Gematria
There are different systems of interpretation of the hidden meanings of the Torah. One of them is the Gematria, where the mathematical values of each letter or word are calculated. Each letter having its own numerical value, the fact that some words have the same total is not just coincidence, but denotes a similarity or complementarity.
It is one of the different systems of interpretation of the hidden meanings of the Torah, where mathematical values of letters, words, and sentences are calculated to find a similarity or complementarity. Each letter has its own numerical value.
Letter | Name | Value |
א | Aleph | 1 |
ב | Beit | 2 |
ג | Gimel | 3 |
ד | Dalet | 4 |
ה | He | 5 |
ו | Vav | 6 |
ז | Zain | 7 |
ח | ‘het | 8 |
ט | Tet | 9 |
י | Yud | 10 |
כ | Khaf | 20 |
ל | Lamed | 30 |
מ | Mem | 40 |
נ | Nun | 50 |
ס | Samekh | 60 |
ע | ‘ain | 70 |
פ | Pey | 80 |
צ | Tsadey | 90 |
ק | Kuf | 100 |
ר | Resh | 200 |
ש | Shin | 300 |
ת | Tav | 400 |
The final letters also have their own numerical values:
Letter | Name | Value |
ך | Final Khaf | 500 |
ם | Final Mem | 600 |
ן | Final Nun | 700 |
ף | Final Pey | 800 |
ץ | Final Tsadey | 900 |
There are seven main types of Gematriot:
- Ragil – regular
- Katan – small value
- HaKlali – value squared
- Kolel – regular plus a value for one or all the letters
- HaKadmi – regular plus the value of the preceding letters
- HaPerati – each letter squared
- Miluy- sum of the spellings
1 – Ragil: the numbers of the letters are as follows:
From | To | Value |
א | ט | 1 – 9 |
י | צ | 10 -90 |
ק | ת | 100 – 400 |
ך | ץ | 500 -900 |
Ex : הארץ = 1106
2 – Katan: tens and hundreds are reduced to one digit.
From | To | Value |
א | ט | 1 – 9 |
י | צ | 1 – 9 |
ק | ת | 1 – 4 |
ך | ץ | 5 -9 |
Ex : הארץ = 17
3 – HaKlali: the Ragil value of the word squared.
Ex : הארץ = 1106 * 1106 = 1 223 236
4 – Kolel: the Ragil value of the word + the numbers of letters, or + 1 for the word.
Ex : הארץ = 1106 + 4 = 1110
or 1106 + 1 = 1107
5 – HaKadmi: each letter has its Ragil value plus the total of all the ones preceding it.
From | To | Value |
א | ט | 1 – 45 |
י | צ | 55 – 495 |
ק | ת | 595 –1495 |
ך | ץ | 1995 – 4995 |
Ex : הארץ = 15+1+795+4995 = 5806
6 – HaPerati: each letter is squared.
Ex : הארץ = 5 * 5 = 25, 1 * 1 = 1
200 * 200 = 40 000, 900 * 900 = 810 000 Total = 850 026
7 – Miluy: the sum of the spelling of each letter.
Letter | Miluy | Value |
ה | הא | 6 |
א | אלף | 111 |
ר | ריש | 510 |
ץ | צדי | 104 |
Ex : הארץ = 731
By the Gematriot, we see that each letter and word has a dynamic meaning beyond the simple definitions. Gematria is only one of the secret ways of interpreting the hidden meanings in the Torah.
There are also permutation systems where letters are replaced by others in a set order as “ATBaSH” where the first letter is replaced by the last, the second by the one before the last etc. “Notrikun”, where initials of different words make a new word, and many other systems.