Text & source
שַׁדַּי
Shaddai
"Almighty": a Name of God
Source: A Name of God, read by the Sages as she-amar l'olamo dai: "the One who said to the world: Enough" (Chagigah 12a · חגיגה י״ב א).
From the center of this small violet I have grown the letters שדי, Shaddai. There is an old rabbinic play on the Name that hears in it the God who said to creation די, enough (Hagigah 12a · חגיגה י״ב א). A world can only become a world once something sets a limit to it. The violet carries that limiting power and gives it a body in return: petal, stamen, a particular purple, a short material life.
The flower grows low to the ground, but its color reaches toward tekhelet and argaman, the blue and the royal purple of sacred things. I read that meeting of the humble and the regal through Gevurah and Chesed: the strength that draws a boundary, and the love that lets life flourish inside it. A king who is only power is not really a king. Real sovereignty knows how to make itself small.