5 (Hebrew: Heh, ה) is the fifth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, with a numerical value of 5. As a number, it signifies the half of the decad, the pentad, and in the Sefer Yetzirah it is assigned to the fifth Sefirah (Gevurah) of the 32 Paths of Wisdom. Its fundamental quality is that of the complement—the power that completes and makes manifest the divine name YHVH, where Heh appears twice: as the final letter of the Tetragrammaton and as the second letter in the form Yah.

Position on the Tree of Life

5 is the numerical value assigned to Path 15, the 15th Path of the Sepher Yetzirah, which connects Chokmah (Wisdom) to Tiphareth (Beauty). Path 15 is the Path of the letter Heh, the zodiacal sign Aries, and in Liber 777, the column of 32 Paths attributes the numerical value 5 to this very scale step. As the number of the Pentagram, 5 at this position symbolizes the spiritual fire of the Ram that descends from the primordial Wisdom into the heart of the Microprosopus.

Historical context

In the earliest extant recension of the Sepher Yetzirah (the Short Version, circa 2nd–6th century CE), the 22 letters are divided into three groups: three Mothers, seven Doubles, and twelve Simples. Heh is the first of the twelve Simple Letters, corresponding to the sense of sight and to the zodiacal sign Aries. Its numeric value of 5 is the smallest Simple number, yet the most potent in the divine Name. In the Bahir (12th–13th century), Heh is the letter of the world of speech and of the feminine principle, the Shekhinah. The Zohar develops this: Heh (value 5) is the letter of the final Heh in YHVH, representing Malkuth as the terrestrial kingdom, the completeness of the 5 Sefirot of the Lesser Countenance, and the 5folds of the soul (Nefesh, Ruach, Neshamah, Chayah, Yechidah).

In the Renaissance Hermetic Qabalah of Pico della Mirandola and Johann Reuchlin, the number 5 is the number of the Pentagram, the star of the microcosm (the Quinta Essentia), and is aligned with the 5 wounds of Christ, the 5 books of the Torah, and the 5 fingers of the hand of creation. By the time of Mathers and Westcott's The Kabbalah Unveiled (1887), and later Crowley's Liber 777 (1909), the tabulation of numerical values had become fixed: the column of 32 Paths assigns the value 5 to the 15th Path on the basis of the letter's gematria, regardless of the ordinal position of the Sefirot.

In the 777 system itself, this entry appears in the column Numerical Value of Col. CLXXV., which lists the gematric values of the Hebrew letters as given in the Sepher Yetzirah. At Path 15, the value is 5—the only Simple letter that also stands for the number of the Pentagram and the Heh of the Tetragrammaton.

Closing

In the table of Liber 777, at Col. CLXXV. step 15, the numerical value of the letter Heh is given as 5, aligning the path of Aries with the quintessential number of the microcosm—the active, formative power that brings the divine Name into manifestation.