider each of the six kinds of questions, at each of the relevant levels of abstraction, so as to keep the learning process moving forward.