He

He is one of the most spiritually significant letters in the Hebrew alphabet. It appears twice in the four-letter Name of God (the Tetragrammaton: Yod-He-Vav-He), representing both the upper and lower manifestations of divine presence. The Kabbalists teach that the upper He represents Binah (Understanding), the divine mother principle, while the lower He represents Malkhut (Sovereignty), God's presence as it dwells in the physical world. The shape of He -- three lines with an opening at the lower left -- is understood by the Talmud as representing the world itself: God created the world with the letter He (Menachot 29b). The opening at the bottom left represents the space through which those who have strayed can return in teshuvah (repentance). The small gap at the top left represents the narrow opening through which God's grace descends even to those who have not yet turned back. He thus embodies divine compassion and the ever-present possibility of return. God added the letter He to the names of Abraham (originally Avram) and Sarah (originally Sarai), elevating them to their prophetic destinies. This teaches that He is the letter of divine breath -- "heh" is the sound of exhalation, the gentlest possible utterance, representing the breath of life that God breathed into Adam. The gematria of five connects to the five books of the Torah, the five senses, and the five fingers of the hand.

He is pronounced as an "H" sound, like the "h" in "hello." At the end of a word, He is often silent and serves as a vowel marker (called a "mappiq He" when it retains its consonantal sound at the end of a word, indicated by a dot inside it). When writing He, it resembles a Dalet with an additional short vertical stroke on the inside left that does not touch the top. The gap between the left leg and the roof is an essential feature of the letter. Be careful not to close this gap, as it would turn the He into a Chet (ח). In Torah scribal law (sofrut), this distinction is of critical importance.