The Letter Alef — study | Rav Ziegler zatsal
Letter study · א · value 1

The Letter Alef

The letter that keeps silent, and by which everything begins
A teaching of Rav Haim Ziegler zatsal · Éditions Gueoula
Translated from the French original; the French version remains the reference text.
The Letter Alef
The letter that keeps silent, and by which everything begins

The alef has no sound of its own: it takes the vowel that accompanies it. It is the silent letter.

Its form: two yods parted by a diagonal vav. 10 + 6 + 10 = 26, the value of the Name.

Its value is one — not the one of counting, but unity itself.

The Zohar tells that it refused to come forward, and for that received the opening of the Ten Utterances: Anokhi.

📖 Read the lesson
1 The Zohar account

All the letters came before the Holy One, from the last, the tav, to the first. But the alef did not come. It stayed behind, silent.

“Alef, why do you not come before Me as the others do?” — “Master of the world, I have seen every letter return without success. And You have already granted the bet to open the Torah with Bereshit. It does not befit the King to take back a gift given to His servant.”

He answered: even though the bet opens the Torah, you are the first of all, and by you begin the Ten Utterances — אָנֹכִי, Anokhi, I am the Lord your G-d. And all unification, all counting, begin only with you.

What the letter teaches: true greatness does not seek to show itself, and humility leads to elevation.
2 The form, and what it carries

The alef is built of two yods parted by a diagonal vav: a yod above, a vav in the middle, a yod below.

10 + 6 + 10 = 26 — the value of the Name יהוה.

The upper yod is read as the world above; the lower yod as the material world; and the vav that crosses them as man, who joins the two.

3 The value, and the silence

The alef is one: not the first term of a series, but unity itself.

Spelled out, אלף is 1 + 30 + 80 = 111: three times one, the same unity in the three worlds.

And אֶלֶף (elef) means a thousand: the One contains the many.

Why is the alef silent? Because what it says comes before speech. Before sound there is the silence out of which words come.
4 The words it opens

אָדוֹן (Adon) — the Master. Adon Olam, Master of the world.

אֶחָד (Ehad) — One. The word on which the Shema rests: “the Lord is One.”

אָדָם (Adam) — man, who carries in himself the spark of that unity.

אֱמֶת (Emet) — truth: it begins with alef and ends with tav, from the first to the last.

אָנֹכִי (Anokhi) — I am: the first word of the Ten Utterances.

Did you follow the study?

Five questions on the letter alef.

1
Why did the alef not come forward, according to the Zohar?
“It does not befit the King to take back a gift given to His servant.”
2
What did the alef receive in return?
“By you begin the Ten Utterances.”
3
What is the form of the alef made of?
10 + 6 + 10 = 26, the value of the Name.
4
What is the value of the word אלף spelled out?
1 + 30 + 80: three times one, the same unity in the three worlds.
5
Which word begins with alef and ends with tav?
From the first to the last: truth encompasses everything.

Result