Gematria

Gematria is the practice of assigning a numerical value to each letter of the Hebrew alphabet and then reading meaning into the totals of words and phrases. Words or names that add up to the same number are held to share a hidden, spiritual relationship — the interpretive heart of the method. It is a central technique of Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, and was used to draw out concealed meanings in scripture and the names of God.

The letter values run Aleph = 1, Bet = 2, on up to Yod = 10, then in tens (Kaf = 20, Lamed = 30…) and hundreds (Qof = 100, Resh = 200…). To work a piece of gematria you sum the values of a word's letters and compare that total against other words. The famous example is the Hebrew word chai (חי), meaning "life," which totals 18 — the reason 18 and its multiples are considered lucky and are given as gifts in Jewish tradition.

Gematria predates and influenced Western numerology, and it has close cousins in other cultures: the Greek isopsephy and the Arabic Abjad numerals work on exactly the same principle. Where Pythagorean numerology profiles individuals through their birth names, gematria is primarily exegetical — a way of reading meaning out of sacred and literary texts.

How to calculate

Assign each Hebrew letter its traditional value (Aleph=1, Bet=2 … Yod=10, Kaf=20 … Qof=100, Resh=200, Shin=300, Tav=400). Sum the letters of a word or name. Compare totals: words with equal sums are read as connected. Several variant methods exist (absolute, ordinal, reduced).

See also

Related terms

All glossary terms