(cheht)
SOUND: ch as in chutzpah
NUMERICAL VALUE: 8; INFINITY
Meanings
Chet is the eighth letter of the Aleph Beit. As seven is a number of completion, eight signifies a time of new beginnings, the entering of a new cycle. With the eighth day, a new week begins. With the eighth note, a new, higher octave sounds. The Hebrew word for “new,” 
, chadash, begins with Chet.
Besides standing for the number eight, Chet also represents infinity (whose symbol is a sideways eight), the numberless realm beyond space and time.
The form of Chet resembles an arch or gateway. New life emerges as we leave the old behind, cross the threshold and step into the unknown, into the infinite.
Such crossings, however, can be full of fear. Chet is key to the Hebrew words for both “life,” 
, chayim, and “fear,” 
, chitah. To be alive is to be afraid. Chet teaches us how to negotiate endings and beginnings in our lives in this frightening world with 
, chesed, grace and loving-kindness.
Application
Chet, this powerful symbol of transformation, is the first letter of 
, chupah, the wedding canopy. The form of Chet actually looks like a chupah. The chupah is both a shelter and a gateway into the journey of married life. As the betrothed pair stand beneath the chupah, they are in liminal space, a holy, highly-charged, in-between realm. When they emerge from the chupah, their lives have been profoundly changed. They are born into the world as a married couple.
Chet evokes these questions: From what metaphorical chupah are you emerging? What or whom are you choosing to marry, to unite with? What radical transformations are you undergoing?
At a wedding ceremony, the wine of blessing is drunk and everyone cheers, “L’chayim!” “To life!” Chet encourages us to stride through the gateway of transformation with a vibrant spirit, to enjoy the spontaneous aliveness of being a human being, to embrace life come what may, good fortune or no.
Come what may. Gevalt! Life is a fearsome proposition. One eats and tries to avoid being eaten. Most of us these days are not in danger of being devoured by wild animals, but there are other forces out there that would consume us: microbes, draining jobs, debilitating emotions, illness, drugs and alcohol, consumerism in general, and for everyone ultimately and inevitably, death.
With Chet, we cross through a gateway and leave behind naive optimism. Chet marks an initiation out of innocence into an awareness of the dangers that underlie our lives. The Book of Job says God “suspends the earth on nothingness.”1 A deep part of us fears falling into or being swallowed up by that abyss of nothing, the infinite void that waits just below our feet, just beyond our next thought, just beyond our next breath.
Nevertheless, Chet’s animating force is that of chayim, life. The challenge is summarized by the title of the book, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. Chet calls us to allow a mature awareness of death and danger to inform and deepen our embrace of life. Death can become an ally, helping us realize the preciousness of life. “A good warrior is always afraid,” advises the grandmother in a Modoc Indian tale. Chutzpah means “gumption and audacity.” Chet teaches “holy chutzpah,” the willingness to make mistakes, to take chances and move into the unknown in order to create something new.
The form of Chet suggests a bridge, with the top horizontal line connecting the two vertical ones. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov taught, “All of this world is a very narrow bridge. And above all, have no fear at all.” Rebbe Nachman knew about confronting fear. His beloved son died in infancy. The rabbi once undertook a perilous pilgrimage to the Holy Land at the height of the Napoleonic wars. And, for much of his short life he lived with bipolar disorder. Nonetheless, Rebbe Nachman was able to cross the very narrow bridge of his life with good humor, wisdom, and courage, which continue to encourage and enhearten many to this day. He predicted, in fact, that, “my light will glow until the day of the Messiah.”
Another Hasidic master, Rabbi Moshe Leib, said, “The way in this world is like the edge of a blade. On this side is the netherworld, and on that side is the netherworld, and the way of life lies in between.”2 The way of life is the way of Chet.
Wu-men, a twelfth-century Chinese Zen master, echoes Rebbe Nachman and Rabbi Moshe: “At the very cliff edge of birth and death, you find the Great Freedom.”3 We walk that cliff edge at all times. Chet calls us to walk it with chesed, grace and loving-kindness, and experience this freedom.
Gary Snyder writes in his poem “Walking Home from ‘The Duchess of Malfi’”:
Pains of death and love,
Birth and war,
wreckt earth,
bless
With more love,
not less.4
This way of blessing is not an easy way. Chet’s is not an easy path. It takes time to ripen into the wisdom, chochmah (another Chet word), of embodying this attitude toward life and fear. Many Jewish holidays last for eight days, suggesting that a period of time is required before we pass through the gateway and reach completion. Transformation doesn’t usually happen all at once.
The eight days of Chanukah, for example, honor the cycling of time at the winter solstice and recall the miracle of one day’s worth of oil lasting for eight. By eating and living in humble sukkot, huts, for the eight days of Sukkot, we remember the forty years that the Jews dwelt in huts during their sojourn in the Sinai. In the Diaspora, Passover is observed for eight days to commemorate the escape from Egypt and the Hebrews’ long years of wandering in the desert. By lasting for eight days, these holidays allow us to deepen into sacred time and to feel more deeply how our ancestors struggled through the challenges of life.
As celebrated in Israel, the eighth day of Sukkot is known as both Shemini Atzeret, “Retreat of the Eighth Day,” and Simchat Torah, “Rejoicing with the Torah.” (In the Diaspora, these holidays are celebrated on two separate days.) With the harvest complete, Shemini Atzeret marks the traditional day for praying for rain to help the next season’s harvest. Simchat Torah celebrates the completion of the annual cycle of readings of the Torah and the beginning of the next cycle. Both are Chet-powered holidays in that they celebrate endings and the jumping off into the unknown, into the Chet, infinity, of new beginnings once again.
Rebbe Nachman actually encouraged literal jumping on Simchat Torah. He taught that on this day people should dance and turn somersaults and leap off the ground in an effort to defy gravity and transcend the limitations of the physical world. Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan writes that when we dance with the Torah on Simchat Torah, “we are expressing the fact that on this day we are able to transcend the physical…going beyond any barriers and boundaries that were thought to be impossible to overcome.”5
This is the chutzpah of Chet: to jump out into the infinite, into the unknown, beyond the barriers that seem to hold us back!
Chet’s Shadow
To feel that “all of this world is a very narrow bridge,” as Rebbe Nachman put it, can be overwhelming. We can become paralyzed with fear, unable to move along the bridge at all, or panicked by fear, acting wildly and dangerously. The challenge of Chet is to make fear an ally, so that, rather than a drain and a terror, it connects us more deeply to life and becomes a source of energy.
We have seen how Chet is a sign of chadash, the new. While freshness and innovation are wonderful, it’s easy to become addicted to newness. Do we constantly crave novelty? Are we never satisfied? Do we disparage or wantonly deconstruct the time-honored and venerable? New doesn’t always mean “improved.” On the contrary, what has stood the test of time may often be more sound and have more integrity than the latest invention.
Chet is the first letter of cheit. Usually translated as “sin,” cheit literally means “to miss the mark.” Chet’s impulsivity may need to be tempered, and we may be well-advised to aim a little better before making a leap. Cheit is also a reminder of the negative aspects of chutzpah, such as arrogance and rudeness.
Personal Comments
At the wedding of my friends, Rabbi Aryeh called me under the canopy to offer a blessing. I had been sitting just a few feet away from the chupah, but as soon as I walked underneath it, I felt I had just come within an invisible but extraordinarily powerful force field. The feeling reminded me of the time I entered the sacred arbor during a Lakota Sun Dance. When I myself was married a few weeks after my friends’ wedding, I found the chupah to be a magical, alchemical container.
Chet is the chupah. Chet sets up a transformational force field. Within that force field miracles happen. By the time we emerge through the gateway of Chet, our lives will have been deepened and enlivened. L’chayim!
Summary for Chet
Numerical value: |
8 |
Meanings: |
Life. Fear. Grace. Chutzpah. |
Application: |
Move to a higher level, taking things to a new octave. |
|
Pass through a gateway to new beginnings. |
|
Feel the fear and do it anyway. |
Shadow: |
Becoming incapacitated by fear. |
|
Always craving the new. |
|
Indulging in arrogance, rudeness, pushiness. |
Reflection: |
What metaphorical chupah am I entering into, standing within, or emerging from? |
Suggested action: |
Do something today that takes some chutzpah. |