Parshat Bereishit 

The form of the letter vav represents a pillar, or a person standing upright with his feet on the earth and his head reaching the heavens. The first appearance of the letter vav in the Torah is in the first verse: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Bereishit 1:1).” The letter vav, as a word in and of itself, means “and,” while its form is a symbol of connection. The vav is therefore understood as the archetypal connector, bringing together both concepts and dimensions, such as “the heavens and the earth.”

Another manifestation of the meaning of the vav is that it represents the dynamic of what Chassidut calls ohr yashar, “straight, direct light,” that descends from above to below, and then “returns,” as ohr chozer, “reflected light”, from below to above. These two energies dynamically present themselves in the Divine encounter between Creator and creation in general, as well as God and man specifically. This process of connection and communication is represented by both the semantic meaning and the material form of the letter, vav. Another unique aspect of the letter vav is that it is used grammatically in the Torah to invert the tense of a verb from past to future and future to past. This phenomenon gives the Torah an eternal quality, a sense of being both within and yet beyond time. Past, present and future are thus all united and connected through the line of the letter, vav.