The letters featured in this piece are SAMECH AYIN RESH. Taken together, and reading from right to left, they spell SAAR.

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.

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).

AYIN is the 16th letter of the Hebrew alphabet, has a numerical value of 70 AND makes no sound. AYIN means EYE or FOUNTAIN. The AYIN is constructed of an elongated YUD (10) on the right and a ZAYIN (7) on the left.

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.

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This work is accompanied by the kabbalistic explanation printed above.

The original 5x7 watercolor painting of this image is available at $155.

mat color:: green

stock number:: nm8-129