End Times Prophet | End Times Prophecy

ALEF
The Paradox: God and Man

The alef is formed by two yuds, one to the upper right and the other to the lower left, joined by a diagonal vav. These represent the higher and lower waters and the firmament between them, as taught by the Ari z"l ("Rabbi Isaac Luria of blessed memory," who received and revealed new insights into the ancient wisdom of Kabbalah)

Water is first mentioned in the Torah in the account of the first day of Creation: "And the spirit of God hovered over the surface of the water." At this time the higher and the lower waters were indistinguishable; their state is referred to as "water in water." On the second day of Creation God separated the two waters by "stretching" the firmament between them.

In the service of the soul, as taught in Chassidut, the higher water is water of joy, the experience of being close to God, while the lower water is water of bitterness, the experience of being far from God.

In Jewish philosophy, the two intrinsic properties of water are "wet" and "cold." The higher water is "wet" with the feeling of oneness with the "exaltation of God," while the lower water is "cold" with the feeling of separation, the frustration of experiencing the inherent "lowliness of man." Divine service, as taught by Chassidut, emphasizes that in fact the primary consciousness of both waters is the sense of the Divine, each from its own perspective: from the perspective of the higher water, the greater the "exaltation of God," the greater the oneness of all in His Absolute Being; from the perspective of the lower water, the greater the "exaltation of God," the greater the existential gap between the reality of God and that of man, thus the inherent "lowliness of man."

The Talmud tells of four sages who entered the "Pardes," the mystical orchard of spiritual elevation reached only through intense meditation and Kabbalistic contemplations. The greatest of the four, Rabbi Akiva, said to the others before entering, "When you come to the place of pure marble stone, do not say 'water-water,' for it is said, 'He who speaks lies shall not stand before my eyes.'" The Ari z"l explains that the place of "pure marble stone" is where the higher and the lower waters unite. Here one must not call out 'water-water,' as if to divide the higher and lower waters. "The place of pure marble stone" is the place of truth--the Divine power to bear two opposites simultaneously; in the words of Rabbi Shalom ben Adret: "the paradox of paradoxes." Here "the exaltation of God" and His "closeness" to man unite with the "lowliness of man" and his "distance" from God.

The Torah begins with the letter beit: "Bereishit (In the beginning) God created the heavens and the earth." The Ten Commandments, the Divine revelation to the Jewish People at Sinai, begin with the letter alef: "Anochi [I] am God your God who has taken you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." The Midrash states that "higher reality" had been set apart from "lower reality," for God had decreed that neither higher reality descend nor lower reality ascend. In giving the Torah, God annulled His decree, He Himself being the first to descend, as it is written: "And God came down on Mount Sinai". Lower reality, in turn, ascended: "And Moses approached the cloud...." The union of "higher reality," the upper yud, with the "lower reality," the lower yud, by means of the connecting vav of Torah, is the ultimate secret of the letter alef.

FORM

A yud above and a yud below with a vav separating and uniting them simultaneously. The secret of the image in which man was created.

Worlds:

The upper and lower waters with the firmament between them.
In the world:
- The upper atmosphere, the lower atmosphere, the ocean & water table.
- Energy waves, the atmosphere, the hydrological cycle.
In the human body:
- The respiratory system, the diaphragm, the digestive system .
- The skull-water, the membrane, the brain-moisture.

Souls:

Feeling both close to God and distant from Him with commitment to Torah and mitzvot balancing these emotions.
"Crying is enwedged in my heart on one side, while joy is enwedged in my heart on the other side."

Divinity:

Transcendent and Immanent Light with the contraction (tzimtzum) and impression (reshimu) between them.
Man in perfect unity with the Infinite Will of God.

NAME

Oxen; thousand; teaching; master.

Worlds:

Oxen--gross physical reality, the lower animal soul.
Thousand--multiplicity in Creation, the "thousand mountains grazed by the ox."
The yoke of the ox yielding a thousandfold and returning to unity.

Souls:

"I will teach you wisdom"; the root of the soul is derived from the wisdom of God.
Direct insight of Divine truth; to be nothing.

Divinity:

"Master of the universe."
The Divine "One" revealing itself throughout the plurality of Creation.

NUMBER

One

Worlds:

First of all countable numbers.
The beginning of process in nature and sequence of worldly events.
One counts "something from something."

Souls:

"One nation in the land."
The organic unity of all Jewish souls.
One counts "something from nothing."

Divinity:

"God is One": the absolute unity of God.
"There is none other besides Him:" "One, single, and unique."
One counts "nothing from something

BEIT
Purpose: God's Dwelling Place Below

The letter beit, from the word "house," refers to God's house: "My house will be called a House of Prayer for all peoples." The Midrash states that the Divine motivation for creation was that the Holy One, Blessed Be He, desired a dwelling place in lower reality. The fulfillment of this desire begins with the creation of man, a Divine soul enclothed in a physical body, and proceeds with the multiplication of man, to "conquer" the whole world and make it the kingdom of God.

The Torah precedes the detailed description of the Tabernacle and its vessels with the statement of its ultimate purpose: "They shall build me a Temple and I will dwell in them." Not "in it," the Sages explain, but "in them"--in each and every Jew. "Dwelling in them" is, in essence, the revelation of Divinity in the people of Israel, ever present but often "shadowed," as in the time of exile and destruction of the Temple. The innate sanctity of the people of Israel, the "sanctuary of God," when revealed and linked to that of the land of Israel, causes the Holy Land to expand and eventually encompass all the earth (lower reality): "the land of Israel will in the future spread out to all the lands of the earth."

Beit is numerically equal to the word "ta'avah," which means "desire" or "passion" (412). In general, "ta'avah" connotes a negative human property. However, in several places "ta'avah" denotes the positive passion of the tzadik, the righteous man. One passage in Proverbs states: "He will fulfill the passion of the tzadik," and a second says: "the passions of tzadikim are only good." The "ta'avah" of G-d, the "Tzadik of the world," is altogether above reason and logic. At this level one cannot ask "why." As expressed by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi: "About passion, there can be no question." As G-d is the essence of good so His passion is "only good."

"With whom did the Holy One, Blessed be He, take counsel whether or not to create the world? With the souls of the tzadikim." The "souls of the tzadikim" refers to all Jewish souls, as is said: "All your people are tzadikim." God's connotation as the "Tzadik of the world" refers to the absolute origin and unity of the Jewish soul in His very Essence. When the soul descends to be enclothed in the finite consciousness and experience of a seemingly mundane body, its task is to become the tzadik below in true emulation of its Source, the "Tzadik Above." This is accomplished through the refinement and purification of passion, ta'avah, to become "only good."

The "Tzadik Above" dwells in the House built for Him by the tzadik below. Here, the deepest passion of the Creator reaches fulfillment. The large beit, the first letter of the Torah and the beginning of Creation, expresses this ultimate purpose, as is said: "The final deed arose first in thought." In the first word of the Torah, Bereishit, the three "servant" letters--the prefix beit" and the two suffix letters, yud and tav - spell bayit, "house" (equivalent to the full spelling of the letter beit). The root of "bereishit," rosh, means "head." Thus the most "natural" permutation of bereishit reads: rosh bayit, "the head of the house." One permutation of the letters rosh is osher, "happiness." When the tzadik draws God, the "Head," into His House, it becomes a house of true and eternal happiness.

The drawing down of the "Head" to dwell in His "House" below, in true happiness, is the secret of bracha, "blessing," which begins with the letter beit. Our Sages teach that the "big beit" begins the Creation, and the Torah as a whole, with the power of blessing. God blesses His creation, which He creates with the attribute of lovingkindness, the attribute of Abraham, as will be explained in the letter hei. Abraham, the first Jewish soul, is subsequently entrusted with the Divine power of blessing, the "big beit" of Creation, as is said: "And you shall be [the one who bestows] blessing." Afterwards, at the time of his circumcision, he was given the "small hei" of Creation, the power to draw down and manifest the Divine blessing of happiness in the smallest detail of reality.

The Priestly Blessing is composed of three verses. The number of words progress in the order 3, 5, 7, with equal differences of two, beit. The number of letters progress in the order: 15, 20, 25, with equal differences of five, hei. Words represent full, or large consciousness, whereas letters represent particular, or small consciousness. The power to bless "fullness" is the power of the beit, as is said: "And full with the blessing of God." The power to draw down the blessing to the smallest detail of reality is that of hei.

This service of Abraham, and all Jews after him, leads to the fulfillment of the ultimate intention of Creation, the realization of Israel's power of blessing, that the domain of the King (the "Head of the House") extend to encompass all reality and, thereby, bestow true happiness to all.

FORM

Three connected vavs with an opening on the left, the "northern side."

Worlds:

"Evil begins from the north."
Man's ability to choose between good and evil.
The animal soul's three positive character traits and the evil inclination. The open north side symbolizes the attribute of courage.

Souls:

The open north side symbolizes the "fear of heaven."
"All is in the hands of heaven except for the fear of heaven."
The Mashiach will close the open side--The integration of free will and Omniscience.
Speaking Torah--revealing the innate spark of Mashiach.

Divinity:

Closed Sides--Divine revelation--"You"--in mind, heart, and action.
Open Side--Divine concealment--"He"--in the hidden heart--the darkness above the light.

NAME

House

Worlds:

A physical house.
One's metaphysical "house"--his relationship to reality.
The whole of Creation is a "house" in relationship to God.
Superconscious pleasure--"A man without a house is not a man."

Souls:

The feminine aspect of the soul represented by the house.
"A man's house is his wife."
The soul as a house for God--the daughter of the priest.
The power of pregnancy

Divinity:

God's desire to make for Himself a dwelling place in lower reality.
The House of Immanence and the House of Transcendence.

NUMBER

Two

Worlds:

The beginning of manifest plurality.
The dualistic nature of Creation.
Hierarchic complexity.

Souls:

The soul is described as "the second to the King."
Joseph: the Prism effect--the revelation of mind.
Mordechai: the Time effect--the revelation of heart.

Divinity:

Divine power of Self to contain two opposites.
Concealment of Divine essence and revelation of His light.
Concealment and revelation of light to lower and higher states of consciousness.
The Torah begins with a large beit.
The Name Havayah and the Name Elokim.
"The two companions that never separate."

GIMEL
Reward and Punishment

Our Sages teach that the gimel symbolizes a rich man running after a poor man, the dalet, to give him charity. The word gimel is derived from the word gemul, which in Hebrew means both the giving of reward as well as the giving of punishment. In Torah, both reward and punishment have the same ultimate aim the rectification of the soul to merit to receive God's light to the fullest extent.

Reward and punishment imply that man is free to choose between good and evil. (The teaching of the gimel thus refers back to that of the open left side of the beit, from which it is born, as explained above.) The Rambam (Maimonides), in particular, places great stress upon free choice as being fundamental to Jewish faith. According to the Rambam, the World to Come, the time of reward, is a completely spiritual world, one of souls without bodies. On this point the Ramban (Nachmanides) disagrees and argues that since complete freedom of choice exists only in our physical world, the ultimate rectification of reality the reward of the World to Come will also be on the physical plane. Kabbalah and Chassidut support the opinion of the Ramban.

This is alluded to by the leg of the letter gimel which expresses the running of the rich man to bestow good upon the poor man. Running, more than any other physical act, expresses the power of will and freedom of choice (the Hebrew word for "running," ratz, is related to the word for "will," ratzon). In running, the leg is firmly in contact with the earth; through an act of will, the soul directly affects physical reality. The final reward, the ultimate revelation of God's Essential light, will thus justly be bestowed upon the soul in the very same context as its life's endeavor, the physical world.

The Torah says: "Today [in this world] to do them," from which the Sages infer: tomorrow [in the World to Come] to receive their reward." Only "today" do we possess the opportunity to choose between good and evil. And so in accordance with our choice do we, ourselves, define the reward and punishment of "tomorrow." Just as evil is a finite phenomenon, so is punishment. Not so good and reward, which are truly infinite. The gimel of "today" is the secret of better one hour of teshuvah and good deeds in this world than all the life of the world to come. The gimel of "tomorrow" is the secret of better one hour of serenity in the world to come than all of the life of this world.

FORM

A vav with a yud as a foot. A person in motion.

Worlds:

The running of the rich to the poor, the full to the empty, inherent in nature.

Souls:

The run and return of the soul between its Divine source and physical abode.
The hand of Jacob grabbing the heel of Esau.
The constant progression of the Jew.

Divinity:

The expansion and contraction of the Infinite Light in the process of Creation.

NAME

Camel; bridge; weaning; benevolence.

Worlds:

The camel's journey through the desert of this world.
The camel symbolizes the angel of death.
A bridge; the connecting force inherent in nature.
Primordial matter and Divine wisdom.

Souls:

The soul nursing from its Source.
The process of weaning through which a person learns to be independent.

Divinity:

God's continuous bestowal of lovingkindness and the weaning of the tzimtzum.
The obligation to emulate God by giving to others.

NUMBER

Three

Worlds:

Numerical symbol of stability and balance.
Equilibrium between the three primary elements of Creation: air, water, and fire.

Souls:

Three Fathers: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Three divisions of Jewish souls: kohanim (priests), Leviim (levites), and Israelites.
The segol and the segolta.

Divinity:

Three parts of the Torah: The Five Books of Moses, the Prophets, and the Writings.
"Three bonds are bounded together: Israel, Torah, and God."

DALET
Selflessness

The dalet. the poor man, receives charity from the rich man, the gimel. The word dalet means "door." The door stands in the opening of the house, the beit.

In the Zohar, dalet is read as "that has nothing [d'leit] of her own." This expresses the property of the lowest of the Divine Emanations, the sefirah of malchut, "kingdom," which has no light other than that which it receives from the higher sefirot. In man's service of God, the dalet characterizes "shiflut," "lowliness," the consciousness of possessing nothing of one's own. Together with the awareness of one's own power of free choice, one must be aware that He gives you the power to achieve success, and not to think, God forbid, that one's accomplishments are "my power and the strength of my hand." Any achievement in this world, particularly the performance of a mitzvah, the fulfillment of God's will, depends upon Divine aid. This is especially true in one's struggle with his evil inclination, whether it be manifest as external passion, stubborn resistance to accepting the yoke of Heaven, or laziness, apathy, and the like. As our Sages teach: "If not for God's help he [man] would not have been able to overcome it [the evil inclination]."

The Talmud describes a situation where one man is carrying a heavy object and another man appears to be helping him by placing his hands under the object, when in truth the first man is carrying all the weight. The second man is referred to as "a merely apparent helper." So are we, explains the Ba'al Shem Tov, in relation to God. Ultimately, all one's strength comes from Above. Free choice is no more than the expression of one's will to participate, as it were, in the Divine act. One merely places one's hands under the weight carried exclusively by God.

"For to You, God, is kindness, for You pay man in accordance with his deed." The Ba'al Shem Tov observes: Just payment in accordance with one's deed is not an act of kindness (chesed), but rather one of judgment (din)! He answers: "in accordance with one's deed," can be read "as though the deed is his." Thus God's ultimate kindness is His enclothing the "undeserved" reward in the guise of deservedness, so as not to shame the receiver. The Name of God in this verse is Adnut, the letters of which also spell in Hebrew dina, "judgment," implying the Divine guise of judgment, through which God's kindness (chesed) is most fully expressed. The Zohar reads chesed as chas dleit, "having compassion [on] the dalet," i.e. he who possesses nothing of his own.

In regard to an arrogant person God says: "I and he cannot dwell together." The door to God's house allows for the humble of spirit to enter. The door itself, the dalet, is the property of humility and lowliness, as explained above. The dalet is also the initial letter of the word dirah, "dwelling place," as in the phrase "[God's] dwelling place below." Thus the full meaning of the dalet is the door through which the humble enter into the realization of God's dwelling place below.

FORM

Two lines forming a right angle, with a corner point. A man bent over. Three levels of bitul.

Worlds:

The corner point: Consciousness of the ego.
Bitul HaYeish.
Every creature's unconscious awareness of its continuous re-creation by God.

Souls:

The vertical line: selflessness.
Bitul Bimtziut; "Standing crowded."
Collective consciousness; willingness to sacrifice one's life for one's people.

Divinity:

The horizontal line: submergence of the soul in its Divine Source.
Bitul Bimtziut Mamash; "Prostrating wide."
Letters being surrounded by white parchment. Willingness to sacrifice one's life for God.

NAME

Door; poor man; lifting up - elevation.

Worlds:

Door--bitul, the entrance way to truth.
The servant who refuses to go through the door of freedom.

Souls:

True lowliness of the soul.
The moon as a symbol of the soul.

Divinity:

The elevation of the soul by God into Himself.
"I will exalt you, God, for you have lifted me up." Not belonging.

NUMBER

Four

Worlds:

Four elements of the physical world: fire, air, water, and earth.
Solid, liquid, gas, combustion.
Hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen.
The four physical forces: gravity, electromagnetic, strong, weak.
Man, animal, vegetable, and inanimate objects.
Four seasons of the year; Four directions.
The four worlds: Atzilut, Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah.

Souls:

Four matriarchs: Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah.
Jacob's four wives: Rachel, Leah, Bilhah, and Zilpah.
The four sons and the four cups of wine of the Seder
The four expressions (levels) of redemption.
Four feet of the Divine Throne: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David.
Father, mother, son, daughter: the first commandment of the Torah: "be fruitful and multiply."

Divinity:

Four letters of God's Name.
Four components of the Torah text.
Four basic levels of Torah interpretation.

HEI
Expression--Thought, Speech, Action

The name of the letter hei appears in the verse, "Take [hei] for yourselves seed." "Take" (hei) expresses revelation of self in the act of giving of oneself to another. Giving to others in the form of self-expression is the ultimate gift of self. In the secret of the letter gimmel, the rich man gives of himself to the poor man in the form of charity. The highest form of charity is when the giver is completely concealed from the receiver, in order not to embarrass him, as is said, "the concealed gift subdues anger." Here, in the secret of the letter hei, the gift itself is the relation and expression of self, drawing the receiver into the essence of the giver. Joseph, the speaker of the verse "take for yourselves seed," corresponds to the sefirah of yesod, whose function is to express self in the form of giving seed, as explained in Kabbalah. When Joseph first gave grain to his brothers, they were unable to recognize him, similar to the dalet in relation to the gimlet. Upon his revelation to his brothers (and thereby to all of Egypt), his giving became that of the hei. Instead of grain he now gave seed.

The soul possesses three means of expression--"garments," in the terminology of the Kabbalah and Chassidut: thought, speech, and action. The higher garment, thought, is the expression of one's inner intellect and emotions to oneself. The process of the intellect and emotions becoming conscious through thought is similar to giving oneself (the essentially unconscious domains of the soul) to another (one's state of consciousness). The two lower garments, speech and action, express oneself to others.

The three lines which compose the form of the hei correspond to these three garments: the upper horizontal line to thought; the right vertical line to speech; the unattached foot to action.

The horizontal line symbolizes a state of equanimity. The continuous, horizontal flow of thought is the contemplation of how G d is found equally in every place and in every thing. In relating to one's fellow Jew, one must realize that each of us possesses an innate inner point of goodness, and that all Jews are equal in essence. This realization, the horizontal high plane of one's consciousness in relation to another, sets the "scene" for all individual, personal relationships.

The origin-point of speech, the right vertical line of the hei is directly connected to the line of thought and thereafter descends to express one's thoughts and inner feelings to others. The root of the word speech in Hebrew, davar, means "leadership," as in the expression "There is one leader [dabar] in a generation, not two leaders in a generation." Leadership implies hierarchy, relative positions of up and down, and thus is represented by a vertical line. The King, and likewise every leader, rules through his power of speech, as is said, "By the word of the King is His sovereignty."

The separation of action, the unattached left foot of the hei, from thought, the upper horizontal line, reflects a deep truth about the nature of action. "Many are the thoughts in the heart of man, yet the advice of God shall surely stand." The servant of God experiences the existential gap between his thoughts and deeds. Often he is unable to realize his inner intentions. Other times he is surprised by unexpected success. In both cases he feels the hand of God directing his deeds. The gap is the experience of the Divine Nothing, the source of all Creation in deed: something from nothing.

We have now reached the culmination of the sequence represented by the three letters gimmel, dalet, and hei, the process of giving of oneself to another. The gift, represented by the foot, the unattached segment of hei, when fully integrated in the receiver, becomes his own power of action and giving of himself to others. Even more, now he fully realizes that the ultimate effect and potency of his deeds are in truth the act of Divine Providence.

FORM

Three lines; the two lines of the dalet together with an unattached left foot.

Worlds:

Three dimensions of physical reality:

Width - horizontal line,
Length - vertical line,
Depth - unattached foot.

There is a dimension of reality beyond initial sensory perception.
"We will do and understand."

Souls:

Three garments ("servants") of the soul:

Thought (meditative or involuntary) - horizontal line,
Speech (from the heart or from the lips) - vertical line,
Action - unattached foot.

The beinoni, who masters his "servants."

Divinity:

Three Divine manifestations:

Essence - horizontal line,
Transcendent Light - vertical line,
Immanent Light - unattached foot.

NAME

To be broken; to take seed; behold; revelation.

Worlds:

Breaking of the vessels and the resulting plurality of Creation.
The teacher breaking the brilliance of his comprehension for the sake of the student.
Broken existence resulting in unified existence.

Souls:

Impregnating reality with the souls of Israel.

Divinity:

Divine revelation - "Beholding" God.
Ultimate revelation of the Mashiach.
Small hei: potential Divine revelation.

NUMBER

Five

Worlds:

Symbol of division.
Five origins of speech in the mouth.
Five fingers of the hand.
Five visible planets in the solar system.
The five vanities in the opening verse of Ecclesiastes.

Souls:

Five levels of the soul.
Five times "Bless God, my soul" in Psalms 103 and 104.
Five voices of the joy of bride and groom.

Divinity:

Five Books of Moses.
Five voices at the giving of the Torah.
Five times light in the first day of Creation.
Five final letters.
Five redemption's.

VAV
Connection

In the beginning of Creation, when Infinite Light filled all reality, G d contracted His Light to create hollow empty space, as it were, the "place" necessary for the existence of finite worlds. Into this vacuum God drew down, figuratively speaking, a single line of light, from the Infinite Source. This ray of light is the secret of the letter vav. Though the line is singular in appearance, it nonetheless possesses two dimensions, an external as well as an internal force, both of which take part in the process of Creation and the continuous interaction between the creative power and created reality.

The external force of the line is the power to differentiate and separate the various aspects of reality, thereby establishing hierarchical order, up and down, within Creation. The internal force of the line is the power to reveal the inherent interinclusion of the various aspects of reality, one in the other, thereby joining them together as an organic whole. This property of the letter vav, in its usage in Hebrew, is referred to as vav hachibur, the vav of connection"--"and." The first vav of the Torah--"In the beginning G d created the heavens and [vav] the earth"--serves to join spirit and matter, heaven and the earth, throughout Creation. This vav, which appears at the beginning of the sixth word of the Torah, is the twenty-second letter of the verse. It alludes to the power to connect and interrelate all twenty-two individual powers of Creation, the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet from alef to tav. (The word et [which appears before the two instances of the word "the" in this verse, and is spelled alef-tav] is generally taken to represent all the letters of the alphabet, from alef to tav. Our Sages interpret the word in this verse to include all the various objects of Creation present within heaven and earth.)

In Biblical Hebrew, the letter vav also possesses the function of inverting the apparent tense of a verb to its opposite from past to future or from future to past (vav hahipuch). The first appearance of this type of vav in the Torah is the letter vav" which begins the twenty-second word of the account of Creation, "And God said...." This is the first explicit saying of the ten sayings of Creation: "And G d said [the verb 'said' being inverted from the future to the past tense by the vav at the beginning of the word--'And']: 'Let there be light,' and there was light." The phenomenon of light breaking through the darkness of the tzimtzum, the primordial contraction, is itself the secret of time (future becoming past) which permeates space.

In the Divine service of a Jew, the power to draw from the future into the past is the secret of teshuvah ("repentance" and "returning to God") from love. Through teshuvah from fear, one's deliberate transgressions become like errors; the severity of one's past transgressions becomes partially sweetened, but not completely changed. However, when a Jew returns in love, his deliberate transgressions become like actual merits, for the very consciousness of distance from God resulting from one's transgressions becomes the motivating force to return to God with passion even greater than that of one who had never sinned.

Every Jew has a portion in the World to Come, as is said: "And all your nation are 'tzadikim'; forever they will inherit the land." The power of teshuvah to completely convert one's past to good, is the power of the vav to invert the past to the future. This transformation itself requires, paradoxically, the drawing down of light from the future to the past.

Drawing the future into the past in the Divine service of man is the secret of learning the inner teachings of the Torah, that aspect of the Torah which is related to the revelation of the coming of the Mashiach. Rashi explains the verse in the Song of Songs: "May he kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine" as alluding to the sweet teachings that will be revealed by the Mashiach. When a person intently studies the secrets of the Torah, he draws from the future into the past, in order to strengthen himself to return in complete teshuvah from love and thereby convert his past into future.

FORM

A vertical line.
A pillar.
A man standing upright.

Worlds:

Twelve pillars of Creation - the twelve lines of a cube. The twelve tribes.
Seven pillars of Creation - six directions and time. The seven shepherds.
One pillar of Creation the future. Mashiach.
The connecting rods in the Tabernacle.

Souls:

Complete stature of man - standing on earth with head reaching up towards heaven.
The Jewish People standing together.
The "Golden Path" in the service of God.
The torso in relation to the hands, feet, and brit.

Divinity:

The pillar of Truth.
Consistency of the middle pillar.
Divinity piercing through the middle point of every Creation.

NAME

A Hook

Worlds:

The connecting hooks of the pillars in the Tabernacle - concealment and revelation.
The axis of symmetry and the equilibrium between symmetry and asymmetry.

Souls:

The power which links together the souls of Israel.
The points of will to do God's Will engraved in the heart of every Jew.
The axis which connects the good points present within every Jew.

Divinity:

The connecting link between the separate Laws - engraved letters of Divine essence - of the Torah.
The force of connection between the Divine sparks inherent throughout reality.

NUMBER

Six

Worlds:

Six Days of Creation, and their six corresponding Divine forces active in creation.
Six letters of the word bereishit, "In the beginning."
Six alefs in the first verse of the Torah.
Six-millennium duration of the world.
Six directions of the physical world.

Souls:

Six wings (states of love and fear in the soul) of the fiery angels.
"Give truth to Jacob."

Divinity:

Six orders of the Mishnah.
The six "wings" of the "Magen David."
Six cubits - the dimensions of the Tablets received by Moses at Mt. Sinai.

ZAYIN
The Woman of Valor

The Maggid of Mezeritch, the successor of the Baal Shem Tov, teaches that the verse "A woman of valor is the crown of her husband" alludes to the form of the letter zayin. The previous letter, vav, portrays the or yashar ("straight light") descending from God into the worlds. The zayin, whose form is similar to a vav, though with a crown on top, reflects the or yashar of the vav as or chozer ("returning light"). Or chozer ascends with such great force that it reaches a higher state of consciousness than that of the revealed origin-point of the or yashar. When reaching the initially superconscious realm of keter (the "crown"), it broadens its awareness to both the right and the left. In truth "there is no left in that Ancient One [the level of keter], for all is right." This means that the awe of God (left) at this initially superconscious level is indistinguishable, in its nature to cling directly to God, from the highest manifestation of the love of God (right).

The experience of or chozer, subsequent to the consummation of the creative process inherent in or yashar, the creation of man on the sixth day, is the secret of the seventh day of Creation--Shabbat. The Shabbat Queen" who, in general, signifies woman in relation to man--"the woman of valor is the crown of her husband"-- has the power to reveal in her husband his own superconscious crown, the experience of serene pleasure and sublime will innate in the day of Shabbat.

"Who is a good [literally, "kosher"] woman? She who does her husbands will." Chassidut explains that the word "does" also means "rectifies," as said in the completion of the account of Creation (the seal of the seventh day, Shabbat): "that which God created to do"-- "to do" in the sense of "to rectify" (thus implying that God has given us the task to consummate the rectification of His Creation), as explained by the Sages. Thus the "kosher woman" is she who rectifies her husbands will by elevating him to ever new awareness of previously superconscious realms of soul.

FORM

A "vav" whose head extends in both directions and thus appears as a crown. Scepter of a King.

Worlds:

Rulership manifested in the world.
"Natural" selection.

Souls:

"A woman of valor is the crown of her husband." Sarah: the souls experience of Shabbat and Kabbalah.
The election of the Jewish People.

Divinity:

Shabbat, Kabbalah.
Returning light spreading, at its peak, to the left - fear, and to the right - love.
Becoming a vessel for Gods blessing and sanctity.

NAME

Weapon - sword; ornament or crown; species - gender; to sustain.

Worlds :

Weapon - a sword.
Conflict as an inherent property of physical nature.

Souls:

Species or gender; the union of husband and wife.
Man is the crowning ornament of Creation.
Gods three crowns, two of which He gives to His children.

Divinity:

God sustaining the world.

NUMBER

Seven - "All sevens are dear."

Worlds :

Maximal compactness.
The seventh day of Creation - Shabbat.
Seven weeks of counting the Omer.
Seven consecutive months in which fall the three Festivals.
The sabbatical year; The jubilee year, after 7 times 7 years.
The seventh millennium.
Seven fruits of Israel; Seven seas; Seven heavens.
Seven chambers of Paradise.

Souls:

Seven lamps of the menorah; seven categories of Jewish souls.
Seven shepherds of Israel: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, and David.
Seven circuits, seven blessings, and seven days of celebration of groom and bride.
Seven Rabbinic mitzvot.

Divinity:

Seven "eyes" of God watch over all Creation.
Seven lower sefirot.
Tishrei, the seventh month:
Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, the revelation of Divine Providence,
Sukkot Seven clouds of glory,
Simchat Torah - Seven Hakafot.

CHET
The Life Dynamic - Run and Return

Chet is the letter of life (chaim, from the root chayah, whose most important letter is chet). We are taught in Chassidut that there are two levels of life "essential life" and "life to enliven." God Himself, as it were, is in the state of "Essential life." His creative power, continually permeating all of reality is "life to enliven." So in the Jewish soul: the essence of its root, at one with God, possesses the state of "essential life." The reflection of the light of the soul which shines below to enliven the body and its physical experience is at the level of "life to enliven." The second level of life, life as we know it in general, manifests itself as pulsation, the secret of "run and return."

According to the Ari z"l," the letter chet is constructed by combining the two previous letters, vav and zayin, with a thin bridge-shaped line, referred to as the chatoteret ("hunchback"). The new energy effected by the union of the vav--or yashar--and the zayin--or chozer--is the secret of "hovering" or "touching yet not touching." The image of "hovering" appears at the very beginning of Creation: "And the spirit of God was 'hovering' over the water." The word "hovering" (merachefet) is the eighteenth word in the Torah. It is the first word in the Torah which is numerically a multiple of twenty-six, the value of the Name Havayah (merachefet = 728 = 26 times 28). Twenty-eight is the numerical value of koach, "power." Thus, the full secret implied by the numerical value of the word "hovering" is "the power of God." In Kabbalah, this word is, in particular, the secret of the Divine power to resurrect the 288 fallen sparks that "died" in the process of the "breaking of the vessels" (merachefet being a permutation of meit rapach, "288 have died"). The Sages teach us that the "Spirit of God" here referred to is in fact the soul of Mashiach (which permutes to shem chai, "the living name").

"Hovering" is symbolized in Torah "as an eagle arouses her nest and hovers over her young," as taught by the Maggid of Mezeritch. In order not to crush her young and their nest, the eagle hovers over her nest when feeding her young, "touching yet not touching." The eagle here is a metaphor for God in relation to His children Israel in particular and to the totality of His Creation in general. Were God to either fully reveal His ultimate Presence or withdraw His power of continuous re-creation, the world would instantaneously cease to exist.

Therefore, by "hovering" over created reality, God continues to sustain and nourish His Creation while simultaneously allowing each creature or, in the terminology of Kabbalah, each vessel, the ability to grow and develop "independently." The letter chet thus hints at the delicate balance between the revelation of Gods Presence to us (the vav of the chet) and the concealment of His creative power from His Creation (the zayin of the chet).

This state of "hovering," "touching yet not touching," is the beginning of the phenomenon of "life to enliven." "Touching yet not touching" from Above thereafter reflects itself as "run and return" in the inner pulsation of every living creature. "And the living creatures [chayot] run and return like the appearance of lightning." Do not read chayot ("living creatures") but chayut, ("lifeforce").

The chatoteret, that sublime thin line that connects the two components or motion of the "life to enliven," itself points upward. It hints at "He who lives at the summit of the world," Gods "Essential Life." In truth, His Essence paradoxically fills and sustains all created reality while simultaneously "hovering" high above the level of the "hovering" lifeforce itself, unfathomable and beyond all human perception.

FORM

A vav on the right, a zayin on the left, with a thin, hunchback bridge (chatoteret) connecting them above.

Worlds:

A gateway: the power to enter a higher energy level and exit therefrom.
The ascent of all worlds on Shabbat and their subsequent descent after Shabbat.
(At the level of Souls: the power to enter the mysteries of ones own soul and thereafter return to worldly consciousness.)
(At the level of Divinity: the power to enter the mysteries of the Torah and thereafter return to the consciousness of ones task on earth.)

Souls:

The union of three partners in man: father (vav), mother (zayin), and God (chatoteret, chupah).
The marital dance.

Divinity:

"God lives at the summit of the world"--the chatoteret.
God "hovering" over Creation.
The union of God's immanence, transcendence, and the Jewish People.

NAME

Fear; Life--whose full expression is love.

Worlds:

Loving God with one's physical body.
Lifeforce of the body.

Souls:

Loving God with one's soul.
Lifeforce of the soul.
The heartbeat of the tzadik

Divinity:

Essential unity with God.
Lifeforce of life itself.
Resurrection of the dead.

NUMBER

Eight

Worlds:

Eight vertices of a cube.
Three-dimensional plurality.
"God is one in the seven heavens and the earth."

Souls:

The eighth day - the day of circumcision.
The eight days of Chanukah - "The candle of God is the soul of man."
The circumcision of the foreskin of the lips on (Zot) Chanukah.
The circumcision of the foreskin of the ears on the eighth day of Sukkot.
The circumcision of the foreskin of the heart on Yom Kippur, the eighth day of the High Priests separation.

Divinity:

Gateway to infinity.
Gods Transcendent Light.
Origin of the Jewish soul and its descent through the seven heavens to earth.

TET
Introversion - The Concealed Good

The tet is the initial letter of the word tov, "good." The form of the tet is "inverted," thus symbolizing hidden, inverted good--as expressed in the Zohar: "its good is hidden within it." The form of the letter chet symbolizes the union of groom and bride consummating with conception. The secret of the tet (numerically equivalent to nine, the nine months of pregnancy) is the power of the mother to carry her inner, concealed good - the fetus - throughout the period of pregnancy.

Pregnancy is the power to bring the potential to actualization. The revelation of new, actual energy, the revelation of birth, is the secret of the next letter of the alef-beit, the yud. The yud reveals the point of "Essential Life" as realized in the secret of conception of the chet and carried, impregnated, in the tet.

Of the eight synonyms for "beauty" in Hebrew, tov--"good"--refers to the most inner, inverted, and "modest" state of beauty. This level of beauty is that personified in Torah by Rebecca and Bat Sheva, who are described as "very beautiful [goodly] in appearance."

At the beginning of Creation, the appearance of light is termed "good" in God's eyes: "And God saw the light was good." Our Sages interpret this to mean "good to be hidden for the tzadikim in the Time to Come." "And where did He hide it? In the Torah, for 'there is no good other than Torah.'"

The Ba'al Shem Tov teaches that the "Time to Come" refers also to every generation. Each soul of Israel is a potential tzadik (as it is said: "and your people are all tzadikim"), connected to the goodly light hidden in Torah. The more one actualizes his potential to be a tzadik, the more goodness he reveals from the Torah "womb."

In the first verse of the Torah - "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" - the initial letters of "the heavens and the earth" spell Gods "hidden Name" in Creation (alef-hei-vav-hei), according to Kabbalah. The numerical value of this name is seventeen, the same as that of the word, tov, "good." The word tzadik equals 12 times 17 = 204, the total value of the twelve permutations of the four letters of this hidden Name. Tzadikim, who are called "good," possess the power of the hidden Name (derived from "the heavens and the earth"), the hidden goodness needed to unite heaven and earth and thereby reveal the inner light and purpose of Creation. Just as the alef possesses the power to bear opposites - the power of the firmament to join the higher and lower waters together - so does the tet possess the power to unite the upper and lower worlds, "heavens and earth." Chassidut teaches that in the service of the soul, this power is manifest in man when he assumes the state of being "in the world yet out of the world" simultaneously. To be "in the world" means to be fully consciousness of worldly reality in order to rectify it. To be "out of the world" means to be fully aware that in truth "there is none other besides Him."

Another connection between light and good is found in the story of the birth of Moses: "And she [Yocheved, Mosess mother] saw him that he was good." Rashi quotes the Midrash, which explains that at the birth of Moses a great light filled the room. According to the early Masorah, the tet in the word tov ("good") of this verse is written extra large. This hints at the Absolute Divine Good entrusted to the soul of Moses, whose life mission was to fulfill the promise of redemption from Egypt and the revelation of Torah at Sinai. The Egyptian exile is compared to a womb in which Israel was latently pregnant for two hundred and ten years. At Sinai, heaven and earth were united, as discussed in the letter alef.

Thus, the full teaching of the tet is that, through the service of the soul, all of reality becomes "pregnant" with Gods Infinite goodness and beauty, thereby bringing harmony and peace to "heavens and earth."

FORM

A vessel with an inverted rim; the sefirah of yesod; peace.

Worlds:

Form hidden in matter.
Potential hidden in actual.
Peace among the elements of Creation.
Peace between water and fire in heaven: "He who makes peace on high."

Souls:

The soul hidden in the body.
Peace among the souls of Israel.
The outer womb: the impure world; the inner womb: the pure aspiration of the soul.

Divinity:

God hidden within His Creation.
Future revelation of universal peace.
Gods presence impregnated in the world.

NAME

Inclination; staff - snake; below; bed.

Worlds:

The snake in the Garden of Eden: the liver; innate behavior patterns.
Lower worldly inclinations.
The tendency to lie.

Souls:

The power to judge properly.
The correct power of imagination.
The twelve tribes of Israel.
The twelve senses.

Divinity:

The breastplate of the High Priest.
The bed - unity of man and wife in the Presence of God.
Torah cantillation.

NUMBER

Nine

Worlds:

Nine physical materials that form vessels which contract impurity.
Nine levels of peace.
Nine sefirot pouring blessing into malchut.

Souls:

The nine months of pregnancy.
The nine positive commandments in the laws of Foundation and Character.

Divinity:

The numerical symbol of truth and eternity.
Nine blessings of Musaf on Rosh HaShanah.
Nine blasts of the shofar.
Eternal life.

YUD
The Infinite Point

The letter yud, a small suspended point, reveals the spark of essential good hidden within the letter tet. Subsequent to the initial tzimtzum, the contraction of G-d's Infinite light in order to make "place" for Creation, there remained within the empty void a single, potential point or "impression." The secret of this point is the power of the Infinite to contain finite phenomena within Himself and express them to apparent external reality. Finite manifestation begins from a zero-dimensional point, thereafter developing into a one-dimensional line and two-dimensional surface. This is alluded to in the full spelling of the letter yud (yud-vav-dalet): "point" (yud), "line" (vav), "surface" (dalet). These three stages correspond in Kabbalah to: "point" (nekudah), "spectrum" (sefirah), "figure" (partzuf). The initial point, the essential power of the yud, is the "little that holds much." The "much" refers to the simple Infinity of G-d hidden within the initial point of revelation, which reflects itself as the Infinite potential of the point to develop and express itself in all the manifold finite phenomena of time and space.

Before the tzimtzum, the power of limitation was hidden, latent within G-d's Infinite Essence. Following the tzimtzum, this power of limitation became revealed, and paradoxically the Infinite Essence of G-d that originally "hid" the power of limitation now Itself became hidden (not in truth, but only from our limited human perspective) within the point of contracted light.

From within this point of limitation is revealed the secret of the ten sefirot, the Divine channels of light through which G-d continually brings His world into being. Ten, the numerical value of the yud, is also the number of commandments (literally "statements") revealed by G-d to His People Israel at Sinai. All the commandments, and in fact every letter of Torah, possess the power of the "little that holds much"; each is a channel for the revelation of G-d's Infinite Light in finite reality.

FORM

A "formed" point: a crown above and a "pathway" below.
The smallest of the letters; The only letter suspended in midair.

Worlds:

The "pathway" of the yud; The initial point of space and time.
Natural wisdom: "The wisdom of Solomon."
Direction and purpose: the consciousness of the present moment.

Souls:

The "body" of the yud; The enwedged point.
"The wisdom of G-d" as manifest in the judgment of Solomon.
The power of self-nullification.

Divinity:

The crown of the yud above; The unenwedged point.
"The wisdom of G-d" inspiring and directing Solomon's genius.
Revealed Omnipresence; The beginning and end of every letter (form).

NAME

Hand; to thrust.

Worlds:

The secret of space; To thrust - the principle of action and reaction.
The wave-nature of radiation.

Souls:

Intelligence; Friendship.
To acknowledge - to make space for others; Empathy

Divinity:

G-d's "hand" - the Infinite Will and ability to sustain the Creation.
Charity, physical and spiritual.
"Shaking G-d's Hand": identifying with archetypal souls and Temple service.
G-d's thought - the origin of the Jewish soul.

NUMBER

Ten; "The tenth shall be holy"; the decimal nature of reality.

Worlds:

Ten Divine utterances through which the world was created.
Ten things created on the first day.
Ten things created at dusk at the end of the first Friday.
Ten generations from Adam to Noah and from Noah to Abraham.
Ten kings ruled the whole world; Ten nations given to Abraham.
Ten pure animals; Ten categories of forbidden magic.
Ten battles of Joshua; Ten essential limbs of the body.

Souls:

The sefirot - Spiritual Powers; Ten categories of the souls of Israel.
Ten trials of Abraham; A minyan of ten men.
Ten synonyms for prayer; Ten synonyms for song.
Ten cardinal songs sung throughout history.
Ten martyrs of Israel; Ten spiritual functions of the heart.

Divinity:

Ten Commandments; Ten plagues.
Ten miracles in the Holy Temple; Ten days of repentance.
Yom Kippur--the tenth day; The Divine Name ten times on Yom Kippur.
Ten names of Ruach HaKodesh; Ten are called "the man of G-d."
Ten verses of Kingdom, Remembrance and Shofar-blast.
Ten synonyms for teshuvah.

KAF
The Crown: The Power to Actualize Potential

The two letters of the full spelling of the kaf, are the initial letters of the two Hebrew words: koach ("potential") and poel ("actual"). Thus, the kaf hints at the power latent within the spiritual realm of the potential to fully manifest itself in the physical realm of the actual. God must create the world continuously; otherwise Creation would instantaneously vanish. His potential is therefore actualized at each moment. This concept is referred to as "the power to actualize potential ever-present within the actualized." In Chassidut we are taught that this should be one's initial awareness upon awakening. Since the literal meaning of the letter kaf is "palm" - the place in the body where potential is actualized - this awareness is reflected in the custom of placing one palm on the other upon awakening, before reciting the Modeh Ani prayer: "I thank You, living and eternal King, for you have mercifully restored my soul within me; Your faithfulness is great."

Placing palm on palm is an act and sign of subjugation, similar to the act of bowing before a king. Whereas in bowing one totally nullifies one's consciousness in the presence of the King, in placing palm on palm one enters into a state of supplication and prayer to the King to reveal new will from His supernal crown (Will) to His subjects.

Kaf is also the root of the word kipah (etymologically, the root of the word "cap" in English), the yarmulke or skullcap. In reference to the creation of man it is said: "You have placed Your Palm [kaf] over me." Our Sages refer to Adam as, "the formation of the Palms [kaf] of the Holy One, Blessed be He." The awareness of the presence of the "Palms" of God over one's head, in His ongoing creation of him, becomes the cap (kipah) on his head. Even higher, the very power to actualize potential manifest in His Palms, as it were, derives ultimately from His crown (the power of will) above His head (i.e. "superrational" Will.)

As a verb, kaf means to "subdue" or "coerce." We are told in the Talmud that at the time of the giving of the Torah at Sinai, "He suspended the mountain over them as a barrel." In Chassidut it is explained that the Divine motivation manifest in this act was actually one of greatest love for Israel. So much love was revealed by all the tremendous revelations at Sinai that the people were "coerced," as it were, to respond in acceptance of the yoke of Heaven, in love. The mountain itself appeared to forcefully embrace the people. Here the secret of the kaf is the "much" revealed from the "little" point of the yud.

FORM

Three connected lines with rounded corners; the crown on the head of a prostrating king.

Worlds:

The totality of space surrounding the earth.
The outermost sphere of the universe.

Souls:

Three connected properties of the crown: faith, sublime pleasure, and will.
The three meanings of keter: "wait," "crown," and "encircle."

Divinity:

Three stages of light before God created the world.
The ability of the soul to relate to the Essence of God.

NAME

Palm; clouds; power to suppress.

Worlds:

The power to suppress the forces of nature.
The toil of labor.
The power to rule.
Physical clouds; expression of power.

Souls:

The power to suppress one's evil inclination.
The clouds surrounding Mt. Sinai - Jewish identity.
Faith despite "dark clouds."
Clean palms - observance of the commandments between man and man.

Divinity:

The vessel to receive Divine pleasure.
"I have engraved you upon My Palms."
The Clouds of Glory.

NUMBER

Twenty

Worlds:

Twenty pieces of silver for which Joseph's brothers sold him.
Twenty cubits, the maximum height of a Sukkah.

Souls:

Twenty gerah, the full value of a shekel, symbolizing the union of two half-shekels.
The age to become a soldier and pursue a livelihood.
The twenty years Jacob worked for Laban.

Divinity:

The twenty sefirot of the two countenances of the crown.

LAMED
Aspiration: Contemplation of the Heart

In The "Letters of Rabbi Akiva," the full spelling of the letter lamed (lamed-mem-dalet) is read as short for the phrase: "a heart that understands knowledge" (lev meivin da'at). The numerical value of this phrase (608) equals "heart" (32) times "Eve" (19), i.e. "the heart of Eve."

In his commentary on the story of the Garden of Eden, the original episode of mankind, Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra states that Adam is the secret of the brain; Eve, the secret of the heart; the snake, the secret of the liver. In Kabbalah and Chassidut these fundamental correspondences are developed and explained in depth.

Adam and Eve, male and female, are the prototype spiritual forces of giving and receiving. The marital union and gift of male to female relates to the secret of knowledge, as is said: "And Adam knew his wife Eve." For this reason Adam and Eve are often seen to represent teacher and pupil. The teacher contracts his intellect into a point (yud) in order to convey his teaching to his student, whereas the student nullifies his previous levels of conception to become a fitting vessel for the new, wondrous teachings of his teacher.

In particular, the form of the lamed represents the aspiration of the truly devoted pupil to learn from the mouth of the teacher. The literal meaning of the letter lamed is "to learn" (or "teach"). The seed of wisdom, alluded to by the letter yud, descends from the brain (Adam) to impregnate the full consciousness of the heart (Eve). The heart aspires (upwardly) to receive this point of insight from the brain. This is the secret of the form of the letter lamed, the heart ascending in aspiration to conceive and comprehend ("understand knowledge") the point of wisdom, the yud situated at the top of the letter lamed.

Our Sages refer to the lamed as "a tower soaring in air." Three hundred laws relate to the secret of this "flying tower." In our study of Torah, the "flying tower" is the expression of our love and devotion to the teachings of the Torah, our aspiration to conceive its inner truth, lifting us above the "gravity barrier" of earthly preoccupation. We are told that the Ba'al Shem Tov would place the palm of his hand on the heart of a Jewish child and bless him to be a "warm Jew." The palm, the power to actualize potential, becomes manifest - at the inner spiritual level - in the "will [crown, keter] of the heart" to conceive and unite with God's Will, the teachings of Torah. The lamed, the heart, aspires upwardly and connects to the yud of Divine insight. This is reflected in the form of the letter lamed, a kaf reaching upward to a yud. This is also the secret of the spiritual sequence hinted at in the letters of the word keli, "vessel" (kaf-lamed-yud): the power to actualize potential (the palm [kaf] of the Ba'al Shem Tov), manifest in the aspiration of the heart [lamed] reaching upward to conceive the secret of Divine wisdom [yud]. Throughout Torah the heart symbolizes the primary concept of vessel, the secret of Eve.

FORM

A vav - whose head (yud) looks downward - on a kaf.
"A tower soaring in air."
The only letter ascending above the line.

Worlds:

A three-stage rocket ship soaring into outer space.
Mans aspiration to understand the universe.

Souls:

A heart of a wise man ascending to comprehend the wisdom of God.
Learning in order to teach, learning in order to do.

Divinity:

Divine inspiration; the higher Shechinah.
Prophetic imagination breaking through the limitations of rational intellect.

NAME

To learn; to teach.

Worlds:

The power to direct and control the animal instinct.
Learning secular skills; empirical knowledge.

Souls:

The yearning of the soul to learn Torah.
Rectification of the power of imagination.
Simultaneously learning in order to teach and learning in order to do.

Divinity:

Learning about the Essence of God.
Creating new heavens and earth.

NUMBER

Thirty

Worlds:

Thirty days of the month.
"Malchut" is acquired through thirty attributes.
Thirty-shekel value of an adult woman.
The menstrual cycle.

Souls:

The thirty tzadikim in whose merit the world stands.
Thirty generations from Abraham to the destruction of the First Temple.

Divinity:

Thirty levels of Kingship.
Thirty categories of tzadikim in the World to Come.

MEM
Fountain of Wisdom

The mem, the letter of "water" (mayim) symbolizes the fountain of the Divine Wisdom of Torah. Just as the waters of a physical fountain (spring) ascend from their unknown subterranean source (the secret of the abyss in the account of Creation) to reveal themselves on earth, so does the fountain of wisdom express the power of flow from the superconscious source. In the terminology of Kabbalah, this flow is from keter ("crown") to chochmah ("wisdom"). The stream is symbolized in Proverbs as "the flowing stream, the source of wisdom."

In particular, we are taught that there are thirteen channels of flow from the superconscious source to the beginning of consciousness. These channels correspond to the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy revealed to Moses at Sinai, as well as to the thirteen principles of Torah exegesis, the (superrational) "logic" of Torah.

The mem is the thirteenth letter of the alef-beit. In Kabbalah we are taught that "thirteen mems," as it were, appear in the "primordial air," the (outer) "space" into which the letter lamed soars. Each attribute of mercy is in fact a contraction of relatively Infinite wisdom, at the level of the superconscious ("waters that have no end"), in order to channel and reveal a flash of wisdom on to the "screen" of consciousness. Conscious wisdom draws its points of insight primarily from that attribute of mercy referred to in Torah as "He retains kindness for thousands of generations," whose initial letters spell the Hebrew word for "stream, "the first word in the previously quoted phrase, "the flowing stream, the source of wisdom."

In at'bash, mem transforms to yud, the point of wisdom or revealed insight, the drop of water emerging from the fountain of the mem.

The words for "one" (echad) and "love" (ahavah) both equal thirteen, the secret of the letter mem. The closed, final mem, the source of the fountain of wisdom connected and included within its subterranean, superconscious source, corresponds to the secret of echad, "one." The open mem, from which emerges the point (yud) of conscious insight, is the first manifestation of love (i.e., will to cling to another) in the soul. The connection between the two fountains of the mem, the "closed" fountain and the "open" fountain, is by the power of the Thirteen Divine Attributes of Mercy. This is the secret of G-ds Essential Name Havayah - the "Name of Mercy." The Name Havayah equals 26 = 2 times 13, the union of "one" and "love," the power to draw into consciousness the wisdom of Torah.

FORM

The open mem - a square with a small opening at its lower left corner.
The final mem - complete square.

Worlds:

The open mem - a flowing stream.
The closed final mem - an underground stream.
The womb.

Souls:

The soul - the flowing stream, the source of wisdom.
The open mem - self-consciousness.
The closed mem - unconscious states of being; the power of reproduction.

Divinity:

The closed mem - the arrival of the Mashiach.
The waters of teshuvah.

NAME

Water; blemish.

Worlds:

Water's ability to glue substances.
Water's descending nature.
The evil waters of false, external passions.
The plenitude of water and life's dependence on it.
Blemish - the concealment of G-d's Light in the lower worlds - Nature.

Souls:

The root of the soul is without blemish.
The love of G-d flowing forth like water.

Divinity:

Water - a parable for Torah.
The closed mem - the first saying of Creation.
The open mem - the subsequent nine sayings of Creation.
The open mem - the exoteric dimension of Torah.
The closed mem - the esoteric dimension of Torah.

NUMBER

Forty

Worlds:

Forty days of the flood.
Forty seah, the minimum quantity of water required for a kosher mikveh.
Forty years of wandering in the Desert.

Souls:

Forty days from conception to the initial "formation" of the fetus.
"Forty less one":
The punishment of stripes;
The categories of work forbidden on the Sabbath;
The weeks of pregnancy.
Forty days of Israel waiting for Moses to descend with the Torah.
The (three) forty-year periods in the lives of Moses, Hillel, Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai, and Rabbi Akiva.
Forty generations from Moses to the completion of the Talmud.

Divinity:

Forty days of "lower teshuvah" for the sin of the Golden Calf.
Forty days of "higher teshuvah" in which Moses received the second tablets.
Forty cubits - the height of the entrance to the Sanctuary of the Temple.

NUN
The Messiah: Heir to the Throne

In Aramaic, nun means "fish." The mem, the waters of the sea, is the natural medium of the nun, fish. The nun "swims" in the mem, covered by the waters of the "hidden world." Creatures of the "hidden world" lack self-consciousness. Unlike fish, land animals, revealed on the face of the earth, possess self-consciousness.

The souls of Israel divide into two general categories, symbolized by fish and land animals. The two prototypes of these categories are the leviathan and the behemot. In the present, these two categories of souls correspond to the two innate tendencies and attractions of the soul, to either the concealed and secret or revealed and legal dimensions of Torah. In the future, the two prototypes, leviathan and behemot, will unite in battle, each "killing" the "ego" of the other, thereafter to blend together in true union. Their "meat" will then be served as the feast for the tzadikim in the World to Come. The souls of the tzadikim will actually consume the very root of consciousness of our present level of soul, in order to integrate ("digest") it into a totally new and higher level of consciousness.

"Leviathan" equals in gematria malchut, ("kingdom," 496). In Kabbalah, malchut, in the world of Divine Emanation, is represented by the sea, whose tides are controlled by the power of the moon, the symbol of King David (upon seeing the new moon we say, "David the king of Israel is alive forever"). When malchut descends to enliven the lower worlds it is symbolized by the earth. Thus, the leviathan is the symbol of the Divine Source of "kingdom." In Hebrew, nun means "kingdom," and in particular, the "heir to the throne."

The "nun" is the fourteenth letter of the alef-beit, which equals "David," the progenitor of the eternal Kingdom of Israel. The heir to David is Mashiach ben David, of whom is said: "As long as the duration of the sun his name shall rule." Our Sages teach us that one of the names of Mashiach is Yinon ("shall rule"), cognate to nun. Mashiach is also referred to as "the miscarriage," or, literally, the "fallen one." As we will learn in the secret of the letter samech, the nun does not appear in Psalm 145, but is supported by God's transcendent mercy, as expressed by the following letter, samech. In general, nun corresponds in Torah to the image of falling. The soul of Mashiach experiences itself as continuously falling and dying; if not for the ever-present Hand of God "catching" it, it would crash to the ground and shatter to death. The consciousness of fall is the reflection of the egoless state of the fish, in its natural medium of water, when forced to reveal itself on dry land. This is like the experience of a hidden tzadik when forced from Above to reveal himself for the good of Israel and the world. We find this exemplified in the life and teachings of the Ba'al Shem Tov, and so will be epitomized in the life of Mashiach. Ultimately, the "destiny" of Mashiach and his generation is to assume the level of sea on earth, to experience, paradoxically, selfless-self-consciousness, as said in the verse of Isaiah with which Maimonides concludes his Code of Jewish Law (whose final section, "The Laws of Kings," culminates with the description of the coming of Mashiach): "for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God, like waters cover the sea."

FORM

A "bent-over" vessel - the "bent-over servant."
The final nun - an extended vav descending below the line - the "unbounded servant."

Worlds:

The receiving vessel.
The faithful one.
Subservience and faithfulness.

Souls:

Humility - the vessel of true insight into halachah.

Divinity:

The final nun - extension of the Infinite.
Light Above and below.
Moses - the faithful servant.

NAME

Fish; kingdom; heir to the throne.

Worlds:

Fish of the sea - the symbol of reproductivity.
The selflessness inherent in "previous"-world consciousness.
The rectified state of the world.

Souls:

The souls of Israel are kings and children of kings. Heir to the throne - Mashiach.
The ruling power of the soul.

Divinity:

The Shechinah - origin of the souls of Israel.
The kingdom of God on earth.
Moses, "the great fish."

NUMBER

Fifty; the fifty gates of understanding.

Worlds:

The cycle of fifty years culminating in the Jubilee year.
"Fifty years to counsel."
The fifty queries into the nature of Creation which God poses Job.

Souls:

Fifty references to the Exodus in Torah.
"Her husband is known in the gates."

Divinity:

Fifty images in Torah "supported" by the Name of God.
Fifty days of counting the Omer between Pesach and Shavuot.
Fifty thousand Jubilees of the World to Come.

SAMECH
The Endless Cycle

The circular form of the samech symbolizes the fundamental truth reflected at all levels of Torah and reality: "their end is enwedged in their beginning and their beginning in their end." This realization and awareness of inherent unity between beginning and end, which, when comprehended in depth, implies equanimity at all stages of "the endless cycle," is in fact the manifestation of God's Transcendent Light (sovev kol almin), which encompasses equally every point of reality. This ever-present Transcendent Light is referred to as "He is equal and equalizes small and large." In our service of God, this implies that in relation to worldly phenomena, all things should be related to and accepted equally. This is the attribute of equanimity as taught by the Ba'al Shem Tov, in interpretation of the verse: "I place [shiviti, from the root shaveh, 'equal'] God before me always."

While at outer levels of consciousness one should remain unaffected by the transient events of this world, at deeper inner levels of consciousness, relating to Souls and Divinity, one should continuously be in a state of aspiration to achieve higher and higher levels of clinging to God and realizing His Will in Creation through Torah and mitzvot.

In Chassidut we are taught that the saying of the Sages: "Who is wealthy? He who is happy with his portion" pertains only to worldly possessions, whereas with regard to spiritual matters we should never be satisfied with our present acquisitions but ever strive to obtain more. Nonetheless, as our inner striving takes place within the general context of external equanimity, it also proceeds as a circle, a spiral, in dynamic, ever-ascending motion. Thus an inner, dynamic circle exists within an outer, static circle. This is the secret of the phrase in the vision of Ezekiel: "the wheel within the wheel."

As mentioned in our discussion of the letter nun, the samech, which means "to support," is the Divine power to support and lift up "the fallen one." One verse reads: "she has fallen and shall not rise, the virgin of Israel." A second verse reads: "as I have fallen, so surely shall I rise." The first verse can be understood as referring to the service of the outer, static circle, the attribute of true equanimity in relation to all worldly phenomena. One can fall to the very "lowest energy level" of physical reality, unable to raise himself, and be totally reliant on the lovingkindness of Divine Providence to sustain him. The second verse, implying inner, active, motivation to rise, though surely dependent upon Divine support and aid, can be understood as referring to the service of the inner, dynamic circle of spiritual aspiration.

As is the case for any two concentric circles, the bottom of the outer circle descends below that of the inner circle, yet its upper portion is higher in origin than that of the inner circle. This in itself is the ultimate manifestation of "the end" being enwedged in "the beginning." "The end" here refers to the service of the outer circle itself. "The beginning" refers to the ultimate objective of the inner circle, the revelation below, in Worlds, of God's very Essence, latently present in the simple faith inherent in the worldly service of equanimity.

FORM

A circle; a wedding ring.

Worlds:

The vacuum created by the initial contraction of God's Infinite Light.
The lower perspective of reality resulting from the initial contraction.
Circular rings of evolutionary and historical cycles.
The despair inherent in the "philosophy of the void."

Souls:

The impression of Divine light "left over" in the vacuum.
The tzadik - hidden foundation of the world.
The equality of all Jewish souls.
The marriage of two halves of a common soul.

Divinity:

"Their end is enwedged in their beginning and their beginning in their end."
The Transcendent Surrounding Light.
"The Future to Come" (as opposed to "the Coming World").
The Divine presence in marriage.
The dance of the tzadikim in the World to Come.
The dance of the maidens on Tu b'Av.

NAME

To support; rely on; ordination; construct form (in grammar).

Worlds:

Supporting the fallen.
The miraculous continuation of life in the face of entropy.
Welfare: support and encouragement.

Souls:

The support of one's students.
The secret of ordination.
Signs and summaries.

Divinity:

Offering oneself to God (semichah).
The experience of being supported by God at all times.

NUMBER

Sixty.

Worlds:

Numerical symbol of an all inclusive state.
The law of nullification, 1:60.
Sleep is one-sixtieth of death; Dream is one-sixtieth of prophecy.
Fire is one-sixtieth of hell; Honey is one-sixtieth of manna.
Shabbat is one-sixtieth of the World to Come.
The quantum leap from plane to plane.
The nullification of lower dimensional spaces in higher dimensional spaces.

Souls:

Sixty ten thousands - 600,000 souls who left Egypt.
The nullification of the individual Jew in the community of Israel.
Sixty Guards of King Solomon; Sixty students of the Ba'al Shem Tov.
Sixty queens in the Song of Songs; Sixty tractates of the Oral Torah.

Divinity:

Sixty Letters of the Priestly Blessing.
Sixty bones in the two hands of the kohen.
The Transcendent Light of God.

AYIN
Divine Providence

"It [the land of Israel] is the land which God your God seeks; the eyes of God your God are always [looking] at it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year."

The yearly cycle, from beginning to end ("end enwedged in beginning"), alludes to "the endless cycle," the secret of the letter samech, as explained above. Divine Providence, the "eyes" of God in control of the cycle, is the secret of the following letter, ayin which means "eye." Though the primary revelation of supernatural Providence is in the Land of Israel, the Jew-in-exile is commanded to create something of its sanctity in each of his Diaspora stations by recognizing Divine Providence wherever he is.

Upon entering the Land of Israel, the second city to be conquered by Joshua was Ai, spelled ayin-yud, an abbreviated form of ayin (ayin-yud-nun, the nun falls) "the Eye." Jericho, the first city to be conquered, comes from the Hebrew word reiach, the sense of smell. In Chassidut we are taught that the origin of the sense of smell is in keter, the superconscious sensitivity directing the motivation of Will. The Hebrew word for "the land," eretz, derives from the word ratzon, "will," as our Sages teach: "Why is it called eretz? Because it wills to do the Will of its Creator." Sight is the first conscious sense, corresponding to the sefirah of chochmah, "wisdom."

In the conquest of Jericho, Achan - related to the word ayin [the kaf of Achan equals in gematria the full spelling of the yud (yud-vav-dalet) of ayin, 20] - coveted forbidden booty. The tragic result was the initial defeat of Israel in the battle of "the Eye." Coveting is the spiritual blemish of the sight of the eye. Only when the sin of coveting was rectified was "the Eye" given to the Jewish People. Upon the initial defeat, Joshua fell on his face in despair but was commanded by God: "Rise, sanctify the people.... There is an accursed thing in your midst, Israel; you shall not be able to rise before your enemies until you remove it from your midst." Joshua was told to "rise" though the people were unable to "rise." This alludes to the secret of the two concentric circles of the letter samech: the outer, static circle supporting the fall of the nun, and the inner, dynamic circle directed, ultimately, by the Divine Providence of the ayin.

The full spelling of the letter ayin equals 130 or 5 times 26, 26 being the value of the Name Havayah. In Kabbalah this phenomenon is understood to mean that the eye possesses five Divine powers. The right eye possesses five states of kindness, whereas the left eye possesses five states of severity or might. In Psalms we find two verses in relation to God's Providence over man. One verse states: "The Eye of God is on those who fear Him." The other states: "The Eyes of God are on the." The attribute of fear of God refers to the consciousness of the sefirah of malchut, "kingdom," likened to the woman of valor, "the woman who fears God, she shall be praised." Malchut is constructed and directed by the five "mights," the secret of the left eye of God. For this reason, in the verse "the Eye of God is on those who fear Him," "Eye" is in the singular, referring to the left eye alone. In the "male figure," corresponding to the six emotive attributes of the heart, Providence reflects the balance of both the five kindness together with the five mights of God. So, in the verse "The Eyes of God are on the tzadikim," "Eyes" appear in the plural form, referring to both the right and left Eyes of God.

We are further taught in Chassidut that the singular eye of the first verse possesses a hidden reference to the "ever-open eye" of keter, the superconscious. Here the singular is the secret of "all right," as "there is no left in the Ancient One, all is right." The fear of God which is the vessel in the soul to contain and reveal this most concealed and supernal level of Providence, is the awe in face of the awareness of the Transcendent Light of God, permeating each point of reality, as taught in the secret of the letter samech.

In the Divine service of the soul these three levels of Providence correspond to the three stages of service: submission, separation, and sweetening, as taught by the Ba'al Shem Tov. All relate to his most fundamental and all inclusive teaching in regard to "particular Divine Providence." The initial experience that even the minutest of one's deeds is observed and recorded Above brings one to a state of submission and fear of the Kingdom of Heaven, whose Law and Order control the universe. One then experiences the Eyes of God lovingly watching over and guarding each one of his children Israel. This brings one to sense the existential separation of the holy from the profane, the righteous from the unrighteous, and to identify with the good. Finally one experiences the Infinite Eye of God directing every created being to its ultimate fulfillment of purpose in Creation, thereby bringing all Creation to realize its Divine Purpose. Here, one's awe itself is in the face of the revelation of God's Infinite Love for all ("all is right"). This is the secret of sweetening.

FORM

An elongated nun with an enwedged vav or zayin.
The vessel of the nun receives God's blessing, the vav.
The two eyes and the optic nerves entering the brain.
The right eye looks up at the samech; the left eye looks down at the pei.

Worlds:

A poor man receiving physical sustenance.
The six (seven) days of Creation and man.
Shammai: the seven together; Hillel: the six separate from the seventh.
The right eye looking up at the sky; the left eye looking down at the earth.

Souls:

The humble nun draws down joy in the service of God and integrates into itself God's Will, halachah, as revealed in the six orders of Mishnah.
The right eye looks up to God; the left eye looks down favorably at the Jew.
The right eye dances; the left eye speaks.

Divinity:

Moses, the humble nun, draws joy into God, as it were, and integrates into consciousness the hidden-most secrets of Torah.
The right eye looks up at God's Transcendent Light; the left eye looks down at the Word of God.

NAME

Eye; color; fountain; in Aramaic: sheep.

Worlds:

Physical vision; Color spectrum; A fountain.
The fountain of wisdom and the ability to perceive wisdom.
The sheep looking toward the shepherd; the shepherd watching his sheep.

Souls:

The "eye of Jacob" looking only at blessing, good, and life.
The eye of the soul looking at unification, sanctity, and blessing.
The "searching eye" of the soul looking upwards towards God.
Looking favorably on every Jew.

Divinity:

"Gazing at the King and no other."
Divine Providence.
Emulating God by looking "downwards" to help care for others.
The silent prayer: heart above and eyes below.

NUMBER

Seventy

Worlds:

Seventy archetypal nations and languages; Seventy oxen sacrificed on Sukkot.
Seventy years of life; Seventy cries of the deer during labor.

Souls:

Seventy Jewish souls that descended to Egypt.
Seventy elders chosen by Moses; seventy sages of the Sanhedrin.
Seventy years of King David.
Seventy cries of the soul during "labor."
Seventy years of the Babylonian exile.

Divinity:

Seventy Names of God; Seventy faces of Torah.
Seventy words of Kiddush.
Seventy cries of the birth pangs of Mashiach.

PEI
Communication: The Oral Torah

The mouth, the letter pei, follows the eye, the letter ayin. The five kindnesses and five mights of the right and left eyes discussed in the letter ayin are in fact the dual manifestations of the sefirah of da'at, knowledge, as taught in Kabbalah. Da'at is the power of union and communication. Providence is the power of da'at as revealed by the eyes. The power of da'at as revealed by the mouth - speech - is the more explicit form of contact and communication between individuals. Just as in the verse: "and Adam knew his wife Eve," "knew," the power of da'at, refers to the physical union of man and wife, so is "speech" idiomatically used by our Sages to refer to such union. So are we taught in the Zohar: "[the power of] da'at is concealed in the mouth."

Da'at, contact, at the level of the eyes, is the secret of the written Torah. In reading the written Torah in the synagogue service the reader must see every letter of the Torah scroll. Sometimes a "silver finger" is used to point, direct one's sight, to every word. Contact at the level of the mouth is the secret of the Oral Torah.

"There is no good other than Torah." The pei is the seventeenth letter of the alef-beit, the numerical value of the Hebrew word tov, "good," as discussed at length in the letter tet. The first words spoken by the "Mouth" of God, "Let there be light," upon spontaneously being realized as the actual creation of light, were subsequently seen, by His "Eyes," "to be good." The word "good," is the thirty-third word of the Torah, the sum of the ordinal values of the two letters ayin and pei (33 = 16 plus 17), thus alluding to the union of the two levels of da'at, contact (that of the eyes, the written Torah, and that of the mouth, the Oral Torah).

Of the people of Israel it is said: "You are my witnesses, says God" and "God's testimony is within you." With closed eyes we testify twice every day: "Hear, O Israel, God is our God; God is one." The ayin of the first word, Shema, "hear," and the dalet of the last word, echad, "one," are written large. Together they spell the word eid, "witness." The soul of every Jew is an "eye"-witness to the essential unity of God. In this world we must close our physical eyes in order to reveal the inner eye of Israel which beholds the Divine Unity. By proclaiming our testimony verbally, we unify the two levels of contact, that of eye and that of mouth.

Expression of wisdom proceeds from the inner eye of the heart to the mouth, as is said: "the heart of the wise informs his mouth." Words of wisdom, when expressed sincerely and humbly by the mouth, find favor and grace in the eyes of God and man, as is said: "the words of the mouth of the wise find favor." In Sefer Yetzirah we are taught that the "gift" to the holy mouth is grace. In good ("There is no 'good' other than Torah") are inherent two essential properties: truth and grace. Though each dimension of Torah expresses the interinclusion of both of these properties, nonetheless, in particular, truth (the "male figure," primarily defined by the sefirot of "tiferet" and yesod in Kabbalah) is the primary consciousness of the written Torah, whereas grace (the "female figure," malchut) is that of the Oral Torah. The power of the pei, the mouth, is thus to express the grace of the Oral Torah.

FORM

A mouth containing a tooth.
The white space within the pei forms a hidden beit.

Worlds:

The mouth of the wicked.
Disease results from the evil mouth.

Souls:

The power of speech.
The 32 teeth in the mouth correspond to the 32 pathways of wisdom.

Divinity:

The "mouth" of God reveals the Torah through the mouth of Moses.
The "death of the kiss."
The secrets of Torah from God's Mouth to be revealed in the future.

NAME

mouth; here (present)

Worlds:

Here - the awareness of physical time and space.
"Blessed is He who spoke and the world came into being."
Speech - the power to enter the "here and now."
All Creation singing its song.

Souls:

"The power of the Jew is in his mouth."
"Knowledge is hidden in the mouth."
The power of curse and blessing.

Divinity:

Immanence. Sitting in the Sukkah.
The Oral Torah.
Traveling the odyssey of life by the Mouth of God.
The "Kiss" of God.

NUMBER

Eighty; yesod - the power of marriage.

Worlds:

"Eighty years to might."
Eighty-thousand chiselers of rock in the building of the First Temple.
Hewing one's children, the building-blocks of the Temple.
Eighty witches hung by the eighty students of Shimon ben Shetach.
Eighty-thousand Roman horn-blowing soldiers and eighty- thousand Jews killed in the defeat of Betar.
Eight-year periods of quiet in the period of the Judges.
Eight years of Mashiach and Temple.

Souls:

Eighty pairs of kohanite brothers who married eighty pairs of kohanite sisters.
Eighty-thousand young men named Aaron.
Eighty tractates of baraitot.
Eighty ten thousands of Jews under the age of 20 left Egypt.

Divinity:

The age of Moses at the Exodus.
The power of the soul to contact Divinity.
The discovery of the hidden light in Torah through pronouncing it orally.

TZADIK
The Faith of the Righteous One

"The tzadik lives by his faith." The form of the letter tzadik or tzadi, resembles that of the alef more than any other letter. The twenty-two letters of the alef-beit pair into eleven "form mates," the two letters whose forms most closely resemble one another, as taught in Kabbalah. The "mate" of the alef, the Master of the Universe, is the tzadik, "the righteous one," upon whom the world stands, as is said: "The tzadik is the foundation of the world."

The letter tzadik begins the word, tzelem, the Divine "image" in which God created man. In Kabbalah we are taught that the tzadik of tzelem corresponds to the three conscious levels of soul: mind, heart, and action, whereas the two following letters (lamed and mem) of tzelem correspond to the two transcendent levels of the soul, "the living one" (chayah) and "the single one" (yechidah), respectively, as discussed in the letter hei (tzadik in at'bash). These two levels become conscious as two states of faith in the inner awareness of the tzadik: faith in the Transcendent Light of God, the ultimate source of creation, and faith in the very Essence of God, the ultimate source of the revelation of Torah and mitzvot. For this reason the word tzadik (204) equals in gematria two times emunah, "faith" (102). Also in the verse "the tzadik lives in his faith," the letters of the word b'emunato," "in his faith," can be read as "two levels of faith." "Living in one's faith" means experiencing greatest joy in one's service of God, as explained in Tanya.

The word eitz, "tree," created on the third day, equals in gematria tzelem, 160, the "Divine image" in which man was created on the sixth day. "Man is the tree of the field." In Kabbalah, the third day, tiferet ("beauty"), is the origin of the sixth day, yesod ("foundation"). Tiferet and yesod totally integrate in the secret of the "middle line" - "the body and the brit are considered one." In Sefer Yetzirah we are taught that the twelve simple letters of the twenty-two letters of the alef-beit correspond to the twelve months of the year. Also, each month relates in particular to a specific "sense" in the soul. The letter tzadik is the letter of the month of Shevat, whose "sense" is that of "eating." The fifteenth (middle) day of Shevat, Tu b'Shevat, is the New Year of Trees. (The Rabbinic word for tree, "ilan," equals 91, the union of the two letters alef and tzadik, which is also the union of the two values 26 plus 65 [(2 · 13) plus (5 · 13) = 7 · 13 = 1 plus 2 plus plus 13 = the "triangle" of 13], the value of the Name Havayah as it is written (yud-hei-vav-hei) and read (alef-dalet-nun-yud).

The "king of trees" is the palm tree, of which is said: "The tzadik like a date palm will flower." The root "to flower" (perach) equals 288, the secret of the 288 fallen sparks, elevated by the service of the tzadik in his Divine consciousness while involved in the act of eating. In all the seemingly mundane activities of the tzadik he "knows" (i.e., contacts, as explained above in the secret of the two previous letters of the alef-beit, the ayin and the pei) God, as is said: "In all your [mundane] ways know Him."

The original spelling of the letter tzadik is tzadi, which means "to hunt." The holy "sense of eating," the "sense" of the letter tzadik, is the ability to hunt in order to redeem and elevate the 288 fallen sparks of the breaking of the vessels, as discussed above. "The tzadik eats to the satisfaction of his soul" is the verse most relevant to the secret of the service of the month of Shevat. The redeemed sparks serve to elevate the consciousness of the soul of the tzadik to ever higher levels of Divine perception.

FORM

A yud enwedged in the upper right side of a bent-over nun.
The yud faces either upwards or downwards, according to two varied traditions.

Worlds:

Conscious power to actualize potential.
The lifeforce of Creation "running" towards its source Above.
The lifeforce returning - downwards.
Form and matter.

Souls:

The nun represents the "Congregation of Israel;" the yud represents the tzadik of the generation.
"All your people are tzadikim.

Divinity:

The thirty-two pathways of wisdom, the yud, unites with the fifty gates of understanding, the nun.
The higher wisdom (yud) and the lower wisdom (nun).
The consciousness of Atzilut uniting with the source of wisdom and descending to teach Creation.

NAME

A tzadik; to hunt; side; in Aramaic: chaos. Tzadi becomes tzadik.

Worlds:

Hunting for the fallen, broken vessels of the world of chaos.

Souls:

Hunting for the soul's lost sparks.
The lower tzadik - connecting souls.

Divinity:

Hunting for God and Divine light.
The higher tzadik - revealing and drawing down Divinity into the world.

NUMBER

Ninety; "total consciousness."

Worlds:

Total consciousness of worlds.
"At the age of ninety one folds over."
Seasons.

Souls:

Total consciousness of souls.
The age of Sarah at the birth of Isaac.
Ninety thousand elders danced before the ark when David brought it up to Jerusalem.

Divinity:

Total consciousness of Divinity.
Ninety daily "Amens."

KUF
Omnipresence - Redemption of Fallen Sparks

Two letters, a reish and a zayin, combine to form the letter kuf. The zayin, to the left, descends below the line, while the reish, to the right, hovers above it. The paradoxical union symbolized by the two components of the kuf is the secret of "There is none holy as God." In general, the kuf stands for kedushah, "holiness." The unique level of holiness inherent to God is expressed, in the words of the Zohar, as: "He is grasped within all worlds, yet none grasps Him." The descending zayin of the kuf symbolizes His being grasped in all worlds, permeating even realms of reality "below the line," i.e., worlds antithetical to those in whom God's Presence is revealed. The reish, God's ever-present transcendence, remains "separate" and holy (in Hebrew, "holy" means separate) in relation to His descending immanence.

In the name of the letter tzadik, its initial reading, tzadi, "hunts" for fallen sparks. The holy spark, captured "below the line" in physical matter ("anti-matter," relative to that of spiritual realms) is the secret of the following letter, the kuf, to which the tzadi connects to form the full, rectified name - tzadik.

The tzadik is the eighteenth letter of the alef-beit, the gematria of chai, "life," thus symbolizing the power to enliven the fallen sparks, as represented by the kuf. The kuf, the nineteenth letter, is the secret of "Eve" (Chavah = 19; in ordinal numbering, Adam equals 1 plus 4 plus 13 = 18 = chai), whose name also derives from the root meaning "life," as is said: ."..and Adam called the name of his wife Eve (Chavah) for she was the mother of all life." Nonetheless, of her is said: "her feet descend into death," for in the primordial sin of eating (the "sense" of the letter tzadik, as explained above) from the Tree of Knowledge, she was ultimately responsible for bringing death to the world. Even within the "broken" (dead) corpse, a spark of life remains hidden, awaiting the power of the tzadik, (chai, life) to reinforce its dormant potential of life and to resurrect the body to whom it belongs.

As well as the hidden inner spark of life, a hovering, relatively transcendent "vapor" is present above every corpse or fallen, "dead," physical object. (The word for "vapor," hevel, is also the name Abel, the second son of Adam and Eve, who was killed by his older brother Cain. Hevel = 37 = 18 plus 19.) These two components of life present within the seeming state of death, correspond to the two letters, the reish (the hovering vapor) and the zayin (the hidden spark), which compose the letter kuf. For this reason the kuf symbolizes in particular the reality of fallen sparks, as well as the paradox of the simultaneous omnipresence of God's transcendence and immanence. The innate holiness of each spark insures its ultimate redemption and elevation by the tzadik (i.e., souls of Israel).

The most fundamental significance in Torah of the number nineteen, the ordinal value of the kuf, is the nineteen-year cycle of the moon in relation to the sun, the basis of our Jewish calendar. The moon represents the female figure, the secret of the sefirah of malchut ("kingdom"), personified by Eve (Chavah = 19, as above). The sun represents the male figure (the bestower of light, whereas the moon is the receiver of light), and in particular the sefirah of yesod ("foundation"; yesod = 80 = 8 · 10, chet times yud = chai), as personified by Adam. Just as explained in the secret of the form of the letter zayin, "the woman of valor" who is "the crown of her husband," when the letter kuf precedes the letter tzadik, the word keitz, the "end" of time, is formed. This hints at the verse: "...He has set an end [keitz] to darkness." The "end," the coming of Mashiach and the subsequent era of resurrection, is the ultimate revelation of the great light and energy latently present within the secret of the letter kuf.

FORM

A reish above with a zayin descending below the line on the left.

Worlds:

"Shells" of impurity "suck" lifeforce in this world.
The zayin and reish spell zar, "foreign."

Souls :

The mission of the soul - its descent to clarify sparks of holiness.
The zayin and reish spell zeir, "crown."
The "boomerang" property of the soul.

Divinity:

"He is grasped in all worlds [the zayin], yet no one grasps Him [the reish]."
The reish and zayin spell raz, "mystery."

NAME

Monkey; to surround or touch; strength; in Aramaic: the eye of a needle.

Worlds:

Monkey - vanity, the false imitations of this world.
The eye of the needle - the empty point of tzimtzum.

Souls:

The touching and connection between souls.
The soul opening to God.

Divinity:

Great strength as revealed in miracles.

NUMBER

One hundred.

Worlds:

The one-hundred year life span of the eagle.
"The youth will die at the age of 100."
"At the age of 100 one is as though dead, passed away and 'null' from the world."

Souls:

The age of Abraham at the birth of Isaac.
"Go to you": to the source of your soul or to enter your body.

Divinity:

Perfect beauty.
The perfection of the square, 10 times 10.
The ten sefirot interincluded.
The one hundred daily blessings.

REISH
Process - The Art of Clarification

Although the letter reish is situated close to the end of the alef-beit,"its primary meaning is "head" or "beginning." There are four "beginnings" in the alef-beit (comparable to the four New Years enumerated in the beginning of the tractate Rosh HaShanah) relative to four different categories of phenomena. The ordinal beginning of the alef-beit is the letter alef. Phonetically, the vapor, the amorphous "matter" from which the pronunciation of every letter is formed, is the secret of the letter hei. In script, every letter begins from a point, the secret of the letter yud. In relation to meaning, cognizant intelligence or wisdom, reish means "beginning." These four letters combine to spell aryeh, "the lion," the first of the four "holy animals" of the Divine chariot of Ezekiel. They further combine to spell yirah, "fear" or "awe."

"The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God." In Chassidut we are taught that the inner experience of the soul which serves as the vessel to arouse and contain ever new flashes of insight, wisdom, is bitul, "selflessness." Fear, the beginning of wisdom, corresponds to the source of this state in the soul. Fear "shocks" ego, breaking the innate coarseness of the heart, that coarseness or egocentricity that prevents one from being truly receptive and perceptive to reality outside oneself in general, and the Divine Essence of all reality in particular.

The two letters that fill the letter reish are yud and shin, spelling yeish, which means "something," in general identified in Chassidut with the consciousness of ego or being a separate, independent entity - a "something." Reish is the only letter "pregnant" with this "filling." In Chassidut we are taught that though the lower "something," the "created something," appears to be totally separate from the consciousness of its Creator and the creative force which continuously brings it into existence, nonetheless its seeming separate "somethingness" serves, in truth, to reflect the Absolute and "True Something" who is truly and uniquely independent, the "Cause of all causes."

The insight of Divine wisdom is the "nothing" between the two states of "something," whose ultimate purpose is to serve to draw the consciousness of the "True Something" into the experience of the lower "something." In the power of the process of rectification, the ego must first be "shaken" by the fear of God, the beginning of wisdom. Thereafter ones "matter" can be purified and clarified in order to become a fitting "mirror" to reflect the True Something. This process of clarification, dependent upon wisdom and its beginning, fear, is expressed in the verse: "You have made all in wisdom." "Made" refers throughout the Torah to the process of rectification and clarification. The Zohar paraphrases this verse: "You have clarified them all with wisdom." The "art of clarification" is the "beginning of the end"; the three final letters of the alef-beit, are the beginning, middle, and end of the end, respectively. Just as the tzadik connects to the kuf in its full spelling, so the "reish" "leads in" to the shin, all the clarifications of wisdom ascending upward to their Divine Source in the flame of the love of God and His people Israel.

FORM

The profile of a head; a bent over head.

Worlds:

A man bent over in poverty and servitude.
Conformity to social norms.

Souls:

The mind "bending over" in order to express itself in speech.
Devoted service to God.

Divinity:

The revelation of Gods thoughts through speech.
The union of Kabbalah and halachah.
The presence of Shabbat in the weekdays.

NAME

Head or beginning; poor man.

Worlds:

The state of poverty of this world.
The experience of poverty prior to it leading to selflessness.

Souls:

The conscious state of mind.
The second day of Rosh HaShanah - conscious beginning.
The power to procreate.

Divinity:

The superconscious state of mind.
"My thoughts are not your thoughts."
The first day of Rosh HaShanah - unconscious beginning.

NUMBER

Two hundred.

Worlds:

The upper limit of poverty - two hundred zuz.
The two hundred lights that shine out of the self.
"The sun is charity."

Souls:

Two hundred heads of the Sanhedrin from the tribe of Issachar.
Time.

Divinity:

The numerical half way point of the alef-beit.
Creation begins from the "middle point" of Gods Infinite Light.
The evolving of the "Kingdom of the Infinite."
The King and His people.

SHIN
The Eternal Flame

The letter shin appears engraved on both sides of the head- tefilin. On the right side, the shin possesses three heads, while on the left side it possesses four heads. In Kabbalah we are taught that the three-headed shin is the shin of this world while the four- headed shin is the shin of the World to Come.

The secret of the shin is "the flame [Divine Revelation] bound to the coal [Divine Essence]." A simmering coal actually possesses an invisible flame within it, which emerges and ascends from the surface of the coal when the coal is blown upon. The three levels: coal, inner flame, and outer flame, correspond to the secret of chash-mal-mal, as will be explained in the next letter, the tav.

One of the meanings of the word shin in Hebrew is shinui, "change." The coal symbolizes changeless essence, the secret of the verse: "I am God, I have not changed," meaning that relative to God's Essence absolutely no change has occurred from before Creation to after Creation. The inner flame is the paradoxical latent presence of the power of change within the changeless. The outer flame of the shin is continuously in a state of motion and change.

As in the above-quoted verse, the changeless Essence is the secret of the Name Havayah. The power of change, as latently present within Gods Essence before Creation and thereafter revealed in the infinite intricacy and beauty of an ever-dancing flame, is the secret of the explicit Name of Creation, Elokim, the only Name of God which appears in the plural. The number of the letter shin, 300, unites these two Divine Names as the "flame bound to the coal." In at'bash, the Name Havayah transforms to the letters mem-tzadik-pei-tzadik, which total 300. The five letters of Elokim (alef-lamed-hei-yud-mem) when written in full, also equal 300.

The three heads of the shin of this world correspond to the three levels of the changeless, potential, and actual change as discussed above. In this world, the changeless is symbolized only by a black, dark coal, not as the revealed light of the flame. Nonetheless the endurance of the flame depends upon the changeless essence of the coal. In the World to Come, the changeless essence will reveal itself within the flame. This revelation of the future is the secret of the fourth head of the shin.

In the flame of a candle one sees three levels of light: the "dark light" around the wick of the candle, the white flame encompassing it, and an amorphous aura around the white flame itself. Each of these three levels of revealed light manifests a dimension contained within the invisible flame present in the coal. In general the flame symbolizes love, as is said: "as mighty as death is love...the flame of God." The dark light corresponds to the love of Israel, souls enclothed within physical bodies. The white light corresponds to the love of Torah. The aura corresponds to the love of God. These are the three essential manifestations of love as taught by the Ba'al Shem Tov. The fourth head of the shin of the future - the revelation of the essence of the coal itself - corresponds to the love of the Land of Israel and, as our Sages teach: "the Land of Israel will in the future spread to incorporate all the lands of the earth."

FORM

Three vavs, each with a yud on top, rise from a common base- point.
Symbol of symmetry; Form of a flame.

Worlds:

Stability and harmony in nature.
Positive and negative grace; Symmetry groups.

Souls:

Finding grace in the eyes of God.
The grace of the Jewish people in each other's eyes.
The 3 vavs represent the three Patriarchs; the 4 vavs, the Matriarchs.
The 3 vavs represent "Kohanim," "Levites," "Israelites"; the fourth, righteous converts.
"No lie can endure if not based on truth."

Divinity:

Divine Perfection and Grace; The three lines, or pillars, of the sefirot.
The "army of God"; The shin of the tefilin.

NAME

A year; change; a tooth; scarlet; serenity; to sleep; to teach; two; sharp; old; viceroy.

Worlds:

Natural changes in the yearly cycle.
Tooth - power of decomposition and entropy.
The fiery scarlet of the priestly garments.
"I am asleep..." "in exile"; Aging.

Souls:

The fire of Torah; Sharpness in learning.
The second to the King; The double Shabbat loaves.
The Mishnah; "...yet my heart is awake."

Divinity:

The "immovable power" that causes all motion.
"I am God, I have not changed."
Peace and serenity; The "shin" of the mezuzah.
The accelerated change of the future toward the changeless.

NUMBER

Three hundred

Worlds:

Three hundred foxes sent to burn down the fields of the Philistines.
Three hundred arrows pierced King Yoshiyahu.
Three hundred years Israel worshipped idolatry in the days of the Judges.

Souls:

Three hundred fox-parables of Rabbi Meir.
Three thousand parables of King Solomon.
Three hundred firstborn Levites; Three hundred soldiers of Gideon.

Divinity:

Three hundred halachot concerning "a mighty bright spot."
Three hundred halachot concerning "you shall not let a sorceress live."
Three hundred halachot concerning "the tower soaring in air."
Three hundred halachot concerning "and the name of his wife was Meheitavel."
"Is not my word like fire and like a hammer that breaks rock into pieces?"
"The spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters."
The full spelling of the Name Elokim (and the Name Havayah in at'bash).

TAV
Impression - The Seal of Creation

The Zohar states: "the tav makes an impression on the Ancient of Days." "The Ancient of Days" refers to the sublime pleasure innate within the "crown" (Will) of Divine Emanation. The letter tav (here referring to the "Kingdom of the Infinite One, Blessed be He") leaves its impression on the "Ancient of Days." The impression is the secret of simple faith in God's ultimate omnipresence the Infinite present in the finite, for "there is none like unto Him" (the conclusion of the above quotation from the Zohar).

This faith passes in inheritance from generation to generation, from world to world, the malchut ("kingdom") of the higher world linked to the keter ("crown") of the lower world. The tav, the final letter of the alef-beit, corresponds to malchut ("kingdom"), the final Divine power, in the secret of "Your Kingdom is the Kingdom of all worlds." The impression of the tav is the secret of the power that links worlds - generations - together.

The initial impression of true faith was that which was stamped upon the soul of our first father, Abraham, "the first of all believers." This is the secret of Abrahams purchase of the Cave of Machpelah, the original Jewish cemetery, for four hundred (the numerical value of tav) shekel, the secret of our eternal inheritance of "four hundred worlds of pleasure," sealed with the stamp of simple faith.

God's seal (in Creation) is truth (in Hebrew, emet, spelled out by the final letters of the three last words in the account of Creation: bara elokim la'asot," " ...God created to do"). The last letter or seal of the word emet, "truth," itself - the seal of God's seal - is the letter tav, simple faith, the conclusion and culmination of all twenty-two forces - letters - active in Creation.

The three letters which spell emet are the beginning, middle and ending letters of the alef-beit." The alef corresponds to ones initial awareness of Divine paradox in the infinite source (where the higher and lower waters, joy and bitterness, are absolutely one). From this awareness issues mem, the fountain of Divine wisdom, ever- increasing power of insight into the mysteries of Torah. "The final end of knowledge is not to know." The culmination of the flow of Divine wisdom in the soul (after all is said and done) is the "majestic" revelation of the infinite "treasure-house" of simple faith in God's absolute omnipresence below innate in the soul of Israel. The culmination of truth simple faith is the secret of the "tav."

"All follows the seal," in the secret of "returning light" from the tav to the alef, thereby forming the word ta, "cell." Around the inner Sanctuary of the Temple were constructed many "cells" or "small chambers." These "cells" were without windows, thus being completely dark inside. Chassidut teaches that these "cells" reveal the level of "He places His concealed place in darkness," the awareness of simple faith reaching into the absolutely "dark" Essence of God.

So we are taught: "Torah is the impression [the tav] of Divinity; Israel is the impression [the tav] of Torah." Divinity is perceived first through the service of deepest meditation in complete silence (submission), the secret of the chash ("silence") of chashmal. (Then, through the means of an intermediate stage of "circumcision," comes a first expression of mal, "circumcision." Torah is the secret of separation between good and evil - circumcision - the cutting off of the foreskin (evil).

Israel, the ultimate manifestation of God's Word in Torah ("Israel" is an acronym for the Hebrew phrase "There are six hundred thousand letters in the Torah") corresponds to the final level of "speech," the "second" mal of chashmal. Speech, communication of God's oneness between souls, is the ultimate level of Divine service, "sweetening" all reality, as taught by the Ba'al Shem Tov. The tav, simple faith, is here seen to be the power of impression and linkage uniting the apparently paradoxical extremities of Divine service, from the utter silence of meditation to the loving communication between souls.

FORM

A dalet joined to a nun.
A stamp or seal.

Worlds:

Physical "stamps" on reality - fossils, footprints.

Judgment and Law.

Primordial matter.

Souls:

The tribe of Dan - humility and selflessness.

Returning the lost sense of purpose and direction.

Salvation.

Reincarnation; The "stamp" of previous lifetimes.

Divinity:

The reading of the Name Havayah.

God as Judge.

Gods seal on all of reality: the source of teshuvah and the potential of individuality.

NAME

Sign; impression; code; in Aramaic: more.

Worlds:

The sign on the forehead of Cain.

Natural law and codes of life.

The music of Creation.

Souls:

The sign of righteousness.

The tzadik is alive even in death.

Teshuvah, prayer, Torah.

Divinity:

The Divine power of continuation present in the end.

The advantage of light which shines from darkness.

The last letter of the account of Creation: rectification, the seal of truth.

The last letter of the first word of Creation: the ultimate origin.

NUMBER

Four hundred.

Worlds:

Four hundred men of Esau.

Four hundred men of David.

Four hundred years of exile in Egypt.

Souls:

The four hundred pieces of silver with which Abraham purchased the Cave of Machpelah to bury Sarah.

The four hundred gates of mutual knowledge amongst the four couples buried in the Machpelah.

Efron - evil eye; Abraham - pure eyes.

The dimensions of the Land of Israel - four hundred parsah by four hundred parsah.

Divinity:

The four hundred worlds of Divine pleasure in the World to Come.

The God of Israel, the people of Israel, the Torah of Israel, and the Land of Israel.

Spoke 1

Genesis, Isaiah,
Romans

Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Romans 3:20ff (Spoke 1, Cycle 3)

The Divine clarity and supernatural perfection of the detailed design of the Bible Wheel is nowhere more evident than on the First Spoke, corresponding to Aleph. Early in the morning of May 14, 1999, exactly four years and two days after I drew the first Bible Wheel (BW book, pg 23), I was meditating on the First Spoke and noticed that it holds the First Books of three primary divisions of Scripture:

The conjunction of "the law" and "the prophets" immediately evoked the frequent self-description of the Bible found in the Bible in passages such as Romans 3:21 quoted above. This prompted me to look at the rest of the canonical divisions which in turn led to the discovery of the Canon Wheel later that same day (BW book pg 32). It was an utterly astounding experience; I sat awe-struck for a week thereafter. I had been fruitfully studying the basic black and white Bible Wheel for years with no particular interest in the large-scale canonical divisions. My focus was on a much finer level of detail. For four full years I was constantly discovering endless correlations of highly specific content from the three Books on each Spoke with each other and the meaning of the corresponding Hebrew Letter. I had no idea that an entirely new level of Divine design aptly described as sevenfold symmetric perfection lay implicit in its structure. In a single day God opened my mind to see this glorious new aspect of the unlimited perfection of His Holy Word, the surface of which was barely touched in the 800+ pages on this website. Our task now is to review the First and Last Spokes of this theological tapestry to see how God supernaturally sealed His entire Word from beginning to end, from Aleph to Tav.

Aleph: The Symbol God, Beginnings, and First Things

Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.

Isaiah 44:6 (Spoke 1, Cycle 2)

As the first of the Letters, Aleph is a natural symbol of first things, beginnings, and origins. This is how the Lord Jesus Christ used the First Greek Letter when He said "I am Alpha ... the beginning ... the first ..." (Rev 22:13, pg 39). God is the Creator of All and so all things find their origin in Him. He also is the Sovereign Lord of Creation, and this is expressed by the closely associated KeyWord alluph (see table) which denotes a sovereign ruler, master, chief, or leader of thousands. Alluph is nearly identical to Aleph; it differs only in pronunciation (vowel points, BW book pg 19). This is typical of how KeyWords closely associated with a Letter's name reveal its symbolic meaning. In the KJV, alluph is translated as duke, which was the common word denoting a sovereign male ruler in the European social structure dominant at the time of its translation. Others translate it as leader, ruler, or chief. Its greatest density appears on Spoke 1 in Genesis 36 where it is used forty-three times in the lists of the Dukes of Edom. These ideas will be explored in more detail in the Synopsis (BW book pg 124).

In its ultimate sense, Aleph is a symbol of God, the Sovereign Ruler of All who should be first in every heart and who is literally First of All in that He existed before He created anything. The first verse of the Bible amplifies these ideas: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." The word translated as God is the Aleph KeyWord Elohim, displayed in the third entry in the table. It is based on the root El which denotes a mighty one, and so came to be applied to God as the Almighty. And since Elohim is an Aleph KeyWord (it starts with Aleph), the First Letter is literally God's initial. This echoes His declaration that He is the "Alpha" and adds symbolic depth by linking it to the first Divine Name revealed in Scripture. Thus we see the symbolic meaning of Aleph is based on its position in the Alphabet, the meaning of its name and associated KeyWords, and Gods use of it (in the form of Alpha) in the text of Scripture. This exemplifies a few of the primary methods we will use to discern the meaning of each of the Twenty-Two Letters. The wonder of it all is that everything is so simple, plain, and clear. There is no mistaking the essential meaning of the First Letter. Though a complete understanding of Aleph involves a full review of its use in the Alphabetic Verses, Hebrew grammar, and elsewhere, the ideas touched upon above should be sufficient to spark the requisite insight to perceive the Divine wonder that is the First Spoke of God's Wheel. The primary articles that give an overview of the three Books on Spoke 1 are listed below:

Spoke 2

Exodus, Jeremiah,
1 Corinthians

For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building. According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. ... Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

1 Corinthians 3:9ff (Spoke 2, Cycle 3)

Bet KeyWords The name of the Second Letter is based on the common Hebrew word for a house (bayit) found in over 2000 verses. Its shape in the ancient script represented a tent the typical house of the Hebrews as they wandered in the wilderness. When rotated, it became the lower case Latin b. As with many KeyWords, God presented its meaning in the plain text of Scripture in the story of Jacob's Ladder: "this is the House of God ... and he called the name of that place Bethel" (Gen 28:17ff). The third entry in the table shows that Bethel is simply the name of the Second Letter followed by the Aleph KeyWord El (God, BW book pg 122). Many Christians know Bet via Bethlehem (House of Bread), where Jesus, the Bread of Life, entered the world to become housed in human flesh. Rabbi Ginsburgh summarized the traditional Jewish understanding in his online article on the second letter:

The house symbolizes the ultimate purpose of all reality: to become a dwelling place below for the manifestation of G-d's presence.

This coheres, of course, with the Christian understanding of the consummation of God's Plan of the Ages when He will "dwell with his people" (Rev 21:3, BW book pg 69). The Book of Exodus records God's first big step towards fulfilling His Plan to build a "dwelling place below," that is, here on earth. It is in Exodus that God first mentions His Tabernacle as the House of the Lord (Bet YHVH, Exo. 23:19). This is one of the primary themes of the Second Book which contains the design, given directly from God to Moses atop Mount Sinai, of the pattern of the Tabernacle. Over a third of Exodus (its last fifteen chapters), is devoted to its design and construction, and the Book ends with the Tabernacle being filled with the Glory of God, representing His Presence amongst His People. This is a major theme of the Second Book, and it is based on the literal meaning of the name of the Second Letter, Bet (House).

God designed the "House of the Lord" as a typological image of Jesus Christ, His Son (Ben) in whom "dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Col. 2:9). He is the Word of God who was "made flesh and dwelt (literally tabernacled) amongst us" (John 1:14), in perfect agreement with the Type of the Tabernacle which housed the Ten Commandments, the prototypical Word of God. And just as the Tabernacle was the focus of God's glory on earth which covered it as a bright cloud, so when the Son became flesh, "we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the father" (John 1:14, see BW book pg 355). There is no end to the depth of the typological correlation between the second letter, the Tabernacle, and the Second Person of the Trinity. Christ Himself made the typology explicit in the Second Chapter of John:

And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise. And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body. When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.

The Tabernacle of the Lord is one of the greatest overarching types given in Scripture. It was designed by God as a picture of His whole purpose of creation, first established in the Tabernacle in the Wilderness (BW book pg 173). This set the stage for Christ as Emmanuel (God with us) which then blossomed into the image of each member of His Body as an individual "Temple of God (1 Cor 3:16) with all the members collectively symbolized as "living stones" "fitly framed together" to form the Body of Christ, "a holy temple in the Lord." Finally, the Book of Revelation consummates this image, prophetically declaring the time when "the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God" (Rev 21:3). This entire typological theme is contained in the Archetype of the House, the essential symbolic power of the Second Letter

Spoke 3

Leviticus, Lamentations,
2 Corinthians

But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work: (As it is written, He hath dispersed abroad; he hath given to the poor: his righteousness remaineth for ever.
.................................................................2 Corinthians 9:6ff (Spoke 3, Cycle 3)

The name of the Third Letter is based on gamal, the common Hebrew word for a camel. Its shape in the ancient Hebrew script represented the camel's head and neck and gave rise to the corresponding Greek Gamma, . This word is almost identical to the English camel where we find the Third Latin Letter c exchanged for the Third Hebrew Letter (g). This is a common interchange seen also in the relation between the English words cycle and circle with the corresponding Hebrew galgal which denotes a circle, cycle, or wheel (see pg 377 of the Bible Wheel book).

Though the traditional Christian image of three magi with camels bearing gifts for Christ is not stated as such in Scripture, it is in complete harmony with the meaning of camels in the Bible where they are frequently used as a symbol of wealth and abundance. The first three appearances of this animal are coordinated with the descriptions of the wealth of the first three patriarchs, Abraham (Gen 12:16), Isaac (Gen 24:10), and Jacob (Gen 30:43). This links directly to the great themes of the Third Spoke which are centered on the ideas of giving and reward in all their various senses, including charity to the poor, nourishing motherly love, offerings unto the Lord, and the Lord's reward for our deeds, whether good or bad (see The Riches of their Liberality, BW book pg 163). God revealed this meaning in the first Gimel verse of the great Alphabetic Psalm 119:

Deal bountifully (gamal) with thy servant, that I may live, and keep thy word.
.......................................................................................................AV Ps 119:17

Except for vowel points, this KeyWord is identical to the name of the Third Letter. We have here a powerful Alphabetic Link from the first Gimel verse of Psalm 119 to the Book of 2 Corinthians which contains the one and only New Testament verse that uses the word "bountifully" (quoted above). This is pretty much independent of translation; the same link is seen in most major English versions, such as the KJV, ASV, NASB, RSV, NRSV, and ESV. It is part of the great theme of abundance and giving to the poor that distinctly marks 2 Corinthians (see BW book, pg 163). It is a unique link from the Alphabetic Verses to the Third Book of the Third Cycle, but it is not a KeyLink in the strict sense (as a link unique in the whole Bible) because "bountifully" appears in a few Psalms that are not alphabetically structured. But in all six Bible versions cited above, every occurrence of "bountifully" in the Old Testament is a translation of gamal, so we have a very strong thematic link that exemplifies one of the primary symbolic meanings of Gimel and shows how God used this meaning in the supernatural design of His Word. This KeyWord appears again in one other Alphabetic Verse:

She will do (gamal) him good and not evil all the days of her life. ........................................................AV Proverbs 31:12

The table shows how the KJV translates the 56 occurrences of this root (Strong's numbers 1576 and 1580). Its various meanings exemplify primary aspects of the Work, Character, and Ministry of the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity, as well as many dominant themes of Spoke 3. The camel itself is an excellent metaphor of the Holy Spirit who carries the children of God through the dry dessert of this world. He sustains us, nourishes us, and gives us all we need in our earthly pilgrimage. He weans and ripens the children of God as we grow into spiritual adulthood. Desert dwelling Bedouins call the camel the Gift of God because their entire sustenance food, drink, clothing, fuel, and travel depends upon it. All of this links directly the Divine Character of the Holy Spirit, who is both the Abundant Giver of God's Gifts and the greatest Gift of All the indwelling presence of the Creator in the heart of every believer.

Spoke 4

Numbers, Ezekiel,
Galatians

And the temple and the sanctuary had two doors. And the doors had two leaves apiece, two turning leaves; two leaves for the one door, and two leaves for the other door. And there were made on them, on the doors of the temple, cherubims and palm trees, like as were made upon the walls; and there were thick planks upon the face face of the porch without.

Ezekiel 41:23ff (Spoke 4, Cycle 2)

Dalet KeyWords The name of the Fourth Letter comes from delet, the Hebrew word for a door, specifically the swinging leaf of a door. It contrasts with petach (BW book pg 305) which denotes the opening of the doorway, the entrance itself. Ezekiel's description of the temple above displays two of its senses; the highlighted words doors and leaves are all translations of delet. It is based on the verb dalal meaning to dangle, to hang down loosely, to be pendulous, like a draping tent door or a bucket on a rope. This verb also means to weaken or enfeeble and is the root of the name Delilah who brought down Samson, the strongest man ever to live. It is the root of the noun dal (poor, plural dallim). The association of these words, especially in conjunction with the meaning of Gimel as the Abundant Giver (BW book pg 152), gave rise to the rabbinic tradition concerning the alphabetic sequence recorded in the Talmud (Shabbat 104a):

Gimel Dalet means Gemol Dallim (be generous to the poor). Why is the foot of the Gimel pointed toward the Dalet? Because so the feet of those who are bountiful should be ever ready to seek beneficiaries.

God vividly displayed the weakness and poverty of Dalet in two Alphabetic Verses:

My soul cleaveth (davaq) unto the dust: quicken thou me according to thy word. AV Ps 119:25
My soul melteth (dalaph) for heaviness: strengthen thou me according unto thy word. AV Ps 119:28

"Cleaving" to the dust means to be near death. It recalls the original death sentence God proclaimed to Adam, "dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return" (Gen 3:19) which is further amplified in the metaphorical description of the dead as those who "sleep in the dust" (Dan 12:2) or "dwell in the dust" (Isa 26:19). Thus the verse concludes, "quicken (restore to life) thou me according to thy word." Likewise, the "melting" (literally dripping) of the soul signifies a loss of all strength and so the prayer concludes, "strengthen thou me according to thy word." Putting these ideas together, the Rabbis recognized Dalet as the Letter of Humility, Selflessness, and Self-Denial. This is the essence of the Fourth Letter. The House of God has but one entrance the Door of Repentance. All these ideas come together in Christ's message to the Church of Laodicea (Rev 3:17ff):

Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

God admits us into His House only when we have recognized our utter weakness, helplessness, and complete dependence on Him. We must admit we have sinned, humbly repent, and turn to fully follow Him and Him alone where ever He leads. This is the Way of God (Derek Elohim) taught by the Lord Jesus Christ (Mat 16:24ff):

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

The fourfold cross is the ultimate Biblical symbol of death and self-denial. This is the Gospel message typologically taught in Numbers, the Fourth Book, which records how God led the children of Israel forty years through the wilderness until the rebellion of their flesh was quenched. It links directly to the KeyWord derek (way) that God used in the majority of the Alphabetic Verses corresponding to Dalet:

Shew me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths. AV Ps 25:4
I have declared my ways, and thou heardest me: teach me thy statutes. AV Ps 119:26
He hath turned aside my ways ... he hath made me desolate. AV Lam 3:11
Make me to understand the way of thy precepts: ... AV Ps 119:27
Remove from me the way of lying: and grant me thy law graciously. AV Ps 119:29
I have chosen the way of truth: thy judgments have I laid before me. AV Ps 119:30
I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart. AV Ps 119:32
The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: ... AV Lam 1:4

Dalet KeyWords If only the children of Israel had truly prayed that prayer of Dalet, "Teach me thy ways, O Lord!" But that is not what happened. They rebelled and refused to follow the Lord into the Promised Land and so He commanded them to turn and go "into the wilderness by the way (derek) of the Red Sea" to wander forty years until all the rebels were consumed (Num 14:25). Had they obeyed they would have immediately entered into the abundant life of the Promised Land rather than wandering for four decades. Their experience in the wilderness prefigures the Christian pilgrimage through the desert of this world (Mat 7:13ff):

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

These symbols find their ultimate meaning in the Lord Jesus Christ who is revealed as both the Door (Delet) and the Way (Derek) in the Fourth Gospel (John 10:9, 14:6).

Spoke 5

Deuteronomy, Daniel,
Ephesians

He answered and said, Lo [Hey], I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.

Daniel 3:25 (Spoke 5, Cycle 2)

Hey KeyWords The name of the Fifth Letter is what it sounds like; an interjection demanding attention like "look!" or "behold!" just as we say "hey!" in English and many other languages. It is the simplest of words, requiring only a breath with no articulation. It appears only four times in Scripture; once in Genesis, once in Ezekiel, and twice in Daniel as above where it is rendered Lo. Much more common is the lengthened form hinney, appearing over a thousand times in the Old Testament. God used it in the last Hey verse of the great Alphabetic Psalm 119:

Behold (Hinney), I have longed after thy precepts: quicken me in thy righteousness. AV Ps 119:40

This links to one of its primary roles in Hebrew grammar. When prefixed to a noun, Hey signifies the definite article, the word the. For example, "name" is "shem" () and "the name" is "ha-shem" (). It also is closely related to the verb hayah (to be, to exist), which God used in four Alphabetic Verses:

She is (hayah) like the merchants ships; she bringeth her food from afar. AV Prov 31:14
Her adversaries are (hayah) the chief, her enemies prosper; for the LORD hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: AV Lam 1:5
The Lord was (hayah) as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds. AV Lam 2:5
I was (hayah) a derision to all my people; and their song all the day. AV Lam 3:14

The Hey Prefix also signifies the grammatical conjugation called the Hiphil imperative, which indicates causation. God used it this way in most of the Alphabetic Verses, such as these three consecutive verses from AV Psalm 119:

Hey KeyWords

Make me to go in the path of thy commandments; for therein do I delight. AV Ps 119:35
Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to covetousness. AV Ps 119:36
Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken thou me in thy way. AV Ps 119:37

The Psalmist pleads for God to cause him to go in the path of His commandments, to cause his heart to incline to His testimonies, to cause his eyes to turn from vanity. This is the meaning of the Hiphil imperative conjugation, indicated by the Hey Prefix. These Keywords give great insight into the meaning of the Divine Name (YHVH), the Tetragrammaton, in which Hey appears twice. It contains within itself the three tenses of the verb hayah (to be) past, present, and future and so carries the sense of both "He who is, was, and will be" and "He who causes things to be." God explicitly proclaimed the eternal meaning of His Name when He described Himself as the Almighty God "who is, who was, and who is to come" (Rev 1:8).

Spoke 6

Joshua, Hosea,
Philippians

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Philippians 2:6ff (Spoke 6, Cycle 3)

The Letter Vav Vav KeyWords The name of the Sixth Letter denotes a nail or hook, as suggested by its shape. It appears thirteen times in Exodus where it describes the hooks holding each curtain to its pillar in the Tabernacle. Its name exemplifies its role in Hebrew grammar. When prefixed to a word, this Letter represents the conjunctive the Hebrew form of and, also, so, but, and so forth. Vav "hooks" the words and links them together in a sentence. God used it this way in all the Alphabetic Verses. Here are four consecutive examples from the great Alphabetic Psalm 119:

So shall I have wherewith to answer him that reproacheth me: for I trust in thy word. AV Ps 119:42
And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth; for I have hoped in thy judgments. AV Ps 119:43
So shall I keep thy law continually for ever and ever. AV Ps 119:44
And I will walk at liberty: for I seek thy precepts. AV Ps 119:45

God presented no other KeyWords in these Alphabetic Verses because He designed no other Vav KeyWords except the name of the Letter itself. The Hebrew dictionary in Strong's Exhaustive Concordance gives a good estimate of the number of words that begin with each Letter. It averages about 400 words each, with Aleph, Mem, and Shin traditionally known as the three "Mother Letters" having the greatest number with over 700 words per Letter. Hey, Zayin, Tet, and Lamed have much fewer, ranging between 100 and 200 each. Amongst all the Letters, Vav is unique. Strong's Concordance lists only ten words that start with it, and most of those are proper nouns of unknown or foreign origin like Vaheb, Vashti, and Vajezatha. This is the only information God gives in the Alphabetic Verses, Hebrew grammar, and vocabulary: 1) As a word, Vav means a nail or hook, and 2) Vav signifies the conjunctive in Hebrew grammar. That's it. There are no other Vav KeyWords.

The Sixth Letter therefore is God's symbol of a connector. It is prominent in the Seventeen Historical Books of the Old Testament, where it appears as the first Letter in all but four Books. It connects the historical narrative from Genesis to Malachi. For example, Exodus opens with "And these are the names," Leviticus with "And the Lord called," and Numbers with "And the Lord spake."

Vav carries its meaning as a connector into the words formed when it combines with other Letters. Most notably, it combines with the Lamed Prefix - - the sign of the prepositions to or for, BW book pg 247), to form the principle Letters of the name of the priestly class (Levi) based on the verb (lavah) meaning to be joined. As is typical, the Bible gives its ety\mology at the birth of the progenitor (Gen 29:34):

And she conceived again, and bare a son; and said, Now this time will my husband be joined (lavah) unto me, because I have born him three sons: therefore was his name called Levi.

Hebrew Word Picture of Levi Levi's name forms a lucid word picture (BW book pg 115). Its final Letter is the Yod Suffix (sign of me or mine, BW book pg 113), so his name means to connect to me, which coheres precisely with God's fundamental typological purpose of the Levitical Priests, the mediators who connected Israel with Him. They prefigured the true High Priest, the "one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim 2:5). Jesus connects us with God. He is the link between heaven and earth. Leah's words spoken at Levi's birth amplify these ideas. She said her husband would be joined to her. This links back to the ultimate purpose of all creation revealed with perfect clarity in the consummating theme of the Marriage of the Lamb on Spoke 22 (BW book pg 69).

God interwove all these ideas in the opening passage of Scripture. Vav first occurs in the Bible as the prefix to the sixth word of Genesis 1:1 where it connects heaven and earth:

This is an example of the supernatural coherence of the thematic patterns of the whole Bible down to the exact placement and meaning of the individual Letters. The Sixth Letter first occurs as a prefix to the sixth word. It is the twenty-second character of Genesis 1:1 and is prefixed to the sign of the direct object - - the Aleph Tav (et, pg 89), derived from the Lord's Capstone Signature . The depth of symbolic convergence here is truly astounding. It reveals the ultimate theological significance of the Sixth Letter. The really amazing thing is that none of these ideas are new. They have been understood for centuries. Here is how John Parsons explained it on his excellent website hebrew4christians.com , where he draws on much of the ancient rabbinic tradition concerning the Alphabet:

The placement of the Vav suggests two of its essential connective powers:

By joining heaven and earth it implies the connection between spiritual and earthly matters.
Since it occurs as the 22nd letter in the Torah attached to the sixth word, , it alludes to the creative connection between all of the letters. Vav is therefore the connecting force of the God, the divine "hook" that binds together heaven and earth.

In Genesis 1:1, the Letter Vav combines with Aleph Tav the Sign of the Lord of History, the One Mediator, the Man Christ Jesus, the Living Word to connect heaven and earth in the most literal sense! (All puns intended). This means that the consummation of all history revealed in the Final Book is prophesied in the pattern of Hebrew letters in the first verse of the First Book! Glory to God in the highest! There is no limit to His Wisdom.

Spoke 7

Judges, Joel,
Colossians

And it came to pass, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel turned again, and went a whoring after Baalim, and made Baalberith their god. And the children of Israel remembered not the LORD their God, who had delivered them out of the hands of all their enemies on every side:

Judges 8:33f (Spoke 7, Cycle 1)

Zayin KeyWords The name of the Seventh Letter denotes a weapon, usually understood as a sword. In modern Hebrew, it means to be armed. This links to the primary theme of fighting that dominates the Seventh Book. It sounds like an English "z" and was drawn as such in the ancient Hebrew script.

Many Zayin KeyWord express the idea of motion busy buzzing motion. This is particularly evident in the KeyWords zavav (buzz) and zevuv (fly). Christians are familiar with the latter from the name Baalzebub (Lord of the flies) which uses the "b" sound of the hard Bet (b), though the softer "v" sound is more accurate. These words are onomatopoetic (they sound like what they describe), which is why we see the same consonants in English words like busy and buzz. This is the busyness of the world that constantly attacks and distracts us as we struggle to enter into the rest that Christ offers (Heb 4:11), typified by the Seventh Day Sabbath, the topic of the Fourth Commandment (Exodus 20:8ff):

Remember (Zakar) the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

The imperative verb in this command zakar (remember) is also the primary Zayin KeyWord that God used nine times in the Alphabetic verses:

Remember, O LORD, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindnesses ... AV Ps 25:6
Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. AV Lam 3:19
Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope. AV Ps 119:49
I remembered thy judgments of old, O LORD; and have comforted myself. AV Ps 119:52
I have remembered thy name, O LORD, in the night, and have kept thy law. AV Ps 119:55
Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths. AV Lam 1:7
My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me. AV Lam 3:20
They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness ... AV Ps 145:7
He hath made his wonderful works to be remembered ... AV Ps 111:4a

God's extreme emphasis on this one KeyWord shows His concern that we remember Him, His Works, and the spiritual meaning of the Seventh Day Sabbath that now is fulfilled in Christ, our Everlasting Rest, as it is written in Colossians 2:16f (Spoke 7, Cycle 3):

Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body [substance, reality] is of Christ.

God marked the connection between the Seventh Day and the Seventh Spoke by placing the final occurrence of word sabbath in Bible in this verse from Colossians.

God amplified the idea of remembrance in two Alphabetic Verses with the KeyWord zamam which means to think, consider, meditate, or plan:

She considereth (zamam) a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard. AV Prov 31:16
The wicked plotteth (zamam) against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth. AV Ps 37:12

This is what God calls us to do in this busy buzzing world of endless motion. Be still, and know He is God. Christ must be our meditation and our remembrance all the day long.

Spoke 8

Ruth, Amos,
1 Thessalonians

The angel of the LORD encampeth (chanah) round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.

AV Psalm 34:7

Ancient Form of the Letter Chet The Eighth Letter represents a fence, hedge, wall, or enclosure. This coheres with its ancient form that looks like two fence poles with two or three rails. It gave rise to the Greek and Latin forms of the Letter H. The number of Chet KeyWords expressing similar ideas is truly astounding. There really is no other Letter with such a dense and consistent grouping of associated ideas. Its symbolic meaning is particularly evident in words that start with Chet Bet, like chov (bosom), chavav (cherish), chavar (friend), chevel (cord), and so forth as listed in the table. Note that Chet is pronounced as an "h" with rough breathing, like the "ch" in Bach. God used four of the KeyWords listed in the table in the Chet Alphabetic Verses; one cited above, and these three:

She girdeth (chagar) her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms. AV Prov 31:17
The bands (chevel) of the wicked have robbed me: but I have not forgotten thy law. AV Ps 119:61
I am a companion (chavar) of all them that fear thee, and of them that keep thy precepts. AV Ps 119:63

Chet KeyWords These verses establish the fundamental meaning of Chet as something that surrounds, binds, holds things together, both physically as a wall, and socially as friendship and love. It is, therefore, a great joy to see the one KeyWord that God used most frequently in the Chet Alphabetic Verses carries within itself the fundamental message of the Gospel, grace and mercy!

... the LORD is gracious (channun) and full of compassion. -- AV Ps 111:4b
... he is gracious (channun), and full of compassion, and righteous. -- AV Ps 112:4b
The LORD is gracious (channun), and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy (chesed). -- AV Ps 145:8

In the all three verses, gracious appears in conjunction with the Resh KeyWord racham (compassion, BW book pg 342), spelt Resh Chet Mem. In the third verse, God used it in conjunction with another Chet KeyWord chesed, that He also used as the primary KeyWord in two other Alphabetic Verses:

The earth, O LORD, is full of thy mercy (chesed): teach me thy statutes. -- AV Ps 119:64
It is of the LORD'S mercies (chesed) that we are not consumed, because his compassions (racham) fail not. -- AV Lam 3:22
They are new (chadash) every morning: great is thy faithfulness. AV Lam 3:23

The third verse is consecutive with Lamentations 3:22 and should be read with it. It introduces the KeyWord chadash (new) which correlates with the universally recognized symbolic meaning of the Number 8 as New Beginnings. Note the associated KeyWord chinnam (free) in the table; it describes the nature of God's grace. Putting all these ideas together, we see the essential promise of God and message of the Gospel: We are hedged about on every side with God's free Mercy and Grace! Now that's the Gospel!

Spoke 9 1 Samuel, Obadiah, 2 Thessalonians
Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power: That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.......................................2 Thessalonians 1:11f (Spoke 9, Cycle 3)

God established the symbolic power of the Ninth Letter with great clarity. He used the same KeyWord tov (good) in thirteen of the Alphabetic Verses corresponding to Tet (the Alphabetic Verses are indicated by the prefix AV):

Good and upright is the LORD: therefore will he teach sinners in the way.........................................AV Ps 25:8
A good man sheweth favour, and lendeth:...AV Ps 112.5a
It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.................................AV Lam 3:27
It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes. ....AV Ps 119:71
It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.......................................................................................................AV Lam 3.26
Thou art good, and doest good; teach me thy statutes. .............................AV Ps 119.68
Teach me good judgment and knowledge: for I have believed thy commandments.
..............................................................................................................AV Ps 119:66
The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works..........AV Ps 145.9
The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him..AV Lam 3.25
Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O LORD, according unto thy word.......AV Ps 119.65
The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver......AV Ps 119:72
A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked......AV Ps 37:16
They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger:
.................................................................................................................AV Lam 4:9

These verses reveal the primary significance that God invested in Tet from the beginning. Indeed, the first occurrence of Tet in Scripture is in the tov describing God's initial act of creation, "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good (tov)" (Gen 1:3f). It describes the essence of His Work. He used it seven times in the creation account, capping it all off with the declaration that everything (et-kol, BW book pg 89) was very good (tov m'od). Its ninth occurrence is particularly striking because it describes the Tree of the Knowledge of Good (Tov) and Ra (Evil) which plays a very signifincant role on Spoke 9. Note that that word for evil (ra) is a a Resh KeyWord (BW book, pg 350) which is diametrically opposed to Tet on the Wheel.

These antithetical ideas are represented by the letters (Tet) and (Resh) which are, like the letters of et-kol (everything), diametrically opposed on the alphabetic Wheel. The unfortunate reality of this fallen world is that these opposites are also inextricably intertwined in constant warfare with each other. There is a hint of this in the name of the Ninth Letter, Tet, which denotes the concept of twisting and is generally assumed by scholars to be based on an ancient word meaning serpent. This links directly to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the origin of evil when Satan, the first deceiver, told the first lie in violation of the universal law that later would be enshrined in the Ninth Commandment. It was through his lie and our first parents' subsequent disobedience to the Word of the Lord that evil (ra) entered the world that God had created very good (tov m'od). The interplay between the KeyWords tov and ra is displayed with great clarity in the story of Saul's persecution of David.

Spoke 10

2 Samuel, Jonah,
1 Timothy

Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

1 Timothy 1:17 (Spoke 10, Cycle 3)

Yod KeyWords The name of the Tenth Letter is based on yad, the Hebrew word for a hand. God established its name in four Alphabetic Verses:

Thy hands have made me and fashioned me: give me understanding, that I may learn thy commandments. AV Ps 119:73
She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff. AV Prov 31:19
The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: AV Lam 1:10
The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: AV Lam 4:10

The Symbol of the Hand naturally represents power, might, ability, and authority because with it we handle, control, possess, and manipulate (from the Latin manus = hand) everything in our world. Indeed, yad is translated as power twelve times in the KJV and when God gave dominion over all creatures to Noah and his sons, he said "into your hand are they delivered." A ruling king has the land under the "power of his hand" and God freed the Jews from their Egyptian bondage "with great power, and with a mighty hand" (Exo 32:11). Jesus Christ asserted His Authority as Divine Messiah when He answered the High Priest saying "Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power" (Luke 22:69). Scripture routinely speaks of the "work of his hands" as a general metaphor for all that a person does, and in the ultimate sense for all God's work in creation, as in the Yod verse above, "Thy hands have made me and fashioned me" (AV Ps 119:73).

This connection between Yod and Action is the basis of its two primary roles in the Hebrew grammar (BW book pg 112). The Yod Prefix signifies the grammatical conjugation called the "third person masculine imperfect" which is how Hebrew conveys the sense of "he does" or "he is doing" as discussed below. The Yod Suffix signifies the "first person possessive," the sense of me and mine. This also is the basis of the Number 10 in the Ten Commandments which are God's fundamental guide telling us how to act (Yod Prefix = Active Hand), with the Tenth Commandment itself, Thou shalt not covet, relating directly to personal possession (Yod Suffix). These ideas are dominant themes of 1 Timothy as discussed below (BW book pp 236-238).

Yod (y) is the smallest Hebrew Letter. It gave rise to the Greek Iota, called a jot in the KJV when Christ used it as a symbol of the smallest detail of Scripture (Mat 5:18, pg 18):

For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot (iota) or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

The words IOTA and JOT come directly from the Hebrew YOD, with the I and J corresponding to the Y, and the T corresponding to the D (both dentals). This smallest of Letters is the symbol of the greatest of powers. Rabbinic tradition sees this as teaching that "greatness lies in humble self-effacement."

Spoke 11 1 Kings, Micah, 2 Timothy
And Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in the presence of all the congregation of Israel, and spread forth his hands (kaph) toward heaven: And he said, LORD God of Israel, there is no God like thee, in heaven above, or on earth beneath, who keepest covenant and mercy with thy servants that walk before thee with all their heart. .........1 Kings 8:22f (Spoke 11, Cycle 1)

The name of the Eleventh Letter denotes the palm or hollow of the hand. The Lord established its name in one of His Alphabetic Verses:

She stretcheth out her hand (kaph) to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.
..........................................................AV Prov 31:20

This exhibits Kaph as the symbol of the Open/Giving hand extended to the poor. It contrasts with Yod as the symbol of the Active/Grasping Hand (see Yod versus Kaph). Kaph also represents receiving, as when we hold our hands open to God and pray for His blessings like Solomon did when he lifted the name of the Eleventh Letter in the figure of his palms unto the Lord.

Solomon Praying (Bonito, 1750)

There is a strong link between the verses above; they both use the verb parash, translated as "spread forth" in 1 Kings 8:22 and "stretcheth" in AV Proverbs 31:20. Kaph also denotes a spoon (1 Kings 7:50), since it is similar to the palm of a hand, and the sole of the foot as when the Lord put David's enemies "under the soles (kaph) of his feet" (1 Kings 5:3). Kaph is one of the five Letters that takes an alternate form

when written at the end of a word.

Solomon spoke his prayer at the dedication of the Temple he built after being established (kun) as King upon the throne (kissey) of Israel. This fulfilled the promise God had made to his father David:

And the LORD said unto him, I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication, that thou hast made before me: I have hallowed this house, which thou hast built, to put my name there for ever; and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually. And if thou wilt walk before me, as David thy father walked, in integrity of heart, and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded thee, and wilt keep my statutes and my judgments: Then I will establish (kun) the throne (kissey) of thy kingdom upon Israel for ever, as I promised to David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man upon the throne (kissey) of Israel............................................1 Kings 9:3ff (Spoke 11, Cycle 1)

This is the climax of the entire historical sequence we have traced all the way from the First Spoke. The KeyWord kissey (throne) distinguishes the Eleventh Book from all others. The graph displays its distribution in the Twelve Old Testament History Books. Obviously, it needs no explanation. First Kings is the Book that established the typology of Christ as our incomparable King sitting on the Throne of His Glory. This then links to a third KeyWord that came to prominence at the dedication of the Temple when God revealed His presence by filling it with a cloud of glory:

And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the LORD, So that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud: for the glory (kavod) of the LORD had filled the house of the LORD.
.......1 Kings 8:10f (Spoke 11, Cycle 1)

This verse exemplifies one of the most significant Kaph KeyWords:

They shall speak of the glory (kavod) of thy kingdom, and talk of thy power.
..............................................................................................................AV Ps 145:11

And speak they did! The fame of Solomon's Kingdom spread far and wide:

And there came of all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all kings of the earth, which had heard of his wisdom. .................................1 Kings 4:34 (Spoke 11, Cycle 1)

Most notable amongst his visitors was the Queen of Sheba. She simply could not believe the stories that were being told of Solomon's Kingdom, so she came to check it out for herself:

And she said to the king, It was a true report that I heard in mine own land of thy acts and of thy wisdom. Howbeit I believed not the words, until I came, and mine eyes had seen it: and, behold, the half was not told me: thy wisdom and prosperity exceedeth the fame which I heard. Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants, which stand continually before thee, and that hear thy wisdom. Blessed be the LORD thy God, which delighted in thee, to set thee on the throne (kissey) of Israel: because the LORD loved Israel for ever, therefore made he thee king, to do judgment and justice.
...........................................................................1 Kings 10:6ff (Spoke 11, Cycle 1)

Solomon's wisdom and glory are truly proverbial; Jesus mentioned both. Rabbi Munk (Wisdom of the Hebrew Alphabet, pg 138) gave his Jewish insight into the symbolic meaning of Kaph and how it relates to the Mem KeyWord malkuth (kingdom, Bible Wheel book pg 266):

The (Lamed) is a majestic Letter, towering above the other Letters from its position in the center of the Alphabet. Thus it symbolizes the King of Kings, the Supreme Ruler. On one side Lamed is flanked by the (Kaph) which alludes to the kiseh hakavod, God's Throne of Glory, while on its other side stands (Mem), the Attribute of malkuth, God's Kingship [Spoke 13, BW book pg 266]. Together, these three Letters spell Melek (King).

Spoke 12

2 Kings, Nahum, Titus

Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers. For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision: Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake.

Titus 1:9ff (Spoke 12, Cycle 3)

The Twelfth Letter repre- sents the rod of the teacher. It is the "pointer" Letter which is why its taller than the others. Its ancient form pictured a shepherd's staff, ox goad, or pointer. It was essentially identical to our modern "L" and corresponds quite naturally to the rod in the classic image of the Good Shepherd. As a verb, lamad means both to teach and to learn. It is the root of Talmud, the name of the compendium of Jewish learning and tradition. And just as the role of the teacher is to point to the truth, so the Lamed Prefix indicates such prepositions as to, for, towards, and according to in Hebrew grammar. This is how God used it in most of the corresponding Alphabetic Verses, such as the three consecutive verses that begin the Lamed section of Psalm 119:

FOR ever (L'olam), O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven. ........................AV Ps 119:89
Thy faithfulness is UNTO all generations (L'dor vador): thou hast established the earth, and it abideth. ........................................................................................AV Ps 119:90
They continue this day ACCORDING TO thine ordinances (L'mishpateka): for all are thy servants. ...............................................................................................AV Ps 119:91

Besides demonstrating the role of Lamed in Hebrew grammar, all three of these verses emphasize its symbolic meaning as the Faithful Rod of the Supreme Ruler by which all things are settled and established so that they remain, abide, and continue. Jewish tradition teaches that this is why Lamed stands tall in the center of the Mem KeyWord melek (king, BW book pg 266), as explained by Rabbi Munk in the twelfth chapter of his book The Wisdom of the Hebrew Alphabet titled Lamed: The Symbol of Teaching and Purpose. It is particularly significant that Munk interwove his explanation of Lamed with the symbolic meanings of Kaph and Mem using exactly the same meanings that we have seen to be profoundly integrated with the structure of the Christian Bible [references added in square brackets]:

The (Lamed) is a majestic Letter, towering above the other Letters from its position in the center of the Alphabet. Thus it symbolizes the King of Kings, the Supreme Ruler. On one side Lamed is flanked by the (Kaph) which alludes to the kiseh hakavod, God's Throne of Glory [Spoke 11, BW book pg 239], while on its other side stands (Mem), the Attribute of malkuth, God's Kingship [Spoke 13, BW book pg 266]. Together, these three Letters spell Melek (King).

We have, therefore, a complete integration of the traditional rabbinic understanding of the meaning of all three of these Letters Kaph, Lamed, Mem with what we have discovered from the Alphabetic Verses, and all of this is fully integrated with the geometric structure of the Wheel in the most astounding ways. Furthermore, this integrates with the maximized distribution of the word melek (king) on the first Cycle exactly on Spoke 12 (BW book pg 104), corresponding to the Lamed at its center.

The Lamed Prefix combines with the Kaph Suffix (sign of you or yours, BW book pg 113) to form the word lekha meaning to you or for you. Likewise, the Lamed Prefix combines with the Yod Suffix (sign of me or mine) to form the word li meaning to me or for me. God used these words in three Alphabetic Verses:

I am thine (Lekha ani), save me; for I have sought thy precepts. ..................................................AV Ps 119:94
The wicked have waited for me (li qivu) to destroy me: but I will consider thy testimonies.....................AV Ps 119:95

The phrase "I am thine" uses the Aleph KeyWord ani (I, BW book pg 125) and literally reads "To thee I am." The word order of the second verse was also changed in translation; the actual Hebrew begins with Li qivu (For me they have waited). God used a similar word in AV Psalm 34:

Come ye (Lekhu) children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the LORD.......................................................................................................AV Ps 34:11

This verse is particularly rich. It contains three fundamental Lamed KeyWords, including the name of the Twelfth Letter:

This verse is integrated with the exact sequence of Books in the Bible. It forms an Alphabetic KeyLink to the Book of 2 Kings, as discussed in Teaching the Fear of the Lord. It also exemplifies much of what we have learned on other Spokes. The word lekhu is the plural imperative of the Hey KeyWord halak (walk, BW book pg 194). It means both to come and to go, the latter being how it is used twice in the opening passage of 2 Kings below (BW book pg 251). The word li (to me) shows how Lamed combines with the Yod Suffix (sign of me or mine, pg 114). The word translated as "I will teach you" exemplifies both the verb lamad and the Aleph Prefix as the sign of "I will" (pg 125), and banim is the plural of the Bet KeyWord ben (son, BW book pg 136). Its message closely echoes the call of Christ unto each of us (Mat 11:28ff):

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

The idea of learning involves both positive and negative commandments, the latter being expressed by the fundamental Lamed KeyWord (lo) which means no or not. It is called the negative particle and is used in every "thou shalt not" found in the Ten Commandments. In this word, (Aleph) functions pretty much as a place holder for the vowel so its meaning as "no" comes primarily from the elemental force of (Lamed) as the sign of the rod of the teacher. God used this word in three Alphabetic Verses (Lam 1:12, 4:12, Prov 31:21).

This is the essence of the Twelfth Letter. It represents teaching and learning. It is the rod of the teacher that points his disciples towards truth and away from error. The miracle of God is that its symbolic meaning coheres precisely with its grammatical function as the sign of the prepositions "to," "for" and so forth. This is the supernatural self-reflective integ-rity that unites the Hebrew Language with its Alphabet. The Twenty-Two Letters carry their distinct and unique meanings into the words that they form. Yet there is more! God used the symbolic meaning of Lamed as an absolutely unmistakable marker to identify a singular event in the biography of His Son, the greatest Teacher ever to live...

Spoke 13 1 Chronicles, Habakkuk,Philemon
For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters (mayim) cover the sea. ........ Habakkuk 2:14 (Spoke 13, Cycle 2)

Mem KeyWords The name of the Thirteenth Letter is based on the word mayim, meaning water. In the ancient Hebrew script, the pictograph for Mem was drawn as a wavy line indicating waves of water and is still seen in the Latin M. When written at the end of a word, it takes the final form which is more square, and smooth like calm water. The KeyWord table displays its profound connection with the meaning of its name. God used four of these KeyWords to describe the Flood of Noah, the greatest hydrological event in the history of the world (Gen 7:4ff):

For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain (matar) upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth. ... And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters (mayim) of the flood (mabul) were upon the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains (ma'ayin) of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

The Flood also is one of the greatest typological events in the Bible. It is a precursor (type) of the Universal Judgment that awaits till the End of Time (Rev 20:12, Spoke 22, BW book pg 374). This is the Divine Judgment Christ suffered for us when He was "baptized" (Luke 12:50) on the Cross, and so it is that water baptism symbolizes our union with Him in His death, burial, and resurrection (Rom 6:4). Scripture therefore declares Baptism to be the antitype (fulfillment) corresponding to the type (foreshadow) of the Flood (1 Pet 3:20). Just as the Flood cleansed the ancient world of sinners, so we are cleansed by entering Christ through faith, symbolized by Baptism. Both symbols are also linked with the Dove. All three fit together like pieces of a puzzle to form a threefold typological unity. As a group, they are independent in that Bible never links all three at once, but there are many verses that link them pair-wise. For example, Genesis 8:11 links the Dove with the Flood, 1 Peter 3:20 links Baptism with the Flood, and Matthew 3:16 links the Dove with Baptism. These relations can be represented by a Venn Diagram . The three circles represent the three symbols. The verses connecting the pairs are listed in the space where the circles overlap. Taken together, they display a Divine unity that no single Book of the Bible reveals by itself. This is why we must understand the whole Bible before we can really understand its parts.

Venn Diagram of threefold typological unity

Gen 8:11: And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.
1 Pet 3:18ff: For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit: ... when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. The like figure (antitype) whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ:
Mat 3:16: And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:

The thing so impressive here is that the Flood happened millennia before the Cross, yet it fits like a perfectly pre-designed puzzle piece to integrate with the Gospel that was yet to come! There are innumerable examples of structures like this in the Bible. This is why Paul said that Scripture "preached the Gospel to Abraham" (Gal 3:8). The Bible is One Book designed by God to proclaim One Message the everlasting Gospel of Jesus Christ! Obviously, such epoch-spanning semantic art could come only from Him who dwells in Eternity.

The first two symbols Baptism and the Flood are directly connected with water, whereas the third the Dove is connected via its relation to the Holy Spirit. This association appears throughout Scripture from the first chapter of Genesis where the "Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters" to the last chapter of Revelation where the Spirit and the Bride say "let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." This is the water of the Spirit that God promised saying, "I will pour water (mayim) upon him that is thirsty ... I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed" (Isa 44:3). Christ fulfilled this promise, saying "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water" (John 7:38). The Evangelist then explained that the water represented "the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive." As an aside, this verse attests to the Divinity of Christ since He called everyone to come to Him to drink the living water, and Scripture identifies the "fountain of living waters" with God Himself (Jer 17:13, see below).

The strong Biblical connection between water and life is familiar to every living creature since all life depends upon this element. Every day, we drink it, prepare our food with it, and cleanse ourselves with it. It is, therefore, a universal symbol of the source of life, refreshment, cleansing, restoration, and renewal. Thus God promises to lead us beside still waters and to restore our souls (Ps 23:2f). He tells us that anyone who delights in His Word and continuously meditates in it "shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper" (Ps 1:3), and calls us to joyfully "draw water (mayim) out of the wells (maqor) of salvation" (Isa 12:3). He united all this the ultimate symbol of the source of life that flows from Him when He identified Himself as "the fountain of living waters" (Jer 17:13):

Fountain of Life (Hebrew)

O LORD, the hope (miqveh) of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters (maqor mayim chayim).

This verse uses three Mem KeyWords, including miqveh (hope) which is based on the Quph KeyWord qavah (to wait, BW book pg 330) prefixed with a Mem to form the substantive noun. The root verb also means to gather together and as such gives rise to another meaning of miqveh as a gathering of water. This is the name of the Jewish ritual bath which shares many symbolic overtones with Christian Baptism (cleansing, conversion, renewal). Both of these words first appear on the Third Day of Creation in conjunction with mayim (Genesis 1:9f):

And God said, Let the waters (mayim) under the heaven be gathered together (qavah) unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together (miqveh) of the waters (mayim) called he Seas (Yamim): and God saw that it was good.

Note the close relation between the words yamim (seas) and mayim (water).

Historically, Biblical scholars have seen a profound typological connection with the events of the Third Day, the Flood, Baptism, and the Character and Work of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity (Spoke 3, BW book pg 166). Just as God gathered the waters on the Third Day, so the Holy Spirit gathers the people of God into one place in Christ. The Final Book explicitly confirms the validity of this typology (Rev 17:15):

And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.

The "whore" is a familiar symbol of false religion and faithless people which was seen in our study of Spoke 6 (BW book pg 202). It contrasts with the Bride as the symbol of all believers who have been gathered into one Body in Christ (Spoke 3, BW book pg 166). The Septuagint amplifies this association by using the Greek word synagogue to describe the "one place" where the waters were gathered. Thus "the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water (mayim) of life freely" (Rev 22:17).

Nun

Spoke 14

2 Chronicles,
Zephaniah, Hebrews

Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.

Hebrews 13:8 (Spoke 14, Cycle 3)

Nun KeyWords The name of the Fourteenth Letter is both a verb and a noun. As a verb, it means to continue, flourish, increase, sprout, or propagate. It appears this way only once in Scripture, in the great prophecy declaring the eternal endurance of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ (Ps 72:17):

His name shall endure for ever: his name shall be continued ( Yinon , yinon) as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed.

The Jews have long recognized the messianic character of this Psalm. The Talmud notes that when yinon is read as a noun, the verse can be understood as saying "His name shall endure forever; his name has been Yinon since before the sun was created." This was an early rabbinic glimpse of the eternal nature of the Messiah, a central theme of the Book of Hebrews on the third Cycle of Spoke 14. This tradition has endured to the present day, and appears in every rabbinic commentary on the Hebrew Alphabet I have encountered.

As a noun, Nun means both perpetuity and posterity, the latter arising from the idea of the continuance of the family line. This manifests in the cognate neen (son/offspring), which appears three times in Scripture, always in conjunction with another KeyWord of similar meaning, neked (posterity). Rabbi Munk, in his Wisdom of the Hebrew Alphabet , commented on the relation between neen and Nun in his section titled "The Word Nun Means Perpetuation," which he followed with a section called "The Everlasting Nun." This understanding is universal in the rabbinic tradition; the Letter Nun is the symbol of posterity, perpetuity, and eternality. The word nun also denotes a fish because it is so prolific. Most dictionaries list this as the meaning of its name.

God united the idea of posterity with the Number Fourteen in the structure of Matthews genealogy of Jesus Christ (Mat 1:17):

So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations;
and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations;
and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations.

The amazing thing is that God also combined the Babylonian Exile with the Number 14 in the correlated substructure marked by the end of the pre-exilic Books on both Cycle 1 (2 Chronicles) and Cycle 2 (Zephaniah) of Spoke 14 (BW book pg 101), so that Written Word exhibits the same united thematic and numerical pattern as the genealogy of the Living Word!

The ideas of continuity, perpetuity, and posterity naturally flow into another set of fundamental KeyWords that originates in the great Alphabetic Psalm 119 (vs 111):

Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage (nachal) for ever: for they are the rejoicing of my heart.

This KeyWord is an exact pun on nachal (river), which paints the picture of a heritage as flowing like a river from one generation to the next. This logically extends the metaphor of people as water discussed on Spoke 13 (Mem = water, BW book pg 265). It also encapsulates one of the most significant themes of the Book of Hebrews: Christ as Heir of all things. Finally, all these ideas combine to form a picture of true faithfulness, which Webster's Dictionary aptly defines as "steadfast in allegiance, loyal, firm in adherence to promises or in observance of duty." This KeyWord appears in two of Alphabetic Verses:

... all his commandments are sure (ne'eman). - AV Ps 111:7b
The Lord is faithful (ne'eman) in all his words ... - AV Ps 145:13b (NRSV)

Ne'eman means steadfast, sure, firm, trustworthy and faithful. It is based on the Aleph KeyWord emunah (faith, BW book pg 130). Scripture uses ne'eman to describe our "faithful God" (Deut 7:9), His servant Moses whom He said "was faithful in all my house" (Num 12:7), and Jesus Christ as the prophesied "faithful priest" (1 Sam 2:35). It defines the central theological emphasis of both 2 Chronicles and Hebrews. These ideas are seen in their utmost clarity in the articles Jesus Christ: High Priest and Heir of All Things and A Priest Forever after the Order of Melchizedek

Spoke 15

Ezra, Haggai, James

Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

James 4:10 (Spoke 15, Cycle 3)

The primary themes of the Fifteenth Spoke are based directly on meaning of the Fifteenth Letter. Its name comes from the verb samak, variously translated in the KJV as support, uphold, sustain, establish, and stand fast. This coheres with its form in the ancient Hebrew script as a pillar upholding three horizontal beams. God firmly established its name and meaning in four Alphabetic Verses:

The LORD upholdeth (samak) all that fall, and raiseth up all those that be bowed down.
.....................................................AV Ps 145:14
They stand fast (samak) for ever and ever ... ..............................................AV Ps 111:8a
His heart is established (samak), he shall not be afraid ... ..........................AV Ps 112:8a
Uphold (samak) me according unto thy word, that I may live: and let me not be ashamed of my hope............................................................................................ AV Ps 119:116

As a verb, samak refers to all kinds of support spiritual, moral, financial, and physical. It describes the support and foundation of buildings, as with "the two middle pillars upon which the house stood, and on which it was borne up (samak)" in the house brought down by Samson (Jdg 16:29). God presented the synonym sa'ad typically translated with similar words such as uphold, support, sustain, help as a KeyWord in Psalm 119:

Hold thou me up (saad), and I shall be safe: and I will have respect unto thy statutes continually. ...........................................................................................AV Ps 119:117

God used this word to metaphorically describe the foundation of a righteous king's throne, "Mercy and truth preserve the king: and his throne is upheld (sa'ad) by mercy" (Prov 20:28), and again in the prophecy of the Everlasting Kingdom of His Son, Jesus Christ (Isa 9:6f):

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish (sa'ad) it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever.

This KeyWord also appears in Ezra (Cycle 1) when God sent the Prophet Haggai (Cycle 2) and others to help (sa'ad) the captives returning from the Babylonian Exile in their efforts to rebuild His Temple:

Then the prophets, Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied unto the Jews that were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel, even unto them. Then rose up Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and began to build the house of God which is at Jerusalem: and with them were the prophets of God helping (saad) them. ...........................................Ezra 5:2 (Spoke 15, Cycle 1)

The third KeyWord listed in the table, sabal, also appears in Ezra when the gentile king Cyrus wrote his Decree of Support for the rebuilding of the Temple:

In the first year of Cyrus the king, the same Cyrus the king made a decree concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, Let the house be builded, the place where they offered sacrifices, and let the foundations thereof be strongly laid (sabal); the height thereof threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof threescore cubits;
..................................................................................... Ezra 6:3 (Spoke 15, Cycle 1)

Spoke 16

Nehemiah, Zechariah,
1 Peter

For who hath despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven; they are the eyes of the LORD, which run to and fro through the whole earth.

Zechariah 4:10 (Spoke 16, Cycle 2)

Ayin KeyWords The great themes of Spoke 16 flow directly from the literal meaning of the name of the Sixteenth Letter Ayin the common Hebrew word for an eye, the organ of sight. This coheres with shape in the ancient script O a simple image of the eye. Ayin also denotes a well, spring, or fountain, a kind of "eye of water" in the ground. It is one of the most firmly established names; there being six Alphabetic Verses bearing witness to it:

Mine eyes are ever toward the LORD ... AV Ps 25:15
Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not ... AV Lam 3:49
Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city. AV Lam 3:51
Mine eyes fail for thy salvation, and for the word of thy righteousness. AV Ps 119:123
The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season. AV Ps 145:15
The eyes of the LORD are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry. AV Ps 34:15

The reference to "the eyes of the Lord" in the last verse is particularly enlightening. This phrase appears twenty-two times in the KJV, with the final two aligned on Spoke 16 in Zechariah 4:10 (quoted above) and this verse from 1 Peter 3:12:

For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.

Spoke 16 Alphabetic KeyLink This verse from 1 Peter is a direct quote from the Ayin verse of Psalm 34. It is quoted in no other Book and so forms a unique link an Alphabetic KeyLink from the Ayin verse of AV Psalm 34 to 1 Peter on Spoke 16. Furthermore, the KeyLink is based on the meaning of the name of the Sixteenth Letter itself! Consider what is going on here. We have another top-level, super-obvious, explicit integration of the order of the Books of the Bible with the pattern of the Hebrew Alphabet.

The Eyes of the Lord
Hb		Einei YHVH
Gk		Opthalmoi Kuriou

A closer analysis reveals a very tight connection between Spoke 16, AV Psalm 34:15, and the literal meaning of the name of the sixteenth letter. The exact phrase that appears in Zechariah 4:10 is einei YHVH. This phrase appears in only six verses from four books (Deut 11:12, AV Ps 34:15, Prov 5:21, 15:3, 22:12, Zech 4:10). When translated into the Greek Septuagint (LXX), the phrase became "opthalmoi kuriou" which appears in one and only one verse of the Greek New Testament, (1 Peter 3:12, of course). Much more common is the phrase b'einei YHVH formed with the Bet prefix to indicate the preposition "in". This phrase appears 92 times in Scripture, translated as "in the eyes of God" 13 times and "in the sight of God" 79 times.

We have therefore and extremely strong thematic link from the Ayin verse of AV Psalm 34:15 to both Zechariah and 1 Peter on Spoke 16. It is not an Alphabetic KeyLink to Zechariah because there is not a unique linking set as there is between it and 1 Peter 3:12 where it is quoted.

Threefold Thematic Link: The Eyes of God

Ayin (Eye)

AV Psalm 34:15

Zechariah 4:10

1 Peter 3:12

This is an example of the astounding wealth of Alphabetic Links and KeyLinks found in AV Psalm 34. It played key roles on Spoke 1 (BW book pg 128), Spoke 2 (BW book pg 139), Spoke 9 (BW book pg 224), and now here on Spoke 16. But the best is yet to come in the absolutely stunning Alphabetic KeyLink from the prophecy of the Crucifixion in its Shin verse to the unique record of its fulfillment in John's Gospel on Spoke 21 (BW book pg 361).

Spoke 17

Esther, Malachi,
2 Peter

The law of truth was in his mouth (pey), and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity. For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth (pey): for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts.

Malachi 2:6f (Spoke 17, Cycle 2)

The name of the Seventeenth Letter signifies the mouth, the organ of speech. God used it as a KeyWord in three Alphabetic Verses, two of which are followed by the closely associated KeyWords patach and pa'ar, both translated as open:

The mouth (pey) of the righteous speaketh wisdom, and his tongue talketh of judgment. spacer........- AV Ps 37:30
She openeth (patach) her mouth (pey) with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. ....... - AV Prov 31:26
I opened (pa'ar) my mouth (pey), and panted: for I longed for thy commandments. spacer.............. - AV Ps 119:131

The alliterative repetition¹ of Pey KeyWords emphasizes and amplifies its symbolic meaning by showing how this Letter links related ideas. This is very common in the Alphabetic Verses as seen, for example, with Bet, Tet, and Tzaddi (BW book, pgs 138, 223, 326). God also used the verb patach (to open) and its associated noun petach (entrance) as KeyWords in two other Alphabetic Verses:

Thou openest (patach) thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing.
spacer...............................................................................................- AV Ps 145:16
The entrance (petach) of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.
spacer.............................................................................................- AV Ps 119:130

Christians are familiar with patach through its Aramaic cognate preserved in Mark 7:34: "And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened." This word uses the soft Phey that sounds like "f" or "ph." It is distinguished from the hard Pey by the dot (dagesh) in the center. This Letter is also one of the five that take an alternate final (sofit) form when written at the end of a word.

The hard Pey is called a plosive because its sound is made by suddenly bursting open the lips to release the pressure behind them. Its elementary power is clearly displayed in the KeyWord puach (puff, blow). Both it and its translation puff are onomatopoetic (they sound like what they describe). This sets the tone for many of the prominent themes of Spoke 17, most notably the prophecies of the Parousia, the Coming of the Lord. The idea of opening is amplified yet again in another KeyWord that God used twice in conjunction with pey:

All thine enemies have opened (patzah) their mouth (pey) against thee: - AV Lam 2:16
All our enemies have opened (patzah) their mouths (pey) against us. - AV Lam 3:46

Note again the alliteration of Pey KeyWords, including the name of the Letter itself. Almost all occurrences of patzah, (twelve out of fifteen, or 80%), describe opening the mouth. Its first appearance is in conjunction with pey and another very important KeyWord panim (face) when God cursed Cain after he had murdered his brother (Gen 4:11ff):

And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened (patzah) her mouth (pey) to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand ... And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face (panim) of the earth; and from thy face (panim) shall I be hid (essater); and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.

Cain's cry that he would be hid from God's face is an essential key to the Book of Esther. The verb translated "I will be hid" (essater) is spelt with exactly the same Letters as (Esther), differing only in two vowel points. As an aside, this exemplifies the Aleph Prefix as the sign of "I will" (BW book pg 125, or see the online review of Alphabetic KeyWords for Aleph). The name of the Book of Esther therefore points directly to one of its most prominent features it contains no mention of God whatsoever! This is very rare feature, found in no other Book except the Song of Songs, and is one of the reasons its inclusion in the Canon was strongly debated. As we shall see, God's apparent absence is an essential aspect of Esther which He designed to demonstrate His providential care even when He seems to be absent, "hiding His face" as it were. [This is an example of the overwhelming power of the Bible Wheel to explain long-standing controversies about the Canon - see Apocryphal Additions to Esther Excluded.]

The KeyWord panim (face) is from the root panah (turn, look) in the sense that you see the face when someone turns to look at you. It is evident in the name Peniel (Face of God) that Jacob coined after he wrestled with God, saying "for I have seen God face to face" (panim el panim, Gen 32:30). God used these KeyWords in five Alphabetic Verses:

Turn (panah) thee unto me, and have mercy upon me; for I am desolate and afflicted.
spacer.................................................................................................- AV Ps 25:16
Look (panah) thou upon me, and be merciful unto me, as thou usest to do unto those that love thy name. spacer...........................................................................- AV Ps 119:132
Make thy face (panim) to shine upon thy servant; and teach me thy statutes.
spacer.................................................................................................- AV Ps 119:135
The face (panim) of the LORD is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. spacer...................................................................- AV Ps 34:16
The face (panim) of the LORD hath divided them; he will no more regard them: they respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders. ......- AV Lam 4:16

The most frequent use of panim is in its construct state (p'nei, face of) with the Lamed Prefix - - the sign of the prepositions to or for (BW book pg 247, or see the online review of the Alphabetic Verses for Lamed), to form (liphnei) which literally means "to the face of" and is usually translated as "in front of," "before," "towards," or "in the presence of." The frequency of this word is greatly maximized in Esther where it plays an essential role in the overall structure of the story which begins with Vashti's refusal to show off her beauty "before (liphnei) the king ... the people and the princes" (vs 1:11), and climaxes when Esther boldly, and at her own peril, presents herself "before (liphnei) the king" to save her people from destruction (vs 8:4),

Spoke 18

Job, Matthew, 1 John

My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

1 John 2:1 (Spoke 18, Cycle 3)

Tzaddi KeyWords God established the primary symbolic meaning of the Eighteenth Letter with great clarity in six Alphabetic Verses:

Righteous (Tzaddik) art thou, O LORD, and upright are thy judgments. AV Ps 119:137
The LORD is righteous (tzaddik) in all his ways, and holy in all his works. AV Ps 145:17
The LORD is righteous (tzaddik); for I have rebelled against his commandment. AV Lam 1:18
... His righteousness (tzedakah) endureth for ever; AV Ps 112:9b
Thy righteousness (tzedakah) is an everlasting righteousness. AV Ps 119:142
The righteousness (tzedek) of thy testimonies is everlasting: AV Ps 119:144

God used this KeyWord when He declared the way of the Gospel, "the just (tzaddik) shall live by faith" (Hab 2:4), and again in the genesis of the Gospel when Abraham "believed in the Lord, and it was counted unto him as righteousness (tzedakah)" (Gen 15:6, BW book pg 130). The link between righteousness and the eighteenth letter is ancient and fundamental. Rabbinic tradition uniformly attests to this understanding of Tzaddi, and to this day many Jews refer to the eighteenth letter by the name Tzaddik.

All six of the Alphabetic Verses listed above refer to God's perfect and eternal righteousness. He alone is, was, and ever will be Tzaddik. This is the uniform declaration of all Scripture. But how then do we understand evil in the world? Why do the righteous suffer? Where is the Divine Counsel concerning the Problem of Evil in light of God's Righteousness? This is the topic of the Book of Job, the first of the Five Wisdom Books.

Spoke 19

Psalms, Mark, 2 John

I cried with my whole heart; hear me, O LORD: I will keep thy statutes. I cried unto thee; save me, and I shall keep thy testimonies.

Psalm 18:6 (Spoke 19, Cycle 1)

Quph KeyWords The name of the Nineteenth Letter denotes an Eye of a Needle. This coheres with its form in the ancient Hebrew script as a circle with a line descending. It is still seen in the modern form and the corresponding Latin Q, which looks like a line being threaded through the eye of a needle. Quph is the most guttural of the Twenty-Two Letters. Its sound originates deep in the back of the throat and is aptly described as the croaking of a crows caw. This is the basis of the primary KeyWord qara (cry, call) which God used in many of the Quph Alphabetic Verses:

I cried (qara) with my whole heart; hear me, O LORD ... AV Ps 119:145
I cried (qara) unto thee; save me, and I shall keep thy testimonies. AV Ps 119:146
I called (qara) upon thy name, O LORD, out of the low dungeon. AV Lam 3:55
I called (qara) for my lovers, but they deceived me: AV Lam 1:19

Qara is onomatopoetic; it sounds like what it describes. Words with a similar meaning and sound appear in many languages, most notably the Greek krazw (kradzo, cry) which is often used to translate qara in the Septuagint. It is prominent in Mark's Gospel on the second Cycle. God used a closely related KeyWord, qol (voice), twice in the Alphabetic Verses:

Hear my voice (qol) according unto thy lovingkindness: O LORD, quicken me according to thy judgment. AV Ps 119:149
Thou hast heard my voice (qol): hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry. AV Lam 3:56

The Hebrew qol (voice, call) is phonetically similar to the Greek kalew (kaleo, call) and the corresponding English call. All these words and the ideas they represent are fundamental to the nature of the Book of Psalms, the Bible's great Guide to Prayer that teaches us how to call unto God. They appear together in many Psalms. Note that the quotes below are not Alphabetic Psalms. We are looking here at characteristic verses of the Nineteenth Book itself to discern its dominant message:

I cried (qara) unto the LORD with my voice (qol), and he heard me ... Ps 3:4
Hear, O LORD, when I cry (qara) with my voice (qol) ... and answer me. Ps 27:7
As for me, I will call (qara) upon God; and the LORD shall save me. Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice (qol). Ps 55:16f
LORD, I cry (qara) unto thee: make haste unto me; give ear unto my voice (qol), when I cry (qara) unto thee. Ps 141:1

These characteristic passages span the beginning, middle, and end of the Book of Psalms. They display the perfect integration of the position and content of Psalms with the position and symbolic meaning of the Nineteenth Letter.

The triliteral root qara is extremely common. It occurs 737 times in the Old Testametn. Though I have not detected any significant correlation between its raw distribution and the structure of the Wheel, I have found a highly significant correlation if we search for all first person occurrences of qara, as represented by the phrases in the set {I cry, I cried, I will cry, I have cried, I call, I called, I will call, I have called}. The graph below represents the distribution of all verses containing these phrases:

The great theme of the Psalms can now be easily seen to be an objective property of Scripture. Furthermore, this theme is integrated with the Hebrew Alphabet and the meaning of Quph as presented by God Himself in the great alphabetic Psalm 119! Glory to God in the highest!

Spoke 20

Proverbs, Luke, 3 John

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.

Proverbs 9:10 (Spoke 20, Cycle 1)

The name of the Twentieth Letter is a variation of the common Hebrew word for the head (rosh). This coheres with its shape in the ancient script, a picture of the head atop the neck. When reversed, it became the Greek P (Rho) which evolved into the Latin R by having a leg added. Scripture attests to its name; God used it in the last Resh verse of Psalm 119, the great Alphabetic Psalm praising His Word from Aleph to Tav (BW book, pg 17):

Thy word is true from the beginning (rosh): and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever. AV Ps 119:160

As often happens, the original word order was lost in translation. In Hebrew, the opening clause reads "Rosh davarkah emet" which literally means "the head (or beginning) of thy word is truth." But just as sum relates to summit and amount to mountain, so rosh denotes the top, sum, total, or amount of something, as in "How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum (rosh) of them!" (Ps 139:17). Many translations, such as the NASB, use this to render the verse as "The sum of thy word is truth." This conveys an important aspect of its meaning and preserves the proper word order. God used a closely related KeyWord in the Resh clause of AV Psalm 111, where again the KJV reversed the original word order which begins with the phrase reshith chokmah in Hebrew:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. AV Ps 111:10a

In all the Bible, the key phrase reshith chokmah appears in one and only one other verse Proverbs 4:7 on Spoke 20 where reshith is translated as principle thing and linked with rosh as head:

Wisdom is the principal thing (reshith chokmah); therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to hon-our, when thou dost embrace her. She shall give to thine head (rosh) an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee. - Proverbs 4:7ff (Spoke 20, Cycle 1)

This passage sums up the heart and soul of the Twentieth Book. Of the 234 references to wisdom in the Bible, nearly half (113) appear in the Five Wisdom Books, as shown in the graph on page 95 of the Bible Wheel book. And of those 113, nearly half again (54) appear in Proverbs. It is the premier Book of Wisdom set as a jewel in the exact center of the Five Wisdom Books. We have here an extremely dense set of converging lines all focusing on one theme. It begins with the Alphabetic KeyLink from the Resh verse of AV Psalm 111 to Proverbs 4:7. The KeyLink phrase the beginning of wisdom points to the central theme of the Book to which it links. The KeyWord itself reshith is based on the literal meaning of the Twentieth Letter rosh (head) thereby signifying the Seat of the Mind and Center of Wisdom in we who bear the Image of God. And as if this were not enough, the linked passage in Proverbs reiterates its own connection with rosh, saying that wisdom "shall give to thine head (rosh) an ornament of grace." This is beyond anything anyone could ever have imagined. The order and content of the Books track exactly with the order and symbolic meanings of the Hebrew Letters as presented by God Himself in the Alphabetic Verses, and all of this is locked in place with an unbreakable multifaceted KeyLink!

Yet there is still more. God amplified the connection between Resh, Wisdom, and the Twentieth Book in another verse Proverbs 9:10 quoted at the head of this section. It contains the only other occurrence of the English phrase "the beginning of wisdom" in the KJV. The underlying Hebrew is different but the idea is the same and is faithfully rendered as such. This means that we have two distinct Spoke 20 KeyLinks one in Hebrew (Prov 4:7) and one in English (Prov 9:10) to the Resh verse of AV Psalm 111. The significance of this cannot be overstated. We now have a double Spoke 20 Alphabetic KeyLink based on a Resh KeyWord that expresses the central theme of the Twentieth Book and all of this is implicit in the meaning of Resh as a symbol the Head, the Seat of the Mind!

This is an extraordinary convergence of multiple independent lines onto a single point. It reveals, yet again, the full Divine integration of the order and meaning of the Hebrew Letters with that of the Books in the Christian Canon. Such is the limitless glory and detailed perfection of God's Wisdom revealed in the structure of His Holy Word.

Spoke 21

Ecclesiastes, John,
Jude

Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

John 8:12 (Spoke 21, Cycle 2)

Shin KeyWords The name of the twenty-first letter literally denotes a tooth. This is the origin of its form in the ancient script. Its name, pronounced with like "sheen," has two sounds; a dot above left indicates the "s" sound made by forcing air over the sharp edge of the teeth, and a dot above right indicates the "sh" sound made by forcing air through the teeth. God established the name of Shin in the second clause of AV Psalm 112:10 which I present here as a whole so we can watch the thematic flow (AV Ps 112:10):

[Resh] The wicked (rasha) shall see it, and be grieved;
[Shin] he shall gnash with his teeth (shen), and melt away:
[Tav] the desire (ta'avah) of the wicked shall perish.

Teeth frequently appear in Scripture as a natural symbol of things that bite, crush, and devour, as in Daniel's vision of the "dreadful and terrible" beast with "great iron teeth" that "devoured and brake in pieces" (Dan 7:7). This then links to another Shin KeyWord:

Break (shavar) thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man: seek out his wickedness till thou find none. -- AV Ps 10:15

The KeyWord shavar plays an important role in one of the most significant Alphabetic KeyLinks found in the entire Bible, as discussed in He Keepeth All His Bones.

The great themes of the Twenty-First Spoke are based on the symbolic power of Shin which shines most clearly when combined with Aleph to form esh (fire). In its ultimate sense, this is the Fire of God's Glory that consumes and devours the wicked even as it purifies and enlightens the faithful. Shin carries this meaning into the KeyWord shemesh (sun) the essence of fire and symbol of daylight that shall reveal everyone's works in the Day of Judgment when we all shall see the face of Jesus Christ shining "like the sun" (Rev 1:16).

God has revealed His Light in His Word (BW book pg 51). He instructed us to teach it "diligently" (Deut 6:7), using the KeyWord shanan which literally means to sharpen. This is the root of shen (tooth) since teeth are sharp. In its literal sense, shanan speaks of whetting the edge of a sword or tip of an arrow, and is used figuratively for the honing the intellect. God amplified these ideas in the second clause of AV Psalm 111:10 with the KeyWord sekel that denotes a sharp mind (AV Ps 111:10):

[Resh] The fear of the LORD is the beginning (reshith) of wisdom:
[Shin] A good understanding (sekel) have all they that do his commandments.
[Tav] his praise (tehillah) endureth for ever.

The thematic flow of this threefold passage contrasts the destiny of the faithful with that of the wicked outlined in AV Psalm 112:10 above. It shows how differently God's Light impacts the saints as compared to unrepentant sinners. This is a primary theme of John's Gospel (vss 3:20f):

For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

The KeyWord sekel describes Daniel and his friends after "God gave them knowledge and skill (sekel) in all learning and wisdom" (Dan 1:17). It also describes the "wise" who shall "shall shine as the brightness of the firmament" in the Day of Judgment (Dan 12:3). It is one of the many Hebrew roots that are strikingly similar to English words of the same meaning, having the same consonants in the same order. The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament contrasts its root verb sakal with the Bet KeyWord bin:

In many instances sakal is synonymous with bin, but there is a fine distinction. While bin indicates "distinguishing between" [Spoke 2, BW book pg 144], sakal relates to an intelligent knowledge of the reason. There is the process of thinking through a complex arrangement of thoughts resulting in a wise dealing and use of good practical common sense.

Bin relates to analysis; sakal to synthesis and comprehension. It is the light of understanding that dawns as all the puzzle-pieces fall into place and the image of the whole is seen, which should be happening now in the reader as we approach the Final Spoke.

Spoke 22

Song of Songs, Acts,
Revelation

And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof?

Revelation 5:1 (Spoke 22, Cycle 3)

Digital scan of the entry for Tav in
Ben Yehuda's Pocket Hebrew dictionary

God designed the symbolic meaning of the Twenty-Two Hebrew Letters to proclaim the message of the everlasting Gospel. The meaning of each Letter derives from its name, position in the Alphabet, grammatical function and associated KeyWords. The meaning of the Last Letter is very plain; Jews and Christians have agreed about it from the beginning. As noted on page 21 of the BW book, its name

(Tav) is a common Hebrew word that denotes a mark, sign, or cross. In the ancient Hebrew script, it was written alternately as

the latter being identical to the traditional form of the Cross of Christ, as seen in the digital scan of Ben-Yehuda's Pocket Hebrew Dictionary

This link takes you off the Bible Wheel site and opens a new window

above.) It is the origin of the corresponding Greek Tau and Latin T. God displayed its primary symbolic meaning in two Alphabetic Verses:

Let integrity (tom) and uprightness pre- serve me; for I wait on thee....AV Ps 25:21
The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished (tamam), O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity: he will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins. ................................. AV Lam 4:22

This is the glorious wonder of the Bible Wheel; it is self-evidently perfect from beginning to end. These Tav KeyWords describe the Twenty-Second Spoke, the Final Spoke that completes and seals the entire Bible. God placed them in the Alphabetic Verses as signs that prophetically anticipated the flawless integrity of His Bible as a whole! Yet there is more, so much more. In the rabbinic tradition, Tav is called the Seal of Truth (Bible Wheel book pg 37), and its form as a cross returns us to the central theme of all Scripture, the Gospel of Christ who sealed our salvation and bought us by the blood of His Cross!

Moreover, The famed Hebrew scholar Gesenius noted that Tav was "a sign in the form of a cross branded on the thigh or neck of horses and camels." The form of the cross itself is the archetypal seal and elemental sign of ownership. God Himself used it to identity His faithful Remnant in a vision He gave to the Prophet Ezekiel:

And the Lord said, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark (, tav) upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark (, tav); and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house.

The actual Hebrew word translated as mark in this verse is tav, the name of the Twenty-Second Letter. Everyone marked with the Tav Cross was protected when God poured out his wrath on the apostates corrupting His Temple. Similar imagery appears in Revelation 7 when God sealed 144,000 of His servants in their foreheads against the coming judgment. All of this conspires to reveal Tav as the Covenant Letter which is the meaning recognized by both Christians and Jews since antiquity. It is here that we come to an ultimate understanding of the overall structure of Scripture and an answer to the question: Why is the entire Bible built upon the Number 22? It is the Divine Seal of Scripture - a perfect Circle, sevenfold symmetric perfection, sealed with the Cross! Could anything be simpler? Could anything be more beautiful?

The ancient Rabbinical tradition calls Tav the Seal of God, the Seal of Truth, and the Seal of Creation. Rabbi Ginsburgh, in his article on Tav , identifies the seal as truth (, emet), spelt with the first, middle, and last of the sacred letters. He then says:

The last letter or seal of the word emet, "truth," itself - the seal of G-d's seal - is the letter tav, simple faith, the conclusion and culmination of all twenty-two forces - letters - active in Creation.

Could the truth shine forth more plainly? Could God have made it any simpler? For nearly two thousand years the truth of God has been lifted high upon the steeples of Christian churches throughout the world. It is the sign of the Cross!

Emet (truth) also is an anagram of m'eth (), which can be read as From Aleph-Tav. This coheres with the universal intuition expressed in such words a "I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God." Truth falls short if it includes less than the whole, from Aleph to Tav. Likewise, all truth ultimately comes from God, who identifies Himself as the beginning and the end, which is the Aleph and the Tav. It is the eternal foundation of the biblical structure.

Tav, God's Seal, governs Spoke 22. This manifests in the distribution of words cognate with "seal" upon the Wheel. This graph represents the result of searching the entire King James Bible for all such occurrences:

As the graph makes clear, the vast majority of occurrences of seal and its cognates in the Bible come from its last book. This is because Revelation describes both the opening of the book "sealed with seven seals" (Revelation 5.1) and the sealing of the 144,000 from the tribes of Israel with "the seal of the living God" (Revelation 7.2). The significance of this word distribution can not be overstated. It is a simple demonstration of God's careful design of the Bible in accordance with the structure and symbolic meaning of the Hebrew alphabet as revealed in the text of Scripture and explicated by the ancient Rabbinical tradition.

The last book of Cycle 1 prefigures the great themes found in the last book of Cycle 3. Just as Revelation explicitly proclaims a promise of everlasting life for the faithful and a warning of fiery judgment for the unbelievers, so ends Cycle 1 in the final verses of the Song of Solomon:

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.

The links between Love, Death, and God's Seal () are many and profound. As it is written (John 15:13):

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

And again (Matthew 16:24-26):

If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

And in the most significant sense, Jesus Christ spoke of His own death as his glorification, and His great work that He came into the world to accomplish. It was on His Cross that He sealed the New Covenant of our Eternal Salvation with His own blood. Thus it was from His Cross that He declared, IT IS FINISHED (John 19:30)

The Hebrew Alphabet, Old and New
The Hebrew Alphabet has many wonderful things to teach us. In the Hebrew scriptures, there are Acrostics, anagrams, Gematria as well as the meanings of the letters themselves. One way we as humans, communicate our thoughts and ideas with and to others by writing. This writing includes both letters and numbers. These letters and numbers are the building materials with which we express the products of our intelligence, our thoughts and desires.

The Hebrew Alphabet of Moses' time was a picto-graphic language, much like Egyptian hieroglyphics or the Chinese character writing. These picture letters formed a literal picture of what the writer was trying to convey.
Egyptian Heiroglyphics
Hebrew is read from right to left, and though the way the characters were drawn had changed over the centuries, mostly during the Babylonian captivity, the meaning of the letters remained the same.

In written communications, letters and numbers serve to express the thoughts and ideas, wants and needs of people. In Hebrew and also Greek, the entire alphabet served as both letters and numbers. In Hebrew this is called Gematria or by its Greek name Isopsephia. Therefore, in the Hebrew language, every letter has a meaning, and also a numerical value. This has tremendous significance, in that numbers become very relevant.

A word about Gematria:
Unlike English, Hebrew (and Greek) letters can be written out (spelled) creating a long or "full" spelling. (See the separate teaching on "Gematria, Methods of counting.")

Let's take a look into the pages of scripture and the Hebrew alphabet:

Aleph
The First letter of the Hebrew Alphabet, called in Hebrew, the Aleph-Bet, is the Aleph. drawn as shown above. The literal meaning of aleph is ox or bull. The symbolic meaning of this letter is: God, strength, strong leader. It shows God's mastery and oneness.

In the ancient Hebrew, it was drawn like the head of an ox which is part of the original meaning of the letter. The literal meaning is strong leader, strength, master, 1 or 1000.
Aleph
This is the example of ancient wisdom in the scriptures that read: "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?"2nd Cor. 6:14

A young, inexperienced oxen would be yoked with a full grown ox accustomed to ploughing, and the younger would learn from the older because of the latter's size and great strength, he would literally drag the young ox around in the proper direction as commanded by the ploughman.

Aleph is written out full as in the example below:

The Gematria of the letter Aleph is 1 and always means God. Yeshua/Jesus said "I and my Father are ONE". John 10:30

In the full spelling it's Gematria is 111, which is the same Gematria as "The Lord My God" (Ps 38.15) and "Children of the Living God" [Hos 1.10].

This first letter of the Hebrew alphabet that stands for God, when written out is amazing and shows the deep complex and integrated design of the word of God that millennia later, would become flesh, alive and living in the person of Yeshua/Jesus Christ. Can we believe the accuracy of the "New Testament" Greek text? Can it be traced back to the ancient Hebrew teaching. YES! I believe it can. The aleph spelled full by it's Gematria of 111 gives us a bed rock solid truth. When multiply the number 8, the number of new life, new beginnings by "" (Aleph) we arrive at the number 888 which is:Jesus in the Greek text of the New Testament! This ties the person of Jesus DIRECTLY back to the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and God Himself!

The first and "Greatest" commandment is that we love God with all of our heart, mind and strength. My friends, what wonderful revelation awaits you when you purpose to seek God with ALL of your heart, and love Him as He has always loved you!

Beyt
The letter Beyt is the 2nd letter of the Hebrew Aleph-Bet. Shown here with the dagesh vowel pointing which was NOT part of the original alphabet but added much later, and serves to help with pronunciation. It's literal meaning is House or tent. In the ancient Hebrew, it was drawn as the floor plan of a primitive house, and thus it's symbolic meaning is an household, in or into. This is the meaning this letter imparts when it is prefixed to the front of a word Such as the first word of scripture). In the spiritual aspect of this 2nd letter and it's number, 2 is found blessing (the beginning letter of the Hebrew word) Barach, and division (curse/separation). On the 2nd day, God divided the waters above from the waters below. Waters in scripture point to the nations. This is entirely within the scope of Beyt as a "House". The Holy scriptures begin with an oversized B, calling attention to the fact that God is building His "house". The house DIVIDES what is within (Family)from what (who) is outside (strangers).

In the ancient Hebrew of Moses this letter was drawn like the floor plan of a nomadic tent or "house." Spelled in full beyt is written and it's Gematria is 412. This is an amazing thing when we learn that the Tabernacle (house) that God instructed Moses to build (ref Exod. 25:8) so He could dwell in the center of His people, The Miqdash was to be the eventual meaning of Immanuel, God with us). The word for sanctuary in Hebrew is miqdash, spelled it's Gematria is 444. If we subtract the Gematria our "house" 412 from the sanctuary 444, we are left with a very interesting number, 32 which is the Gematria of (Lev) HEART. When we have a heart that loves God as we are instructed, then our body (House) becomes a SANCTUARY! However, when we leave this commandment undone, our sanctuary becomes a 412 "house" that is left desolate to us, that is, WITHOUT GOD! Reference Matt 23:38, Luke 13:35 where the LORD speaks of this desolation, for where love is NOT, there desolation reigns.Consider thoughtfully the following scripture:
Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not; And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations? Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the LORD. Jeremiah 7.9f

In the passage above, the LORD, through the prophet, is speaking of His house, the Tabernacle/Temple, but in the spiritual realm, it has very serious implications for us, as we are told "What? know ye not that your body is the temple (HOUSE/dwelling place) of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body (HOUSE), and in your spirit, which are God's." 1st Cor. 6:19,20 Yeshua/Jesus said "make not my Father's HOUSE a HOUSE of merchandise". John 2:16

Gimel
The 3rd letter of the Hebrew Aleph-Bet is the Gimel. It's literal meaning is a camel, to lift up. It's symbolic meaning is kindness, to nourish, or pride, to be lifted up. It's relationship to English becomes clear to us, being but a slight variation in pronunciation between "camel" and "gamal". Also, the third letter in Latin, the C in camel corresponds to the third Hebrew letter Gamel in "Gamal" or, "Camel".

Drawn in ancient Hebrew like the neck and head of a camel, It's Gematria is 3 but spelled full , it's Gematria is 73 which is the letter's "ordinal" value. The ordinal value is determined by the letter's position in the Alphabet. It is it's place value. The Gematria of 73 shows the "wisdom" of giving with a "good eye" as it is the ordinal Gematria of the word Wisdom (Hokmah). The number 73 is a mirror image of 37 which is the standard Gematria of the word "wisdom", coincidence? NOT hardly! There is much, much more to these two numbers which will be delved into more deeply in another teaching, but this is only a hint of the mathematical design manifested within the word of God by His own design. Yeshua/Jesus said "If I be LIFTED UP I will draw all men unto me" John 12:32

Dalet
The 4th letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the Dalet. The literal meaning of Dalet is "door". It's symbolic meaning is to enter in, or the pathway or way into. It's Gematria is 4 but when written out full, it's Gematria is 434 which has many associations in Hebrew, too many to bring out in depth at this time. Some of them are:
Gen. 31:41 upon/in your house
Gen. 39:9 I will bring him
Exod. 15:13 You have redeemed (consider this one carefully)
Exod. 29:1 to hallow, sanctify
Exod. 31:11 for the Holy
Lev. 25:32 Redemption (this hits home when we realize WHERE the blood was applied and WHY)
Num. 14:31 I will bring in (associate both of these with the letter Beyt)
Num. 18:31 in your house
Deut. 12:26 your Holy things
Deut. 30:16 and you shall live (I like this one the best)

In ancient Hebrew this letter was drawn as a tent flap, and later became our English letter "D" the "door" of the living quarters of the nomadic people of the time. It's ordinal Gematria of 4 represents all of creation as indicated by the 4 compass points N,S,E and W. According to Jewish Rabbinic tradition, the Maharal, (an ancient Jewish sage expounded that even the metaphysical is divided into 4 parts, as depicted by the river that watered the garden of Eden, which, when it flowed outward, it branched into 4 streams (Gen. 2:10). The greater spiritual depth of this number is seen in the 4 actions of God to Israel in Exod. 6:6,7, where God said "I will BRING YOU OUT, I shall SAVE YOU, I shall REDEEM YOU and I shall TAKE YOU TO MYSELF AS A PEOPLE. Yeshua/Jesus said "I AM the DOOR". John 10:7,9

Hey
The 5th letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the letter "Hey". This is the letter that used to change the names
of Abram
to Abraham
and Sari
to Sarah

It's literal meaning is a window, or lattice. The symbolic meaning is behold, or to reveal. This meaning of the letter is one of the many reasons Rabbinic tradition calls the hey the letter of revelation! A computer search of the whole bible finds just six (man's number) Heh occurrences of "Behold the man" five are in the Old Testament and only one in the New, John 19:5, the verse number matches the Gematria of the Hebrew letter and also the theme, when Pilate says to the crowd "Behold the man". The full spelling of this letter is Hey-Aleph and the full Gematria is 6. Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! Psalm 133:1
Hey
In Ancient Hebrew this letter was drawn as a man with his hands raised toward heaven.

Vav
The 6th letter of The Hebrew alphabet is the Vav. The literal meaning is a nail. The symbolic meaning is "to secure or fasten" "add" "a connection". The letter in grammer, serves to connect or join together, two words or phrases as in English our word "and." The Gematria of this letter is the same as it's ordinal, or positional number, 6. When the letter is spelled out full, it is written twice Vav-Vav giving the full Gematria of 12.
nails
In The ancient Hebrew the Vav was drawn as a "nail/hook".

Zayin
The 7th letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the Zayin. The literal meaning of this letter is a "weapon" while the symbolic meaning is to "cut" or "cut off". Because the Gematria of this letter is 7, both ordinal that is, positional and standard, I view this letter as relating to the covenant/oath. The meaning of the number 7 itself. I am reminded of the verse in the NT book of Hebrews, as it is written: "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword (weapon), piercing even to the dividing (cutting) asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."Hebrews 4:12 (emphasis mine)
weapon
The ancient letter Zayin was drawn as a weapon.

Chet
The 8th letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the Chet. Again, it's ordinal or positional Gematria and it's standard Gematria are the same (8).
The number 8 is the number of new life/new beginning. Raised to its triplicate, 888 is the numerical name of Jesus in the Greek NT text. The literal meaning of this letter is a "fence", "hedge" or "chamber." The symbolic meaning is "to make private" or "to separate."

In ancient Hebrew the 8th letter was drawn as a fence, and the word picture it gave was Brother [Gen 24.29] because the word brother is "a strong fence" (that protects).

Tet
The 9th letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the Tet. The literal meaning of this letter is "a snake" or "to twist" and the symbolic meaning is "to surround." It's Gematria is again, both the same for ordinal and standard 9. Spelled full this letters Gematria is 419 which has some very interesting associations.
To Judge [Oba 1.21]
The snake (Tet) brought judgment to God's children in the garden.
It also caused a very serious remedy to correct the problem.
The Nail HaYetad = 419
Remember our 6th Hebrew letter? Our future is "secure" because of the "nail" in a sure place.
tet
The appearance of the letter in ancient Hebrew represents it's meaning, a coiled snake and the thought of surrounding, or holding in it's coils, and also of "twisting." It is amazing in that one of the ways of writing the ancient letter Tav besides as a cross, was in the form of an "X". To see this letter encircled in the "coils" of the snake, only serves to reinforce the Gospel message to me. The covenant between God and His children was held captive by the serpent (as this ancient letter illustrates) and required the Aleph (the strong leader) to judge and correct the problem with the Vav (nail). (See the ancient word picture for "sign" at the last letter of this presentation)

Yod
The 10th letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the Yod and it the smallest letter of all. It's literal meaning is a "closed hand". It's symbolic meaning is "to make" "work/works" "a deed done." It's Gematria, both ordinal and standard is 10. In Hebrew 10 represents a "minyan", a group of ten adult males necessary to have a "legal congregation" or assembly. From this Hebrew letter, the Greek "iota" was formed. The number ten represents "completeness", i.e. ten commandments, ten fingers, ten toes etc.
I will therefore that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting. I Timothy 2.8

In the ancient Hebrew word pictures, the yod was drawn as a "hand" complete with the arm above the elbow. It symbolized work done. The name of the Tenth Letter, , comes from the Hebrew word for a Hand, Yad. This connection is extremely well established in the Alphabetic Verses where Yad (Hand) appears four times in the verses corresponding to Yod:
Prov. 31:19, Psalm 119:73, Lam. 1:10, 4:10

It is written: But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.

And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. 27Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. John 20:24-27

The 11th letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the Chaf/Kaf. It's literal meaning is an "open hand", "a wing", "an extension". It's symbolic meaning is to cover, to allow or to open. It's Gematria is ordinal 11 standard 20.

In the picture Hebrew of Moses it was drawn like what it represented, an open hand. The center of the Hebrew alphabet, it shows the open hand of God's blessing for all who embrace Him.

Lamed
The twelfth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the Lamed, the letter of teaching, learning and purpose. The Lamed is the tallest of all the letters. It's Gematria is ordinal 12, and positional 30 The Letter Lamed represents the "rod of the teacher." It is the "pointer letter" - that's why its taller than the rest, for it "points" the way toward God. And just as the role of the teacher is to point to the Truth, so the grammatical function of Lamed is to indicate the propositions "to", "for", "according to". Rabbi Yitzach Ginsburgh says of the Lamed: "The form of the lamed represents the aspiration of the truly devoted pupil to learn from the mouth of the teacher." The literal meaning of the letter lamed is "to learn" (or "teach"). All good teachers know that we "teach" to learn.

The ancient picture form of this letter is a cattle goad and in this form it symbolized: to control or the controller, to prod or urge forward, to go towards of forward, and a tongue.

Mem
The thirteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the mem. It's literal meaning is water or waters. It's Gematria is 13 ordinal and 40 standard. It's symbolic meaning is womb, chaotic water (like the ocean), mighty (as the ocean) to come from water.

In the ancient picture Hebrew it looked like this. It related to Moses, mighty, mighty waters (nations) and this is how Moses got his name. Moses means Drawn from the waters.

Nun
The fourteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the nun. It's Gematria is ordinal 14 and standard 50 This letter's meaning is: seed, fish, movement, New or active life. It's symbolic meaning is posterity, a Continuance. This gave rise to a variety of related meanings such as to continue, increase, propagate, and sprout.

In the ancient picture language this was pictured as a seed in ancient Hebrew and Egyptian cultures. As mentioned, it represented "life", "posterity", "active life". As used in the Hebrew word for son , the nun symbolized the posterity of the house.

Samech
The fifteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the Samech. It's literal meaning is a "prop" or "support". It's symbolic meaning is to prop up, support, to turn aside, like a prop on a tree to change the direction of it's growth. It's Gematria is 15 ordinal and 60 positional.

In the ancient picture Hebrew, it looked like this. The Hebrew word for book is se-fer and in the ancient word picture language it tells us that a book will support the mouth of a man or woman. (a book helps you speak to other people)

Ayin
The sixteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the Ayin. The eye and this letter are symbol of sight and insightand the literal meaning of this letter. By its full spelling it has two fundamental meanings: eye and fountain.

A wonderful example of this letter is found in the alphabetic verses:
Psalm 25.15: Mine eyes are ever toward the LORD; for he shall pluck my feet out of the net.
Psalm 119.123: Mine eyes fail for thy salvation, and for the word of thy righteousness.
Psalm 145.15: The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season.

In the ancient picture Hebrew of Moses this letter was drawn like a human eye because this was the literal meaning of the letter's name.

Pey/Fey
The seventeenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the Pey (Fey). It's literal meaning is mouth and it's symbolic meaning is "to open", "speak", "word", "the beginning" (like a river). The letters Gematria is 17 ordinal and 80 standard.

In the ancient picture Hebrew, the letter Pey was drawn according to the meaning, in this case, a mouth.
Let the words of my mouth,and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. Psalm 19:14 In Hebrew, a word for redeem is Pa-dah and the picture this word shows us is that "redemption is the mouth of the door". Jesus/Yeshua said "I am the door:" in John 10:7,9
The ancient and modern Hebrew letters are telling us that redemption is by the words of the door, and that door is Jesus.

Tzaddi
The eighteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the Tzaddi. It is the symbol of righteousness and humility. The literal meaning of this letter is a fish hook. It's symbolic meaning is "to pull toward", "desire", "trouble", "harvest". Its Gematria is 18 ordinal and 90 standard.

In ancient Hebrew this letter was drawn like a hook. In Hebrew, to "want" or "desire" is Ra-tsah and the word picture tells us that desire is when a person is "hooked". Another significant word is the Hebrew word for Righteousness, Tse-dek and the word picture tells us that you are righteous when your hook is the door you follow. See John 10:7,9

Koof
The nineteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the Koof. It is the letter of Holiness and Growth cycles. It's literal meaning is "the back of the head", and it's symbolic meaning is "behind", "the least", or "last". (The last will be first) (he who would be the greatest among you [first] will be the servant [least, last] of all) The Gematria is positional 19 and standard 100, and in the ancient picture Hebrew was drawn like the picture below.

Reish
The twentieth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the Reish. The literal meaning of the Reish is "first", "Head" and the symbolic meaning is "first" "person", the "most important", "highest" or the "highest/first person". The Gematria is positional 20 and standard 200, and you can see the meaning in the way the ancient picture letter below was drawn in the shape of a mans head. An important Hebrew word is Rav (Rabbi) and by this ancient word picture, we see that he is the "head of the house".

Sheen
The twenty-first letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the Sheen. It's literal meaning is "teeth" (picture the 3 upright legs as your lower front teeth) and the symbolic meaning is "sharp", "to consume, devour or destroy". Two most important words that bear out the theme of "destroy" begin with the sheen. They are the word for "Repent" [Shoov] and the word meaning peace, wholeness and wellness (Shalom).
Because repentance comes when we "destroy" our old house, leaving nothing to turn back to. In John chapter 6 and verse 66, after hearing Jesus speak a saying that was particularly hard for them to receive, many of His disciples left Him, and walked not after Him anymore (a prophetic picture of a greater falling away in the end of times?): From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.[Verse 66].
The correct answer is given to us in verse 68, where it is written:
Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.
Simon Peter has "destroyed" his old house, and knows that there is nothing to turn back to. Sadly, many have NOT destroyed their old lives and will seek to turn back to their old "house" when the end time going gets tough. They will miss this revealing truth and miss out because they did NOT have a deep enough commitment to "destroy" their old "house" as part of their repentance.

The word meaning peace, wholeness and wellness [Shalom] tells us that peace comes when we "destroy" the authority that causes chaos (the works of satan?).

Tav
The twenty-second and last letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the Tav. It's literal meaning is "ownership" "covenant" "sign" "a mark" and "to join two things together".
Tav
In the ancient Hebrew picture letters the Tav was written as a cross, and later as an X. In the ancient Hebrew word for "sign" we see that the SIGN is "the strong leader nailed to the cross". It is this same word that is translated in the Greek text of Luke 2:12 which reads: And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

The Hebrew word for religion is "DaT" the ancient word picture tell us that religion is the "door of the sign" or the "door of the cross".

Truly the Hebrew language is amazing in what it has to teach us today. As we proceed farther in the coming months, we will see more amazing things from God's eternal word. We will delve deeper into the meaning of each letter, and see anagrams, acrostics and on the Jacob's ladder page, the equa-distant letter sequences known as the "Bible codes".

One last thing before we stop here. We are told in John's gospel that "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). Let's connect the dots here to get a good picture. The letters literally came off the scroll and came to life, flesh, in the person of Jesus/Yeshua. Yeshua went on to complete the plan of salvation by dying on a Roman cross. On the third day, He was resurrected, brought back to life by the power of the Holy Spirit. In a parallel, the Hebrew language died out almost 1900 years ago. It was "resurrected", brought back from the dead by the efforts of ONE man. Eliezer Ben Yehuda began this monumental task in 1881 at the age of 23 years old, he work diligently to form new words for modern things that had no word equivalent in the Hebrew language. His strongest opponents were the Orthodox Jews who felt that he was making the Holy language a "common" language of the street. However, in 1921 Hebrew was declared as an "official language" in "Palestine" and in 1967 Hebrew was restored to the common people as a "pure language".
As it is written:
For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the LORD, Zeph. 3:9a Could it just be that the Name of the LORD is a Hebrew one?