Bet

Bet is the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet and the very first letter of the Torah, which begins with "Bereishit" (In the beginning). The rabbis of the Midrash asked why God chose to begin creation with Bet rather than Alef, and one beautiful answer is that Bet is the letter of blessing (berakhah), while Alef begins the word "arur" (cursed). God desired that the world begin with blessing. The word "Bet" itself means "house," and the shape of the letter -- open on one side, enclosed on three -- resembles a dwelling. This teaches that Bet represents the home, the container for the sacred. The Torah, which begins with Bet, is the spiritual home for the Jewish people. The Zohar explains that Bet is open on the left (the direction of reading in Hebrew), pointing forward toward the text that follows, teaching us to look ahead and engage with the wisdom before us rather than speculating about what came before creation. With a numerical value of two, Bet introduces the concept of duality into the world: light and dark, heaven and earth, male and female. Yet this duality is not opposition but partnership -- the two-ness of Bet is the beginning of relationship, dialogue, and the possibility of love. The Beit HaMikdash (Holy Temple) takes its name from this letter, as it was the ultimate "house" where heaven and earth met.

Bet has two pronunciations depending on whether it contains a dagesh (a dot in its center). With a dagesh (בּ), it is pronounced as a hard "B" sound. Without a dagesh (ב), it is pronounced as a "V" sound. In modern Israeli Hebrew, this distinction is maintained, so you will commonly see both sounds. The letter Bet is written as a shape resembling a square bracket or a small house open on the left side. It sits on the baseline and has a small pointed extension at the bottom right. Be careful not to confuse Bet with Kaf (כ), which looks similar but has a more rounded shape. In handwritten (cursive) Hebrew, the two look quite different.