The beginning of the Hebrew Alphabet is obscure by its antiquity. Scholars believe that the version called North Semitic arose among the inhabitants of Northern Palestine and Syria about 3,500 B.C. These people established permanent phonetic sounds, numerical value and order which became Early Hebrew.
Our English alphabet has letters which stand for sounds and has no other meaning. Each Hebrew letter, on the other hand, has not only a phonetic sound (a meaningful sound) but also a numerical value. Each sign had a humble beginning. For example, the sign 
(Beit) means house but it points to the cosmos as the dwelling place of the divine. The alphabet has no written vowel sounds. We can look upon the Hebrew Alphabet as a code which sums up the mysteries of creation and for the contemplative it reveals insight into these mysteries. "In Traditional Jewish thought, each letter--its name, pictorial form, numerical equivalent, and position in the alphabet--is ordained by God."
In the New Testament, Christ is said to be the 
, the Beginning and End of all things. "The manner of expressing God's eternity by means of the first and last letters of the alphabet seems to have passed from from the synagogue into the Church" (New Advent Web Encyclopedia) but in the process we lost the profound meaning found in the Hebrew Alef-Tev.
I intend to explore the meaning of the Hebrew letters in the light of Christ, who can give full meaning to them because he was both God and Man. Christ himself said, "Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place." (Mt. 5:17)
To Alef, Beit, Gimmel