Alphabet Letters
Resh ר
RAYSH
Also Known As Resh
Hebrew Letters
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Origin Develops the Achaemenid Aramaic chancery hand, adopted after the exile
Resh is the twentieth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, its name meaning head and its gematria value two hundred. It is one of the seven Double letters, attributed to the seven planets, and is given to the Sun. In the Hermetic scheme it corresponds to the tarot trump The Sun and to the thirtieth path of the Tree of Life, joining Hod to Yesod. As the head, it symbolizes consciousness, reason, and leadership, the highest and governing part; the Hebrew word rosh means head or beginning, as in Rosh Hashanah, the head of the year. Fittingly it belongs to the Sun, source of light and life, and to the card of joy, clarity, and illumination made plain.
Facts
Disputed
Origin PeriodScholem places Sefer Yetzirah between the second and sixth century CE 5Tradition: Sefer Yetzirah: the thirty-two paths and the twenty-two letters Gershom Scholem's Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (Schocken Books, New York, 1961) surveys the manuscript recensions of Sefer Yetzirah and finds no single stable text: the surviving copies diverge enough in wording and in the letter-to-planet and letter-to-sign correspondences that quoting "the text" requires naming which recension is meant. Comparing the linguistic style, the doctrinal content and the external references made to the work across centuries of citation, Scholem argues the book could have been composed anywhere from the second to the ninth century CE, a span of roughly a millennium, with later Kabbalistic and Hasidic writers each reading it through their own era's overlay. The atlas follows Scholem's range rather than a narrower guess, and does not print the per-letter planet and sign tables at all, because doing so would silently pick one contested recension over the others. Origin PeriodSurvives in three recensions that do not agree in detail 5Tradition: Sefer Yetzirah: the thirty-two paths and the twenty-two letters Gershom Scholem's Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (Schocken Books, New York, 1961) surveys the manuscript recensions of Sefer Yetzirah and finds no single stable text: the surviving copies diverge enough in wording and in the letter-to-planet and letter-to-sign correspondences that quoting "the text" requires naming which recension is meant. Comparing the linguistic style, the doctrinal content and the external references made to the work across centuries of citation, Scholem argues the book could have been composed anywhere from the second to the ninth century CE, a span of roughly a millennium, with later Kabbalistic and Hasidic writers each reading it through their own era's overlay. The atlas follows Scholem's range rather than a narrower guess, and does not print the per-letter planet and sign tables at all, because doing so would silently pick one contested recension over the others. Origins
Origin PeriodDevelops the Achaemenid Aramaic chancery hand, adopted after the exile 1Tradition: The Hebrew square script Origin PeriodNot the script of the earliest Hebrew inscriptions 1Tradition: The Hebrew square script Origin PeriodStandard by the Hasmonean period; palaeo-Hebrew survives only on coins 1Tradition: The Hebrew square script Place of OriginThe Levant, by way of the Aramaic administrative script of the Persian empire. 1Tradition: The Hebrew square script Origin of the NameNames travelled into Greek unchanged and meaningless 1Tradition: The Hebrew square script Origin of the NameNorthwest Semitic words inherited from the older linear script 1Tradition: The Hebrew square script Origin of the NamePictographic meanings (ox head, house, water) are modern reconstructions 1Tradition: The Hebrew square script Sense of the Namehead 1Tradition: The Hebrew square script The pictographic sense is a modern reconstruction from the letter name rather than a meaning attested in the script's own period, and the atlas records that position elsewhere on this letter. The name itself is inherited; the picture behind it is inferred. Contested Use
Contested or Appropriated Modern UseA criticism of the predictive method, not of the tradition itself 4 Contested or Appropriated Modern UseSo many possible sums exist that a match can always be found 4 Contested or Appropriated Modern UseUsed as proof: the beast of Revelation, verse prophecy, Bible codes 4 Identity
Script TypeAn abjad: the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew square script record consonants, read right to left, with vowels supplied either by the reading tradition or, in pointed texts, by the Masoretic vowel-pointing system. 1Tradition: The Hebrew square script PositionTwentieth of twenty-two in the Hebrew alphabet 1 Attributions
Associated SoundOne of the seven Double letters, though grammarians differ on how far a spoken hard/soft distinction survived for it: an alveolar trill or tap r in ancient pronunciation, realized as a uvular r in modern Israeli Hebrew 1 Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting SourceHebrew letter mysticism is a continuous, living Jewish tradition 2Tradition: Sefer Yetzirah: the thirty-two paths and the twenty-two letters Meaning in the Attesting SourceOne of the seven double letters, each hard and soft 3Tradition: Sefer Yetzirah: the thirty-two paths and the twenty-two letters Meaning in the Attesting SourceRuns through medieval commentary, golem lore, Abulafia, hasidic teaching 2Tradition: Sefer Yetzirah: the thirty-two paths and the twenty-two letters Meaning in the Attesting SourceStill studied and practised today 2Tradition: Sefer Yetzirah: the thirty-two paths and the twenty-two letters Meaning in the Attesting SourceThe seven assign to seven planets and seven opposite pairs 3Tradition: Sefer Yetzirah: the thirty-two paths and the twenty-two letters Meaning in the Attesting SourceWhich planet goes with which letter is not recorded; recensions differ 3Tradition: Sefer Yetzirah: the thirty-two paths and the twenty-two letters Meaning in the Attesting SourceWisdom/folly, wealth/poverty, seed/desolation, life/death, dominance/subjugation, peace/war, grace/ugliness 3Tradition: Sefer Yetzirah: the thirty-two paths and the twenty-two letters Learn More
Resh: The Hebrew Letter of Head
Resh is the twentieth Hebrew letter and a double letter; its name means 'head' and its value is 200. The Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Formation), the foundational text of Jewish letter-mysticism compiled in late antiquity, divides the twenty-two Hebrew consonants into three groups: three 'mother' letters (Aleph, Mem, Shin) assigned to the elements Air, Water and Fire; seven 'double' letters, each with a hard and soft pronunciation, assigned to the seven classical planets and to seven pairs of opposites; and twelve 'simple' letters assigned to the twelve signs of the zodiac and the twelve months. As a double letter Resh is assigned to a planet and a pair of opposites.
A separate and much later system, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (founded 1888), mapped the twenty-two letters onto the twenty-two trumps of the tarot along the paths of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. This tarot correspondence is a modern Western-esoteric overlay, not part of the ancient Hebrew or classical Kabbalistic tradition. The Golden Dawn attributes Resh to the Sun and to The Sun (trump XIX), the card of clarity, vitality and the illuminated head.
Resh: Scribal Tradition
Resh sits at the centre of one of Hebrew's best-documented linguistic mismatches between grammar and mysticism. The Sefer Yetzirah, discussed elsewhere in this atlas, counts Resh as one of its seven double letters, alongside Beth, Gimel, Daleth, Kaph, Peh and Tav, each said to carry both a hard and a soft pronunciation; but the Tiberian Masoretic grammatical rule that actually marks a hard-versus-soft distinction with a dagesh in ordinary vocalised Hebrew, remembered by the acronym begadkefat, covers only six of those seven letters and excludes Resh entirely, since standard Hebrew grammar treats Resh as having a single pronunciation.
The mismatch means Resh is mystically double but grammatically single, a gap Hebrew grammarians and Kabbalists have long noted without fully reconciling. Graphically, Resh is one half of Hebrew's most consequential look-alike pair, needing only a rounded rather than squared trailing corner to be confused with Daleth, discussed elsewhere in this atlas, a distinction Jewish law treats as serious enough to invalidate a scroll if a sofer gets it wrong. A separate homiletic tradition, discussed under Qoph elsewhere in this atlas, also pairs Resh's literal meaning, head, against Qoph's meaning, the back of the head, reading the two letters together as a figure for uprightness set against a turned-away or bowed posture.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
The Sun, Tarot In the Golden Dawn Kabbalistic attribution, The Sun corresponds to the Hebrew letter Resh by way of its Tree of Life path.
Derived from This
Passing the River Resh stands for the Hebrew letter Resh, and carries its value of 200. Agrippa prints the three scripts in Book III of De occulta philosophia as tables of Hebrew equivalents. The sign shapes vary between the manuscript and printed traditions; the letter for letter correspondence does not.
Celestial Resh stands for the Hebrew letter Resh, and carries its value of 200. Agrippa prints the three scripts in Book III of De occulta philosophia as tables of Hebrew equivalents. The sign shapes vary between the manuscript and printed traditions; the letter for letter correspondence does not.
Malachim Resh stands for the Hebrew letter Resh, and carries its value of 200. Agrippa prints the three scripts in Book III of De occulta philosophia as tables of Hebrew equivalents. The sign shapes vary between the manuscript and printed traditions; the letter for letter correspondence does not.
Related To
Mandaic Ar and Hebrew Resh occupy the same place in the twenty-two letter Aramaic sequence. Hebrew keeps the inherited noun as the letter name and the numeral value 200; Mandaic keeps neither. Where the Mandaic shapes came from is disputed, a cursive Aramaic hand or the Parthian chancery script.
Cognate letters. Arabic ra and Hebrew resh both continue the twenty-two letter Northwest Semitic alphabet, and they hold the same place in the inherited order and the same numeral value, 200. Neither is derived from the other.
Res and the Hebrew resh continue the Semitic r and carry the same inherited name. The Northwest Semitic name means head, and the Ge'ez word for a head is from the same root, so the sense is still visible on this side of the family.
Both signs continue the same Northwest Semitic consonant inherited from a shared abjad ancestor; this is a cognate correspondence, not a borrowing in either direction. Ugaritic and Hebrew share the same twenty-two-consonant core, with Ugaritic adding six further signs Hebrew never developed separately.
Celestial Resh is a cipher glyph standing for the Hebrew letter Resh; Agrippa's Book III prints Celestial, Malachim and Passing the River as tables of Hebrew equivalents, letter for letter.
Malachim Resh is a cipher glyph standing for the Hebrew letter Resh; Agrippa's Book III prints Celestial, Malachim and Passing the River as tables of Hebrew equivalents, letter for letter.
Passing the River Resh is a cipher glyph standing for the Hebrew letter Resh; Agrippa's Book III prints Celestial, Malachim and Passing the River as tables of Hebrew equivalents, letter for letter.
Greek Rho and Hebrew Resh are cognates. Both continue the same Phoenician sign, which is why both carry the numeral value 200 in their letter-number systems. A shared ancestor, not a borrowing in either direction. The Greek alphabet was adapted from the Phoenician abjad in the early first millennium BC, and the Hebrew square script descends from the same abjad through Aramaic.
Hebrew Resh and Greek Rho continue the same Phoenician resh; both carry the numeral value 200 in their letter-number systems.
Samaritan Rish and Hebrew Resh are cognates. Both continue the same Paleo-Hebrew sign, both write r and both carry the value 200. Neither is derived from the other: Samaritan continues the Paleo-Hebrew form directly and the Hebrew square letter reached its shape through Aramaic.
Syriac Rish and Hebrew Resh stand at the same place in the twenty-two letter Aramaic sequence and carry the same letter-numeral value, 200. The Syriac script grew out of the local Aramaic cursive of Edessa and the Hebrew square script out of the same Aramaic alphabet, so the two letters are inherited from one ancestor rather than borrowed from each other.
Sources
1. The World's Writing Systems
Peter T. Daniels and William Bright (eds.), Oxford University Press, 1996the chapter on the Aramaic scriptView the Source 2. Golem: Jewish Magical and Mystical Traditions on the Artificial Anthropoid
Moshe Idel, State University of New York Press, 1990the chapters on the letter-combination traditions and their reception
3. Sepher Yetzirah (Book of Formation)
Anonymous (traditionally attributed to Abraham)On Resh as a double letterView the Source 4. Numerology: Or, What Pythagoras Wrought
Underwood Dudley, Mathematical Association of America (Spectrum series), 1997the chapters on the beast, on the law of small numbers and on biblical sevensView the Source 5. Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism
Gershom Scholem, Schocken Books, 1961the chapter on early Jewish mysticism, on Sefer YetzirahView the Source Sepher Yetzirah, the Book of Formation, and the Thirty-Two Paths of Wisdom
William Wynn Westcott, Theosophical Publishing Society / Internet Sacred Text Archive, 1887On the double letters and the planetsView the Source The Encyclopedia of Tarot, Volume I
Stuart R. Kaplan, U.S. Games Systems, 1978For the Golden Dawn attribution (Sun, The Sun)View the Source Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
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