Variant spelling - DOPHI

The letters featured in this painting are DALET VAV PEY YUD. Taken together they spell DOFI.

Each of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet has a special meaning and a story to tell. Here a few brief ones about the letters on this painting.

DALET is the 4th letter of the alphabet, has a numerical value of 4, means DOOR and makes a sound like the D in Delight. The DALET has the shape of an open door.
The numerical value of DALET is four which is a mystical number. Kabbalah teaches that there are 4 Worlds - Action, Formation, Creation and Emanation. On Passover there are 4 cups of wine, 4 sons and 4 questions. In Hagigah 14b there were FOUR who descended into PARDES.

VAV is the 6th letter, has a numerical value of 6, and is constructed of a single vertical line. VAV means HOOK and makes a sound like the V in Victory. When used as a vowel, VAV can sound like a long `o’ or a long `u.’ Translated it means AND. It is the GREAT CONNECTOR. VAV appears in the Four Letter name of God.
The first word in Torah is Bereshit. It means IN A BEGINNING. If you divide BERESHIT into BARA and SHEET, it means HE CREATED SIX (sheet is 6 in Aramaic). Six what? The 6 days in which creation was completed? The 6 Sephirot represented by the VAV - HESED, GEVURAH, TIFERET, NETZACH, HOD, YESOD? Six directions - east, west, north south, up and down? The letter VAV itself? (The Bahir. 1979. TR. Areyah Kaplan. York Beach : Samuel Weiser. 30).

PEY is the 17th letter of the Hebrew alphabet and has a numerical value of 80. PEY makes a sound either like the P in Peace or the F in Food. PEY means MOUTH and is constructed of a CAF with a YUD situated at the top and rotated inward.
If one looks carefully at the PEY one can see that there is a BEIT, which makes up the empty space within it. The BEIT is the first letter of the word BERESHIT - IN A BEGINNING, which is the first word of TORAH. God opened up God’s MOUTH and out came the BEIT – BEGINNING – CREATION.

YUD is the 10th letter of the Hebrew alphabet and has a numerical value of 10. YUD makes a sound like the Y in Year. YUD is a simple point. It is the smallest letter in the alphabet and yet is frequently associated with the very large concept of EMANATION, the highest level in the Four World paradigm of Kabbalah.
YUD has the important job of being the first letter of the Tetragrammaton - YUD HEY VAV HEY. Zohar states that, in this context, the YUD represents the head of all creatures (Zohar. 1984. Tr. Harry Sperling et al. New York: Soncino. 3:130).

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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:: gray, blue

stock number:: nm16-51