a little about gematria

The gematria equivalent of a word is arrived at by adding up the individual numerical values of the letters in the word.. 
aleph through teth = 1 through 9
yud through tzadi = 10 through 90
kuf through taf = 100 through 400
[ie. aleph = 1, beth = 2, gimel = 3, ... teth = 9]

so the word Av meaning father (or thick IIRC), spelled Aleph Beth would have a gematria of 3; Aleph(1) + Beth(2) = 3 

BUT: 
the point of gematria is not to translate or decode words or sentences, as much as it is to find the deeper meaning, ie. add to the existing meaning.. so meaning is not lost but rather added. For example: the phrase 'WaYichbos Avraham eth Hamoro' means : 'And abraham saddled his donkey', the rabbis further teach that since WaYichbos also means to 'overcome' or 'conquer', and Hamoro also means 'his matter/stuff'; that the phrase actually means that Abraham overcame his physicality. Now, if we look on the level of Gematriah we see that Homer or Hamor (heth mem resh (HMR)) has the gematria of 248 (heth = 8, mem = 40, resh = 200), this is the number of the positive mitzwoth (commandments) in the Torah.. so now we may see that 'And Abraham conquored his donkey' actually has a much deeper connotation: 'Abraham overcame his physicality through the practice of all 248 positive commandments.'

So it's more a question of the various levels of Torah you are trying to understand, not a matter of how much is being lost in translation.

of course there are always deeper levels, and those who see more clearly than oneself :) 

yitz..

Sun Dec 31, 2000 8:36 am