Yod

Yod is the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet -- a mere point, a dot with a tiny tail -- yet it is arguably the most important. Every other letter of the Hebrew alphabet begins with a Yod; it is the seed from which all other letters grow. Yod is the first letter of God's four-letter Name (the Tetragrammaton), and Jesus's Hebrew name Yeshua, and the word "Yisrael" (Israel). In Kabbalah, Yod corresponds to the sefirah of Chokhmah (Wisdom), the initial flash of insight that precedes all elaboration. The Talmud records that God created the World to Come with the letter Yod and this world with the letter He (Menachot 29b). The smallness of Yod teaches a profound lesson: the most powerful spiritual realities are the most subtle. A single Yod added to or removed from a Torah scroll can invalidate the entire document. When God changed Sarai's name to Sarah, the removed Yod "complained" until it was given to Hoshea, making him Yehoshua (Joshua). Even a single Yod is never lost. The numerical value of ten represents completeness in the human realm: ten fingers, ten toes, the Ten Commandments, the ten sefirot, the ten plagues, the minyan of ten required for communal prayer. Yod, the infinitesimal point, contains within it the fullness of divine wisdom. It teaches that greatness is not measured by size but by essence -- the smallest act of kindness, the briefest moment of genuine prayer, can contain infinite significance.

Yod is pronounced as a "Y" sound, as in "yes" or "yellow." It is also used as a vowel marker in Hebrew -- when combined with certain vowel points, it helps indicate the "ee" sound (chirik malei) or the "ay" sound (tzere malei). Yod is the smallest letter to write -- just a small mark, like an apostrophe or a suspended point. Despite its simplicity, getting its size right is important: too large and it becomes a Vav, too small and it disappears. In Torah scribal tradition, the laws governing Yod are extensive precisely because of its minuteness. The popular expression "not one jot or tittle" refers to the Yod ("jot" derives from Yod via Greek "iota").