Every Jew is a letter. And all Jews together are a word—but not merely a word; not just any word; not a single word alone, but the sum of all words: the entire Torah, the whole scroll.
For all of Israel—Knesset Yisrael—is the Torah, and the Torah is a living man. And one cannot truly learn from only one pashat, or one verse, or one letter, or one word. A person must be willing to read the parts—to study even the portions that make them uncomfortable—and to embrace them as part of the whole.
Only then is one a ḥakham: when one can look at each letter not as a fragment, but as an essential piece of the complete Torah. For the one who has the sight to perceive the Torah’s hashkafah sees all the fragments gathered together—gathered in unity.
And each letter is also like a brick of the Temple. When all the letters come together, all the bricks come together in oneness, the Temple stands—endures—and lives forever. Not merely as a physical place on a map, but as a living breath: a people, and the heart of the World to Come.