Now we’ll be writing the number 26 at the top of letters and documents for another year. It is worth taking a closer look at this number. Mathematically, 26 is unique because of its neighbors. The mathematician Pierre de Fermat proved that no other number has what 26 has: a squared number (25 = 5×5) and a cubed number (27 = 3x3x3) as neighbors. The number 26 is defined by its position. The number 26 also plays a role in another arena where location is important: the Latin alphabet has 26 letters. This is true in the English-speaking world as well as in South America: the most common script consists of 26 building blocks! Interestingly, the number 26 appeared as a number in writing 1,000 years before the Latin alphabet. The Hebrew letter sequence for the divine creator is YHVH. In ancient numerology, each letter has a numerical value: 10 for Yod, two times 5 for He, and 6 for Vav; that makes 26. It takes 26 generations before Moses comes and receives the script. 26 is the number of writing. And what is writing? The Egyptians answer this when they call writing “hieroglyphs,” or “sacred signs.” With writing, the divine becomes earthly. The number 26 reminds us that the earthly becomes divine when we write it at the top of a letter or the end of a document.

Translation Laura Liska
Graphics Ella Lapointe, 2025.