Gematria

Origin and history

The word "gematria" comes probably from the Greek gēōmetria ("measurement of the earth") or from grammateia ("manipulation of letters"). The technique applies to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, each one with assigned numerical value: aleph=1, bet=2, guimel=3... yud=10, kaf=20, lamed=30... resh=200, shin=300, tav=400. Total of 22 letters with values from 1 to 400.

Although the systematic use of gematria appears in the 10th century with the early Kabbalists, isolated examples of word-number play are found in the Hebrew Bible itself. The Talmud (compiled between the 3rd and 6th centuries AD) includes some gematria interpretations. The medieval Kabbalists (12th-16th centuries) elevated gematria to a high mystical art, identifying secret meanings of the Torah by reading numerical values of words and phrases.

How it is applied

Basic example: the Hebrew word jay (חי, "life") = jet (8) + yud (10) = 18. That is why the number 18 has special meaning in Judaism (donations are often made in multiples of 18: 36, 54, 72... — to "give life"). Another famous example: HaShem (the Name, way of referring to God avoiding the explicit Tetragrammaton) and other divine names have gematric values that relate them mystically.

There are several gematria systems: standard gematria (each letter with its conventional numerical value), small gematria (mispar katan) (reduces multi-digit values to a single digit by repeated sum), ordinal gematria (each letter with the value of its position 1-22), cumulative gematria (each letter with sum of all values up to and including itself), and many other more specialised systems. Each one reveals different mystical layers of the same word or phrase.

Use today

Gematria continues to be practised in orthodox Kabbalah and contemporary Hassidic studies, where each Torah verse can be analysed for hidden gematric meanings. It is also used by some Western occultists who apply the same logic to Greek (isopsephy) or English (English gematria with various conversion systems). It is delicate practice: with enough creativity, almost any word can be related to any other through some gematric system, so requires discernment not to fall into spurious correlations.