Chet is the eighth letter and has the value eight. Sefer Yetzirah places it among the letters of the throat, with Alef, Heh and Ayin. Its shape is a roof resting on two feet. The Talmud reports that Rav Ashi saw the books of the precise scribes of the house of study, who made a hump, chatoteret, on the roof of Chet, and gives its meaning: "as if to say: He lives, chai, at the height of the world."
In Sefer Yetzirah, Chet is one of the twelve simples. G-d "made the letter Chet reign and bound a crown to it," and through it formed Sartan, the Crab, in the world, the month of Tammuz in the year and the left foot in the body. The book adds that the twelve simples are arrayed "as for a battle," and quotes Ecclesiastes: G-d made "the one opposite the other."
In tractate Shabbat, the children's sentence continues: "if you do so, the Holy One, blessed be He, feeds you and is gracious to you." Chet gives chen, grace. A little further on, the same page quotes the verse of Proverbs: "He scorns the scorners, but to the humble He gives grace," and Resh Lakish derives from it that one who comes to purify himself is helped.
Tractate Menachot, describing the crowns of the letters, pauses at Chet. Rava teaches that seven letters carry three crowns; Rav Ashi adds what he saw among the precise scribes: they add a hump on the roof of Chet and leave the foot of Heh suspended. For Chet, the Talmud gives a brief explanation: the hump says that G-d lives, at the height of the world. The name of the letter and the word chai, living, share their first letter, and the Talmud reads in the shape itself an affirmation of divine life. The Alphabet of Rabbi Akiva reads Chet as chet, sin: when sinners return before G-d in teshuvah, they are at once received like righteous people who never sinned.
Eight, life and grace. The scribes give Chet a hump that lifts the eyes toward the Living One, at the height of the world; the children of Shabbat 104a read in it the grace G-d grants to the one who gives; Sefer Yetzirah associates it with the month of Tammuz. To look upward, and to receive the grace promised to the humble.
