The Letter Mem — study | Rav Ziegler zatsal
Letter study · מ · value 40

The Letter Mem

Water, kingship, and what stays below the surface
A teaching of Rav Haim Ziegler zatsal · Éditions Gueoula
Translated from the French original; the French version remains the reference text.
The Letter Mem
Water, kingship, and what stays below the surface

The mem came forward in the name of מֶלֶךְ (melekh), the king: “through me Your kingship is revealed”.

It was answered that it also opens מָוֶת (mavet), death, and a world is not founded on that.

The mem is מַיִם (mayim), the first waters: what is hidden and yet everywhere.

Its value is forty: the forty days, the forty years.

📖 Read the lesson
1 The Zohar account
“Master of the world, create the world through me, for through me begins melekh, the king. You are the King of the universe, and through me Your kingship is revealed.”

The answer came: it is true that My kingship is spoken through you. But through you also begins mavet, death. The world cannot be founded on it. You will remain the letter of depth.

2 Water and depth

The mem is the waters — mayim. As water covers the deep, the mem carries what is unseen and yet essential.

What one sees of water is never what it holds. The letter teaches that the hidden part is the greater one.
3 Open and closed

The mem has two forms: the open mem (מ), which lets through, and the closed mem (ם), shut on every side.

One for what is said, the other for what is kept.

Forty: the count of the days of rain, the days on the mountain, the years in the wilderness — the time a thing needs to form.

Did you follow the study?

Four questions on the letter mem.

1
Which word did the mem invoke?
“Through me Your kingship is revealed.”
2
Which word was set against it?
The world cannot be founded on death.
3
What does the mem stand for, according to the lesson?
What is unseen and yet everywhere.
4
What does the value forty carry?
The rain, the mountain, the wilderness.

Result