Yod

I
Color your Yod yellow-green. The background is red-violet.

Yod is the 10th letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

Yod as a suffix to a Hebrew word means “my” or “mine”. As a prefix to a verb, Yod
indicates the 3rd person past, present and future progressive tense. Thus “he was, is
and will be doing something”.

The letter name, Yod DVI, means the open hand. The following letter, Kaph K, is the

closed hand grasping which also means comprehending. Yod I indicates potency,
power, capacity, means, direction, aim, skill, dexterity. Implied is more a capacity to do
work, a potential rather than action itself. The open hand indicates friendship and trust.
The gesture of giving the open hand to one another in a handshake originated as a way
to demonstrate that you weren’t holding weapon; that you weren’t a danger or a threat
but rather came in friendship.

Yod I is present in every letter of the alphabet. Look at them as see the Yod shape in
each and every letter.

ABGDHVYCTIKLMNSOPZQRWXJEFU*
Yod is graphically the root of them all. Yod is basic, central, inherent, pervading, all-
inclusive.

For Qabalists, Yod has a special importance because it is the first letter of God’s name
of four letters, HVHI and of the indivisible one, Yekhidah HDICI, a name of God in

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Kether, the 1st sphere of the Tree of Life wherein God(dess) is One. The tip of Yod I is

in Kether. The body of the Yod refers to Chokmah, the 2nd sphere. The first Heh H

refers to Binah. The Vav V specially refers to Tiphareth, but encompasses spheres 4

through 9. The final Heh H refers to Malkuth, the 10th sphere.

On the Tree of Life, the pathway of the letter Yod connects the 4th sphere, Chesed,
Mercy to the 6th sphere, Tiphareth, Beauty.

Yod is also the candle flame, the divine spark within us all. Yod is the masculine
potency, even the erect phallus. When Chokmah, the divine Father principle, gives his
Yod to Binah, the divine Mother principle, she is made fertile. Binah is thereby
transformed from AMA, the dark sterile mother, into AMIA, the bright fertile
mother. Binah is the “womb of God”, often represented by the night sky, surrounding the
earth. The Egyptians depicted Her as their sky Goddess, Nut or Nuit, leaning over the
earth, with her belly and breasts toward the earth. She is the support of the stars. In this
model, the stars can be said to represent the Yod “seeds of light” that make fertile and
bring life and light to the whole universe.

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 Nuit

Four of the last five letters were the senses of sight (Heh H), hearing (Vav V), smell

(Zain Y), speech – kind of an inverse form of hearing (Cheth C), and taste (Teth T).

Yod I is the fifth sense, the sense of touch. Touch is the primal sense from which all the
others developed. In Qabalah, Yod is especially connected with the most intense and
intimate form of touch, coition (sexual union).

The experience to which Yod refers is union with divinity. This inner experience
dissolves all sense of personal existence. When it occurs, there is no observer having
an experience. All that is “swallowed up” and only the one I AM of the cosmos is
present. The ecstatic bliss that accompanies this state far surpasses even the joy of
orgasm. Physical lovemaking is the nearest experience available in normal life. For this
reason, mystic poets use the metaphor of sexual union to describe their inner union with
God(dess). A wonderful example of erotic metaphor for spiritual union is in the Bible in
the Song of Songs. There are wonderful such poems by the Sufi’s. In fact, the most read
poet in USA at this time (2008) is the Sufi poet, Rumi.

Yod is the 20th path of wisdom. Ascribed to this path is the Intelligence of Will. The will
meant here is the One Will of the divine. The word translated as will, FVZR Ratzone
also means “delight, pleasure, intent, purpose, determination, welcome, intentionally,
desire, willingly”. The experience of the One Will is very welcome, highly desirable, and
for all intents and purposes extremely pleasurable. It is absolutely certain. After having
this experience, you will never again wonder what life is all about. You will know that the
One Will is living you and includes what you call “I”. Back in your everyday life, you

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won’t consciously experience this often. Like everyone else, you will feel like you are an
individual, separate being. But you will remember the ecstatic truth of non-separateness
and this will gradually change you and your responses.

Astrologically, Yod is associated with the sixth zodiac sign, that of Virgo f, the virgin.
Virgo is ruled by the planet Mercury C and is also the sign in which Mercury C is
exalted. Mercury is our Beth B, associated with the self-conscious mind, the intellect.
So the intellectual powers of awareness, observation, initiative and choice are dominant
and also find their highest expression in Virgo.

The state of Yod-Virgo awareness is Heaven. In Heaven, there is no marriage because

there is no “other”. Virgo is the virgin because in this state, there is no separation into
opposites and therefore no gender.

Virgo governs the intestines wherein the last stages of digestion occurs and where the
digested nutrients are chosen and absorbed. In alchemy, it is taught that to complete
the Great Work, we need to make “potable gold” in our bodies. This is made in part from
subtle energies that are concentrated in live foods and especially in fresh green
vegetables. However, under normal circumstances, these special nutrients are little
absorbed. As a result, they are excreted with our feces. Thus when Paracelsus was
challenged by the other professors to exhibit a specimen of the Virgin’s Milk, the first
matter of alchemy, he scandalized Basel University by unveiling a glass bowl filled with
excrement. (He was kicked out of the University for this act.)

In his days, people threw the contents of their night “chamber pots” out of their windows
in the morning. Walking the streets in the morning required great alertness to not be
below when the pee and poo came flying your way! So in those days, it was literally true
what the alchemists said; that the ignorant throw into the streets the precious first
matter, the virgin’s milk.

So how do we absorb greater amounts of this “liquid light”? First, by choosing live food
that has high quantities of living solar energy. Second, by being grateful for having such
good foods and being reverent to the One Life that provides them. This is accomplished
by a little ritual like saying grace and inviting the wonderful foods to become you. This
also helps you to be in a quiet, receptive, reverent state of mind, which promotes good

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digestion. Third, by chewing the live foods thoroughly and really consciously tasting
every bite. Fourth, and most importantly, you use your fine Mercury-Beth mind to invite
vastly greater quantities of the subtle energy present in your live food to be absorbed by
your intestines. This process is greatly accelerated by visualizing the absorbed living
energy coursing throughout your body; through your bloodstream, your nerves and your
connective tissues. Visualize it like sparkling pinpoints of light, circulating through your
body and charging every cell with greater life force.

On the Cube of Space, the direction associated with Yod is North-Below. The energy of
this line flows from East to West.

After food is tasted and digested (Teth - Leo), digestion continues until it is absorbed
through the intestines (Yod - Virgo). In most persons, the absorption of food is wholly a
subconscious process. Thus Yod on the Cube of Space is the North (destruction,
breaking down of food into absorbable nutrients) Below (Gimel – Moon – subconscious)
edge. Like Teth (North-Above) the flow of energy is from East (source) to the West
(manifestation) in the building of the source nutrients into the manifested structure of the
body.

The surface area of the convoluted intestines is vast; greater in fact than the area of a
football field. It is literally the largest point of contact, of touch assigned to Virgo,
between you and the world. The alchemists colorfully call the long coiled intestines, “the
black dragon of putrefaction”. They say that Mercury working upon the black dragon of
putrefaction is an important step in making Gold.

The planetary rulership and exalted planet of Mercury (Beth, self-consciousness)

indicates a different “take” on digestion. A vital secret of the Great Work is to
consciously absorb nutrients, especially the subtle energies, to “invite” them in. You
consciously (Beth-Mercury) direct subconscious (Gimel-Moon) processes. This portion

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of the spiritual process of awakening is very “earthy”. Virgo, astrologically, is an earth
sign.

The same principles hold true on higher levels as well. The enlightening experience of
unity that Yod also represents always destroys our mental ideas about the nature of
reality. The Mars (North) force in the body is reversed in direction. Instead of flowing
down from brain to body, it flows upward, energizing the higher brain centers and the
chakras. This process, though initiated by the conscious mind, is wholly directed by
subconsciousness (Below). The mystical union with God is a process in which we
associate ideas that were quite separate together into unity, and recall who we really
are. Association and memory are two of the chief powers of subconsciousness. We
consciously choose great ideas to think about and feed to our subconsciousness. And
we aspire to know the truth behind experiences. Subconsciousness receives these
suggestions and elaborates them into blissful experiences that destroy our false
conceptions and our sense of separateness.

Kabbalists teach that the bride and groom marry and conceive under the heavenly
archway of Cheth C. The baby is carried in the vessel of Teth T. Now at last it is born

in Yod I. Yod is the all potential, like a newborn baby. The Chassidut teaches that Yod

as the first letter of HVHI signifies the power of thought and the intention of an action
not yet carried out. Yod is potential, an about-to-happen action.

Yod I is the only letter that is “free floating”. It is above the line that all the rest of the
letters either stand upon or reach down through. The letters that reach through the
bottom supporting line are Qoph, Ayin and the final forms of Kaph, Nun, Peh and
Tzaddi: Q O J F U *. Yod is suspended above the rest.
When God begins creation, God contracts (tzimtzum) to make a space for limited
creation to appear. Within this otherwise empty space, there is a single point of zero
dimensions. Within this “no thing” is the impression of God’s power to manifest finite
expressions of God’s Self, seeming to generate external reality. Thus manifestation
begins with zero dimensions in a single point, expands along a one-dimensional line,
and widens into a two-dimensional plane. These three stages of creation are graphically
illustrated in the letter name of Yod DVI. Yod I is the point. Vav V with its long straight

pillar is the line. Daleth D with it two lines at right angles is the plane. These correspond

to the Kabbalistic teachings of HDVQN nekudah – point, dot, drop, HRIPS sefirah –

counting, writing, recording, spectrum and UVZRP partzuf – figure, face, the full face,
front.

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Before creation, God’s power of limitation was latent and hidden within the infinite
essence of divinity. After creation, the power of limitation is everywhere visible, but
God’s infinite essence is hidden, at least to us in the limitations of the created. Yod is
the number 10. From the tiny single point of Yod emerges the mystery of the ten
spheres of the Tree of Life. The spheres of the Tree of Life, the ten commandments,
and from every letter of the Torah comes the revelation of God’s limitless potential. As
the Kabbalion states: The All is within all.

The shape of Yod I itself is like a wave. Both the line describing the top of the Yod and
also the line describing the bottom of Yod are waves that descend, ascend and descend
again. The lines are rather like an S on its side; like a sine wave; like the pathway of
radiation through space or waves on water. Yod starts at a point above, extends down
and to the right in its body, and ends in a point aiming below. Yod “informs” and
provides the spiritual essence in every letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In this, Yod I is

much like Aleph A. Aleph is that which takes form as all things. Yod is this same
essence reduced to the point that energizes all creation. Yod receives the divine
impulse of Aleph, channels it along a pathway in a concentrated and directed manner,
and brings it down to Earth. The top tip of Yod is our point of contact with the divine. The
body of Yod manifests the whole panoply of nature.

Yod also means “to thrust” (HDI). We see the force of life thrusting its way forth
throughout nature. It thrusts as waves of light, radiating out from the sun. And the thrust
of Yod is evident is the interaction of particles, whether subatomic particles or large
physical objects. Thus the two wavy lines of the body of Yod refer to both waves and
particles, two basic forms taken by energy/matter. The lower tip of Yod gives us contact
with the divine Wisdom so we can comprehend nature. As we comprehend what is
within the world of natural phenomena, we so fall in love with it that we desire more than
anything else to return home to the divine that manifests all this. The Wisdom of Yod
calls all of us, every spark of the divine emanations, all of LARWI Israel, home to
God consciousness; the transcendent One, imminent in every point of space.

Yod DVI means “hand” DI. In Hebrew as in English, the reach (of your hand) also
means the extent of your mental grasp. You extend your hand to reach objects. You
extend the “hand of your mind” to grasp new concepts.

We extend our hand DI to receive from others. Then we give thanks HIDVH, a word

derived from another Yod cognate, HDI “to thrust”. We thrust our hand forward to

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shake the giver’s hand as we say, “Thank you”. The word for giving thanks, HIDVH is

derived from DIH, splendor, the name of the 8th sphere of the Tree of Life. We see H

and we hear V splendor DIH, and we give thanks HIDVH. When we shake hands

DI, we make a close friend DIDI. The word for close friend is the word for hand twice,
like the two people thrusting their two hands forward and shaking hands.

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Correspondences

Yod I
English equivalent: I
Number: 10
Letter name: DVI, Yod-Vav-Daleth
Letter name meaning: Open Hand, to thrust
Color: Yellow-Green
Note: F
Tarot Key: Number 9, The Hermit
Astrology: The sign Virgo f, ruled by Mercury C, exalted planet is also Mercury C
Virgo rules the intestines, where food is absorbed
32 Paths of Wisdom: Yod is the 20th path of wisdom
Intelligence: The Intelligence of Will (delight)
Path on the Tree of Life: Yod connects Chesed, Mercy to Tiphareth, Beauty
Cube of Space: Yod is the North-Below edge. The flow of energy is from East to West.
Mythology: Yod corresponds to Virgo, the virgin. In Heaven, there is unity. Everything is
therefore virginal.
Psychology: Ecstatic union with divinity
Sense: Touch
Function: Coition