Monday, March 27, 2023

How gematria works

gematria is an ancient technique used by Jewish scholars that assigns numerical values to words, letters or phrases, in order to uncover hidden meanings and interpretations. The practice of Gematria dates back to at least the 6th century BCE, when it was for religious reasons. Over time, Gematria has been used for more philosophical and kabbalistic pursuits as it is an incredibly intricate system that can be used to create incredible insights into the deeper meanings of phrases, words and even names.

Gematria is based on the idea that numbers have inherent meanings that can be used to decipher hidden messages in texts. For instance, each letter in the Hebrew alphabet has a numerical value assigned to it; Aleph is one, Beit is two and so on. Therefore if we add up the individual number values of a word or phrase we get a total numerical value which can be connected with symbols in order to uncover deeper meanings and interpretations.

For example, if we take the numerical value of the phrase "the Holy One" (156), we can then assign it specific symbolisms - for example 156 stands for "The Eternal God" ('Ein Sof') - along with associated concepts such as everlastingness, compassion and kindness. Other biblical passages with a numerical value of 156 include "Let there be light," "Let us make man," and "And he loved righteousness," which suggests gematria could provide interesting new perspectives on these verses.

Apart from using numeric values assigned to letters of words or phrases, gematria can also be employed by substituting words in a sentence with their corresponding numerical values. For example we could use the sentence "The LORD is my strength", where instead of writing out L-O-R-D we would use 30 + 6 + 200 + 4 = 240 thus creating a new phrase with deeper meaning: "240 is my strength".

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