Resh

The Bowed Head. Resh is a head inclined — the pauper (rash) whose head can be lifted, the beginning (reshit) that bows to what it begins. He is Dalet's cousin without her corner: where she is a door, he is the turning itself. One dot of difference separates him from Dalet — and echad (one) from acher (other): he takes typos very seriously.

Resh came with Rachamim — Compassion. But he also fronts Ra, evil, and Rasha, the wicked; the Holy One would not seat the world on a letter that faces both ways at the neck. He bows his head to this day, choosing.