TEACHING YOURSELF HEBREW

Teaching yourself Hebrew is a must, no one can do it for you!

However sometimes in the beginning, we all need that spark to show us what is possible.

Trust the leading of the Spirit and work hard learning these simple steps. By the time you are done, you will be soaring on your own and equipped with everything that you need to bring you revelation and Godly understanding.

During and for each step, you will need to tell yourself that this is something that I AM going to do:

"I am going to learn my Hebrew Aleph-Bet"!

Now practice it until you know it as good as you know your ABC's and then (and only then) go on to the next step.

Learn to Love the letters and every Word that they make up. Let them be your meditation all day! After all, God our father is every “Historic Vowel”(10) that makes up and connects every word together.

He, is all and in all: “one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all” (Ephesians 4:6)

Pay attention to your progress. Watch as you learn the first few steps. You will begin to see the results. In fact keep your eyes open for the Lord to start using this knowledge as a another method of communication with you.

Do not set your goals too high too fast. Learn one step at a time and then add more to it later. Do not try and rush things. Learn each step well. Then revisit steps making sure that nothing is lost.

Do not expect to understand everything right away. Concentrate on finishing your tasks in these steps as your primary goal.

As you learn more about the letters and how they work, you will not only begin to see and understand, but you will also come to see and be blown away with your own personal revelations.

LEARNING TO RECITE THE BASIC LETTERS

We are all different, but I will share what has worked for us.

First we learned to recite the Aleph-Bet. My wife found some Hebrew Aleph-Bet songs on YouTube and we used those together at first too. (Here is a popular one, and Here is one that includes both the sav and tav). We also sought out others with the desire to learn and practiced with them as well, until we could all recite the Aleph-Bet perfectly. I also challenged myself with saying and reciting it faster and faster without making mistakes.

After knowing it well (even now) I still help others all the time, helping and encouraging them to recite and helping them with errors until they no longer slip up.

We all need to find a use that will keep it all fresh in our mind, or we will loose it. In my home growing up when I was young, my step-father (from age two) mostly spoke Arabic. He wrote often and spoke Arabic everyday in fellowship with his immediate family. I heard it around the house on an everyday basis. Later after we moved out of State and away from his family, he eventually became more "Americanized" and after many years had passed by with hardly no communication at all, he had forgotten his own native tongue.

This is nothing new, there are many immigrants that can no longer speak their own native languages.

If you are not doing SOMETHING with it, you WILL loose it!

SUGGESTIONS

• Teach others that have a desire to learn
• Use it frequently in your own biblical studies
• Meditate on it all day and night (as you meditate on the word)
• Sing it to yourself in psalms and hymns and songs

Keep on keeping on. Do not let anything slip that you learn.

Plan to move forward. Be like the tree planted by rivers of water!

After you are done with these steps, keep learning new words daily.

Always be on the lookout for new personal revelation and communication from God.

Learning to recite the letters with dagesh:

This task can be easily accomplished by taking on five or six letters at a time before going on and then incorporating a few letters or sometimes (depending on your ability) another group at a time.

All you really need right now is the word for each letter, but I will include both the book print and block print letters below, for those that will learn better picturing something while reciting.

Shown in this section are 22 Hebrew consonant letters (without dots in them) and 4 Dagesh letters [] (with dots in them). Not shown in this section and what you will learn more about later are: 3 more (what some believe lost Dagesh sounds) [] and 2 Mappiq []. You will also learn in another lesson about letters that change their form when found at the end of a Hebrew word. These are called the 5 Sofit letters [] (Kaf, Mem, Nun, Pey and Tsade). The Aleph-Bet is a basic 22 letters, but then it moves and breathes which is evidenced in Vowels, Dagesh/Punctuation, Mappiq, Sofit Letters, Letter Forms, Numbers, Mathematics, and much more. For now we will learn only the basic sounds, letters and forms. Remember Hebrew is read from right to left, so I will try to get you use to this from the start.

Aleph-Bet including Dagesh (letters with a dot inside)

 

Here is a quick check list for reciting the basic letters

One thing that makes learning Hebrew so easy, is that the sounds of the letters always start with the sound of the name for each letter. Even after you learn vowels, the letter sound comes first and then the vowel sound is added to it.

Things, thoughts and ideas to exhort and build you up:

1. Avoid Confrontations
Firstly one of the things I would advise are confrontations to shun and cast down. Ezekiel needed to set his face and forehead as flint, so that he was not “confused” or "dismayed" (Ezekiel 3:8-9). This was also witnessed by Isaiah, so that he was not "confounded"
(Isaiah 50:7). So should you not be confused by all of the different ways, cultures and traditions of pronunciation in existence still today.

There are MANY different "schools" out there, so please allow God to lead you and be your guide!

In this world, I do not care what it is, there will always be someone to disagree. Do not be tossed about by others, always dig for your own truth and know and understand why it is that you believe. Learn what matters and does not matter. When it comes to EXACT
pronunciation, don't worry in the beginning as you will develop and learn as you go. You will find that there are many that use Dagesh and vowels differently. Hebrew language in Jewish culture has been mixed with other languages, which has in effect has also created a diversity of dialects.

There are also many different teachers out there. For example on the net there are many YouTube teaching videos and Aleph-Bet songs put out by many different people all wanting to help you learn. In many of these you will see differences in pronunciation and spellings, in translations and transliterations. Learn these lessons for now and fine tune yourself later. Do not be held back by people that want to tie you up into their ways. There is a lot of time to learn without prejudice and sort it all out as you progress. I do not believe that ANYONE is "all right" when it comes to how words are pronounced. You may be able to pronounce something PERFECTLY according to a tradition (such as Ashkenazi, Sephardic or Yemen) but you must also leave room for a margin of error when some traditions differ. Is one 'Right" and the other dead wrong? Or are all right and we should communicate the differences? Remember or take notice that it was at the tower of Babel that God "confounded" their language. This lack of communication was also seen in the enemy ranks in Joshua 10 when the Lord "discomfited" or confused the enemy.

If you remain open to let God teach you, you will begin to notice that it is not at all about how to pronounce a word correctly, but rather what the meaning of the word is. Before you can determine the true meaning of many Hebrew words, you will need to learn some things (including the many different meanings of the letters themselves).

2. How to meditate during the day.
Lets say for now that we are simply learning the first row of letters, "Aleph-Bet-Vet-Gimmel-Dalet-Hey". See how that rolls off your tongue? Easy! Say it again and again: "Aleph-Bet-Vet-Gimmel-Dalet-Hey"! Write it down on a piece of paper: "Aleph-Bet-Vet-Gimmel-Dalet-Hey", pull it out and look at it every now and then to remember, until you can do it all the time without looking. After you can recite fluently, then start on the next row.

If you keep reciting the first row too, then you should only add a couple or few letters to it. I find that it works best to learn a first row, then learn a second row and now be able to recite two at once and then go on to a third row. If you are reciting everything even while learning a new row, I would suggest only adding a few letters to the larger recitation.

3. Multitask
Another thing we have found to work well, is to incorporate the learning along with something that you are already doing. For example if you are learning different prayers in Hebrew and you give thanks over our meals, so why not do it in Hebrew and English? A great way to learn! Say the blessing over bread every time you pray over your food! After you learn this, say the blessing for juice, etc., until you learn it well.

How this method came to light was during Hebrew class. At that time I would introduce things and give homework. A couple people were excelling, while it seemed like others were falling behind. Then I asked, do we all pray over our food? Yes! So I asked that everyone recite the first prayer each time along with their meal prayers. All agreed and as testimony everyone in the class could recite both prayers within a couple weeks.

Dedication is good! I was to teach a spiritual gifts class last year. I must admit that this is nothing new. Since I had done it so many times before, I could do it without any preparation at all!

Only this time I felt a strong word from the Lord. It impressed on me that unless I memorize 1 Corinthians chapters 12, 13 and 14 before teaching it this time, I would not be fully ready. I learned a lot in the process not only about the topic, but memorization as well. One exercise I did was to place a card at my computer with a few verses and a heart promise to try and say it (without looking) every time I would glance over and notice it there. I would feel the conviction burn inside if I even had one thought of not reciting. The feeling of JOY after each recitation and knowing the levels of progress and total victory in the end is an amazing exercise.

I ask you the reader a question: How can you “meditate” on scripture, unless you commit it to memory first?

OK, you have your first task and a few days or a week of homework! Learn your Aleph-Bet and come back to go on to the next section! Learn them so that you can quickly recite them
without errors :- )

Note: Notice that I did not say to "Learn them forward and backwards"? I said this once during my class and to my amazement one of my students (Charlie) came back the next week and did just that! I will put no extra burdens out there, but if you want to excel in this way knock your socks off!

LEARNING TO IDENTIFY THE LETTERS

Great job at learning to recite your Aleph-Bet! I know you are pleased with yourself, only let us keep pressing forward and add to your knowledge.

You know your task now: You are going to learn to identify the Hebrew letters and be able to think of their shapes when you hear the name of it, or even say the letters name when you see it in it's written form.

1. If you have an iPad, tablet or smart phone, you might want to practice identifying the Hebrew Letters on an app. (visit your app store).

There are many different apps out there, so see what you can find and what best suits you. My suggestion for this task would be "HEBREW FLASHCARDS". This app has a blue Icon that says Hebrew Flashcards on it with a Hebrew Aleph and Bet in squares with a white font.

 

The app will display the Aleph-Bet and there is a Practice and a Quiz mode. It also has font options for block, book and ancient proto-semitic fonts. The quiz mode will keep score, so it is almost like learning while playing a game. Learn and have fun at the same time.

I am going to assume that you are learning the book and block prints for now and coming back to learn the ancient pictures. However, if you can learn to ID all of them together this is OK. It all depends on you and what you feel you can do.

2. A Hebrew Flashcard Kit comes with my book to help you learn. Everything should line up perfectly to be able to read front and back. Shake the cards up, pull one out read one side and guess what is on the other until you know them starting from either side of the card. If you decide to learn the proto-semitic at the same time, I provide cards for them as well.

I would suggest only using a small group of cards at a time until you are familiar with all of them.

3. Some people also during the end of this stage can write them out in repetition to help learn to ID them. Write them in order over and over again until you can do it without looking at the cards. Note that if you are writing most people use the manual print (the hand writing font). If you are already experienced with calligraphy feel free, but you should still learn to print manually too so that you can quickly teach and write the letters and words out for someone.

If you are doing this, it will give you great joy as you reach the accomplishment of being able to write out the entire Aleph-Bet in both Hebrew and the proto-semitic hieroglyphic pictures!

WOW - See how much progress we are making here?
On the next page is a chart that will help you identify the standard Hebrew letters in three different Hebrew fonts.

These are:

Book Print
This is what you would expect to find in a Hebrew printed book such as a Bible, or other Hebrew printed scholarly work.

Ktav Ashuret(11)
This is the calligraphy font / print that you would expect to see in a Torah scroll or a kosher parchment in a Tefillin(12) or a Mezuzah(13).

Manual Print
This is basic Hebrew handwriting. If a teacher was to write on a board, he can quickly write out Hebrew words and letters. This is the form that you will learn to write in another step.

IDENTIFYING THE LETTERS

LEARNING TO IDENTIFY THE ANCIENT HEBREW LETTERS

I have also added the proto-semitic fonts (hieroglyphic pictures) to the Flashcard Kit as well.

Have fun and see you right back here when you have accomplished
this task.

If you only worked on the regular Hebrew, now use the flashcards to learn the hieroglyphics, and come back to the next step when done.

Notes: When looking at the hieroglyphic letters, note the first word only for the hint at the picture name and meaning. You do not need to learn all of the meanings for each letter right now, but the more you learn the better understanding you will have both now and later. Each letter has many different meanings and you will learn even more when we learn about prefixes, shapes, etc.. Including the hieroglyphic picture:

The hieroglyphic Flashcards should be all that you need to complete this task. However, since we are all unique sometimes more is better.

There are reasons that we do things. We learn the Hebrew pictures for our memory. Our brain stores visual in it's own segment, which has also been designated in a long term memory area of the brain.

Shown above inside the ( )'S you will see the Hebrew Letter. Next to that is the Ancient pictograph's down through time (15 BC) for each letter. Most of these have been found engraved on stone at different archaeological dig sites and have been studied for hundreds of years now. Some of the symbols and their true meanings have been good guesses, while others are more clear cut.

Feel free to use your creativity here as that is what others have already been doing since ancient times. Whatever helps you to understand or remember is a real good thing!

Even when you surf the net add too your knowledge and list of possible meanings, as anything could be an open door to some Godly revelation later. Also be aware that these picture meanings are only the beginning. You will learn more meanings to the letters as we progress. You will have the word meaning of each letter, the pictograph meaning, the prefix meaning, sofit meanings, and numerical additions or confirmations, mappiq, etc..

It might all sound a bit complicated to some of you right now, but trust me that as you learn each step this will all come together in the end to signs and wonders. The English letter "A" is only an A

An A has no meaning in itself.

To say "letter" in Hebrew you say "ot" (sounds like oat as in oatmeal).
This translated means "a sign and a wonder".

The Hebrew letter "Aleph" has so much meaning you could write volumes on it.

The beginning of meaning being taken out of the letters, started with what some know as Paleo Hebrew and Phoenician. This began as a part of a spiral downward through Greek, Latin and English. Where I am sure that you can back up through these alphabet systems and find meaning, I perceive the task as something more fruitless in only seeing where they went wrong. People today learning Paleo only need to trick their brain into seeing pictures. Also they loose the make up of the letters in the absence of learning Hebrew, which did come first before the flood and before Babel. Only those rebels at Babel had their languages divided, cut up and then spun together.

LEARN THE SOFIT LETTERS

Wow can you believe that you made it this far? You should now be able to recite the Hebrew Aleph-Bet, recognize not only the letters, but also the ancient hieroglyphics! Some of you are also writing the letters in manual print and hieroglyphics already. Can you believe
you have come this far? Look back and see what you have learned in such a short time! Amazing isn't it?

We can't stop here, there is a little bit more to learn before I set you loose and point you towards the deep water.

These will prove to be the most unique and insightful letters of the Aleph-Bet when it comes to understanding so many spiritual matters. However, for now we will just learn what they are and how they work.

As a general introduction there are five special letters which are
called sofit.

The word Sofit in Hebrew means "end" or suffix.

These letters are also many times called "finals".

The most interesting thing about these letters is that there are rules which place these letters at the end of a word (with a few minor exceptions in textual anomalies).

What is interesting is that the sofit does not change the sound, grammar, punctuation, etc. of a word.

So now you must ask yourself the question for example why are there two M's in the Hebrew Aleph-Bet?

How can you know this without going all the way back to the source? Ancient Rabbi's teach many things about this, but all of the teachings are spiritual and have nothing at all to do with sounds or grammar.

For example: Concerning the Mem we learn that there are two. One is open and one is closed. One is taught to be an open womb and one a closed womb.(14) They also symbolize oceans and lakes for the closed Mem and rivers and streams (living water, wells and springs) for the open Mem. In yet another teaching the open Mem can be both male and female, while the closed Mem only male(15).

From the above without getting too deep we can see the virgin birth in the fabric of the Aleph-Bet and prophecy.

FINAL LETTER FORMS

If any Hebrew word ends with a Kaf, Mem, Nun, Pey or Tsade you must use the sofit letter form at the end of the word:
Please notice and remember that with all of these letters except the Mem, it is like a trap door opening.

The bottom part of the letter simply straitens out and drops below the writing line.

Below the line can symbolize the earth or sometimes below the earth depending.

This knowledge can be significant for example the Nun (seed) being planted, sprouting, etc..

In normal reciting you would want to place these letters after their current order. For example after you learn them well, you would incorporate them: Kaf, Chaf, (Sofit Kaf), Mem, (Sofit Mem), Nun, (Sofit Nun), Pey, Fey, (Sofit Pey) Tsade, (Sofit Tsade) as shown here:

 

 

Unless you are using Mispar Katan or Mispar Gadol numbering, in which case you would recite them all in order after the letter Tav.

Note: There are different forms of Hebrew math. The method shown above is called Mispar Ragil that places each sofit letter next to each one's counterpart.

In this case it would also cause the numerical values of these letters not to change, which we will cover in the next step.

You can use the flashcards in the Flashcard Kit to help you learn your Sofit letters.

I know you are excited to learn these, so practice and come right
back as soon as you know them well and start the next step!

References (click the back arrow on your browser to go back to your reading)
1. Also Messiah in the Brit Hadasha (New Testament) Matthew 13: 14-15
2. Matthew 7:28, 22:33, Mark 1:27, 11:18, John 7:16, 7:17, 18:19
3. Matthew 5:18 The Jot is the smallest Hebrew letter Yod, and the tittle is smallest point on the Yod (some believe this to be a tag – single line from tagin in the Hebrew calligraphy font
4. John 5:39
5. Jesus The Christ/Messiah
6. Romans 11:25
7. How you spell Mem in Hebrew
8. John 6:51
9. Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; (Colossians 2:14)

10. God's name () is not just made up of ONLY vowels, but EVERY Historic Hebrew vowel!
11. Note that there are as many as four styles of this font depending on different traditions
12. Tefillin also called called phylacteries (from the Greek) are prayer boxes containing scrolls and worn strapped to the forehead and hand during morning prayers
13. A portion of Torah kept in a Mezuzah box and nailed to a door post to bless those that enter.
14. Babylonian Talmud Mas. Sanhedrin 94a and 38a
15. In Sefer Yetzirah 3:6, the Mem is referenced as the womb. In the Sefer HaBahir (1st-Century Jewish writing) we see yet another example of why there is two mems and again it has to do with a womb and a virgin birth (being a womb from above) Sefer HaBahir 84-85