רַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר בֶּן חִסְמָא אוֹמֵר
 קִנִּין וּפִתְחֵי נִדָּה, הֵן הֵן גּוּפֵי הֲלָכוֹת. תְּקוּפוֹת וְגִימַטְרִיאוֹת, פַּרְפְּרָאוֹת לַחָכְמָה

“R. Elazar Chismah said,
“Astronomy and Gematria are seasonings (parparot) of wisdom.”
Pirkei Avot 3:18

1

  • Gematria of Aleph – א

2

  • Gematria of Beit – ב

3

  • Gematria of Gimel – ג
  • Av (Father) – אב
  • Bo (Come) – בא 

4

  • Gematria of Dalet – ד
  • A dalet is a delet (door)
  • Abba – אבא

5

  • Gematria of Hei – ה
  • This world was created with the Letter Hei (Genesis 2:4)
  • Letter added to the name of:
    • Avram/Avraham – Genesis 17:5
    • Sarai/Sarah – Genesis 17:5
    • Yosef/Yehosef – Psalm 81:5
    • Yonatan/Yehonatan – 1 Samuel 19:1

6

  • Gematria of Vav – ו
  • Number of Man

7

  • Gematria of Zayin – ז
  • Dag (Fish) – דג
  • Gad – גד

8

  • Gematria of Chet – ח
  • First letter of Chai (Life)
  • The number of a new beginning

9

  • Gematria of Tet – ט

10

  • Gematria of Yud – י
  • First letter of HaShem’s Name
  • 10 Commandments
  • 10 Sefirot
  • 10 Words of Creation
  • 10 Plagues
  • 10 Dimensions

11 

  • 10 Sefirot + Daat
  • 10 Dimensions + Time

12

  • Vav – וו
  • 12 Tribes of Israel
  • 12 Disciples of Yeshua

13

  • Ahavah (Love) – אהבה
  • Echad (One) – אחד
  • 13 Middot of HaShem
  • 13 Tribes of Israel (11 + Yosef = Ephraim and Menashe)
  • 12 Disciples + 1 Yeshua

14

  • Dai (Enough!) – די
  • David – דוד
  • Hand – יד
  • Zahav (Gold) – זהב
  • Yeshua’s genealogy in Matthew is arranged in 3 sets of 14
  • There are 14 verses in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-14, Hebrew)
  • 7 x 2

18

  • Chai (Life) – חי
  • The Amidah has 18 Benedictions, hence it is called Shemoneh Esrei (18).

20

  • Gematria of Kaf – כ
  • Yud – יוד

22

  • The number of letters in the Hebrew Alefbet
  • The number of autosomes

23

  • The number of letters in the Hebrew Alefbet + the hidden letter of the 4 Pronged shin
  • The number of chromosomal pairs, 22 of which look exactly the same in males and females, the 23rd pair, comprise the X and Y sex chromosomes.

21

  • I Am/I Will Be  – א-ה-י-ה
  • 7 x 3

26

  • HaShem – י־ה־ו־ה

30

  • Gematria of Lamed – ל

32

  • Lev (Heart) – לב
  • Lamed-Beit – The First and Last Letters of the Torah
  • Glory – כבוד
  • 32 Paths of Wisdom
  • 8 strings of tzitzit multiplied by 4 corners = 32

36

  • There are 36 Tzaddikim Nistarim – Hidden Righteous Ones, the Lamed-Vavniks

40

  • Gematria of Mem – מ
  • 40 Weeks of Gestation in the Womb
  • 40 Days of Fasting – (Moshe, Eliyahu, Yeshua)
  • 40 Days of Rain during the Flood
  • 40 Years of Wandering

42

  • I Am/I Will Be (x2) – א-ה-י-ה (x2)
  • There are 42 stages between Egypt and the Promised Land
  • Yeshua’s genealogy is arranged in 3 sets of 14
  • Light refracts into a rainbow at 42 degrees

45

  • Adam – אדם
    Notarikon of Adam, David, Mashiach
  • The Hand of HaShem – היד י-ה-ו-ה
  • Meod (Very) – מאד
  • Lot – לוט 
  • He is your father – אביך הוא

50

  • Gematria of Nun – נ

52

  • Ben (Son) – בן
  • Eliyahu – אליהו
  • HaShem-HaShem – י־ה־ו־ה (x 2)
  • Kelev/Caleb (Dog, Like a Heart) – כלב

58

  • Noach – נח
  • Chen (Grace) – חן
  • The Stone – האבן
  • Gedalia – גדליהו

60

  • Gematria of Samek – ס

70

72

  • The letters of Yud-Hei-Vav-Hei stacked as a Tetractys (יהוה–יהו–יה–י)
  • Chesed – חסד

80

  • Gematria of Peh – פ

86

  • Elo–him (“G-d”) – אלהים
  • The Nature – הטבע

90

  • Gematria of Tzade – צ
  • Mayim (Water) – מים

91

  • Amein – אמן
    • Amein is a notarikon of ‘El Melech Ne’eman’ (G-d, the Faithful King) – אל מלך נאמן
  • Ephod – אפוד
  • Malach (Angel) – מלאך

100

  • Gematria of Quf – ק
  • Lech-Lecha – לך לך
  • Age of Avraham when Yitzhak was born

130

  • Kol (Voice) – קל
  • Sinai – סיני
  • Sulam (Ladder) – סלם
  • “This refers to the Throne of Glory” – זה כסא הכבוד

136

  • Sulam (Ladder) – סולם – Full spelling with vav
  • Kol (Voice) – קול – Full spelling with vav

137

  • Received Tradition – קבלה
  • Ofan – אופן – The Angelic “Wheels” of the Merkavah (Ezekiel 1)
  • Origin – מוצא
  • There are 42 appearances of the root word for Love (Ahavah) in the Torah, 95 appearances for the word for Fear (yirah), 42 + 95 = 137.
  • Monument – מצבה (Genesis 28:18)
    • “Early in the morning, Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up as a pillar (מצבה) and poured oil on the top of it.” – Genesis 28:18
    • According to R’ Ginsburgh, matzevah is the intermediate stage between Stone and House (Temple)
    •  Using a letter skip on the word matzevah, מצבה, splitting the word in two: מ’ב and צ’ה. This is 42 + 95, the same number of Love and Fear, the sum of which is 137 (R’ Ginsburgh)
  • The Hei is the 137th letter of the 37th word, Ha’Ohr (The Light) 
  • Age of Yishmael (the son of Avraham) when he left the world (Genesis 25:17)
  • Age of Amram (the father of Moshe) when he left the world (Exodus 6:20)
  • Yofiel – יופיאל – The Angelic Prince of the Torah
  • 33rd Prime Number, links to the age of Yeshua and to Lag B’Omer
  • α – The Inverse of the Fine-Structure Constant (1/137) of quantum electrodynamics,  a dimensionless pure number that governs the interactions of elementary particles with photons of light and determines the “distance between an atom’s spectral lines, which are like the DNA of the atom.
    • Since the early 1900s, physicists have postulated that the number could lie at the heart of a grand unified  theory, relating theories of electromagnetism, quantum mechanics and, especially, gravity.
    • There is a most profound and beautiful question associated with the observed coupling constant, e, the amplitude for a real electron to emit or absorb a real photon. It is a simple number that has been experimentally determined to be close to -0.08542455. (My physicist friends won’t recognize this number, because they like to remember it as the inverse of its square: about 137.03597 with about an uncertainty of about 2 in the last decimal place. It has been a mystery ever since it was discovered more than fifty years ago, and all good theoretical physicists put this number up on their wall and worry about it.) Immediately you would like to know where this number for a coupling comes from: is it related to π or perhaps to the base of natural logarithms? Nobody knows. It’s one of the greatest … mysteries of physics: a magic number that comes to us with no understanding by man. You might say the “hand of God” wrote that number, and “we don’t know how He pushed his pencil.” We know what kind of a dance to do experimentally to measure this number very accurately, but we don’t know what kind of dance to do on the computer to make this number come out, without putting it in secretly!”- Richard Feynman, QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, Princeton University Press, pg. 129
    • Stable matter, and therefore life and intelligent beings, could not exist if its value were much different. For instance, were α to change by 4%, stellar fusion would not produce carbon, so that carbon-based life would be impossible. If αwere greater than 0.1, stellar fusion would be impossible, and no place in the universe would be warm enough for life as we know it. (Barrow, John D. (2001). “Cosmology, Life, and the Anthropic Principle”. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 950, cited at Wikipedia.org).

138

  • Tzemach (Branch) – צמח
  • Menachem (Comforter) – מנחם
  • Nes Gadol Haya Poh (A Great Miracle Happened Here, the Four Letters on a Dreidel within the Land of Israel) -נגהפ

144

  • Kedem (Ancient, East) – קדם

153

156

  • Yosef – יוסף
  • Zion – ציון
  • Bird – עוף

200

  • Gematria of Resh – ר

204

  • Tzaddik – צדיק
  • Tzitz Zahav (Golden Crown) – ציץ זהב

207

  • Ohr (Light) – אור
  • Ein Sof (Infinity) – אין סוף
  • Raz (Secret) – רז

208

  • Isaac – יצחק 
  • Pinchas – פינחס 
    • “Pinchas is Eliyahu” – Yalqut Shimoni
  • Ben Yosef – בן יוסף
  • Paneach – פענח 
  • We are hoping for him – קוינו לו
  • Crown/Brow – קדקד
  • Upon the Throne of David My Father –  על כסא דוד אבי
  • Betzalel and Oholiav – בצלאל ואהליאב
  • Hagar, Ha’Ger – הגר
  • The Well – הבאר
  • And he appeared – וארא
  • Cedar – ארז

240

  • Amalek – עמלק
  • Safek (Doubt) – ספק

248

  • Abraham – אברהם
  • In the Image of God – בצלם אלהים
  • There are 248 positive commandments in the Torah.
  • There are 248 words in the Shma Yisrael prayer.

300

  • Gematria of Shin – ש

302

  • Lightning – ברק
  • The Good Shepherd – הָרֹעֶה הַטּוֹב
  • I am the King of the World – אני מלך העולם
  • How Awesome – מה נורא
  • Beautiful Light – אור יפה

306

  • Light to the Nations – אור לגויים
  • Father of Mercies – אב הרחמים
  • Woman – אשה
  • The Fire – האש

314

  • Metat-ron – מטט-רון
  • Shad-dai – שד-י
  • Love Morality – אֹהֵב מוּסָר  
  • Pi (π) – 3.141592…

316

345

358

  • Mashiach (Messiah) –  משיח
  • Ohr HaOlam (Light of the World) – אור העולם
  • Eved Ivri (Hebrew Servant) – עבד עברי
  • Choshen (Breastplate) – חשן
  • HaNavi al kol am Yehuda (the prophet unto all the people of Judah) – הנביא על כל עם יהודה
  • HaShem Melech, HaShem Malakh, HaShem Yimlokh (HaShem reigned, HaShem reigns, HaShem will reign) –י־ה־ו־ה מלך, י־ה־ו־ה מלך, י־ה־ו־ה ימלך
  • Melech b’Chevron (King in Hebron) – מלך בחברון
  • Nachash (Snake) – נחש
  • Nes Gadol Haya Sham (A Great Miracle Happened There, the Four Letters on a Dreidel outside the Land of Israel) – נגהש
  • Yavo Shiloh (Shiloh will come) – יבא שילה
  • Yismach (Will be Joyous) – ישמח
  • He reached out, Shlach Yado (literally, he sent his hand) – שלח ידו

364

  • Hasatan (The Adversary) – השטן
    Permission is given this angel to accuse 364 days of the year, but not on Yom Kippur (Yoma 20a)

365

  • There are 365 days in a year
  • There are 365 negative commandments in the Torah

376

  • Esav – עשו
  • Shalom (Peace) – שלום
  • Tzippor – צפור
  • Zehu Mashiach (This one is Mashiach) – זהו משיח

386

  • Yeshua – ישוע
  • David ben Yishai – דוד בן ישי
  • The Clean Bird – העוף הטהור
  • The Spirit of HaShem upon David from that Day – רוח י-ה-ו-ה אל דוד מהיום
  • King of the Earth – מלך הארץ
  • In HaShem’s Mashiach – במשיח י-ה-ו-ה
  • Royal City – עיר המלוכה
  • Tzippor (spelled in full), Bird – ציפור
  • Hero of Yisrael – גיבור ישראל
  • The Son is a Living Man – הבן איש חי
  • Maker – עשׂיו
  • ShaPO – שפ”ו – A Divine Name
  • Rabbi Yosei HaGlili – רבי יוסי הגלילי

391

  • Ezra-Nehemiah – עזרע נחמיה
  • Yehoshua – יהושע

400

  • Gematria of Tav – ת
  • Length of exile (Genesis 15:13)
  • The Evil Eye – עין רע
  • Number of shekels Ephron the Hittite sold the field containing the cave of Machpelah to Avraham (Genesis 23:16)
  • Gematria of Ephron, which is spelled “defectively” (chaser) – עפרן
  • Number of men who came with Esav to face Yaakov (Genesis 32:16)
  • Number of men who came to David during Saul’s reign, which is a tikkun for Esav (1 Samuel 22)
  • Number of false prophets gathered by the king of Israel (1 Kings 22:6)
  • Broken wall of Jerusalem 400 cubits long (2 Kings 14:13)
  • Number of men with Theudas, a false Messiah (Acts 5:36)

452

  • Yeshua ben David – ישוע בן דוד
  • In the Image – בדמות
  • Spirit for Isaac –  רוח ליצחק
  • Medicine for the Eye – רפואה לעין

566

  • Mashiach ben Yosef – משיח בן יוסף
  • Sod (Secret) in Milui form – סמך וו דלת = סוד

568

  • Beit Yosef –  בית יוסף
  • They shall hear my voice – ישמעו בקלי
  • HaShem brought you out of Egypt – הוצאך י-ה-ו-ה ממצרים

594

  • Yeshua ben Yosef – ישוע בן יוסף
  • The Stone of Yisrael – אבן ישראל

600

  • Tzitzit – ציצית
    + 5 double knots and 8 strings = 613

611

  • Torah – תורה
  • Messiah ben Joseph the Redeemer – משיח בן יוסף הגואל

613

  • Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses our Teacher) – משה רבינו
  • Et HaOhr (et ‘The Light‘) – את האור
  • HaShem Elokei Israel – י-ה-ו-ה אלהי ישראל

666

  • Caesar Nero – נרון קסר

741

  • Keren yeshuah (horn of salvation) – קרן ישועה
  • Mashiach ben Ephraim – משיח בן אפרים

744

747

  • Moshe ben Amram – משה בן עמרם
  • The Ark upon the waters –  התבה על פני המים

762

  • Bones (Essence) of Yosef – עצמות יוסף
  • Olam HaTorah (World of Torah) – עולם התורה
  • Zeh Hu Mashiach Mamash (this is really Messiah) – זה הוא משיח ממש
  • Mashiach Yeshua Chai! (Messiah Yeshua lives) – משיח ישוע חי

999

  • Metat-ron Sar HaPanim (Metat-ron the Prince of the Face) – מטט-רון שר הפנים
    • This is the inverse of 666.

1031

  • “This refers to the spirit of the King Messiah” – זה היא רוחו של מלך המשיח
  • “And G-d said Let Us Make Man in Our Image” – ויאמר אלהים נעשה אדם בצלמנו

1034

  • “And the Spirit of G-d hovered over the waters” – ורוח א-להים מרחפת

 

 

Methods

These notes are taken from Wikipedia on Gematria, and Notarikon.

  • Mispar Hechrachi – (absolute value) that uses the full numerical value of the 22 letters. Sometimes it is also called Mispar ha-Panim (face number), as opposed to the more complicated Mispar ha-Akhor (back number).
  • Mispar Gadol – counts the final forms (sofit) of the Hebrew letters as a continuation of the numerical sequence for the alphabet, with the final letters assigned values from 500 to 900. The same name, Mispar ha-Gadol, is also used for another method, which spells the name of each letter and adds the standard values of the resulting string.
  • Mispar Katan – calculates the value of each letter, but truncates all of the zeros. It is also sometimes called Mispar Me’ugal.
  • Mispar Siduri –  (ordinal value) with each of the twenty-two letters given a value from one to twenty-two.
  • Mispar Bone’eh – (building value, also Revu’a, square) is calculated by walking over each letter from the beginning to the end, adding the value of all previous letters and the value of the current letter to the running total. Therefore, the value of the word achat (one) is 1 + (1 + 8) + (1 + 8 + 4) = 23.
  • Mispar Kidmi (triangular value) uses each letter as the sum of all the standard gematria letter values preceding it. Therefore, the value of Aleph is 1, the value of Bet is 1 + 2 = 3, the value of Gimmel is 1+2+3=6, etc. It’s also known as Mispar Meshulash (triangular or tripled number).
  • Mispar P’rati –  calculates the value of each letter as the square of its standard gematria value. Therefore, the value of Aleph is 1 × 1 = 1, the value of Bet is 2 × 2 = 4, the value of gimmel is 3 × 3 = 9, etc. It’s also known as Mispar ha-Merubah ha-Prati‘.
  • Mispar ha-Merubah ha-Klali –  is the square of the standard absolute value of each word.
  • Mispar Meshulash – calculates the value of each letter as the cube of their standard value. The same term is more often used for Mispar Kidmi.
  • Mispar ha-Akhor – The value of each letter is its standard value multiplied by the position of the letter in a word or a phrase in either ascending or descending order. This method is particularly interesting, because the result is sensitive to the order of letters. It is also sometimes called Mispar Meshulash (triangular number).
  • Mispar Mispari – spells out the standard values of each letter by their Hebrew names (“Achad” (one) is 1+8+4=13 etc.), and then adds up the standard values of the resulting string.
  • Mispar Shemi – (also Millui letter “filling”), uses the value of each letter as equal to the value of its name.For example, the value of the letter Aleph is (1 + 30 + 80) = 111, Bet is (2 + 10 + 400) = 412, etc. Sometimes the same operation is applied two or more times recursively.
  • Mispar Ne’elam – (hidden number) spells out the name of each letter without the letter itself (e.g. “Leph” for “Aleph”) and adds up the value of the resulting string.
  • Mispar Katan Mispari – (integral reduced value) is used where the total numerical value of a word is reduced to a single digit. If the sum of the value exceeds 9, the integer values of the total are repeatedly added to produce a single-digit number. The same value will be arrived at regardless of whether it is the absolute values, the ordinal values, or the reduced values that are being counted by methods above.
  • Mispar Misafi –  adds the number of the letters in the word or phrase to their gematria.
  • Kolel –  is the number of words, which is often added to the gematria. In case of one word, the standard value is incremented by one.

Notarikon

A method of deriving a word, by using each of its initial (Hebrew: ראשי תיבות) or final (Hebrew: סופי תיבות) letters to stand for another, to form a sentence or idea out of the words. Another variation uses the first and last letters, or the two middle letters of a word, in order to form another word.

Rashi uses notarikon seven times in his pirush (“explanation”) on Chumash:

  • Bereishith (Genesis) 15:2 “וּבַגְּמָרָא שֶׁלָּנוּ דָּרְשׁוּ נוֹטְרִיקוֹן, דּוֹלֶה וּמַשְׁקֶה מִתּוֹרַת רַבּוֹ לַאֲחֵרִים“
  • Bereishith (Genesis) 17:2 “כִּי אַב הֲמוֹן גּוֹיִם. לְשׁוֹן נוֹטְרִיקוֹן שֶׁל שְׁמוֹ“
  • Bereishith (Genesis) 30:2 “וּמִדְרַשׁ אַגָּדָה יֵשׁ רַבִּים בִּלְשׁוֹן נוֹטָרִיקוֹן“
  • Bereishith (Genesis) 49:22 “אֶבֶן יִשְׂרָאֵל. לְשׁוֹן נוֹטְרִיקוֹן אָב וּבֵן, ’אֲבָהָן וּבְנִין‘, יַעֲקֹב וּבָנָיו“
  • Shemoth (Exodus) 20:12 “אִם תְּכַבֵּד יַאֲרִיכוּן יָמֶיךָ וְאִם לָאו יִקְצְרוּן. שֶׁדִּבְרֵי תוֹרָה נוֹטְרִיקוֹן הֵם נִדְרָשִׁים, מִכְּלָל הֵן לַאו וּמִכְּלָל לַאו הֵן“
  • Bamidbar (Numbers) 11:8 “דָּבָר אַחֵר, ‘לְשַׁד’ לְשׁוֹן נוֹטָרִיקוֹן לַ’יִשׁ שֶׁ’מֶן דְּ’בַשׁ, כְּעִסָּה הַנִּלּוֹשָׁה בְשֶׁמֶן וּקְטוּפָה בִדְבַשׁ“
  • Bamidbar (Numbers) 22:32 “כִּי יָרַט הַדֶּרֶךְ לְנֶגְדִּי. רַבּוֹתֵינוּ חַכְמֵי הַמִּשְׁנָה דְּרָשׁוּהוּ נוֹטָרִיקוֹן, יָרְאָה, רָאֲתָה, נָטְתָה“

 

Chilufei Otiyot

  • Atbash – exchanges each letter in a word or a phrase by opposite letters. Opposite letters are determined by substituting the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet (Aleph) with the last letter (Tav), the second letter (Bet) with the next to last (Shin), etc. The result can be interpreted as a secret message or calculated by the standard gematria methods. A few instances of Atbash are found already in the Hebrew Bible. For example, see Jeremiah 25:26, and 51:41, with Targum and Rashi.
  • Albam – the alphabet is divided in half, eleven letters in each section. The first letter of the first series is exchanged for the first letter of the second series, the second letter of the first series for the second letter of the second series and so forth.
  • Achbi – divides the alphabet into two equal groups of eleven letters. Within each group, the first letter is replaced by the last, the second by the tenth, etc.
  • Ayak Bakar – replaces each letter by another one that has a 10-times-greater value. The final letters usually signify the numbers from 500 to 900. Thousands are reduced to ones (1000 becomes 1, 2000 becomes 2 etc.)
  • Ofanim – replaces each letter by the last letter of its name (e.g. “Fe” for “Aleph”).
  • Akhas Beta – divides the alphabet into three groups of 7, 7 and 8 letters. Each letter is replaced cyclically by the corresponding letter of the next group. The letter Tav remains the same.
  • Avgad – replaces each letter by the next one. Tav becomes Aleph. The opposite operation is also used.

 

References

  1. Ohr Chadash – Gematria Search Tool
  2. Hebrew Gematria Website – https://www.gimatria.co.il