Daily Meditation: Monday, July 22, 2013

Iod and Heh - first letters of the name of God; their symbolism

07/22/2013

In the name of God – Iod, Heh, Vav, Heh – the first two letters represent the two great cosmic principles, the masculine and the feminine, which created the universe. And see how expressive their shape is: Heh is like a receptacle, a cup, but upside down, and Iod, which is the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet, is like a point or rather, to be more precise, a seed, the first element of every living being. In the beginning there is Iod, just as in the beginning there is a point. The point has no dimension, and it is almost impossible to define, but when it moves it generates a line, and when the line moves it generates a surface, and when the surface moves it generates volume, which is three dimensional space. Line, surface and volume all issue from a point moving. Now, if you take a straight line generated by the point and move it around that point, you get a circle. The circle and its radius express the union of the straight line and the curved line. So the point generates all figures, and the point in the circle symbolizes cosmic spirit animating the matter of the universe. This is what cabbalists mean when they place Iod, spirit, inside Heh, matter.