Variant spellings - PHOIBE – PHEBE - PHOIBE

Christian Bible - Phoebe was a deaconess of the church at Cenchreae (Romans 16:1).

Greek mythology - Phoebe was a moon goddess. The name Phoebus, a male form of Phoebe, was an epithet of Apollo.

Roman Mythology – Phoebe is akin to the moon goddess Diana in Roman mythology.

The letters featured in this painting are PEY YUD BEIT YUD. Taken together they spell PHOEBE.

Each of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet has a special meaning and a story to tell. Here a few brief ones about the letters on this painting.

PEY is the 17th letter of the Hebrew alphabet and has a numerical value of 80. PEY makes a sound either like the P in Peace or the F in Food. PEY means MOUTH and is constructed of a CAF with a YUD situated at the top and rotated inward.
If one looks carefully at the PEY one can see that there is a BEIT, which makes up the empty space within it. The BEIT is the first letter of the word BERESHIT - IN A BEGINNING, which is the first word of TORAH. God opened up God’s MOUTH and out came the BEIT – BEGINNING – CREATION.
I [PEY] signify redemption and deliverance (Zohar. 1984. Tr. Harry Sperling et al. New York: Soncino. 1:2b).

YUD is the 10th letter of the Hebrew alphabet and has a numerical value of 10. YUD makes a sound like the Y in Year. YUD is a simple point. It is the smallest letter in the alphabet and yet is frequently associated with the very large concept of EMANATION, the highest level in the Four World paradigm of Kabbalah.
YUD has the important job of being the first letter of the Tetragrammaton - YUD HEY VAV HEY. Zohar states that, in this context, the YUD represents the head of all creatures (Zohar. 1984. Tr. Harry Sperling et al. New York: Soncino. 3:130).
In the Sephrotic tree the YUD symbolizes WISDOM - the stage of concealment which precedes its development into a state of expansion in UNDERSTANDING. It is then contained and represented in the letter HEY. (Zalman, Shneur. 1981. "Igeret Hateshuvah." creatures (LIKKUTIE AMARIM - TANYA.<.A> Brooklyn: Kihot. 359).

BEIT is the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet and its numerical value is 2. The meanings of BEIT are HOUSE, HOME, CONTAINER. The BEIT makes a sound like the B in Beautiful.
Torah begins with the letter BEIT. It was chosen for this honor because it is closed on top, bottom and on the right. It is open on the left, the direction of the text, to teach us to look forward and not backward, in our daily lives (Freedman, H. and Simon Maurice Tr. 1983. Genesis Rabbah. New York: Soncino P. 9).

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This work is accompanied by the kabbalistic explanation printed above.

The original 5x7 watercolor painting of this image is available.

mat color:: magenta

stock number:: nf21-121