In this painting ALL 22 of the Hebrew letters are represented, but the letter featured is the Beit

Variant spellings - BET – BETH – BEIS - BAIT

BEIT is the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet and its numerical value is 2. The meanings of BEIT are HOUSE, HOME, CONTAINER. The Beit makes a sound like the B in Beautiful.
Torah begins with the letter Beit. It was chosen for this honor because it is closed on top, bottom and on the right. It is open on the left, the direction of the text, to teach us to look forward and not backward, in our daily lives (Freedman, H. and Simon Maurice Tr. 1983. Genesis Rabbah. New York: Soncino P. 9).

When the time came to create the world all the letters of the Hebrew alphabet presented themselves to God in reverse order. Each one requested that God place it first in creation. God rejected each one in turn. The Beit then entered and suggested that it be put first since it represented the blessings - Brachot. God agree and thus Beit was put first in the creation of the world (Zohar 1978. v.1. TR. Harry Sperling and Maurice Simon. London: Soncino. 12).

R. Chisda said: The writing of the Tables could be read from within and without,7 e.g., nebub [hollow] would be read buban;-behar [in the mountain] [as] rahab; saru [they departed] [as] waras (Shabbat 104a).

The Rabbis told R. Joshua b. Levi: Children have come to the Beth Hamidrash and said things the like of which was not said even in the days of Joshua the son of Nun. [Thus:] Alef Beth [means] [ Alef Binah] - learn wisdom (Shabbat 104a).

[The writing of the letters] must be kethibah tammah [perfect writing]; thus one must not write the Beit as a Caf, or the Caf as a Beit, (Shabbat 103b).

Most of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet are featured in this painting.

In this painting ALL 22 of the Hebrew letters are represented.

The Rabbis of the Talmud regarded the letters as the basic elements of the universe, much as we think of oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen and carbon Rabbi Mitchell Chefitz, author of The Seventh Telling, The Thiry-third Hour, and The Curse of Blessings).

The story of ET...

Rabbi Dov Ber, the Maggid of Mezritch, and a follower of the Baal Shem Tov, explains in Or Torah the secret of the verse Bereshit Bara Eloheim Et - IN A BEGINNING GOD CREATED ET. These are the first words of Torah - Genesis 1:1 - in a beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ET is a word that is not translatable into English. It is like a marker that says - "a definite direct object is next." Thus there needs to be an ET before THE heavens and THE earth. If there was no the, there would not need to be an ET. But Dov Ber points out a deeper meaning. ET is spelled - Aleph Tav. And Aleph Tavis an abbreviation for the ALPHA-BET. Alephis the first letter of the ALPHABET and Tavthe last. So in a beginning God created the ALPHA-BET. And God did this before creating the heavens and the earth. God used the letters, the building blocks, to create the world.

R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the Alter Rebbe of Chabad explains that if the letters were to depart even for an instant, all of creation would become absolute nothingness (Zalman, Shneur. 1981. "Igeret Hateshuvah." Shaar Hayichud. Tanya. Brooklyn: Kihot. 289).

Some of you may read these words and laugh. Silly stories. But I challenge you to spend 5 minutes a day thinking about the letters. Perhaps you could practice drawing one letter for about a minute and then think about it of 4 minutes. See if you can do this every day for a few weeks. And watch what happens. They letters are ALIVE.

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This work is accompanied by the kabbalistic explanation printed above.

The original 5x7 watercolor painting of this image is available.

mat color:: teal

stock number:: ab23