Alef

They are joined by the diagonal vav, which represents both the firmament separating the lower waters from the higher waters, and God, who is the ladder joining them, giving us the opportunity to reach Him. Four sages who reached the great hights of myst ical union with God arrived at a 'place of pure marble' through prayer and meditation. The greatest of them, Rabbi Akiva warned the others not to say 'water, water' for in this 'place' no lies would be tolerated. The lie would refer to this 'place' bein g where the two waters come together, but here, in the presence of God, the paradox of duality. and all opposites are reconciled.

The lower waters represent a state of turmoil, separation from God. The higher waters are the state of closeness to God. The writing leading from the stormy waters is the "Shema, Israel...", (Hear, oh Israel, ... God is One."). The initial letter Shin is like a ship passing through the stormy waters, taking us safely towards our goal. The journey leads to the ladder. From the most basic step of acknowledging the supremacy of the Master of the Universe, who is One, we can grow in the love and knowled ge of God.

At the highest level of Divine Consciousness, man experiences Divine Being, his own self coming from the essence of God, he himself becoming son of God. The Messiah in this sense can be called the Son of God, and identified with the Almighty, who gratio usly becomes our Way to Himself.

Beit

The name of the letter also means 'house' (bayis), all of creation having the purpose of being God's house. The tent in the painting has 'house' at the top, and two names of God at the entrance. The first name is the Holy Name in a shortened form, (out of respect), this refers to God's tanscendence, the second name is Elokim, the name used to signify Divinity revealing Itself in nature. At the centre of the house is the Wife and Mother, who represents the feminine aspect of the soul, receptivity to Go d's love, as seen in the form of the words (daughter), and (house), the letter yud being a symbol of God's love descending into us, or 'our house'.

The openness of one end of the letter beit tells us to have our door open, in imitation of the great example of hospitality shown by Abraham and his wife Sarah.

The numerical value of beit, 2, points to dualities in creation. These are symbolized by the images in the circles above the tent.

We have 'two hearts', one desiring holiness, union with God in love, the other drawing us to sensual pleasures and passions, which can distract us. It is, however, possible to direct even our passions to draw us closer to God.

The written Torah and the oral teaching passed on from generation to generation are the two sets of teaching received by humanity through the Jewish people.

Man and woman are the complementary elements of a unity intended by God when creating humanity.

Studying God's teaching and living a deep spiritual life cannot be separated from living a righteous life, being just and caring towards others. This dual obligation is symbolized by the book and the hands giving and receiving bread.

Light and dark, the sun and the moon, are symbols on many levels: higher and lower consciousness, concealment and revelation of Divinity, higher and lower levels of energy, both physical and spiritual.

The paths leading into the House of God are many. Each path has both joy and suffering (blossoms and thorns). This very personal interpretation is not taken from the sages of the Jewish tradition.

VIA POSITIVA is the path of joy and thankfulness for all the wonderful gifts of creation, acknowledging God as the Source of all these gifts.

NEGATIVA is the path of self denial. Becoming detached from all that this world can offer, we can adhere to the only really important goal of our life, God.

VIA CREATIVA is the path of creativity through which we are allowed by God to participate in His ongoing act of creation in some mysterious way. The spark of Divinity within us enables us to become weavers of the new creation which God brings about thro ugh us. In this work we exercise complete freedom, yet it is still part of God's eternal plan becoming reality.

VIA TRANSFORMATIVA is the way of the great mystics who are transformed by the Divine Love. They become the burning flame which transforms and uplifts not only them, but through them all humanity.

The unnamed path is open to the viewer's personal interpretation.

The significance of using Australian birds (the laughing kookaburra and the rosella) is that God's teaching, hidden and revealed in the letters of the Aleph-Beit, is relevant to the here and now, our present world.

Lamed

Being at the centre of the Aleph-Beit, just like the heart is at the centre of the human body, lamed also stands for the heart. The word meaning heart ,really says "two lameds", (the letter beit is also the number 2), and with its mirror image forms t he picture of a heart, open to receive the flame of God's love. The letter jud, the smallest of all the letters, is at the top of lamed. It is like a small flame, showing us God's humility, as He makes Himself small, so that we can receive Him into our hearts.

The word 'heart', when reversed, says 'don't'.

The Torah begins with the letter beit and ends with the letter lamed. The Sages say that between the two words of 'heart', signifying love and sincerity, and 'don't', i.e. awareness of what to avoid, the whole of the Torah, God's teaching on how to live our lives is fulfilled. This is symbolised on the painting by the two words on the beginning and end of the Torah scroll. In the centre of the scroll, the expression 'the HEART that UNDERSTANDS WISDOM' is written. The initial letters of these words are LaMeD, (Only the consonants are written in the Hebrew) so the name of this letter is short for the the expression of 'a Heart that Understands Wisdom'.

Lamed has the numerical value of 30, the number of the days of the month, signifying both the days of the waxing and waning of the moon, and the menstrual cycle of woman. Thus lamed stands for the moon and for a woman between the ages of 20 and 60.

The word LAMED means both 'to learn' and 'to teach'. The great teacher comes down to the level of his student so that he can learn with him the transcendent mysteries of God. Through this learning we are to become perfectly transparent to God's Infinite Light, thus making us instrumental in the creation of a 'new heaven and a new earth'. The flowers of learning burst forth from the book and the Torah on the painting, surrounding everything with their vibrant, lifegiving green leaves and mysterious b eauty.

LAMED, is the root of the word meaning 'oxgoad'. This instrument was used by Shamgar who slew "six hundred Philistine men". It is symbolic of the power to direct and conrol animal instinct, giving us the ability to overcome evil inclinations. The man at the bottom of the picture is looking at the oxgoad in his hand.

In every generation, there are 36 tzadikim, holy men, whose prayers uphold this world, but in the World to Come, there will be 30 orders of these tzadikim. The earth on the painting is surrounded by 36 letters which stand for the tzadikim, who partic ipate in some mysterious way in God's sustainig the world by His immanent presence.

The soaring tower represents man's ever-soaring desire to understand the universe.

The 30 different stages of the waxing and waning moon are arranged in the shape of a womb, showing the intimate connection between all the elements contained in this painting, between love and knowledge, self discipline and participation in God's work of creating a 'new earth and new heaven', the importance of the feminine aspect of knowing God intuitively through clinging to Him by love.

Mem - Fountain of Wisdom

Mem is the thirteenth letter of the alef-beit, and the significance of the number is shown by its connection to the words for "one" and "love". The sum of the letters of each of these words is thirteen. The union of "love" and "one" is the power to bring God into our limited consiousness. The sum of the two words is 26=2x13 which is the number associated with God's Holy Name (not to be written or uttered out of respect - in some texts Havaya is substituted for it).

According to the teachings of Kabbalah, the letter lamed, the soaring tower, signifying man's aspiration towards understanding the Universe, flies in "primordial air". In this "space" there are thirteen mems, the channels which reveal flashes of wisdom on the "screen" of our consciousness. Streams of living water flow from each mem, forming the pool of Living Water in the lower part of the painting. We are all invited by Scripture to partake of this Source of Life, to quench our thirst for the Infinite by drinking from the streams of the Living Water.

Mem has two forms: the closed mem can represent the womb, the place of nourishment for the embryo, floating in the water which protects and sustains it. The open mem is the source of the flow of wisdom at the conscious level into the soul from Above.

The form of the word for "water" is transformed by a very small change to mean "blemish". 'Concealment' is associated with 'blemish', having the same numerical value of 86. God's magnificence is not only revealed, but also concealed by creation. This is referred to by the verse in the Scriptures "A sun and shield are Havaya Elokim". It is through the protective shield (Elokim) of knowing God through creation that we are in some way enabled to look at the ONE whose magnificence would blind us if looked at directly.

On the painting the word "ONE" is painted on the sun, and the word "Elokim" on the shield. The intersection of the two circles is a shape called the 'mandorla', an ancient symbol for the magnificent insight which can be gained through the contemplation of the paradox of opposites present in the Divine simultaneously.

The letter carved into stone in the Ten Commandments has four heads, outlined by the stone which forms the three headed shin. This alludes to the Divine ways which are hidden from us, we can see them only indirectly through creation and revelation, just as the Divine four headed shin can only be perceived by the outline of the stone into which it is carved. In the Song of Songs Solomon refers to the hidden ways of God by describing the Beloved, "...looking through the lattices", being able to see us, bu t we cannot see Him. This is suggested by the lattices in the painting, partially formed by the letters which are part of the letter shin.

In the painting, the flames are all the colours of the rainbow, a symbol of peace between God and humanity, and between all God's creatures. (The word for peace is SHALOM, which begins with the letter shin).

The word for FALSEHOOD is formed by three consecutive letters of the alphabet, but not in the correct order. This shows us that falsehood is a distortion of the truth, so in the painting 'falsehood' is generated by a reflection, inversion of the letter s hin.

The stone tablets placed symmetrically on the painting both contain the three and four headed shin. One emphasises the three heads which represent the three Patriachs - Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the other represents the four Matriachs - Sara, Rebecca, Ra chel and Leah.