Abra Cadabra

I am in “bet” group in my preaching class.

Hebrew lettering has evolved from pictures. Bet is derived from a house. More specifically, it is a picture of a courtyard, which is the center of a middle eastern house. Let us remember that the letters have personality. They are animistic. They’re alive. And the letters are polite. They have to face you. Bet is facing in a way to include and disclude, depending on which way it is facing. Bet can have or not have a dot in the center (a person within the courtyard). It’s a different letter, depending. We are that dot. This letter is so important. The courtyard is a private place, a sacred space. It includes those who belong and leaves out those who don’t. Also, it’s a feminine space. You keep the family in the space. All of the Bible is inside bet. Bet is preempting the garden of Eden.

We should also note that bet is formed, partially, from the letter resh.

Resh. We should recall that resh is the second letter of PRDS. Resh, as a picture, is the back of one’s head. It is the things you do with your mind. Also, it is a problematic letter. Why? Because evil isn’t out there, it’s in here. Things that we consider evil go on in our minds.

“Bet” is the first letter in the Bible.  It begins the story of genesis and holds, by virtue of facing inward at the rest of the text, the Bible “inside” its courtyard.

In the beginning, there was the word…

abra cadabra

This information was from a class called “Jewish Mysticism, Magic, and Folklore,” a class taught by Mira Amiras at SJSU.