In between them (about 2.5 meters). The posts had crocheted hangings which served to close the space between the posts. The hangings were attached to the posts with a hook.
In Hebrew, every letter has a meaningful name, and the name of the sixth letter, the vav, means “a hook.” Thus “the hooks of the posts” (וָוֵי הָ עַ מּ ו ּדִ ים) are the secret of the letter vav. When we write the letter vav’s name out it is two letters vav: וו. The first vav, which represents the form of the letter, corresponds to the post and the second vav, the “filling” letter, which makes it possible to pronounce its name, corresponds to the hook.
In addition, the form, and hence the post itself, corresponds to the sefirah of beauty (tiferet) since beauty is obviously related to form. The hook corresponds to the sefirah of foundation (yesod). The post represents the axis around which harmony and symmetry (one of the staples of beauty) are revealed throughout nature. The hook represents the power of connection and equilibrium between the symmetrical and asymmetrical states inherent in nature.
Both the post and the hook take on the role of a vav, which is to connect. The role of a post is to connect two things, one higher, the other lower. The hooks on the posts also connected the hangings to the posts. In Hebrew the letter vav serves as a conjunction.
The hangings of the Tabernacle courtyard represent the power of concealment that exists between Worlds—each higher World hiding itself behind a curtain, so to speak, from the lower World. The posts stand for manifest revelations of light that pass downward from the higher to the lower World. The hooks then serve to connect these two paradoxical states of concealment and revelation. Still, the Torah associated the hooks with the posts—“the hooks of the posts”—which represent revelation and not with the hangings, because the ultimate purpose of linking concealment with revelation is for the sake of continued, even deeper revelation. Concealment is merely a means to an end—revelation. The final revelation enters a world or a frame of reference that could only have come into being and remain in a stable state of existence in virtue of the power of concealment that was involved in ushering it in.
Now, the value of the letter vav is 6 and “the hooks on the posts” are mentioned exactly 6 times in the Bible. The first 2 times were in parashat Terumah, and the remaining 4 in our parashah, Vayakhel. Amazingly, both in the first mention of “the hooks on the posts” in Terumah, and in our verse—its first mention in our parashah—the word “hooks” (וָוֵי) is the sixth word in the verse, a beautiful example of self-reference.
(Based on The Hebrew Letters, p. 100).
