A tiny stroke of ink.
A suspended dot.
That’s what the Yud, the tenth letter of the Hebrew Alphabet, looks like.
It’s a tiny speck of a letter. In and of itself, it doesn’t tell you much. At the same time, letters form words, and words express ideas. Our words can be powerful media to convey concepts deep within our minds and hearts, and each of those words is comprised of building blocks we call letters.
Each letter, each fundamental building block, has its own character, its particular contribution to a respective word. Each letter’s shape and sound are distinctive, representing a unique place in the desired expression. Even the tiny Yud.
When Rabbi Sholom Dovber, the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, taught his son [Rabbi] Yosef Yitzchak (who eventually grew into the sixth Rebbe) the meanings of each Hebrew letter, he pointed out that every letter begins with a Yud. Every letter is launched with its first drop of ink, an initial flourish, a Yud.
Conceptually, the Rebbe taught his son, we create many letters and words through the course of our lives. And the Yud needs to form the heart of every letter, every expression. The Yud’s tiny stroke represents our essential existence, our purpose in life and our core connectedness to our Creator. Deep within the human psyche, perhaps far beyond our conscious layers, we all have a Yud, a core recognition: We exist for a purpose.
Meaningful life begins with a primal recognition of our place in the world. But that’s only the beginning. We need to expand that dot of recognition, and broadening it into letters and words. That is our collective mission in life.
Practically speaking, our days are filled with choices, behaviors and interactions. Those are all expressions of our personalities; they form our letters and words, so to speak. At the same time, our ‘letters’ all need to flow from a core, an essential recognition that we’re here to serve, that G-d created us to bring meaning to the world.
The tiny dot in your soul is where meaningful life begins.