Variant spellings – LION – LEE ON – LI ON

The letters featured in this work are LAMED YUD ALEPH VAV NUN. Taken together, and reading from right to left, they spell LEEON.

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.
The LAMED is generally considered to be constructed of a CAF (20) with a VAV (6). In this configuration the LAMED has a GEMATRIA of 26 - the same as that of the YUD (10) HEY (5) VAV (6) HEY (5) name of God (Haralick, Robert M. 1995. The Inner Meaning of the Hebrew Letters. Northvale: Jason Aronson. 180).
Since LAMED means LEARNING, it would seem that this would constitute a direct connection between LAMED, LEARNING and GOD.

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).
In the Sephrotic tree the YUD symbolizes WISDOM - the stage of concealment which precedes its development into a state of expansion in UNDERSTANDING. It is then contained and represented in the letter HEY. (Zalman, Shneur. 1981. "Igeret Hateshuvah." Likkutie Amarim Tanya. Brooklyn: Kihot. 359).

ALEPH is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and has a numerical value of one. The meanings of ALEPH are: THOUSAND, MASTER, TEACHING, OXEN. The ALEPH makes no sound. The ALEPH is composed of a VAV (6) and 2 YUDS (20). Their combined value is 26 which is the numerical value of the name of God - YUD (10) HEY (5) VAV (6) HEY (5).

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? (Kaplan, Aryeh. 1979. The Bahir. York Beach: Samuel Weiser. 30).

NUN is the 14th letter of the Hebrew alphabet and has a numerical value of 50. NUN makes a sound like the N in Now. The NUN has the head of a ZAYIN. The body is an elongated Zayin. NUN means SHINE, SPOUT, SPREAD, KINDDOM in Hebrew and FISH in Aramaic.
The NUN is one of 5 letters [CAF, MEM NUN PEY TSADE] that have 2 forms - the regular [bent] form used in the beginning and middle of a word and the FINAL FORM - SOFIT - used as the last letter of a word. According to the ancient kabbalistic text The Bahir, the bent NUN represents the spinal cord through which the body is fed by the brain (Kaplan, Aryeh. 1979. Tr. The Bahir. York Beach: Samuel Weiser. 31).

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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:: blue

stock number:: nm11-162