Variant spellings - RENANEET

Biblical source - Lo, let that night be solitary, let no shout of joy [renana] come therein (Job 3:7).

The letters featured in this piece are RESH NUN NUN YUD TAV. Taken together they spell RENANIT.

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.

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.
Sepher Yitzirah divides the Hebrew Letters into 3 categories: 3 mothers – ALEPH MEM SHIN, 7 doubles – BET GIMEL DALET CAF PEY RESH TAV and 12 elementals – HEY VAV ZAYIN CHET TET YUD LAMED NUN SAMECH AYIN TSADE KUF. According to the text, God created the world by means of these letters. The RESH is one of the doubles. “He made the letter RESH king over Peace and He bound a crown to it and combined one with another and with them He formed …the Universe…” (Sefer Yetzirah. The Book of Creation. Tr. Aryeh Kaplan. 1990.York Beach: Samuel Weiser. 5, 95, 145, 147, 159, 176).

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).

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.

TAV is the 22nd letter in Hebrew alphabet – the last letter. It has a numerical value of 400. TAV means MARK, SIGN. In 1500 B.C.E. the TAV was written as an X. Perhaps this contributed to its meaning. TAV makes a sound like the T in Tall. The TAV is composed of a DALET and a NUN.

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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:: lilac

stock number:: nf12-173