© 2007 by John D. Brey
. . . Just a small dig at the Hebrew shin . . .
Within the constellation of the Aleph-Beis as interpreted by the Talmud (Shabbos 104a), shin denotes falsehood. Although, as we have seen above, shin stands for Names of God Himself, even the loftiest concepts can be dragged down . . . even the most heinous lie attempts to clothe itself with a semblance of truth, even divinity, in order to give itself credibility (Rashi, Numbers 13:27). . ..
Artscroll Mesorah Series, The Wisdom in the Hebrew Alphabet, p. 211.
. . . I'm thinking about the fact of the Hebrew shin (the penultimate letter in the alphabet) and the concept of "false hood"!
See . . . it hasn't eluded my notice that the shin comes before the tav so that the shin can be thought of as a covering of the tav. ------- Now the tav is understood to be the Sign of God . . . so that there's something peculiar about the shin acting as a "false" "hood" covering the Sign of God?
Artscroll Mesorah Series on the Hebrew Alphabet draws a parallel to the fact of the bad shin attempting to gain credibility . . . even divinity . . . when it’s really just a false hood.
And of course berit milah handles the problem of the false hood.
. . . But then why does the shin cover the tefillin and the mezuzah??
Halacha, Jewish Law, requires that the mezuzah klaf, mezuzah scroll, be protected with a double covering. One of these coverings may be totally transparent, but the other one must be either opaque or at least translucent. . .
http://www.hasofer.com/page.pl?p=mezuzacoverinfo
The ritual of circumcision involves two stages. First, in (milah) "cutting" the [opaque] foreskin is cut and removed, disclosing the [transparent] mucous membrane, which is then torn down the center and pulled back, revealing the corona. The act of tearing and pulling back the membrane is called (peri'ah) "uncovering" the corona.
Daniel Matt, The Zohar, footnote 795, vol. 1, p. 205).
Isn't the shin on the mezuzah quite literally the false hood that is removed at berit milah? . . . And isn't the removal of the false hood a mere liturgical device symbolizing the removal of a covering angel gone bad? ----- God even tells Moses that His Name is “in” the angel of justice (Gevurah). Covered if you will! ---- Hidden in the name of sanctity by the most sanctimonious false hood in all creation.
* * *