Samekh is the fifteenth letter and its value is sixty. It has no final form, but its ordinary form is already closed on every side, like that of the final mem. The Talmud reports two teachings of Rav Chisda: "the mem and the samekh of the tablets stood by a miracle," and the writing of the tablets "could be read from inside and from outside." One understands that these two letters, carved right through, had nothing to hold their center, except the miracle.
In Sefer Yetzirah, samekh is one of the twelve simple letters, which the book places at the twelve diagonal edges of space, "the arms of the world," with twelve foundations, from sight to sleep. For samekh it writes: "He made the letter samekh king, He bound a crown to it," and formed through it the Bow in the world, the month of Kislev in the year and the gall bladder in the soul. In the classification of sounds, samekh belongs to the letters of the teeth, zayin, samekh, shin, reish, tzadi.
The Talmud relates that children once came to the study hall and read the alphabet in a way the Sages reported to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi. For the pair samekh ayin they said: "semokh aniyim," support the poor. Another version reads the same pair differently: "simanim aseh baTorah u-kneh otah," make mnemonic signs for the Torah, and acquire it. Support for the poor and the memory of study are thus read in the same two letters.
The Alphabet of Rabbi Akiva makes samekh speak twice. In the account of the letters presenting themselves before the Holy One, blessed be He, before creation, samekh pleads: through me You are called the one who supports those who fall, as it is written "the L-rd supports all who fall." The answer is no: through you enemies will one day turn My city into heaps of ruins. In the other version, Rabbi Akiva reads: "do not read samekh, but somekh makh," the one who supports the stricken; it is the Holy One, blessed be He, who supports those who are stricken and who fall, who supports the beings above and those below, this world and the World to Come. And further: samekh is Israel, always supported by the merit of their fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Joseph, Moses and Aaron, David and Solomon.
All the sources read samekh as support. The name of the letter and the verb somekh share the same letters; the children read in it the duty to support the poor; Rabbi Akiva sees in it G-d who supports those who fall. One can bring these readings close to the miracle of the tablets: the letter of support is the one that, in the stone, held without any visible support.
