What Does the Letter Nun Tell Us According to the Torah and Kabbalah?

The meaning of the letter Nun according to the Gemara in Shabbat is: faithful. A faithful person is someone with commitment, and therefore can be relied upon to persist in their path and not back out or change their mind. Thus, the meaning of the letter Nun is perseverance and continuity.

The name of the letter Nun also signifies continuity, as seen in the word ‘grandchild,’ which means a descendant, not necessarily a child from the first or second generation, but anyone who is a descendant and continuation of a person. Likewise, the only word in the Bible composed of the root “Nun” is in the verse ‘His name shall endure forever, before the sun His name shall continue’ (Psalms 72:17), meaning that as long as the sun exists, His name will continue and be remembered, as explained by Radak there. Fish are called “Nun” because they symbolize eternal reproduction, having infinite spaces and multiplying without bounds.

The first word in the written Torah that begins with Nun is 'nefesh' (soul). The soul is the eternal and continuous part of a person. The body eventually perishes, but the soul remains. The soul is also the foundation of faithfulness: the body naturally gravitates towards everything the eyes see, but faithfulness is a trait of someone who remains attached to their values. Therefore, the soul is also desire, as it is written, 'if your soul desires.' Desire breaks nature: a person who wants to reach the peak of a mountain overcomes cold, gravity, and wild animals. They are faithful to their decision or desire to reach the top.

As a functional letter, the letter Nun associates the word with the Nifal construction. When someone is subjugated to another's will, it is expressed with the letter Nun. When someone else causes a person to experience something, they are trapped, broken, entered.

And at the end of a word, it describes a situation that has become a permanent trait: a person who steals once, but when they do it regularly, they are a thief. As interpreted regarding a donkey lying down under its burden, lying down but not lying habitually, if it always lies down— its owner must replace it and not expect help from others.

Nun is fifty, hey (five) multiplied by ten. Hey is the power of birth, Nun is continuity, the birth of descendants, grandchildren. In the Torah, a grandchild is like a nephew, 'to me and my nephews and my grandchildren,' any distant descendant is a grandchild, because they symbolize the continuation of birth. The soul of a person continues in their descendants. Even the word ‘son’ is the soul of the father within him, and a grandchild also begins with Nun.

So when the Nun comes at the end of a word, it signifies use in feminine plural, like baktin (ate), shatin (drank), ra'itin (seen). We've already seen with the letter Hey, that it symbolizes turning to feminine in singular, like man woman, boy girl, did done, because Hey represents the power of birth, and Nun the power of continuity and bringing descendants in general, and therefore it is used in feminine plural language, about women in general. The use in the Nifal construction also symbolizes the woman, whose way is to be acted upon.

The Nun comes as a continuation to the preceding letters: kaph is energy, lamed is learning direction, mem is its essence and source, and when a person understands this, their soul perseveres and remains faithful to its duty.

The word ‘Ani’ (I) is composed of aleph and nun. Aleph is the beginning, and Nun is the soul and the perseverance of life. Faithfulness is built on desire, and thus na and ana are appeals to a person's desire. Conversely, to dissuade is to prevent desire. ‘Did not succeed’ is rolled without desire. Oness (coercion) is against desire.

Meat that is not fully roasted is called ‘na,’ because as long as the meat is alive, the living soul is in it, as it is written ‘for the blood is the soul,’ and the soul is the ‘ani.’ It's also fascinating to examine the word ‘aniyah’ (ship), called so because it does not go on land, on a paved way, but rather carves a new path each time as it desires, as it is said ‘three things are wonderful beyond me, the way of a ship in the heart of the sea.’ This trait parallels the human soul, distinguished by acting on its free will, not dictated by external stimuli.

In the root ‘nad,’ the letter Nun is used in the sense of disconnection, meaning: separation from a place a person is connected to (Nun), and distancing to another place (dalet). From it, words are formed like: nida, nidach, nidaf, and also nadad and nadned, which are repetitive, named after the repeated action.

Also, in the root ‘nesh,’ the letter Nun is used with this meaning, as in the words: nesher, neshal, nasa, nashah, nashav, and nashaf.

The root ‘nes’ means: disconnection (Nun) from a given system (samech), achieved by movement to another place. As in the words: nas’a, nasak, nasach, nasag, nas, and also nases and nasa'a, meaning disconnection from the ground and elevation upwards.

The letter Nun, expressing disconnection, also appears in conjunction with the letter zayin, which also means cut by force, as in the words zana and zanach, expressing how a person who was connected and adhered to something—deviated from it and abandoned it.