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Creating Bridges: Spirituality & Philosophy:
Kabbalah: "Letters from Heaven:"
Spiritual Guidance from the Hebrew Alphabet
Shin, Tav &
Ha-Ot (the 23rd Letter)
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by Avigayil Landsman |
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We continue with the overview of the letters, focusing this month on shin, tav and ha-ot, the legendary twenty-third letter. For each letter, we will learn the sound, the numerical value, and several words (beginning with that letter) that illuminate its meaning. We will consider how to apply the letters’ meanings to our daily lives.
Shin: balance
Numerical value: 300
Sound: “sh” as in “shine”
Words: Shalom—peace, hello, good-bye; shalem—complete, whole
Derivation: tooth; bow (as in bow and arrow)
In the original pictogram, the letter shin derives from is a tooth. Over time, this “molar” evolved into the three-pronged letter shin. The three prongs suggest various images of balance: a seesaw and a scale of justice. Two people sit on either end of a seesaw with a fulcrum in the center. The scales contain two pans with a central balance point. The letter shin is similarly constructed and also represents the quality of balance.
The letter shin also derives from an ancient symbol that looks like a bow from which an arrow is sent over a great distance. It is connected to gimmel because the gamal, camel is an animal that is capable of traveling great distances. The numerical value of shin is 300, 100 times that of the letter gimmel’s numerical value, which is three. A three-sided structure has the strongest structure because of its balance. The lamed, whose numerical value is thirty, represents a transcendent journey and the shin, a bow is that which makes it possible to launch the arrow into the beyond: movement and distance. Both potential and actual movements are implied in the shin. (Mysteries of the Alphabet, Marc Alain Ouknin, Abbeville Press)
Gimmel’s nourishment and acts of loving-kindness are propelled into a state of balance, shalom. The word shalom means peace. Related words include hello, good-bye, integrity, repayment of a loan, wholeness and completion. There is a distinct resonance among these words! When a person pays what he owes, showing he has integrity, he is complete and balanced.
Paying back what we owe can be understood on many levels. You could see it as paying off a credit card, etc., or you could see it as giving to humanity all the good you have received in your life. Have any of us completely paid back all the kindnesses we have received? Has humanity given back to our mother-- the earth-- all that she has given to us?
Spiritual application: We ask people “How are you?” in English, but in Hebrew we ask “Ma shlomcha?” which literally means “how is your peace?” Wholeness is the result of keeping our desires in balance by giving to ourselves while caring for others. For example, it’s important to honor our internal little kid—the source of passion-- by nurturing him or her and giving him or her the opportunity for expression while making sure that it is the adult running the show. Imagine how effective and fun life would be if we applied the enthusiasm we have for watching our sports team win the tournament to our career.
Practical application: The Talmud teaches that Shabbat, a time of peace and rest gives us a taste equal to one sixtieth of the experience of the world to come (an age of peace and harmony). We cease working so that we may enter a contemplative space in time that offers us the opportunity to fully engage with our loved ones and to enjoy the wonder and beauty of nature. It is as important to take time to stop working in order to refuel as it is to work and to be productive.
You don’t have to be Jewish to take a much deserved break from spinning gears. Just as a painter needs to take time to reflect on his or her creation, you too deserve to take a break from the ongoing creation of your life so that you may have the opportunity to truly appreciate it.
Tav: truth
Numerical value: 400
Sound: “t” as in “top”
Words: Torah—Hebrew Bible; teshuvah—repentance, return, response; emet-- truth
Derivation: crossed sticks
Song of Tav
Plant in me the seeds
of your teachings
that I might return to
You in truth
Derivation
The original forms of the letter tav are two crossed sticks that form an “x” or “t”. Over time one “stick” got longer and then curved to become the letter tav we know today. The crossing of two sticks or lines signifies completion. The letter tav completes the aleph-beit. Tav means a sign, mark or symbol.
The numerical value of tav is 400, the highest value of the twenty-two Hebrew letters. Tav is 100 times that of four, the number of foundation. There are four cardinal directions, four open sides to Abraham’s tent, four levels with which to understand the Torah, four levels of spiritual realities. Forty, ten times four is the number of maturity or completion: it takes forty weeks for a baby to come full term, forty days of the Flood that destroyed the world, forty days that Moses received the Torah on Mt. Sinai and forty years of wandering in the desert to reach the Promised Land. There are four hundred worlds of Divine pleasure in the World to Come, and the dimensions of the Land of Israel are four hundred parsah by four hundred parsah. (Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, The Alef-Beit: Jewish Thought Revealed through the Hebrew Letters, p.326) The four sides of Abraham’s tent grows exponentially when taken to the hundredth power: from one man’s hospitality to the dimensions of a Holy Land.
Another very important word that begins with the letter tav is teshuva, generally translated as repentance but actually meaning “return.” Teshuva is a coming to awareness that we haven’t maintained our appropriate standard of behavior. This moment of recognition returns us to our true nature of goodness.
In Judaism, there’s no word specifically meaning sin. The closest word Jews have is “cheyt,” which is an archery term, meaning “missing the mark.” Missing the mark is about turning away from our spiritual essence with an unhealthy focus on the mundane. It is human nature to occasionally forget the instructions we have received for healthy, balanced behavior. We are humans, driven in part by our desires and our attachments. And that’s why we have an “instruction book” called the Torah (also beginning with the letter tav), the sacred text for Jews, that includes instructions for personal transformation. Over and over again we read how God loves us and that even when we stray (from God’s laws, rules and regulations), God takes us back in love because the Torah is God’s sign, or seal between the Jewish people and God.
The left leg of tav curves upward, like a kicking leg, a good visual explanation for why tav is the last letter of the aleph-beit. Although tav is the last letter of the aleph-beit, we don’t stop here. Since tav is the first letter of the word teshuva, return, when we are finished reciting the aleph-beit and come to tav, it is a signal to return to aleph and start again, knowing that everything in Creation is created by the twenty-two letters. The more times we chant the aleph-beit, the more words we bring down! In Pirke Avot, a section of the Talmud containing pithy sayings of the ancient rabbis (including Rabbi Akiba) it says “hafach ba v’hafach d’koolay”—“turn it over and over and over so you can understand it all.”
Spiritual application: Teshuva meditation
This meditation is helpful in combating feelings of isolation and enhancing the reality of our ultimate connection with Spirit.
In Psalms it says, “Every living thing that breathes praises you!” Focus on your breath as the breath of God. Remember that God is breathing you. With each inhalation God fills you and with each exhale, you return to God. Do you notice that when you are stressed you often forget to breathe or your breathing is shallow? You are forgetting to receive God in that moment. Why cheat yourself of such a loving relationship? Take a nice, deep breath!
Our breath fuels our entire being, burning up our food to make energy, moving toxins out of our lungs, and bringing healing to ailing parts of our bodies. When we die, our last breath is always an exhale because that last breath signals our final return. Remembering to breathe is an important component to becoming fully aware of the moment, fully alive! When we focus on our breathing we bring our awareness on gratitude for being alive, connected with the Infinite Source of Life and Love.
Remember: we have in every moment of our life an invitation to the Source, waiting for our R.S.V.P.
Practical application: The letter tav means sign. A sign serves to guide our behavior. “Don’t park,” “stay off the grass,” “honk if you love…” are a few practical signs. These signs keep order in society. There are other, more subtle signs, like a smile from someone you just met, dark clouds that signal an oncoming storm, your foot getting caught in the hem of your wedding dress that keeps you from ascending the steps to the altar, or your otherwise passive dog suddenly barking menacingly when your new love interest enters your home for the first time! Notice the signs you come across in the course of a day and make sure you read them; they were put there for an important reason.
Ha-Ot
(the 23rd Letter): peace
Numerical value: infinity
Sound: unknown
Words: unknown
Derivation: heaven
I am very grateful to Robbie Goldstein, co-publisher of The Meta Arts for the following information.
The Sefer HaTemunah, a Kabbalistic text, teaches that every problem and defect in our world is due to the missing letter. Ha-ot (literally meaning “the letter,” or “sign”) is unknown, therefore, we do not know the sound of it, nor can we see its image. When included with the twenty-two other letters, it forms new words, therefore, new worlds. When it is revealed to us-- that is given to us once again-- we will have a perfect world.
This missing letter was said to be on the tablets containing the Ten Commandments that Moses brought down from Mount Sinai. The Hebrews were supposed to be waiting patiently for Moses to bring instructions from God, but being Children of Israel instead of responsible adults, they built and worshipped a golden calf, an idol. This flew in the face of everything that Moses had guided them to do. Moses, in his extreme rage, threw the tablets, thus breaking them, and all the letters flew off the tablets back up to Heaven. Only twenty-two of the letters were given back to us, but the twenty-third letter was not. There are some scholars that think that the letter was much like the letter shin-- only with four prongs rather than three.
In the Zohar, a kabbalistic text written in the thirteenth century, it is called the "Mother of Letters." The three prongs of the letter shin represent the three fathers: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The four prongs represent the four mothers: Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah. The four-pronged letter fills in the spaces the shin makes (or vice versa)! Together, they represent completion because of the numbers of prongs, four and three; equal seven, the number of completion. (see zayin) The four prongs of ha-ot (the letter) resemble a gateway and represent the four worlds: assiyah, yetzirah, beriyah and atzilut as well as the four levels of understanding the Torah (PaRDeS).
When the letter is restored to us we will be in balance again, and the world will be perfected. No one really knows if the four-pronged shin is actually the missing letter or not. Apparently scholars have debated this question throughout the ages. Perhaps this letter is an instruction to our patriarchal society to keep their ancestral mothers in our consciousness.
Some think this letter will reappear with the arrival of the Messiah. The letter will announce the Messianic age-- when harmony and goodness will fill the world. Therefore, ha-ot symbolizes a potential to be fulfilled-- a promise of development-- evolution to a more complete awareness/ balance.
Spiritual application: Embrace the mysterious, the unknown, the unrevealed. There are unseen forces at work in the world; trust that these forces protect and inspire us.
Practical application: Look for the message in the negative space objects and events create. Like the famous glasses/couple profile drawing, there is another reality lurking beneath the surface of everything. It is said that the Torah is written with black fire on white fire, meaning that there is a story to be read between the letters we see written on the parchment. Learn to read between the lines! There are many levels of experience, beyond our conventional awareness. But we must look with spiritual eyes.
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Avigayil Landsman,
Torah Scholar, Calligrapher, Teacher & Creator of the "Letters From Heaven" Deck
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Avigayil has been a serious student of Torah for the last ten years and has written many d'vrai Torah(Torah lectures). She is the creator of Letters from Heaven, a Jewish divination system that incorporates the mystical meanings of the Hebrew letters, her chiddushim (new insights into Torah) and their application to the challenges of daily life. Her LFH readings offer seekers of all persuasions spiritual direction in finding one's authentic voice.
Avigayil is a multi-media artist who is best-known for the beaded breastplate that adorns the Woodstock Jewish Congregation's Torah. She creates personalized ketubot, beeswax Shabbat candles, shiviti plaques and other judaica as well as secular art in Sculpey, paint, and shadow boxes that combine disparate objects such as feathers, beads and wood.
Her Judaica (beeswax Shabbat and havdallah candles, havdallah spice boxes, shiviti plaques) and calligraphy cards are available for purchase at the Woodstock Jewish Congregation's judaica shop, Miriam's Well and her home. She also does private commissions.
Avigayil has taught enrichment classes in calligraphy for the Woodstock Jewish Congregation's Hebrew school. She prepares children and adults for becoming Bat/bar-mitzvah with humor and deep wisdom that come from her own unique way of living through the lessons of Torah. She has also given workshops and lectures on the spiritual meaning of the Hebrew letters and Letters from Heaven at Omega.
"Avigayil Landsman's interpretations of the Hebrew letters are original, witty, steeped in scholarship, and above all a genuine opening to our own spiritual wisdom." Rachel Pollack, creator of Shining Tribe Tarot Deck
www.rachelpollack.
com
Avigayil is available for art commissions and LFH readings in person or on the phone. She may be contacted by e-mail at:
Avigayil1@earthlink.net
Website:
www.jewish-wisdom
-and-art.4t.com
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