Ayin is the sixteenth letter and its value is seventy. It has no final form. Its name is also the word ayin, the eye, and that is how Rabbi Akiva reads it.
In Sefer Yetzirah, ayin is one of the twelve simple letters. The book gives them twelve foundations, from sight to sleep, and places them at the twelve diagonal edges of space, "the arms of the world"; it adds that they are set one against the other, "like a battle." For ayin it writes: "He made the letter ayin king, He bound a crown to it," and formed through it the Kid in the world, the month of Tevet in the year and the hamses, one of the chambers of the stomach, in the soul. In the classification of sounds, ayin belongs to the letters of the throat, alef, chet, heh, ayin, spoken at the back of the mouth.
The Talmud reports the reading of the alphabet that children once gave in the study hall, which the Sages came to relate to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi. Ayin appears there with samekh: "semokh aniyim," support the poor. Ayin is then the initial of aniyim, the poor. Another version reads the same pair: "simanim aseh baTorah," make signs for the Torah, and acquire it; ayin becomes the initial of the verb to make.
The Alphabet of Rabbi Akiva gives two texts. In the account of the letters presenting themselves before the Holy One, blessed be He, before creation, ayin pleads: through me it is written "the eyes of the L-rd roam over all the earth." The answer is no: through you the adulterer watches for twilight, as Job says, "the eye of the adulterer waits for the dusk," and through you I will do justice, for "the eyes of the wicked shall fail." In the other version, Rabbi Akiva reads: the eye of the Torah, "which is an eye for every eye, a light for every light, a wisdom for every wisdom, an understanding for all who understand," a knowledge for those who know, and life for those who hold it. He gives a verse for each title: "the commandment of the L-rd is clear, enlightening the eyes"; "the commandment is a lamp and the Torah a light"; "it is a tree of life to those who hold it."
The sources set two gazes against each other. The eye that lurks in the shadows is kept out of creation; the eye of the Torah gives light to all the others. And for the children, the same letter points to the poor person who must be seen and supported. One can take from this that, for these texts, the quality of a gaze is measured by what it seeks: the fault in the shadows, or the light of the Torah and the need of the other.
