The Kabbalah of letters

Rav Avraham taught a method built on the Hebrew alphabet. Where other forms of meditation repeat a word or phrase aloud, he stressed writing the words. In his own instruction he says: "Take the pen in your hand, like a spear in the hand of a warrior. When you think of something, uttering it in your heart with a specific letters, also express it with your mouth. Listen carefully, and 'watch what emanates from your lips' (Deuteronomy 23:24). Let your ears hear what your lips speak, and with your heart, understand the meaning of all these expressions. Write each expression down immediately. Manipulate the letters, and seek out other words having the same numerical value [gematria], even if they do not follow my path. And know that this will be your key to open the fifty gates of wisdom." The technique draws on touch, hearing and sight. He found its basis in Betzalel, who built the Mishkan: he held that Betzalel could manipulate the letters of creation and so shaped the Mishkan to channel creation's spiritual energies. Rav Aryeh Kaplan notes that Rav Avraham found a hint in Tehillim 18:31, where the words tamim (perfect) and tzerufah (refined, or permuted) are the terms kabbalists use for assigning numerical values and permuting the letters. Rather than chanting a word again and again, one writes it, permuting and cycling its letters in every possible way. On a higher level, Rav Avraham taught that pronouncing the letters of the Divine Names, with particular head movements and breathing exercises, can bring prophetic visions beyond description.