Gematriaגימטריא
Every Hebrew letter is a number. Type a word: it opens up by every method of counting, and by the number you find the people, books and places of the Seder Olam database.
How to use this section
- Type a wordWith the on-screen keyboard or your own, in a Hebrew layout. Vowel points and cantillation marks are not needed: only letters are counted. In standard gematria the final letters (ך ם ן ף ץ) count as their ordinary pair.
- Look at the methodsAt the top is the large number: standard gematria. Below are cards for all twenty three methods, each with its rule and example; 'what this is, with an example' opens the working. The buttons 'By letter value · By letter name · Substitutions' leave one family.
- Set the milui and the kolelThe milui decides by which spellings the letters are counted (hence the four counts of the Name); the kolel, whether one is added for the word. The '?' beside each explains it, and the calculator always says what it added.
- Compare two or three words'Compare with another' adds a field. Matches by any method are marked on their own: you see not only that the numbers are equal but by which count.
- What is in the databaseUnder the cards are the people, books and places of Seder Olam with the same gematria, and the year from Creation if the number falls within the count of years: 611 is both 'Torah' and a year on the timeline.
- How often it stands in the TanakhThe 'In the Tanakh' block counts on the text with cantillation marks, letter for letter: דוד and לדוד are different forms, each with its own count. The links lead to the chapters of the Tanakh on this site.
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What gematria is גימטריא
Gematria is counting a word by its letters: every Hebrew letter has a number, and a word becomes a sum. Two words with one sum the sages set side by side and ask what connects them. The word itself is apparently Greek, from γεωμετρία, "measuring".
Where it comes from
A list of thirty-two rules by which aggadah is interpreted is attributed to Rabbi Eliezer, son of Rabbi Yose HaGelili, a tanna of the second century. Gematria is the twenty-ninth of them; the thirtieth is notarikon, reading a word as an abbreviation.
כט. מלשון גימטריא · ל. מלשון נוטריקון
How this baraita reached us
It has not come down as a book of its own, and it entered neither the Mishnah nor the Talmud. For centuries it was known by quotation: the list is given by Rabbi Samson of Chinon in his Keritot (14th century) and, before him, by the Karaite Judah Hadassi in Eshkol ha-Kofer (12th century). The full text was found in our own time, in manuscript: Enelow printed it as Mishnat Rabbi Eliezer, also called Midrash Sheloshim u-Shetayim Middot (1933), and Margaliot in the introduction to Midrash HaGadol on Genesis (1947); earlier Schechter published a portion from a Cambridge manuscript (1902).
The attribution to Rabbi Eliezer, son of Rabbi Yose HaGelili, is traditional, and it is disputed: some scholars date the writing far later, as late as the tenth century, and others argue against them. We name both readings and do not choose for the reader.
What this means for the reader
The thirty-two rules are devices for interpreting aggadah; some of them are applied to halakhah as well, but gematria does not derive a law. It shows a connection already known from elsewhere and makes it memorable; it does not serve as proof. A reference work that kept silent about this would be teaching an untruth, which is why the note stands above the calculator, not under it.
The examples people start with
Abraham's three hundred and eighteen men (Genesis 14:14) are one Eliezer: so the Talmud reads it, Nedarim 32a.
The year has 365 days, and the accuser is given power for 364: not on Yom Kippur. Yoma 20a.
"Love" and "one", and together 26, like the Name.
"Sheshach" in Jeremiah 25:26 is read as "Bavel" by atbash, so the Midrash and Rashi explain it. The substitution stands in the Tanakh itself.
The four milui of the Name, ע״ב, ס״ג, מ״ה, ב״ן: one Name, four spellings of the letters' names.
Three families of counting
By letter value. Standard gematria and everything derived from it by arithmetic: large (final letters continue the count to 900), ordinal (place in the alphabet), reduced (without the zeros), squared, cubed, by position in the word. This is the oldest family: the Talmud and the Midrash count this way.
By letter name. Milui, where a letter is counted by its name; ne'elam, only the hidden part of the name without the letter itself. Here everything depends on how the names are spelled, and here Kabbalah begins: the four milui of the Name come from the school of the Arizal.
Substitutions. Temurot: atbash, albam, ayak bechar and others: a letter is replaced by another by a rule, and a new word results. Atbash stands in the Tanakh itself; the other tables are gathered by the Ramak.
Who practised what
How many kinds there are is a question without an answer: as many as someone has written down. Sefer Yetzirah knows 231 gates, all the pairs of letters; one Oxford manuscript lists seventy-five kinds of gematria.
How this section is built
- Twenty-three methods in three families. Each has a one-line rule and an explanation with an example counted on your own word.
- Settings, not choices made for the reader. The spelling of the milui is offered in four forms, the kolel in two readings, and the calculator always says what it added.
- The counting is checked when the site is built, against words whose value is beyond dispute: חי 18, שלום 376, תורה 611, יהוה 26, and the four milui of the Name. Were it off by one, the site would not build.
- Reverse search over the database. Every entry with a Hebrew name has its gematria counted in advance; by the number you find people, books and places, with links to their articles.
- A number is also a year from Creation: under the calculator you see what happened that year on the timeline.
- The section exists in English and in Russian, and counts the same in both.