A local customer was looking for gifts to take to family members in the US. She
learnt about my papercuts and contacted me about some Hebrew letters, ultimately
ordering a letter "מ" and two letters "ש". The pieces, backed in grey and
navy blue, were very well received, my customer writing "Total success! Everyone
loved their gifts! Thank you!".
I have written about the Hebrew letter מ, or
Mem, before. Mem is the thirteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet and
has the sound of "m" as in "mum".
The letter ש, or Shin (pronounced "sheen"), is the twenty-first letter of
the Hebrew alphabet and has the sound of "sh" as in "shy". It is shaped like
a crooked English W. In
gematria, which is a
mystical tradition that assigns a numerological value to Hebrew letters,
Shin represents the number 300.
The sole difference between the letter shin and the letter sin (pronounced
"seen") is the presence or absence of a dot. If a dot appears to the upper
right of the letter, pronounce "sh"; if it appears to the left, pronounce
"s".
The letter Shin appears engraved on both sides of the head
tefillin. On the right
side, the Shin has three heads, while on the left it possesses four. The two
different Shins represent the two ways the
Torah was written: in stone
and upon parchment.
The Shin is also the letter printed on the
Mezuzah, a small box
placed on the right doorpost of Jewish homes which contains a parchment scroll
with verses from the Torah inscribed on it. On the Mezuzah the letter Shin
stands for the word
Shaddai, a name for G-d. When Jewish people leave their home, they touch the letter
that represents the name of G-d and kiss their fingertips as a sign of
reverence to G-d and His word.
A
kohen (priest) forms
the letter Shin with his hands as he recites the
Priestly Blessing.
In the mid-1960s, actor Leonard Nimoy used a single-handed version of this
gesture to create the
Vulcan hand salute for
his character,
Mr. Spock,
on
Star Trek. Apparently the directors told him to come up with some type of hand sign
to use in the film. Being Jewish, this was the first thing Spock thought of, and
they just went with it.
Photo credit: StarTrek.com
In the Hebrew language Shin as a prefix carries similar meaning to "that",
"which" and "who".
The Shin-Bet was an old acronym for the Israeli
Department of Internal General Security, and the name of the service is still usually translated as such in English.
In Israeli Hebrew and Palestinian Arabic, the security service is known as the
"Shabak".
A Shin-Shin is the Hebrew acronym for
Shenat Sherut,
meaning "year of service". In addition, a Shin-Shin clash is Israeli military
jargon for a battle between two tank divisions.
Sh'at haShin (the
Shin hour) is the last possible moment for any action, usually military. This
corresponds to the English expression the eleventh hour.
Photo credit: https://bereanbiblejourneys.com
The letter Shin mimics the structure of a human heart, above. The
lower, larger left ventricle (which supplies the full body) and the
smaller right ventricle (which supplies the lungs) are positioned
like the lines of the letter Shin. This is said to remind us that we
are to love the Lord our G-d with all of our heart.
Photo credit: https://bereanbiblejourneys.com
When you look at a topographical map of Jerusalem, above, you can see
that the three valleys that comprise the city's geography -
the Hinom Valley, Tyropoeon Valley and Kidron Valley - all
converge to form the shape of the letter Shin. G-d said he
would put His name in Jerusalem, and from an aerial view, here
it is!
Finally, according to
Judges
12:6, the tribe of
Ephraim could
not differentiate between Shin and
Samekh, the
fifteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. When the tribe was at
war with the
Gileadites, the Gileadites would ask suspected Ephraimites to say the word
shibolet; an Ephraimite would say sibolet and thus be
exposed. From this episode we get the English word
shibboleth.
* Jewish people do not write G‑d's name in a place where it may be
discarded or erased. Treating G‑d's name with reverence is a way to
give respect to G‑d.
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