The Birth of Aleph

According to mystical traditions, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet is made up of two yuds separated by vav—or you can also think of vav as spanning the gap between the two yuds. Aleph, in other words, represents "the secret of the image in which man was created."* Aleph might suggest the upper and lower waters with the firmament between them, as described in Genesis, or the sensation of feeling both close to and distant from God, with the Torah in between to bridge those emotions. I think aleph represents a coming together of opposites—above and below, light and dark, good and evil—and is a reminder to seek balance between them. Maybe, in the beginning, each piece of the letter floated towards the others until finding its own glue and equilibrium, and becoming whole.

* From "The Hebrew Letters (excerpts)," http://www.inner.org/hebleter/alef.htm

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