The letters featured in this piece are LAMED YUD BEIT. Taken together, and reading from right to left, they spell LOEB.

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.

LAMED is the 12th letter of the Hebrew alphabet and has a numerical value of 30. LAMED makes a sound like the L in Like. LAMED means both TO LEARN and TO TEACH. The LAMED is the tallest and most majestic of all the letters. Indeed Rashi interprets A TOWER FLYING IN THE AIR (Hagigah 15b) - as applying to the upper stroke of the LAMED.

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).

BEIT is the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet and its numerical value is 2. The meanings of BEIT are HOUSE, HOME, CONTAINER. The BEIT makes a sound like the B in Beautiful.
Torah begins with the letter BEIT. It was chosen for this honor because it is closed on top, bottom and on the right. It is open on the left, the direction of the text, to teach us to look forward and not backward, in our daily lives (Genesis Rabbah. 1:10. TR. H. Freedman. New York: Soncino. 9).

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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:: orange, yellow

stock number:: nm17-171