The Nine Rosettes and Kabbalah

[Koen G]

I just found this new paper by J. Janick, T. Ryba and A. Tucker (some of you might remember Tucker's earlier paper identifying many VMS plants as Mesoamerican species):
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They came essentially to the same conclusions that I did: The diagram can be read as a Sephirotic Tree of Life with the lower left corner at the top, the T-O map represents Malkhut and the Nine Rosettes are the other Sephirot. They also made an interesting observation on the three-circles symbol:

Since the Hebrew alphabet may be written with ball-and-stick elements this symbol may be interpreted to represents the letter resh (ר) which can mean “principal, original, beginning.” 

I don't know whether this is accurate, but in the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., a magical alphabet based on Hebrew, the letter resh indeed looks like that.

Does anyone know where Janick et al found that the Hebrew letter resh means beginning? Their lack of references here makes it hard to check. All I find for meanings of resh is various negative connotations.

I have also not yet found any pre-1450 source illuminating the use of "stick-and-ball" figures as Hebrew letters.