THE ORIGIN OF LETTERS AND NUMERALS.

The purpose of the author was to emphasize the superiority of alphabetic writing over the non-alphabetic writing (ideographic and syllabic) used by all the nations of antiquity, and even now by a great portion of mankind. If we arrange alphabetically all biliteral Biliteral refers to "two-letter" combinations or roots. combinations, as the Sefer Yetzirah The "Book of Formation," an ancient Jewish mystical text that explores the creation of the universe through the Hebrew letters and numbers. directs, joining Aleph א with all letters, Bet ב with all letters, etc., there must result a list of 484 combinations (22^2 = 484). (See preceding page.)

Furthermore, by the expression "And the wheel rotates forward and backward, and the sign of the matter is this: Ayin at the top is delight, while Ayin at the bottom is a plague" original: "וחזור הגלגל פנים ואחור וסימן לדבר עין למעלה ענג ועין למטה נגע." This famous passage from the Sefer Yetzirah illustrates how reversing or rearranging the same letters (in this case, the letters Ayin, Nun, and Gimel) can transform the word "delight" (Oneg) into "plague" (Nega). the Sefer Yetzirah indicates that the biliteral combinations can be made the basis of all triliteral Triliteral refers to "three-letter" roots, which are the standard foundation for most words in Semitic languages like Hebrew. combinations. If we desire to arrange all the triliteral combinations that can be formed from the 22 letters, their number will be 22^3 or 10,648. For this it would be necessary to draw up twenty-two tables with the biliteral combinations, leaving sufficient space between every two combinations for the addition of a letter. On one table an Aleph א would have to be added at the beginning of each biliteral combination, and the result would be a complete table of 484 triliteral combinations beginning with an Aleph א; on another a Bet ב would be added in the same way, making a complete table of 484 triliteral combinations with the letter Bet ב at the beginning. Proceeding thus with the remaining letters, we should get all possible triliteral combinations that can be made out of the twenty-two letters. In this way two-thirds of the labor otherwise necessary is saved, for adding the third letter is only one third of the labor required to produce all the triliteral combinations. Should we desire to write all the quadriliteral Combinations or roots consisting of four letters. combinations that can be made out of the 22 letters, we have only to make twenty-two copies of