The Aleph Bet

When I was five, I learned the Aleph-Bet.
It was easy. I understood it.

The shapes and the sounds
And even the stories.
I remember my favorite.

The one about Bet and Vet.

Two brothers. Born identical twins. Both Bet’s at first.
Then one Bet lost his belly button
Because it flew out of the window
In a car accident.

That made him different. He became a Vet.
Not like his brother anymore.

When I got older. Someone told me
That the letters were more than just stories and sounds

They were
Building blocks. Essence.
The foundation of a world

Not so easy to understand anymore.

And they showed me
How each letter contains a universe inside.
A spark. A shimmer of light. A little piece of G-d.

I learned that like a computer program.
Of bits and bytes. Running behind the scenes of creation.
Floats a universe. Not of 0’s and 1’s.
But of aleph’s and bet’s and gimmel’s and daled’s

Each sound. Each vowel
A universe from G-d. Or at least a part of it.

And when it started to make sense again
They told me more.

How every person is part of a letter
Each soul, a piece of that foundation
Each element within each person
Contains a spark of the essence of creation

A piece of G-d.

And then they said that a Sefer Torah
Is no longer complete if one letter is
Missing. Just one.

Just like the world.
When one letter doesn’t fulfill its function.
There are bugs in the program.

It won’t work as intended.

So I wonder,
What letter am I?
And does it really matter

If I’m an aleph or a tav
A zayin or a raish
If I open the world, or close it
Or live somewhere tucked away in the middle.

If the system needs each letter to be whole
Then each letter is valuable. Necessary.
Inextricably linked.
Not one greater than the other.

And then I realize
What I’ve known all along.

I learned at age five
With the story of Bet and Vet

Vet was no less important
Just different from his brother.