Kaf · כ

The palm gives, the palm receives, and the wheel turns on exactly that hinge.

Correspondences

Essence

Kaf is the open palm — the hand of yod unclenched, curved to hold. A palm is the most reversible of instruments: the same cupped shape gives and receives, blesses and begs, and which it is doing at any moment depends on nothing but orientation. The letter is the first of keter, crown, and of kavanah, the directed intention of prayer — the two poles of its meaning, what is placed on the head from above and what is offered up from below. Kaf also means "like, as": the prefix of resemblance, the letter by which one thing is held up against another.

As a double letter it carries the heaviest of the Sefer Yetzirah's pairs — life and death — under Jupiter, the great benefic, the planet of expansion and fortune. It is one of the five letters that change shape at the end of a word: bent kaf within the word, standing straight as ך at the close, the palm opening fully when the giving is done.

On the Tree it is the twenty-first path, joining Chesed to Netzach — mercy flowing down the Pillar of Mercy into victory. Its trump is Wheel of Fortune, Jupiter's own card, the turning circle of rise and fall. The palm and the wheel share a secret: fortune is not fair, but it is round, and the hand that holds lightly is the one the turning cannot injure.

Related

• Yod — the previous letter, the point the palm extends
• Lamed — the next letter, the goad that teaches the hand
• Wheel of Fortune
• Kabbalah
• Tree of Life