HARRISON is patronymic form, meaning HARRYS SON.
HARRY is from the Middle English HERRY, a variant form of HENRY, from the Old High German names HAIMIRICH and HEIMERICH from haimi meaning HOUSE, HOME and ric meaning RULER.
The letters featured in this piece are HEY RESH SAMECH. Taken together, and reading from right to left, they spell HARRISON. This name has been transliterated into the Hebrew phonetically.
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.
HEY is the 5th letter of the Hebrew alphabet and has a numerical value of 5. HEY means BEHOLD. The HEY is constructed of a DALET and a YUD. HEY makes a sound like the H in Happy. HEY appears twice in the YUD HEY VAV HEY Name of God.
RESH is the 20th letter of the Hebrew alphabet and has a numerical value of 200. RESH makes a sound like the R in Radiant. RESH means BEGINNING or HEAD. When one spells out the letter RESH in Hebrew, it is RESH YUD SHIN. YUD and SHIN spell YESH - THERE IS. The letter RESH means BEGINNING. So it is possible to say that the RESH literally means THERE IS A BEGINNING.
SAMECH is the 15th letter of the Hebrew alphabet and has a numerical value of 60. It makes a sound like the S in Sun. SAMECH is shaped like a circle and means SUPPORT, TO TRUST, TO RELY ON.
Tradition tell us that the engraving of the letters of the 10 commandments went all the way through the tablets from the front side to the back side. Therefore the SAMECH, since it is completely closed, should have fallen out. Because it did not, R. Hisda said that it stood there be means of a miracle (Shabbat 104a).
*
This work is accompanied by the kabbalistic explanation printed above.
The original 5x7 watercolor painting of this image is available.
mat color:: green
stock number:: nm17-38
