The Alphabet That Changed the World: How Genesis Preserves a Science of Consciousness in Geometry and Gesture

From the back cover of the printed edition:

Rabbinic tradition asserts that every letter of every word of Torah is a word in itself. In The Alphabet That Changed the World, author Stan Tenen demonstrates that each letter is also a hand gesture, and, at this level, Hebrew forms a natural universal language. All people, including children before they speak and people without sight, make use of these gestures. Tenen examines the Hebrew text of Genesis and shows how each letter is both concept and gesture, with the form of the gesture matching the function of the concept, revealing the implicit relationship between the physical world of function and the conscious world of concept. Using over 200 color illustrations, Tenen establishes geometric metaphor as the best framework for understanding the deepest meaning of the text. Such geometry models embryonic growth and self-organization, and also the core of many healing and meditative practices. Many subjects from contemporary science were appreciated through the methods and means available to the ancients; The Alphabet that Changed the World makes this authoritative recovery of the science of consciousness in Genesis accessible for the first time to contemporary readers.

It is my conviction, based on my professional background in modern geometry and topology, that Tenen’s utilization of this difficult material is impeccable. This book is an important and original contribution to the scientific research literature. It may boggle the mind, but the detailed brief presented in full in this book leaves no easy escape from Tenen’s theory: our alphabet was designed from a proto-language of hand gestures.

—Ralph Abraham, Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and author of Foundations of Mechanics (with Jerrold E. Marsden) and Bolts from the Blue

"The Alphabet That Changed the World is a stunning and remarkable book.… The investigation presented here will open up new vistas of understanding, not only of the Hebrew alphabet and Judaism, but also of the sacred texts of all the world’s religious traditions. The amazing interdisciplinary scope … will serve as a model for future researchers and even for nonspecialists who value the growth in consciousness on our planet."

—Joseph P. Schultz, Oppenstein Brothers Distinguished Professor of Judaic Studies, Emeritus, and Director, Center for Religious Studies, Emeritus, at the University of Missouri, Kansas City

"I am continuously amazed by Tenen’s brilliance in the perception of deep, multifaceted patterns completely overlooked by everyone else. An intriguing theory that the fluid rabbinic form of the Meruba Ashurit letters derives from gestures of a meaningfully shaped idealized hand is supported by sufficient evidence to provide a haunting sense of truth.… This book holds treasures of great value for both the secular and religious scholar.… Given a fair hearing, The Alphabet That Changed the World is likely to itself change the world."

—Elliot Pines, PhD, former research engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (California Institute of Technology/NASA) Laboratory (California Institute of Technology/NASA)

The Alphabet That Changed the World

How Genesis Preserves a Science of Consciousness

in Geometry and Gesture

Stan Tenen

Edited by Charles Stein

North Atlantic Books

Berkeley, California

Electronic Edition: ISBN 978-1-58394-798-2

Copyright © 2011 by Stan Tenen. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the written permission of the publisher. For information contact North Atlantic Books.

Published by

North Atlantic Books

P.O. Box 12327

Berkeley, California 94712

Front Cover: This sculpture was produced in bronze by Martin Farren, from a design that is ©1992 Stan Tenen. This model, titled First Hand, is central to the theories presented in The Alphabet That Changed the World, and is discussed extensively throughout this book, most particularly in Chapters 2 and 6.

Cover art by Stan Tenen

Cover and book design by Susan Quasha

Artwork credit information appears in the individual chapter endnotes and in the Illustration Credits

NOTE: Every effort has been made to locate the current copyright holder of an image in Figure 7.7. Please contact North Atlantic Books if you are the copyright holder or have information on how to locate them.

Note to readers of Hebrew: For technical reasons, the Torah-scroll Hebrew font used in this e-book differs slightly from the one used in the printed edition; however this does not affect the substance of our discussion.

The Alphabet That Changed the World: How Genesis Preserves a Science of Consciousness in Geometry and Gesture is sponsored by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences, a nonprofit educational corporation whose goals are to develop an educational and cross-cultural perspective linking various scientific, social, and artistic fields; to nurture a holistic view of arts, sciences, humanities, and healing; and to publish and distribute literature on the relationship of mind, body, and nature.

North Atlantic Books’ publications are available through most bookstores. For further information, visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com or call 800-733-3000.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tenen, Stan, 1942–

The alphabet that changed the world : how Genesis preserves a science of consciousness in geometry and gesture / Stan Tenen ; edited by Charles Stein.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-55643-723-6

1. Hebrew language--Alphabet—History. 2. Bible. O.T. Genesis—Language, style. 3. Alphabet—History. 4. Consciousness—History. 5. Topology—History. 6. Polyhedra—Models. 7. Geometry. I. Title.

PJ4589.T46 2011

492.4’11—dc22

2011007323

This book is dedicated to my father,

Alan (Abie) Tenen,

of blessed memory

Acknowledgments

The Alphabet That Changed the World would not have been possible without the active participation of dozens of caring friends and colleagues over the past quarter-century. I wish I could adequately express my appreciation to each and every one who has helped.

First I would like to thank my wife and colleague Levanah, who as my constant companion aided in all aspects of the research and writing of this book, and who typed the entire manuscript—more than once. I would also like especially to thank my editor Charles Stein, who contributed not only his writing skills, but also his collegiate knowledge, scholarship, and insight, throughout the entire process. There would have been no book without Levanah, and this would not be the book it is without the tireless efforts of Charles Stein.

I would like to thank Amy Mook and Oscar Senn for their invaluable help in improving many of the graphic posters in this book; and particular thanks to Charles Henry, who built the 3-D computer model of our First Hand and The Light in the Meeting Tent. Amy also deserves special credit for designing and maintaining Meru Foundation’s websites: both our primary sites, www.meru.org and www.meetingtent.com, as well as www.Alphabet-That-Changed-The-World.com, the supplemental website for this book. My thanks also to Steve Hildes, Nathaniel Hellerstein, Eliyahu Pines, and Brian Coyne for their feedback on this manuscript; and a special acknowledgment to our long-time Brooklyn friend whose proofreading caught errors all the rest of us had missed.

As explained elsewhere, since 1983 my researches have been conducted under the auspices of Meru Foundation, a nonprofit educational foundation in the U.S. I am grateful to members of Meru Foundation’s Board of Directors, Meru Foundation’s Board of Advisors, and a number of personal friends, colleagues, and philanthropists for their support of this work, both collegiate and financial.

Each of the Foundation’s directors, both past and present, has brought a special talent and enthusiasm. Among them I want especially to thank William Haber, Richard Okun, Virginia Meyer, Grace Ackerman, Kenneth Allen, Janice Sarah Hope, and Pope Coleman. I also would especially like to thank Lyle and Sivey Anderson, Yochanon Bogart, Kenneth Detrick, James Fournier, Steve and Emanuel Hildes, Amy Mook, Rob Nixon, Theodore Schink, and Susan and Barry Wolcott, among many other contributors over the years (some of whom wish to remain anonymous) for their vision, and for their financial support and encouragement. Finally, additional and very special thanks go to Grace Ackerman, who believed in and supported this research in its infancy, even before the Foundation was created; and to James Fournier, who contributed much of our computer equipment in our early years, and singlehandedly created the first Meru Foundation website in 1996.

Meru Foundation itself would not exist were it not for the efforts of my friend and colleague John Keeler, who passed away unexpectedly and early in 1993. He and I had co-founded Meru Foundation only a decade earlier, naming it for the World Mountain (Mt. Meru), and for the Hebrew alphabet (Meruba). This name reflects John’s twin lifelong passions for mountain-climbing and spiritual exploration; as we noted in our TORUS Journal announcement at the time of his passing: John was an adventurer, a mountain-climber and passionate explorer both of earth and of the spirit, who loved the high, remote places with their breathtaking vistas of heaven that few of us make the effort to see. Without John’s extraordinary vision and lust for life, our work would not exist in this form; he is greatly missed.

As I write this (in October 2010) I have just learned of the passing of Henry S. Dakin. I doubt if this book would have been possible without his early generous support and encouragement. Henry was a true genius of the heart, who really did make the world a bit better.

I also cannot fail to mention, thank, and mourn the loss of others now absent who helped to shape this work, whether knowingly or not: Hildegard Elsberg, Holocaust survivor and Jungian therapist, for both her perceptive intelligence, and her personal and financial support; Arthur M. Young, for his theory of process (which we rely and build on in this book), his friendship, and his support; Rabbi Joseph Schapiro z"l, one of the first in the observant Jewish world to believe in our work’s value; and most especially Abner Mendelson, veteran of the Manhattan Project and teacher and advisor to my high school math team, who taught me the skills in pattern-recognition that I depend on to this day.

Thanks also go to members of our online Sharon Colloquium study group for sometimes lively discussion and feedback. I especially want to acknowledge the friendship and support of Ralph Abraham, Richard Amoroso, Moin Ahmed, David Cadoch, Edmond Chalom, Yehonatan Chipman, Brian Coyne, Daniel Gil, Reuven and Yehudit Goldfarb, Richard Hoagland, Jay Kappraff, Louis Kauffman, Perry Krevat, William Moulton, Joseph Schultz, Meir Sendor, Ely Stillman, Steve Wolff, and others already mentioned, including of course and especially William Haber, Meru Foundation’s current President.

Finally, even with the friendship and collegiate support of all these gentlepersons, there are still omissions and errors that are inevitably part of this manuscript, for which I am entirely responsible.

STAN TENEN

14 September 2010

Sharon, Massachusetts

Contents

ILLUSTRATIONS

EDITOR’S PREFACE

AUTHOR’S PREFACE

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Chapter 1: Introduction

The Meruba Ashurit Alphabet

The Letter Bet

Spencer-Brown’s Mark of Distinction

Letters as Gestures

Idealization Not Idolatry

Geometric Metaphor

Passages from the Traditional Commentaries

Chapter 2: Overview of the Meru Hypothesis

The Meru Foundation

The First Distinction

The Two Names of God

The First Verse of Genesis

The Hierarchical Structure of the Five Books

The Torus

The Negentropic Gradient

Infinite Negentropy

Fourier Transform and Delta Function

The Ten-Point Tetractys Triangle as a Discrete Dirac Delta Function Models The Same and the Different and The One and the Many

The Pattern of the Letter-Text and the First Line of Genesis

First Hand and Letter-Text: Hand Gestures and the Origin of the Alphabet

Maximum Contrast of Asymmetry and Symmetry: The Flame in the Meeting Tent

Abraham, Monotheism, and the Alphabet

Abraham’s Discovery

Chapter 3: The Alphabet That Changed the World, Part 1

Beginning of Research and the Founding of the Meru Foundation

Ten Years of Research

Torah Text as Time Capsule

Alternative Readings of Genesis 1:1

Letter-Sequence of Genesis 1:1

The Dividing of the Letter-Text into Words

Chapter 4: Historical Interlude

Levites

Not even a jot or a tittle

Chapter 5: The Alphabet That Changed the World, Part 2

Genesis 1:1 and the Alphabet

Geometry and the Alphabet: Pattern and Meaning

The Incomparable

Tori and Topology

Arthur M. Young’s Seven-Stage Theory of Process

Arrangements of 7-Color Torus Maps and Genesis 1:1

Chapter 6: The Alphabet That Changed the World, Part 3

A More Elegant Pattern: Eliminating Blank Spaces

The Extended Symmetry Groups: Hamantashen

The Shushon Flower

The Flame in the Meeting Tent and the Reciprocal Spiral

Recapitulation

Complementarity of the Tetrahedron and the Torus or Vortex

The Vortex and the Tetrahedron in Traditional Symbolism

From Flame to Hand

Torus Knots

The Tetrahelical Column

The Model Hand

The Significance of Forming Gestures

The Model Hand and the Traditional Meaning of Putting on Tefillin

Chapter 7: Principles of Interpretation Part 1—The Gesture Alphabet

The Gesture Alphabet

Some Assumptions Held by Liberal Scholarship

The Assumptions Regarding the Torah

The History of What Became the Alphabet

The Gestural Hypothesis of Human Language Origins

Translingual and Intralingual Puns

Intrinsic Significance Inherent in Hebrew Letter Forms

How the Knowledge Was Lost

Gestures and Letters

The Unique Qualities of Gesture Letters Formed from a Single Model Hand

Chapter 8: Principles of Interpretation Part 2—Emergence

The Von Neumann Challenge

The Fountain of Wisdom

On the Way to Maturity: The Inverted-T Diagram and the Golden Rules

Emergent Phenomena

The Golden Rules

The Inverted-T as Universal Geometric Metaphor

A New Consciousness

Chapter 9: The Last Chapter Is Not Yet Written

APPENDICES

A: Hebrew Text of Quotation from Avodat Avodah

B: Sefer Yetzirah and the Meru Hypothesis

C: The Dirac String Trick: First Hand

D: Breathing Out and Breathing In—The Hypersphere: Two Ways to Depict a Hypersphere (illustrations)

E: Meru Conjectures (1986)

F: Shushon Flower Arrangement of the Twenty-Seven-Letter Hebrew Alphabet (illustration)

G: Atbash-Base-3 Snake (illustration)

H: Introduction to Symmetry and the Platonic and Archimedean Solids

I: The Ouroboros

J: Reciprocal Spirals in Nature, Art, and Physics

K: The Sphere-Points of the Lahav Swath as the 72-Letter Name of God (illustration)

L: Dalet, Delta, and The Almighty (illustration)

M: How the Idealizations of Continuous Creation and the Fountain of Wisdom Are Embodied in the Great Traditions

N: Ten-ness, the Tetractys, and Marion’s Theorem

GLOSSARY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Illustrations

Chapter 1

Figure 1.1 The first verse of Genesis in Hebrew without vowelization or word separations

Figure 1.2 The letter Bet as a gesture

Chapter 2

Figure 2.1 The first line of the letter-text of Genesis translated word-by-word

Figure 2.2 The Inverted-T diagram

Figure 2.3 The Hebrew letter Bet

Figure 2.4 The first verse of Genesis in Hebrew without vowelization or word separations

Figure 2.5 The Many Words of the First Verse of Genesis

Figure 2.6 The Internal Structure of B’reshit: An Expanding Hierarchy

Figure 2.7 Torus showing dual circulation

Figure 2.8 B’reshit 1:1 wound on a torus

Figure 2.9 The negentropic gradient

Figure 2.10 The inverted-T diagram as Sun and Shield

Figure 2.11 Delta Function—The One and the Many

Figure 2.12 The two triangles of the inverted-T

Figure 2.13 Optical prism

Figure 2.14 Sample functions and their Fourier transform spectra

Figure 2.15 The One and the Many

Figure 2.16 The Many points to the One

Figure 2.17 Extent and Expanse

Figure 2.18 The tetractys triangle and the One and the Many

Figure 2.19 The tetractys triangle becomes The Same

Figure 2.20 The tetractys triangle becomes The Different

Figure 2.21 The Hebrew alphabet arranged on a 3x3x3 Rubik’s cube

Figure 2.22 Hebrew Rubik’s cube showing letters which occur in the first verse of B’reshit

Figure 2.23 B’reshit 1:1 showing the aaba pattern of letter-introduction

Figure 2.24 Triangle-squeeze bellows

Figure 2.25 Piston-style bellows

Figure 2.26 Three stages of swarming behavior

Figure 2.27 Circling turkeys show three-stage pattern

Figure 2.28 Hebrew letter hand gestures: Alef to Kaf

Figure 2.29 Hebrew letter hand gestures: Lamed to Tav

Figure 2.30 Hebrew letter hand gestures: Final Letters

Figure 2.31 Genesis 1:1 in gestures

Figure 2.32 The Flame in the Meeting Tent

Figure 2.33 The Idealized Fruit as the three-turn spiral vortex defining a 2-torus on a dimpled sphere

Figure 2.34 First Hand model: circle-line construction

Figure 2.35 Astronomical cycles and torus knots

Figure 2.36 The gesture for Bet: chimp gesturing for food

Chapter 3

Figure 3.1 The Michelson interferometer

Figure 3.2 The beginning of Genesis as normally printed in a Hebrew/English text

Figure 3.3 Autocorrelation of Genesis 1:3: Let there be Light

Figure 3.4 The Arecibo message

Figure 3.5 Hierarchical array of the text of Genesis

Figure 3.6 B’reshit 1:1 with the first nine letters emphasized

Figure 3.7 The Many Words of the First Verse of Genesis

Figure 3.8 Tetrahedron

Figure 3.9 Beginning of Genesis showing fold-point between verses 1 and 2

Figure 3.10 The twenty-seven-letter Hebrew alphabet arranged in three layers

Figure 3.11 Hebrew alphabet final letter forms

Chapter 5

Figure 5.1 Hebrew alphabet functional and numerical equivalents

Figure 5.2 The three levels of the Hebrew alphabet on a Rubik’s cube

Figure 5.3 The Cornerstone

Figure 5.4 Cube (schematic) showing letters used in Genesis 1:1 viewed from above

Figure 5.5 Hebrew alphabet cube, cubies of letters in Genesis 1:1 colored

Figure 5.6 Woven pattern of letter-introduction in Genesis 1:1

Figure 5.7 Bet and an inverted ZadiFinal make Alef

Figure 5.8 Backgammon chip autocorrelation of Genesis 1:1 (photo)

Figure 5.9 Bead chain autocorrelation of Genesis 1:1 (photo)

Figure 5.10 Genesis 1:1 bead-chain autocorrelation showing symmetrical letter-pairs (diagram)

Figure 5.11 Scytale (diagram)

Figure 5.12 Genesis 1:1 wound on a pole in a way similar to a scytale (photo)

Figure 5.13 Genesis 1:1 autocorrelation on an umbilic toroid

Figure 5.14 2-torus showing two axes of circulation

Figure 5.15 Arthur Young’s seven-stage theory of process plus Oneness/Singularity and Wholeness

Figure 5.16 Theory of process arrangement of the first nine letters of the Hebrew alphabet

Figure 5.17 The 7-Color Map on the 2-Torus

Figure 5.18 Genesis 1:1 on the 7-color map: two perspectives

Figure 5.19 How the text of Genesis 1:1 is woven of its letters, and simultaneously tells a story

Chapter 6

Figure 6.1 Hamantashen (photo: L. Tenen)

Figure 6.2 Traditional arrangements of the Hebrew alphabet on an ouroboros

Figure 6.3 Circular arrangement of the twenty-seven-letter Hebrew alphabet (photo)

Figure 6.4 Circular arrangement in Fig. 6.3 folded to display alphabet symmetry groups (photo)

Figure 6.5 The Hebrew alphabet arranged on the three lobes of a trefoil figure

Figure 6.6 Umbilic toroid showing front-back and base-3 symmetry in the Hebrew alphabet

Figure 6.7 Forming a 2-torus and a 3-torus

Figure 6.8 Shushon Flower Genesis 1:1 autocorrelation

Figure 6.9 The expansive quality of a fruit tree yielding fruit whose seed is within itself

Figure 6.10 Tetrahedral sphere-pack of four spheres

Figure 6.11 Cubeoctahedral sphere-packing

Figure 6.12 Icosahedral sphere-packing

Figure 6.13 Sphere-packing: layers of spheres

Figure 6.14 A tetrahedron grows into a cubeoctahedron

Figure 6.15 Cubeoctahedron and its twelve equal radii

Figure 6.16 Cubeoctahedron jitterbugging through icosahedral stage to a double-octahedron

Figure 6.17 Calla lily

Figure 6.18 Shushon Flower

Figure 6.19 The five Platonic polyhedra plus the semiregular cubeoctahedron in sequence as in the Lahav Swath

Figure 6.20 The five Platonic polyhedra plus the cubeoctahedron in sequence as in the Lahav Swath

Figure 6.21 Whole Shushon Flower and its three double-vortex florets

Figure 6.22 Curves of the First Hand model shown on a cubeoctahedroid

Figure 6.23 Cubeoctahedron showing spiral vortices of First Hand model (photo)

Figure 6.24 Logarithmic spiral

Figure 6.25 Archimedean spiral

Figure 6.26 Reciprocal/hyperbolic spiral

Figure 6.27 Lituus spiral

Figure 6.28A Circle-line form of the First Hand model

Figure 6.28B: Six single-finger and six four-finger circle-line models assemble into cup-like or basket-like forms

Figure 6.29 Ionic capital

Figure 6.30 Egyptian Eye of Horus

Figure 6.31 Fruit tree yielding fruit whose seed is in itself. (Gen. 1:11)

Figure 6.32 2-D cross-section of a 3-D cubeoctahedral sphere-pack

Figure 6.33 Curve of spine of human fetus approximates reciprocal spiral

Figure 6.34 2-torus showing two independent circulations

Figure 6.35 Umbilic toroid and Arthur Young’s s 7-color torus map

Figure 6.36 Diagram and physical model of double-vortex florets

Figure 6.37 Tetrahedron

Figure 6.38A Physical model of tetrahedron showing its seven axes of symmetry

Figure 6.38B Glass tetrahedral prism showing internal reflections

Figure 6.39 Symmetries of the tetrahedron (diagram)

Figure 6.40 1986 apparatus used manipulate the Light in the Meeting Tentmodel (photo)

Figure 6.41 Hand-traced shadowgrams of the Light in the Meeting Tent model created using the positioning apparatus shown in Figure 6.40

Figure 6.42 Eternal Flame: photo and illustration

Figure 6.43 The Light in the Meeting Tent (1986 illustration)

Figure 6.44 (Left) arm-tefillin and head-tefillin and (right) proper placement of the head-tefillin

Figure 6.45 The arm-tefillin box and its proper placement

Figure 6.46 The Light in the Meeting Tent: physical model (photo)

Figure 6.47 The trefoil knot: diagram and physical models

Figure 6.48 The 3,10 torus knot in wreath form

Figure 6.49 The 3,10 torus knot in globular basket form

Figure 6.50 The 3,10 Torus Knot, Ring, and Sphere

Figure 6.51 Six model hands form the 3,10 torus knot and the Shushon Flower

Figure 6.52 Cubeoctahedral frame

Figure 6.53 First Hand model displayed on ice-bucket apple (physical model) and the 3,10 torus knot in globe/fruit form

Figure 6.54 How the 3,10 torus knot in its globular form defines the First Hand model

Figure 6.55 The 3,10 torus knot and the six model hands that it outlines

Figure 6.56 Tetrahelical columns: stacked tetrahedra and physical sphere-point model

Figure 6.57 The 3,10 Torus Knot and the Tetrahelical Column

Figure 6.58 A 33-tetrahedron column makes a tetrahelix with one full turn

Figure 6.59 Tetrahelix accounting

Figure 6.60 Finger-width First Hand model (photo)

Figure 6.61 First Hand model: one-finger-width (left) and four-finger-width (right) (photos)

Figure 6.62 Representative hand models

Figure 6.63 The first five letters of the Hebrew alphabet as displayed in gestures with the First Hand model hand

Figure 6.64 The Hebrew letter Zayin: gesture and meaning

Figure 6.65 The Hebrew letter Pe: gesture and meaning

Chapter 7

Figure 7.1 The World in God’s Hand

Figure 7.2 Transition from pictograms to modern Hebrew letters

Figure 7.3 The Hebrew letter Ayin: gesture and meaning

Figure 7.4 Genesis 1:1 As Song

Figure 7.5 P-I-N English word roots: Circle and Line

Figure 7.6 In the Beginning God Created: the Letter Bet

Figure 7.7 The Letter Bet: The Baton

Figure 7.8: A graphical analysis of Inyan, ענין, Ayin-Nun-Yod-Nun Final

Figure 7.9: Hebrew alphabet with letter-meanings, arranged in three levels of nine as a Rubik’s cube

Figure 7.10: The Hebrew alphabet with letter-meanings, in three tiers of nine letters each

Figure 7.11: The Hebrew letter Alef: gesture and meaning

Figure 7.12: The Hebrew letter Yod: gesture and meaning

Figure 7.13: The Hebrew letter Qof: gesture and meaning

Figure 7.14: Broca’s area and the homunculus

Figure 7.15: Chimp and human using the opening, Bet gesture

Figure 7.16: The Hebrew letter Bet: gesture and meaning

Figure 7.17: The Hebrew letter Kaf: gesture and meaning

Figure 7.18: The Hebrew letter Resh: gesture and meaning

Chapter 8

Figure 8.1 The Fountain of Wisdom and the 3,10 torus knot

Figure 8.2 The Tree in the Garden Through the Dimensions

Figure 8.3 7 in a Point

Figure 8.4 The seven internal distinctions in a point-sphere

Figure 8.5 Spheres inside cubes in increasing dimensions

Figure 8.6 Tetractys triangle shown as equilateral triangle

Figure 8.7 Letter-analysis of Nes נס, miracle

Figure 8.8 Complementarity and Reciprocity

Figure 8.9 Ten inverted-Ts form an inverted-T triangle in their own image

Figure 8.10 The Golden Rule through the dimensions

Figure 8.10A An Overview: The Two Golden Rules

Figure 8.11 One Droplet of the Shefa Tal

Figure 8.12 Reciprocals and complements in modern physics

Figure 8.13A The Inverted-T as universal geometric metaphor

Figure 8.13B The One and the Many

Figure 8.14 Sun and Shield model

Figure 8.15 A water droplet: an example of the One emerging from the Many

Figure 8.16 Letter-analysis of Hoq חק [graphic] surrounding vessel

Figure 8.17 The cosmic sexual metaphor

Figure 8.18 The formation of a Bose-Einstein condensate

Figure 8.19 The emergence of a miracle

Appendix B

Figure B-1 Autocorrelation of Genesis 1:1

Figure B-2 The seventh Shabbos Alef connects the ends of Genesis 1:1

Figure B-3 A-SaR עשר TEN designates a circular umblicus

Figure B-4 ספי—SuFI Model of Continuous Creation

Figure B-5 Continuous Creation and First Hand

Figure B-6 The 3,10 torus knot showing heart forms

Figure B-7 The Ten Sefirot on the Tree of Life with Malkut linked to Keter

Appendix C

Figure C-1 Hypersphere and hypercube

Figure C-2 Expressions of a model fruit out-sphere with a seed-pit in-sphere

Figure C-3 Dirac string trick storyboard

Figure C-4 In-sphere, Dirac string, and out-sphere as represented by the First Hand model

Figure C-5 60° First Hand Sculpture

Figure C-6 Various side views of the Philippine Wine Dance

Figure C-7 The Rashi-Nachmanides Rabbinic script alphabet

Appendix D

Figure D-1 Two ways to depict a hypersphere: the 2-torus

Figure D-2 Two ways to depict a hypersphere: the Dirac string trick

Appendix H

Figure H-1 Megalithic carved stone balls

Figure H-2 The five Platonic solids

Figure H-3 Cubeoctahedron

Figure H-4 The vertices of a double-tetrahedron connect to form a cubeoctahedron

Appendix I

Figure I-1 Ouroboros: The snake that eats its tail

Figure I-2 Infinite contrast and the letter Bet

Figure I-3 Black fire and white fire—the extreme opposites

Figure I-4 Arthur Young’s seven stages of process strung between singularity and wholeness

Figure I-5 The Lahav Swath as head and tail of the ouroboros

Appendix J

Figure J-1 Physical models of inverted dimpled-sphere torus knots

Figure J-2 The reciprocal spiral in nature

Figure J-3 The reciprocal spiral in art and tradition

Figure J-4 The reciprocal spiral in mathematics and physics

Appendix L

Figure L-1 How DaLeT receives and dispenses at a DeLTa

Figure L-2 How the two God-Names, Lord and Almighty, are One

Appendix M

Figure M-1 Continuous Creation and Churning the Ocean of Milk

Figure M-2 Continuous Creation and Churning the Ocean of Milk (keyed to text)

Figure M-3 The Geometry of Rumi’s Mevlevi Sufi Round Dance (keyed to text)

Figure M-4 The Tree of Abraham: an organic model of Western civilization

Editor’s Preface

I met Stan Tenen in 1987 when I was giving a talk on mathematics, art, and mysticism at Arthur Young’s Institute for the Study of Consciousness in Berkeley. Richard Grossinger, the publisher of North Atlantic Books, introduced me to the Tenens with the hope that I would become interested in their work and perhaps be able to help them produce a publishable manuscript expounding their ideas. During the ensuing months I read through many of the short texts that they had on hand and found the material fascinating and potentially of enormous interest. Here was a series of radical ideas that were challenging to received wisdom in perhaps a dozen distinct fields of study: there was first of all, the history of the alphabet, the academic study of which had prematurely rejected the thesis of the gestural origins of the alphabetic symbols as early as the nineteenth century. There was the history of the biblical text, the history of the Ancient Near East, the history of consciousness, the history of thought. There were both traditional Jewish versions of these subjects and often hotly contested academic points in each of these fields outside of any religious context. Beyond that there were the various branches of mathematics from which Tenen was deriving certain concepts: the geometry of the Platonic solids and general topology, to name the most conspicuous. There were methodological and logical considerations regarding how one would bring together thoughts from so diverse an array of intellectual domains; and finally, there were issues of moral theory and theological speculation of the most far-reaching sort. Would it actually be possible to integrate such a vast assortment of materials in a way that would be convincing in itself and at the same time do justice to the serious scholarly work in so many fields?

I had a few conversations with Stan about these matters, but was not able to see how I could be of help. I phoned Richard and said that advancing the situation toward a reasonable publication was beyond my meager capacities.

A few years later, Richard asked me to try again. This time I spent some energy looking at the early videotapes produced by The Meru Foundation and began to get really interested in the issues. I began to get a sense of the profound intellectual integrity behind the Tenens’ investigation: it was not only that they were genuinely interested in inviting criticism and making serious contributions to the many fields that they were exploring. They had in truth made certain observations about the biblical text and experienced certain intuitions about its nature that genuinely perplexed them. They had literally scoured these disciplines in vain to confirm or disconfirm what they had discovered. There had been no choice but to develop their intuitions and to attempt an intellectual synthesis. The whole question was how to assemble the material and develop and refine the argument in a coherent and intellectually responsible way. I was, however, only in possession of a glimpse of how this argument might go, and I still did not see how I would be able to help.

More years passed. Richard asked me to try again—again! By now I had some basic notion of what the Tenens and their Meru Foundation were after. I read more of their material and, what was extremely helpful, experienced many of their visual diagrams, posters, sculptural devices. I was beginning to get the hang of the actual rationality that underlay their fundamental propositions: that gestural forms lay at the basis of the alphabetic figures; that a geometric symbolism based on very interesting mathematical metaphors supported and explained the organization of the text of at least the first book of scripture; that knowledge of these facts lay buried in traditional rabbinic literature but had been lost for all practical purposes for historically comprehensible reasons. There was an argument here, a genuine series of problems that in fact were being articulated in some cases for the first time. There was a forthright methodology that was itself in the process of being worked out and which, even if not expressed in an optimally perspicuous manner, was truly being conscientiously followed.

This time an occasion arose for the publication of an article summarizing the views of The Meru Project to be part of an anthology called The Complementarity of Mind and Body: Realizing the Dream of Descartes, Einstein, and Eccles.1 I agreed to work with Stan in organizing the thoughts for it and in helping him write it. In the process I was able to get more deeply into the various materials and we did compose a piece that was acceptable for publication. By now I was hooked, as it were, if not on every detail of the argument, at least on the notion that it was worthwhile finding a verbal form for communicating The Meru Project in all its depth and complexity.

Without going further into the history of the composition of the present text or anticipating the argument, I will say that The Alphabet That Changed the World is a second step in fulfilling that ambition (the first step being the aforementioned article). This book attempts to lay out before the reader in an orderly manner a complex and fundamentally integrated vision that binds together a historical thesis regarding the origin of the alphabet (not only the Hebrew Alphabet), with a series of ontological principles that allows for the wide multiplicity of cultural views and ethical norms that have emerged around the globe. We have made every effort to render these ideas as elegantly and clearly as we know how, and we believe that a careful reading will repay the patient reader with a new way to think about our present global situation that is generous to human variety and full of moral hope without reducing history, morality, or spiritual practice to any one of the competing fundamentalisms that so threaten the planet today.

CHARLES STEIN

Barrytown, NY

October, 2010

1. Mr. Tenen’s essay is Chapter 11, Linguistic Cosmology in Richard Amoroso, ed., The Complementarity of Mind and Body: Realizing the Dream of Descartes, Einstein, and Eccles (New York, NY: NOVA Scientific Publishers, 2010).

Author’s Preface

As recently as a hundred years ago, the idea that the human race belonged to a single world was but a fantasy in the minds of a few dreamers. Powerful empires competed with each other across vast terrestrial and maritime regions, but still vaster territories remained inhabited by tribal peoples, still to be integrated into a global system. By the end of the Second World War, however, in the United Nations we began to realize the dream that all of humanity might ultimately be united in a single world.

In 2011, for better or worse (and it is easy to make a case for worse) the idea that the earth comprises a single system is no longer a dream. Whether one considers global commerce, the international grid of telephone and internet communication, worldwide air transport, or our increasing understanding of the earth as a single ecosystem, the interconnectedness of all the peoples and places of the earth is now an unexceptionable fact. But obvious too are the momentous inner conflicts that trouble this One World. Some of this strife is due to the very economic systems that unite us, causing tremors of instability to propagate from anywhere but affecting us everywhere. The exploitation of the earth by industrial and now developing nations of course threatens the entire ecosystem and exacerbates political and social unrest; but conflicting fundamental ideas among different traditions about history and the nature of reality continue to foster and sustain conflicts of the most ferocious and tragic kind. Now what if each of these traditions harbored principles and truths that had become distorted, suppressed, or simply lost over the hundreds of generations since their initial discoveries or revelations? What if it were possible to recover these truths and that, far from their being in conflict with one another, they were all, if not identical in form, at least in harmonious