HEY!

BS"D


The letter Hey (ה) has a gematrial/numerological value of 5. It's the 5th letter of the Hebrew alefbet.

Hey has the easiest voice. The sound of Hey is only your out-breath, the exhalation of prana. It needs no effort, no motion of lips, tongue or mouth (Tanchuma Bereishis 16).

Our spirit (ru'ach) lives in our breath (ru'ach), is our breath. The Kabbalah says that when two people are talking together and their faces are so close they inhale the other's breath, they are sharing souls. According to Hasidism, our souls are too vast to inhabit our bodies; they penetrate and surround them.

Hey is female. Her soft-sounding voice indicates the feminine form of a noun, as in yeled (boy) - yaldah (girl). The two Heys in The Four-Letter Name represent the Mother and the Daughter in the archetypal Family, Yud (י) representing the Father and Vav (ו) the Son.

G@D created two worlds; this one with the letter Hey:
בִּדְבַר יְהוָה, שָׁמַיִם נַעֲשׂוּ; וּבְרוּחַ פִּיו, כָּל-צְבָאָם. 6
Bid'var HaShem shamayim na'asu uv'ru'ach piv kol tzeva'am
By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.
- Psalms 33:6

Why? Our traditions tell us that this world is like the letter Hey, easy to fall out the bottom. Also like this world there is always a tiny space, which allows another entrance. This is t'shuvah, repentance (Menachos 29b). This teaches us to leave a small opening in our hearts to let others back in when they have hurt us and wish to be forgiven (Tomer Devorah 1:7).
It also serves us by making room for forgiving ourselves...

Hey is made up of two other letters. First there is a Dalet (ד), then there is a Yud (י) in the lower left hand corner of the Dalet's space. Yud, the hand (yad) has the power to open the Dalet, door (delet) to the path of returning to G@d, our Source. The point of the Yud must be separate from the roof, but not further than the thickness of the roof. This Yud leans inward to the space, so the Hey won't resemble a Taf (ת).

We just saw a miniature letter Hey yesterday in B'reyshit Parshat B'reyshit/Genesis 2:4 -
ד אֵלֶּה תוֹלְדוֹת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְהָאָרֶץ, בְּהִבָּרְאָם: בְּיוֹם, עֲשׂוֹת יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים--אֶרֶץ וְשָׁמָיִם. 4
Eyleh toldot ha'shamayim v'ha'aretz be-hibaram b'yom asot Y-H-V-H Eloqim eretz v'shamayim:
These are the generations/begettings of the Heavens and of the Earth when they were created, at the time of Y-H-V-H, G@D's making of earth and heaven:

The Hey is small in "be-hibaram" because the letter Hey is one of those which symbolizes G@D - an abbreviation of both the Four-letter Name "Y-H-V-H" and "HaShem". And according to midrash, before the creation G@D was...that's it. All there was was G@D and G@D was all there was. So in order to make room for us, The Holy One had to contract. The word our tradition uses here is "tzimtzum". Like a mother's body making room for a growing baby. The child, like us & all of Creation, is of its mother, but different. The mother contains & sustains her child, but must constantly be altering the status quo to achieve this. So the Hey in the word meaning "they were created" inspired this midrash which teaches us about G@D's process.

Shavu'ah Tov - a good week - & Chodesh Tov - a good new month to everyone.




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