More on Hebrew!

 

Yeshua the Mashiach is called devar Elohim (דְּבַר אֱלהִים), the Word of God, and the Aleph and Tav (אָלֶף וְתָו), Who upholds all of the created order by the word of His power. It is the Mashiach Yeshua alone Who is the true yesod (יְסוֹד) or foundation of life itself. Every holy utterance can be traced back to Him, and He is the Source and Origin of all that is good, lasting, and righteous. Indeed, Yeshua is called "the zohar of His glory" (הוּא זהַר כְּבוֹדוֹ), that is, the radiance of the glory of God Himself, who "upholds all things by the word of His power" (נוֹשֵׂא כל בִּדְבַר גְּבוּרָתוֹ) (see Heb. 1:3). Since He is the First and the Last, we can see that the otiyot will all reveal something about Him. As various acrostics in Scripture reveal, the Hebrew letters and their order are of divine origin. The Hebrew language is unique in this regard, since you can learn something about God from the Hebrew letters themselves and their spiritual properties. For instance, some claim that the order of the letters within a word reveals spiritual properties. For example, if the letters appear in a word in ascending order (i.e., from Tav -> Aleph), the word connotes compassion (i.e., moving toward Aleph/God), whereas if they appear in a reversed or descending order (i.e. from Aleph -> Tav), the word connotes the idea of justice. An example of the former would be the Name "Yah" (יָהּ) and of the latter, the word "king" (מֶלֶךְ). Other words are formed in "triangular" patterns, combinations of these attributes, etc.

	A Blessing for learning Hebrew
	The following blessing may be recited thanking the LORD for teaching your hand to write the letters of the Hebrew aleph-bet:
		Barukh ha'melamed et yadi le'sapper et ha'otiyot.
				Blessed is the One who has taught my hand to scribe the letters!
	Hebrew Script Styles and STA"M

There are a variety of Hebrew script styles used today, though the Hebrew script used for sacred writing is called STA"M (an acronym for Sifrei Torah (Torah scrolls), Tefillin (phylacteries), and Mezuzot). STA"M is written using Ketav Ashurit (Aramaic square script) according to a number of detailed rules of how each letter is to be formed. There are three basic types of STA"M writing performed by STA"M certified Jewish soferim (scribes): Ktav Ivri: Paleo-Hebrew Script Paleo-Hebrew is the English name given to the early Hebrew writing forms in that early Canaanite style. In Hebrew the term is Ktav Ivri, which means "Hebrew writing," because it was the common style of the ancient Hebrews. The writing system of the Phoenicians was very similar. Where did it come from? Originally the Alephbet was based on little simple pictures of everyday things that conveniently started with the sounds they represented. Aleph was shaped like the head of an ox, and Bet looked like a house. A significant archeological theory is that what became Proto-Canaanite writing was born in the Sinai, and in fact was inspired by Egyptian hieroglyphics, or may have even evolved from them. In that case, Egyptian writing may have influenced writing styles that stretched from the Sinai, through Canaan into Phoenicia in the North-Western Levant, where Lebanon is today. Phoenician takes over the world Because the Phoenicians had such extensive trade routes, they made contact with many ancient cultures and empires. Greeks adapted Phoenician writing to work with their language, turning consonants they couldn't pronounce into vowels. The ancient Etruscans borrowed this Greek alphabet for their language, which was in turn transformed by the Romans into the world-famous Latin script that's used to write languages across every continent on the globe, from Albanian to Zulu. The Phoenician influence is only part of how Canaanite script spread across the world. The rise of the Assyrian empire spread Aramaic, a sister language to Hebrew, which used modified versions of the Phoenician-Canaanite script. The Aramaic script was eventually adopted by other languages and evolved into many other writing systems, including Arabic. Ktav Ashuri: Assyrian Style The modern style of written Hebrew is called the Ashuri or Ashurit style (Ktav Ashuri), which is the Hebrew word for Assyrian, but it also carries a second meaning: the root of the word ashuri also suggests beauty. The Ashuri script was adopted during the Babylonian captivity, a period of at least 60 years during which a large group of Jews were forcibly exiled to Babylonia. After the fall of Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar's forces and the destruction of the first temple, the Jews of Judea who became captives in Babylonia remained there until Babylon was defeated by Persia in 539 BCE. The Jews who returned brought with them the Ashuri script, a beautiful fancy variation on the ancient script, bearing an obvious similarity to the imperial style of Aramaic script. The Rabbis Weigh In The Talmud, which is in large part stories about rabbis debating Jewish philosophy, history and law, also talks about the two major Alephbet styles: Ktav Ivri and Ktav Ashuri. There are discussions about which script is the original style used to write the Torah. Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi gave the interesting explanation that Ashurit was actually the original script used to write the Torah and tablets of the covenant (the Ten Commandments), then the Israelites began using the Ktav Ivri, and only returned to the Ashuri later. Modern Hebrew Writing Once the Ashurit style of writing became standard for writing everything from Torah scrolls to contracts, it changed very little over the course of the last 2500+ years! Today it's the basis for how Hebrew is written across Israel, as well as in Jewish communities around the world.